[BETA 5.00 B1] S ships cancelling attack order. - a fix was in b2.

[WoodyAut]

Hi,

Not sure if it also could belong to this threat (in other case - please split it -<Done. Alan Phipps>), but orders of a bunch of S-Ships to attack a plunderer also kind of fails - half of the ships dismissed the attack order i gave them after a short while....and return to their original order (Dock on the Behemoth).
Only a few (or even only one i saw in the past) are keeping the order to attack the plunderer - save at https://gofile.io/d/w06x9e - have an eye at the plunderer at "Profitables Andenken IX" (TIW-227) - if i give the S-Ships below "My Behemoth" the order to attack the mentioned behaviour occurs repeatedly.

Best regards
WoodyAut

[Alan Phipps]

Also see this post from Miravlix.

[j.harshaw]

Hi. Are you sure you linked to the save you intended to? Save doesn't seem to match your description. My Behemoth Verteidiger is in Pious Mists, not Memory of Profit, and there are no plunder ships in Memory of Profit IX.

[WoodyAut]

Hi,

The save is correct - just downloaded and tried it again....let me clarify it with a screenshot ( https://imgur.com/a/Wd32Bdk )
The screenshot is taken after 20secs SETA - in Memory of Profit - the guidance in the save is already set to the mentioned plunderer (TIW-227) to find him, all the Pulsar and Quasar (originally a wing of my Behemoth) are already in this sector and have the manual order to attack the plunderer - they are following him, but after 20 secs of SETA and nearly getting the plunderer they cancel the attack order (see screenshot)...and starting to fly back to my Behemoth.

Hope this makes things more clear....

Best regards
WoodyAut

[j.harshaw]

Thanks for the clarification. Fixed. Should be in a future update. Thanks for the report and the save.

[WoodyAut]

Hi,

According to: [Beta 2] Fixed ships disengaging and incorrectly reporting they are unable to reach destination when attacking over long distances (problem introduced in 5.00)
this problem looks like beeing fixed, but it still appears - save at https://gofile.io/d/5nPLj6
In Profit Center Alpha a few ships (originally docked at "My Behemoth Verteidiger" in 18 Billion) are sent to kill a Minotaurus plunderer - they are still giving up too early.

Best regards
WoodyAut

[WoodyAut]

Hi,

But now in Beta 4HF1 the problem still exists...

Best regards
WoodyAut

[j.harshaw]

Hi. Took a look at your save. Your fighters pursued the Minotaur which fled into the fog in response to initial attack. By the time they caught up, the Minotaur had successfully hidden in the fog and assumed cover as Argon, at which point your fighters disengaged. Are you seeing the same thing?

[WoodyAut]

Hi,

Yes...correct....saw the same in the save, tried to provocate it again and indeed when the plunderer turns blue the attack is canceled.
Please don't say this works as intended....if it is that way it would be pretty hard to get rid of these pirates - or i need to setup a kill fleet in every 2nd sector.

Best regards
WoodyAut

[af_2017]

Hi. Took a look at your save. Your fighters pursued the Minotaur which fled into the fog in response to initial attack. By the time they caught up, the Minotaur had successfully hidden in the fog and assumed cover as Argon, at which point your fighters disengaged. Are you seeing the same thing?

Not sure what was the OP problem about.
But I can confirm that the attack order being canceled if target had cover activated after the attack order being issed.
That is, the scenario looks like this:
- observe FAF pirate asking your ship for cargo
- pause the game
- tell your trader to ignore the pirate and thus leave
- tell your another fleet (in another sector) to attack the pirate
- after sometime the pirate activates cover and turns into ship of another faction (ARG/FRF/TEL whatever)
- your fleet drops the attack order and returns to previous business

I am not sure if this works as intended because I issued exact order "attack this ship" and dropping the attack because of the cover does not look correct. Well, at least it works against idea of "automate everything".
That could be workarounded to kill the pirate still, but that's another approach.

[af_2017]

I am not sure if this works as intended

Would be great to get clarification if the behavior is by design or not.
Thank you!

[j.harshaw]

I realize from your responses that you won't like this, but this is indeed working as intended. To be clear, it has to do with what your ships can see. Pirates cannot (or at least shouldn't be able to) assume cover while seen by one of your ships. If your ships see the pirate after it had already assumed cover, they don't know that that's the same ship and see it as something now belonging to a friendly faction, thus refuse to attack. Note that what you see is not the same as what your ships can see. You can deploy satellites to see more than they are able to, but they don't have access to that information.

To add to this, the pirate assumed cover while in fog, so not even seen by me, although for the purpose of your ships engaging, that is irrelevant.

[af_2017]

this is indeed working as intended.

Thank you for this confirmation!
The feature sounds good as for me.

I assume that the attacker should have "failed attack order" if its target went into cover mode. Well, because it lost the target and actually failed to attack. And that should give some usable hints to the player.
I will check this later and report back in case of issues.

Thank you!