Oolite Bulletins

Apologies if this is something that's been asked a hundred times before, but...

Is the AI in the game adaptive?

The reason I ask is that I'm currently running three Commanders. Most of my time recently has been spent on my "unsportsmanlike" Commander - ubership tricked up to the nines (Caduceus Omega with all the toppings) - and I'm currently running the Assassin's Guild OXP missions, in particular the one that involves destroying a ship at the repair yards near Beatle (what a planet name!).

First time, when I jumped into the system I was immediately (as in, before I'd cleared the Witchspace tunnel) locked up by Security Viper Interceptors, who called in their GalCop equivalent, leaving me one against eight pretty hard-nosed opposition. Injecting away did nothing major as five of them also had injectors, but I just managed to polish them off before spending a good twenty minutes sat stationary in the dark, letting everything cool down, charge back up or self-repair (thank you Mister Damage Control Node!) and setting off for the shipyard, where I met five more and promptly ran out of injector fuel, before dying ignominiously.

I reloaded and tried again, this time leaving the Witchspace tunnel on injectors (I can't remember who mentioned it here, but thanks to them are due!) but this time I met twelve combined GalCop and Security boys, and didn't last quite as long as the first time.

This was in one of the most uber of the ubervessels, so it got me to thinking that one of the following must be true:

1. I really suck as a combat pilot.
2. This mission is incredibly tough.
3. I've been seriously unlucky with the game's system population twice in a row.
4. The game's AI has ramped up the toughness due to my ship and rating (Deadly, 4300+ kills).

Anyone have any idea which of the above is right?

1) Probably not the problem here.
2) Some of the Assassin's Guild missions really are quite tough. There are a couple of even worse "ambush when leaving witchspace" scenarios awaiting you... injecting away is definitely the right idea. But this is one of the earlier missions, isn't it? 3rd? 4th?
3) I think that's about normal for that mission, from what I remember of it.
4) I don't think Assassin's Guild does anything like that, and the core game (with one exception not relevant here) doesn't either. Some other OXPs do, but I don't think that will matter.

A fifth possibility is that Assassin's Guild is a very old OXP and when it was written three things were true:
- The player could deploy energy bombs
- The NPC military laser was no more damaging than the NPC beam laser (and neither were as powerful as the player beam laser)
- There was a bug in the NPC pursuit routine which made them try to keep a constant distance behind you, even if that was well outside accurate laser range.
So the difficulty is probably a fair bit more than was originally intended. For an OXP which hasn't received any substantial changes since 2007, it's held up very well, though, and it is still possible in a standard Cobra III.

I played Assassin's Guild with your rating, but with a standard Asp and a standard Cobra 3 (which I found more useful than the Asp... sometimes you need all your four lasers and to have some free pylons), and found similar situations. I did't have the feeling that it was calibrated on my rating and ship... I thought that some missions were simply very hard.
When there are too much enemies waiting for you at the wichpoint, just run away with your witchdrive while leaving a q-bomb behind... Most of them will quit the chase (or explode).

cim wrote:

Useful stuff.

Thanks for that - your Skilled NPCs OXP probably isn't helping my case here!

Tichy wrote:

Q-Bomb.

Every time I try and use one of those things, everyone seems to end up running the same direction as me, so we end up status quo ante but with everyone else in a distinctly worse mood...

As I remember, when the mission is running the OXP just adds two special Security Kraits at the witchpoint. Unlike all the other police ships in the system these two will attack you regardless of your current legal status (they know what you intend!). They are 'posioned pawns' as whist easy to kill, as they are cops if you use your laser at all you will become a fugitive. There are lots of other Secuity Kraits (and general police vessels added by Oolite naturally as its a Corperate State) in the system with the standard police AI. These won't attack you unless you are an offender or worse. The trick is therefore not to fight, as if you gain a fugitive tag by using your laser every cop in the system (of which there are a lot) will fire at you on sight and even the strongest ship and best pilot won't have a chance - You have to keep your cover as an innocent Clean trader! Run away as fast as you can from the two taking pot shots at you and lose them. Top up your fuel at the sun so you have plenty for injectoring and then head for the repair base. You must arrive at the Repair Station Clean. You must not lose your Clean status. If you do the Cops in system will make mince-meat of even the strongest ship. There are loads of cops on patrol and again a few Karaits to annoy you. Get a lock on the Fair Wind (its a sitting duck). Laser till you overheat and fire off your missiles then run. Again resist the temptation to respond to the Karits, if you do the Cops will then attack you, but otherwise they will ignore you. The AI doesn't react as such. The Karits AI tell them to attack you if you have accepted the contract and the mission is running (at other times they behave like normal cops). But the consequence of fireing on them is you become fugitive and the police AI attacks you. It was set up like this to make you do a hit and run (no collateral damage) strike. But the interplay of the AI's makes it feel like the Karits have called in the local cops if you engage them. It was a bit of a nod to the Dark Wheel, where Alex has to ignore the Graveyard Screcuity Karaits chewing up his rear shield when making off with the Cobra III tomb ship as if he uses his laser he'll be marked as a fugitive and blown out of space by every cop in system. The solution to all the assissins missions from The Fair Wind onwards is tatical rather than brute stength.

As Trciky says, with the Assassins missions generally they're not meant to be attempted as a fair fight. It more a case of evade and engage the target only. You're only getting paid to kill the mark!

cim wrote:

For an OXP which hasn't received any substantial changes since 2007, it's held up very well, though, and it is still possible in a standard Cobra III.

I played that oxp in the old days with Oolite 1.65. I did make a mistake with the Constrictor mission, so I never got a chance to do the mission that awarded the Naval Energy Unit. Except for one mission (That I skipped by editing my file), I did all the missions without the NEU. That leaves room for making it a bit tougher and require the NEU.

I did finish the constrictor mission after this oxp. Easy mission than.