Don't Get Hurt strategy messed up in 1.91???

[PvK]

I was running some simulator tests using SE4 1.91 and the strategy of Maximum Firing Range on Primary movment and Secondary set to Don't Get Hurt. In SE4 Versions before 1.91, with ships that had to reload due to slow rate of fire, they would move away during the turns when they couldn't fire. Well, today they seem to just randomly move a square or two.

Is this a fluke, or a new bug in 1.91???

If it's a new bug... wow I'd be rather displeased...

PvK

[Fyron]

Perhaps test it in a real combat? The simulator is weird and has more bugs than real combats do.

[PvK]

Sure, I just thought maybe it was a known issue.

So I finally got a chance to test using 1.91, no mods, using real combats both in "Strategic" and "Tactical" combat modes. Ships tested included those armed with seekers, and those armed with direct-fire weapons which fire every turn, or every other turn. Fighting "Strategy" for the designs was always one with Primary Movement Strategy set to "Maximum Firing Range" and Secondary Movement Strategy set to "Don't Get Hurt".

Results:

OK:
* Ships with loaded weapons with no target in range would move to maximum range (+/- 1) and then fire and stop moving.
* Ships with loaded weapons which begin their turn with their target in range would fire them and then move away, generally as far away as possible.
* Ships with no loaded weapons would often move as far away as possible, even if farther than maximum range.
* A ship whose target was a planet would sit at max range while reloading. This was OK in the case I saw, because the planet couldn't shoot back at that range. However it would be bad (very sub-optimal/dumb) if the planet could shoot back at that range!

Not good:
Ships with no loaded weapons would *sometimes* just move about one square in a random direction, exposing themselves to deadly enemy fire for no good reason considering their strategy and the superior and expected option of moving away while reloading.

I remember in the previous patch that sometimes ships set to these orders would get confused by multiple enemies and run in a dumb/fatal direction, and remember I did whine a lot about that to Malfador before the Last patch release.

However this is different, in that there was only one enemy ship to worry about, and the behavior wasn't running in a dumb direction, but only floating randomly one square, which I don't remember seeing before 1.91. I have seen other ships "loafing" one square in other situations I didn't understand and seemed like a new folly in 1.91, too (only moving one square randomly when still closing range to the enemy). [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Bug.gif[/img]

I haven't confirmed that this didn't occur in 1.84 though. But I don't remember it before 1.91.

At least it only happens some of the time, but I think it does tend to needlessly penalize ships with slow-reloading weapons. Makes me not want to use such designs, which is too bad.

PvK

[Tanus]

I can't remember... is "maximum weapons range" still fixed at 12 regardless of weapon (IE, Plasma missiles), or does it now move the ship to the maximum range of current weapons?

[PvK]

I was only testing with weapons in the 4-8 range - nothing over 12. With the weapons I tested, it moved to their max range, but it might max out at 12. I'll try it sometime (probably take me a while, as I'm about to go out of town), if no one else knows.

PvK