Aggressive Defence Officers (bug?)

[elijahgalador]

On some of my stations I can't get the DOs to defend (only). Though they are displayed correctly as "defending" on station's details page, the subordinate destroyers attack everything on sight (doing collateral damage to allied factions).

I also noticed a strange third option in the DOs orders page: In addition to "attack enemies" and "defend" I can cycle to "attacking enemies". When I freshly open the DOs detailed orders page it also says "attack enemies" no matter to what option I cycle (when I reopen the page after having set the option to "defend"). Station's detail page still shows "defending" though.

Already tried with different DOs. Not a real game breaker but due to rep losses I have to buy some liceses over and over again. Anyone experiencing the same?

[Lander1979]

I noticed something similar a while back when I was making the Katana Mod with Turrets. I chalked it up to there being a problem with the SkunkTurrets Mod and abandoned my work at the time.

Interesting that you are seeing the same behaviour, Are you running your game Vanilla or Modded?

Also Have you made any Save Edits?

Can you upload a save to a file cloud (ie; google drive or mediafire) and post a link to it here for further investigation of the bug.

Thanks.

[Simoom]

"Attacking Enemies" = Offensive mode.
"Defend" = Defensive mode.
"Attack Enemies" = DO is in defensive mode, but has engaged enemies (have been attacked, and is returning fire).

If your DO is stuck in "Attack Enemies", it would be because he's actually in Defend mode but because of ongoing engagements, you cannot see that he's actually in Defend mode.

If him or ships under his command are actively attacking allied targets, then there may be a glitch, or that an allied ship or station has turned red to you for whatever reason (could be friendly fire), under which case if you issued a patrol or attack enemies command, your assets may actually go after friendly targets (who's temporarily turned red).

[elijahgalador]

Thanks for the help! Tried to observe what happens while I'm in zone. It seems the defending ship switches to "attack [enemy vessel]" the moment something "red" spawns in the zone. Even if there's a squad on the other side of the zone the destroyer engages - and he hasn't been shot/hit before. Will examine this a little more and provide more detail/save file if this won't change. Again - thanks for the quick responses and clarification with the three DO modes.

[elijahgalador]

Spent a litte time digging deeper into the issue. As it turns out all my DOs on all stations now show the same behavior.

Playing 4.0 vanilla, no save edits etc.

Problem:
XL ships assigned to station attack all enemies in zone on sight though the station's detail page displays 'defending'. Checking the DOs order detail page shows 'attack enemies'. Changes aren't saved. Upon return to the DOs orders details it shows 'attack enemies'.

Another strange thing with cycling through a statins DOs orders: The first cycle is attack enemies, attacking enemies, defening. If I continue to cycle it only switches between 'attacking enemies' and 'defenfing'.

Let me know if a save file could help and I'll provide one via file hoster

[Lander1979]

At this stage a save file would be very helpful. I have a suspicion that this affects the DO's on ships as well as stations, "once you go aggro - you can't go back"...

[Snafu_X3]

Problem:
XL ships assigned to station attack all enemies in zone on sight though the station's detail page displays 'defending'. Checking the DOs order detail page shows 'attack enemies'. Changes aren't saved. Upon return to the DOs orders details it shows 'attack enemies'.

If you're playing through the Campaign plot start PMC will become hostile to you (permanent -20 rep). Any of your FIGHT ships (including Skunk & capped S/M fighters) will be designated KoS by PMC at this point. This is WAD & will be lifted upon completion of the Campaign. (See The Wiki for details of rep effects)

Similarly, individual factions/stations may become temporarily hostile due to 'friendly fire'; tell your (war)ships to leave the zone (or at least stay out of range of any stations/ships) for 10 mins RT or so then send them back; by this time the temporary hostile status should have lifted. Remember to reset the ship's DO status to 'Defend' if necessary!

[Luke0086]

Problem:
XL ships assigned to station attack all enemies in zone on sight though the station's detail page displays 'defending'. Checking the DOs order detail page shows 'attack enemies'. Changes aren't saved. Upon return to the DOs orders details it shows 'attack enemies'.

If you're playing through the Campaign plot start PMC will become hostile to you (permanent -20 rep). Any of your FIGHT ships (including Skunk & capped S/M fighters) will be designated KoS by PMC at this point. This is WAD & will be lifted upon completion of the Campaign. (See The Wiki for details of rep effects)

Similarly, individual factions/stations may become temporarily hostile due to 'friendly fire'; tell your (war)ships to leave the zone (or at least stay out of range of any stations/ships) for 10 mins RT or so then send them back; by this time the temporary hostile status should have lifted. Remember to reset the ship's DO status to 'Defend' if necessary!

This is pretty much what I was going to say - If your patrolling ships are moving to engage something as soon as they enter the zone, it's because they are fight ships (not trade ships) and your enemy. These same enemies would actually open fire on you or your assets if close enough.

I also noticed a third DO mode on my station the other day. Curiously, once I cycled out from the default "attack enemies", I could then only cycle between "attacking enemies" and "defending".

I've already made a seperate thread recently about relations with other stations, including the problem of friendly stations turning hostile against my patrol ships (which also works the other way around - you can make a friendly station turn hostile against PMC if you dodge their bullets and make them hit a station!)

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

I also noticed a third DO mode on my station the other day. Curiously, once I cycled out from the default "attack enemies", I could then only cycle between "attacking enemies" and "defending".

IIRC, it works as follows.

Ship Detail Menu
The DO setting of "Attacking Enemies" or "Defending" doesn't change when the Captain is ordered to attack something.

DO Detail Page
Within the DO Detail Page, if a "Defending" DO is attacking something, it temporarily adopts "Attack Enemies. Attacking".

[elijahgalador]

If your patrolling ships are moving to engage something as soon as they enter the zone, it's because they are fight ships (not trade ships) and your enemy. These same enemies would actually open fire on you or your assets if close enough.

So this is intended behavior? If this is the case, I find it rather irritating. When I set my (single) fight ships to "defend" they only engage when they are directly attacked. This should be the same for DOs on stations and their subordinate ships from my perspective. And why is there an "attack enemies" option in the first place if assigned station defenders attack anything "red" on sight anyway...

I uploaded a save here so you can check it out if you find the time. It's a few days into freeplay (4.0 vanilla): http://www.mediafire.com/download/tqzs7 ... 001.xml.gz

[Luke0086]

This is indeed intended behaviour.

I think the way you're talking about though, thinking about it, if an enemy gets past your patrol because it's on 'defensive' and starts attacking your station, it might do a bit of damage before your patrol ship gets there.

The current set up means that your patrolling ships will seek and destroy any hostile ship that would otherwise open fire on your stations, patrols, or trade ships. Note that enemy trade ships don't open fire on your ships unprovoked, meaning your patrol ships will leave them alone even though they're "red".

The "Attack enemies" option you mention, I believe is aimed at ships in your squad rather than patrolling ships. In "defending" mode, DOs will wait for either their ship or the Albion Skunk to be attacked before returning fire. In Attack enemies mode, capships will open fire on the enemy as soon as they are in range, rather than wait for them to fire the first shot.

[elijahgalador]

This is indeed intended behaviour.

Could you/anyone please confirm that in your games when you check the orders detail page of your station's DO (not the station detail page [that shows 'defending'] but pressing '4' in the defence officer row) always shows 'Attack enemies' and no matter what you choose cycling through the three options (attack enemies, attacking enemies and defend) it is stuck on 'attack enemies' upon re-entereing the detail page.

If this is the case in all games ... fine for me, means less enemies in my zones. Though it's strange to observe station defenders even following enemies in different Sectors (not only zones, obviously) leaving the station to itself because they are constantly interrupted on their way back to the station (I have currently two Titrels asigned to stations in Far Out/Exhaustless Mines and Inner World/Frozen Circuit fighting enemies in Ascendency/Shady Vault).

And btw: In my game/log file whenever I use the long range scanner I get the tutorial messages displayed and the respective logbook entries over and over again. Same for you?

[Luke0086]

Though it's strange to observe station defenders even following enemies in different Sectors (not only zones, obviously) leaving the station to itself because they are constantly interrupted on their way back to the station (I have currently two Titrels asigned to stations in Far Out/Exhaustless Mines and Inner World/Frozen Circuit fighting enemies in Ascendency/Shady Vault).

This shouldn't be happening - Patrolling ships might sometimes wander to the outskirts of their zones, but they'll never jump away from the station they're protecting to chase down an enemy.

Are you in the same zone as the ship in question? There is a bug where if you assign a ship in your own zone to a station in another zone/sector, it will start attacking enemies straight away instead of jumping to the station it's assigned to (if enemies are present in the zone). I'll make a seperate thread about that now but, to clarify, if you're not in the same zone as the ships you're talking about, they should definitely jump/fly to the station they're assigned to.