Missile ships with PD

[Taera]

In my latest game i've noticed an interesting thing.
My poor TechnoLogic AI is not programmed well enough, so it has Cruisers (!) with lvl.5 DUC, lvl.2 PDC and lvl.1 CSM. Now it was fighting the Pyrochette (both were AI).
When i;ve turned the control to myself to see whats up i've noticed an interesting thing.

Enemy ships were all using lvl.5 CSM. Now there are three attack ship designs in the list - two with lvl.1 CSM and one with planetary napalm ( <- i realy like that thing). Now when i tested the designs against the enemy in the simulator i've noticed an interesting thing.

When my ships did not have any seekers on them, the AI played nice - shoot their missiles and ran away from my fire range. BUT!
When i tested the ships with lvl.1 CSM i've noticed a strange occurence.
Enemy was on DEFENSE place. So he fired first. Then my ships fired their pathetic missiles.
THE FIRST ENEMY SHIP TO TAKE TURN WENT TOWARD MY SHIPS JUST TO SHOOT THE MISSILE! it was dead after that. Two others died the same way.

now is that a glitch or what?

[Taera]

Meaning an actual use of low-level seekers.

[PvK]

It is probably because his strategy was set with "target seekers" to TRUE - this has the effect of making ships with PD charge after any enemy missiles in the battle, which can lead to very unsound maneuvers. I lost a few cruisers learning this.

PvK

[Alpha Kodiak]

Originally posted by PvK:
It is probably because his strategy was set with "target seekers" to TRUE - this has the effect of making ships with PD charge after any enemy missiles in the battle, which can lead to very unsound maneuvers. I lost a few cruisers learning this.

PvK

That explains a few weird things I've been seeing!

I assume that with target seekers off, the PDCs will still fire at seekers as they come into range, the ships just won't chase after them. Right?

[Taera]

For all of you AI modders, try to fix that because this adds another realy weak spot in AI tactics.

[PvK]

Originally posted by Alpha Kodiak:
I assume that with target seekers off, the PDCs will still fire at seekers as they come into range, the ships just won't chase after them. Right?

Correct. PD will always fire defensively. That setting just determines whether the AI will move ships to go hunt down seekers or not. It's OK if your doctrine is to kill everything and you have a dedicated anti-missile ship. But it's disaster if your fleet is set to target seekers but not planets, for example, and you visit an enemy planet will a lot of missile platforms... ooooops.

PvK