Question about AI

[Oobi-Wan Kenoobi]

Hello fellow players.
Fantastic game this, I first played it on the Amiga some 20-25 years ago but never made Elite status. Currently I'm just over half way this time and determined to make it!
Anyway, my question is when you lock a missile on to another craft but don't actually fire, are they aware and regard it as a threat?
I do this to determine if the craft is Offender or Fugitive status but move on to another target if their status is Clean.
Thanks.

[Redspear]

Hello Oobi-Wan and welcome aboard

I can't really answer your question (useful huh? ) but are you using the scanner enhancement?

Forgive me as all my recent game time has been testing rather than playing, so I might be forgetting things and/or teaching you to suck eggs here.

If you press r then that should enable tareting without the use of your missile lock.
As far as I'm aware, having the Scanner Targeting Enhancement equipped, is the only way to be sure of the legal status of a vessel prior to combat... Never met a clean Thargoid though ...

Hope that's of some use...

[Falcon777]

Welcome Oobi-Wan! Out of curiosity...how is it that you are halfway to elite status within oolite, and yet don't have the scanner targeting enhancement yet? I find it highly unlikely that you can't afford it, and my experience from both elite and oolite is that you want your ship equipped with every single darn thing available to you (except weaker lasers than military, of course).

Just my two cents...

[Oobi-Wan Kenoobi]

Thanks for your answers Redspear and Falcon777.
Yes, I do know about the Scanner Enhancement, but my joystick only has a limited number of buttons and being too lazy ( ) to reach forward 6 inches and press R, the next best thing was to use missile lock.
I was just interested to know as it seems that when the missile is locked, the bad guy shortly turns around and lines up for combat; maybe just a coincidence.

[Norby]

Hi Oobi-Wan Kenoobi, welcome on this board!

Sometimes I got retaliation just for locking a ship regardless from its status, so if you put your target lock on a ship then there is a chance to interpret it as an aggression and strike back, and the ident lock with "r" key is not better than the missile lock in this case.

There is another problem if you install OXP ships with turrets then the turrets will automatically fire to you if you target the ship regardless from the ship is a harmless trader. Moreover in some rare cases what I can not repeat I got offender status just from targeting a clean ship before a station and I got heavy fire instantly from GalCop ships. Imho the best if you target your enemies only who already shooting you.

[Diziet Sma]

G'day, and welcome aboard, Oobi-Wan! I remember your name from when you became a member.. nice to see you de-lurking at last!

Anyway, my question is when you lock a missile on to another craft but don't actually fire, are they aware and regard it as a threat?

Yes, they are aware, and may well regard it as a threat, as Norby described. Locking a missile can easily be interpreted as a hostile act.. you know how a ship which was yellow on the scanner suddenly turns red, an alarm sound plays, and your alert status changes from yellow to red? That's because they just put a missile-lock on you.

So essentially, whenever you missile-lock a ship, you turn red on their scanner, and they switch to "red-alert" mode.. I'd recommend quickly un-targeting them again, to (hopefully) avoid any potential misunderstandings..

[Oobi-Wan Kenoobi]

Thank you for the explanations, it certainly confirms my suspicions.
Usually once I have locked a missile and if their status is clean, I press the button again which sort of de-locks so that you can query another target. But, with the Target System Memory Expansion, I wasn't sure if the initial lock would be cancelled thus returning me to Yellow status on their scanner.
So far I haven't seen any reaction from clean ships or even the police by doing this, but as Norby experienced, I may just be lucky .