[AP] Ships going idle during combat commands

[dcarver]

All through my game play now I've got ships returning to Command: IDLE, not 'Idling...' after a short while after giving them a command, specifically combat.

I have 'Notify when order complete' and still most of the time I don't get notified! Just now I had 2 wingmen set to Attack all enemies.... one of them keeps saying 'complete' even though there are still enemies and the other wingman is in combat duty.

This is Especially annoying when I tell my ship to attack the 20 enemies that are attacking me and it IDLE's to a DEAD STOP!?!? Multiple times. Defend Sector Keeps Idling out my ship fairly quickly also. No, I'm not turning auto pilot off using a key, I've had it happen while I was still in the Ship Info/command Window. This is all In Sector, have not tried OOS.

Any ideas on this one?

[glenmcd]

Ships with command attack enemies do idle if they have nothing to attack. That is not the same as no ships nearby that your race or your ship considers an enemy. Go into command console for the ships in question and check the stuff down the bottom to make sure that they will recognise whatever race as an enemy. Then check that they have weapons that can function against the ships in question. I think there's more probably someone else can add..

[paulms1980]

there is definetley a problem with the attack commands!
im seeing this quite alot and the target for the ship is not destroyed ect
this is always IS too

[glenmcd]

there is definetley a problem with the attack commands!
im seeing this quite alot and the target for the ship is not destroyed ect
this is always IS too

Save game at the time that it is happening. Either upload somewhere and link, or email to xfiles@glenmcd.com. Not possible to determine all possibilities without the .sav

[dcarver]

Here is one easy repro.... Tell your ship to execute a command of Follow or Attack enemy 1. When a 2nd enemy hits you your ship goes to IDLE.

Seems like the immediate action of all ships is to 'Stop (what ever command the player gave me) and execute an attack on what just attacked me'. If I'm in the ship it just goes IDLE. Perhaps this has something to do with your AI ships going to IDLE without finishing out there orders.

[glenmcd]

Here is one easy repro.... Tell your ship to execute a command of Follow or Attack enemy 1. When a 2nd enemy hits you your ship goes to IDLE.

Seems like the immediate action of all ships is to 'Stop (what ever command the player gave me) and execute an attack on what just attacked me'. If I'm in the ship it just goes IDLE. Perhaps this has something to do with your AI ships going to IDLE without finishing out there orders.

For ships that don't have turrets, you can't give them orders such as attack enemies, protect ship etc. But you can use a foreground script that will use the mains to attack. Failing any of having turrets, having lasers installed in them and running commands on them attack enemies / protect ship etc, it seems that going to the default idle somehow makes sense, albeit not exactly a desirable result. Had the ship continued on to attack its target, at least it would be going at max speed whereas idle is normally half of this AFAIK.

[paulms1980]

its a vanilla game! no scripts.
i remember this problem when reunion 1st came out!
it does this when i tell the ship to attack, collect wares(always done that 1)
and sometime it does it when i ask it to follow!
different ships too!
also the ships on the attack command somethimes ignore what i say and attack their own targets then returning to idle after