A longstanding peeve:
You tell some ships in your squadron to “sail away” in order to avoid the battle conflict, and invariably, their “escape” route decision has them sailing right through the midst of the worst cannon fire on their route to “freedom.” Aggravating, right?
Well, no longer! I found that that the overwhelming factor in their decision is the direction of the wind, almost regardless of enemy ships. So much wrong with that approach. I have changed it:
I downgraded the factor of the wind as part of the decision to much more reasonable; it is important, but should not be the most decisive factor.
I increased the factor of the enemy ships, and in conjunction, actually rate the most dangerous enemy ships as a higher priority of the decision, but overall, enemy ships, even the less lethal ones, are now more important in the decision.
I also added nearby islands as part of the route decision, which were never even a factor before, so sometimes the ships would sail directly toward an island, only to finally figure out, only when nearly reaching the shore, “Oh, there’s an island here…have to turn.” A nearby island, that might be in the escape path, is now factored into decision of which way to go, but only if proximate and is not as heavily weighted as enemy ships or wind.
After some brief testing, in some saved battle scenarios where my ships, prior to the change, would sail through the battle, now they actually turn away from the battle, or, if we were already in the middle of an enemy squadron, actually selected the quickest way out. So far, success.
I also tweaked the ‘attack’ option to stop some cases where the ships would actually sail out further distance, to bombard with cannons; that was an explicit coding where AI ships were diverted/aimed to reach their defined cannon range, and if they were closer than that, were instructed to sail out a bit, then fire. Again, stupid. Now, they either draw in closer (if their loaded ammo requires), or stick to their current distance from the enemy ship.
Another stupid thing, was if your ship was instructed to board another ship, right after winning the battle, they were tasked with ‘sail away/runaway,’ automatically, so they would start sailing off into yonder. I stopped that and now, after winning the battle, they are instructed to defend their nearest ally…until you give a different/further instruction.
Coming soon!
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