Is there any way to stop ship on Protect Position from wandering off?

[Scoob]

Hey all,

A few updates ago, an issue was introduced. Namely, ships set to "Protect Position" will frequently travel 50km+ away from their assigned protection area. A ship will enter their Protect Area and be targetted, order lines can clearly be seen at this point. Then, rather than approaching the target and attacking, the ship in question will fly 30, 40, 50 or more (several hundred is the most I've seen) km away instead.

I don't know why this happens, but it does happen a little too frequently. I make heavy use of Destroyer Fleets - with other ships backing them up - on Protect Position duty near gates. Time and time again, one or more of the fleet will fly off, NOT chasing anything down, but in a seemingly random direction, almost like it's fleeing, but it's not. This bug is causing me to lose dozens of ships - I just lost two "Support" Anti-Fighter destroyers as the leading Heavy (Anti-capital-equipped) Destroyer wandered off. When I got the "Ship Destroyed "notification, the Heavy Destroyers were over 100km away, leaving the Anti-fighter-equipped destroyers easy prey for the Xenon Capital ships - which would have been short work for the Heavies IF THEY'D REMAINED WITHIN THEIR DESIGNATED PATROL RADIUS!

In an attempt to address this Vanilla issue, I recently tried using the KUDA AI Mod, as it changes behaviour regarding how ships move to attack. However, the issue persists.

This bug was reported quite some time ago. However, it's one of those ones where the issue isn't recreated from a save. I.e. happen to make a save just before it happens when playing "Live", reload it, and things will play out differently. Most of the time I only notice after the event, like just now where a ship has been destroyed because others wandered off.

Some further observations on this: I think the issue occurs most often when the following events occur: 1) An enemy ship enters the "Protect Position" area. 2) Defending ship gains an "Attack" order. 3) Enemy ship then moves out of the "Protect Position" area. 4) Player ship continues targetting the enemy, but then flies off many km away, rather than towards the target. The direction of travel is sometimes OPPOSITE of the direction the enemy is in, so this isn't some simply over-shoot.

Being at the fairly late-game stage I'm at now, and having dozens of Destroyers and other ships defending using "Protect Position", I've actually lost many ships due to them being left alone while the leaders of a group fly off.

Note: It's often the LEAD ship of a group than wanders off, which will mean some subordinates (if not engaged usually) fly after it. In my most recent example, TWO groups were affected. Both made up of three "Heavies", consisting of the Lead Destroyer and two "Bombard" subordinates. Each group also had a secondary Beta group, with Anti-fighter Destroyers assigned. For one group the anti-Fighter destroyers stayed to engage - one died, one almost dead - with the other group they wandered off with their heavies. Result was that fleet was scattered over 100km2 if you draw a box around them. A little crazy.

I'm sure others are seeing this, well, I know they are as someone else reported the issue initially IIRC. However, I do wonder if there's any counter - outside of "Don't use Protect Position" - anyone has discovered. As I have the assets, I'm debating using a Carrier's ability to protect several positions at once, so I'll see if that ensures the ships stick to their area.

To be clear, ships straying WELL outside their assigned Protect Position area started to be a thing in the v7.0 Beta IIRC. As I run 100% vanilla games for betas so I can bug report, the issue isn't caused by Mods.

If anyone has any more thoughts or input on this one, please share. If anyone has managed to reliably recreate it from a save, that'd be great. I cannot recall much of the original discussion, so I don't know if anyone eventually managed that.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

I have a number of carriers defending several positions each.

Fast moving enemies enroute to a distant destination can pull most of the defenders away.
Its really annoying that you have set ships to defend and protect a position, then they all fly many kilometers away after a ship they cannot catch.
Then there is the "lets help the ships defending the position over there that has enemies in it." When I have widely spaced positions to be defended, I do not expect ships from tens of dozens of kilometers away to abandoned their posts.

Not really addressing your post but something that is really annoying... Ships gain a target and set out after it. An enemy then starts shooting at them, this is ignored by the ship being attacked and all of his group mates.
What should happen is the ship being attacked and those around it, should change their orders to address this new threat.

[Edit]
Another question, what is the point in setting a range on the protect/defend position. Ships are always moving beyond these defined areas, sometimes by 50 to 60K. So how can they be said to be defending a position?

[Scoob]

Ive found what while fast enemies can pull defenders away, chasing an enemy they'll never catch, there does seem to be a range limit at which they'll return. So, while not always ideal, they do recover from the distraction and return to their patrol area. If ships could better assess whether they've got a chance of catching a target or not before they decide to move, that'd be good. A Destroyer group protecting an area is never going to catch that fast scout zipping past, why even bother.

There are two things going on here, the first is ships simply trying to chase something they cannot catch and being drawn outside of their range. It seems that, irrespective of the Protect Position radius set, they;re set to return after travelling a fixed distance, around 40km or so I think. However, the second issue, which is the one I mention, sees ships regularly flying potentially hundreds of km away with no logic to their actions. it's that which causes the most issue, though the former can be irksome too.

I'm finding myself replacing more fleet patrols (Protect Position) with Stations, and they WILL stay put and won't try to chase anything. I'll then assign ships to it and perhaps a Maintenance Bay too, so it can service those ships.

It's a real shame we cannot get Carrier-class subordinate controls for Station. Perhaps via a new Module, allowing for full Intercept, Bombard etc. Roles, so Station Subordinates can be told what to attack. Carrier are GREAT, I really love using them. However, better Station subordinate control would be very nice

[Daemonjax]

Whenever I set ships to defend position (let's say a gate, which I assume is what most people use it for) I always set the radius a lot smaller that I would otherwise in order to ensure they don't stray too far.

Then, all inside that radius (but especially at the perimeter) I set down laser towers. First very sparse, in a circle around the perimeter of the defended zone. The later I'll add a handful above and below. I don't want the laser towers to outright destroy everything -- I want the ships there to engage and get the kills.

They're used for:
1) distractions to help my ships avoid damage
2) the laser towers prevent them from running away

If there's a problem with some enemy ships still zooming through, I'll set up a straight line of laser towers along that commonly used path to ensure they get slowed down. If some PE's still get through that, then whatever, they earned it.

[Scoob]

I do the same, usually a fairly tight 16km area or less. However, ships can still wander many km outside of this area. Typically 40+, but sometimes far further than that. Before the update, ships would rarely stray outside of the assigned area, even when they did, it'd just be a very small distance and they'd turn around and head back right away. Since that update, ships will leave the area frequently.

To be clear, this isn't an issue with ships chasing, or trying to, a fast target. Rather it's ships exiting the assigned area for no valid reason. In each case their target - the one the Map UI shows them as attacking - will still be inside the assigned area, or very close to it, while they have flows dozens of km outside of it. In an extreme example, I had the ships of a group fly many hundreds of km away, causing the map view to massively zoom out as a result. Of three ships in a small group, two flew in different directions, one South, one West, leaving them at the very least 500km outside of the assigned area.

Be in no doubt, this is some sort of bug, introduced in a prior update. However, it is difficult to reproduce in that the observer would just have to sit there and watch potentially for ages waiting for it to happen. I've never had it occur after reloading a save where it happened previously.

Note: the speed of a target has no influence on this bug. A slow-moving XEN Destroy can enter the Protect Position area, my ships can be within that area, close to firing range, yet they'll still zoom off 40km+ away in the wrong direction while showing they're (trying to) attack that target they were fairly close to moments earlier. The behaviour observed is very much like the Flee behaviour, a direction is picked and the ship engages travel mode for an extended duration. Something is broken.

[jlehtone]

[Edit]
Another question, what is the point in setting a range on the protect/defend position. Ships are always moving beyond these defined areas, sometimes by 50 to 60K. So how can they be said to be defending a position?

Protect Position, Position Defense, Intercept, Bombard do all use the same:

Code: Select all

IF foe F enters area (i.e. within R from position P), THEN attack F

For Intercept and Bombard the P is the ship they escort and R is the scanner range of that ship (40km unless modded, etc).
For Position Defense the R is 20 km. For Protect Position you can adjust the R (1-40 km).

If player gives direct "Attack F" order, then the ships chase F to death. For the above autogenerated "Attack F" orders there seems to be occasional "Too far?" checks that can remove the order -- ships on these roles can let the F go. How often is the check? How far is too far? No idea. (The "should I bail?" is no more often than every 30 seconds. Likewise a Katana can boost quite far only to charge back at you.)

The point is that the range is clearly used for choosing a target, but we have no proof that it is used for anything else.

my ships can be within that area, close to firing range, yet they'll still zoom off 40km+ away in the wrong direction while showing they're (trying to) attack that target they were fairly close to moments earlier.

That is something else. Your ships have order to attack a target and they "fly to target" in odd way? I don't think that is about Protect Position behaviour, but about "Attack .." order. Then again, everyone should should notice "dance" on every attack. Do we?


What could be related to the behaviour is what the ships do when they do "nothing". When they have no explicit orders. The "Hold Position" behaviour says to stay in place, not move. There is some "Loiter" behaviour too. The Aux ship on "Supply fleets" behaviour does loiter around. IME, the Protect Position ships do stay in place.

[LameFox]

Position defence kind of works as an alternative in that it lets the carrier itself sit still, but only provided you actually want those ships to target *everything*. I've long had this same issue with carriers and it breaks their functionality massively if you rely on subordinates with specific targets: the carrier wanders off and all intercept or bombardment ships become useless. While I could switch to position defence instead, the reason I used my current fleet comp to begin with is to ensure fighters don't engage capitals and get wiped out.

[Scoob]

I don't know what the route cause of this is, however, I only see it with my ships running "Protect Position". They see an enemy in their protection radius and show an Attack order to engage it, they then travel drive MANY km away from the target. Either zooming right past it, failing to stop even remotely close to firing range, or they travel drive off in a seemingly random direction.

The thing is, a fleet can be sat there running a Protect Position command for hours, with no issues. Then they suddenly start behaving oddly. I can save / reload and they'll behave again for a bit. Often, my first indication that something has gone wrong is a ship loss of a major asset. I go to the location and see one of my ships has been destroyed, yet either it - or the rest of the fleet - are many km away, way way outside of the set Protect Position radius. The radius might be a tight 12-16km near a gate, the Destroyed ship - or other members of its fleet - are many km away, no enemies near them.

I can't explain it, just share what I observe. I know others have reported this issue - I think during one of the Betas - but I'm unsure of any way to mitigate the issue. Bottom line, ships wander - well, it's not really wandering as they zoom off in Travel Drive - well outside of even the 40km maximum Protect Position range when trying to attack an enemy. To be 100% clear they are no following that enemy as it goes outside of that range, but flying way out of range when the enemy is still within in.

[LameFox]

Yeah, the radius is sadly ignored totally once they have an order. They might shuffle around in it prior to combat but once it starts, you get bs like this. That's the protect position order at max size. I didn't order that out there, it's just coming back from having run off into the middle of nowhere and taking its interceptor subordinates with it. Usually it's less extreme but even then, it does not respect the setting once any fighting occurs, and frequently drags half (it's a mixed attack/intercept fleet) of its subordinates away, because they only use (as far as I can tell) its sensor range.

[Scoob]

Yeah, the radius is sadly ignored totally once they have an order. They might shuffle around in it prior to combat but once it starts, you get bs like this. That's the protect position order at max size. I didn't order that out there, it's just coming back from having run off into the middle of nowhere and taking its interceptor subordinates with it. Usually it's less extreme but even then, it does not respect the setting once any fighting occurs, and frequently drags half (it's a mixed attack/intercept fleet) of its subordinates away, because they only use (as far as I can tell) its sensor range.

That's exactly what I see very often. However, most of the time, the target they're reportedly trying to engage is, and always was, within (or pretty darn close) their Protect Position area. So, they never had a valid reason to stray, yet they fly dozens of km away.

I might be wrong, I'm just speculating based on what I'm observing, but I do wonder if ships are trying to anticipate where a target will be. Movement attempting to lead the target if you will. I say this as, a number of times, I've observed one my Destroyer "Protect Position" fleets targetting something fast. That fast ship has then either boosted or perhaps travel-drived along a given vector, but just for a moment, not actually travelling much distance. In that moment, it looks like my ship has locked-in where it thinks the target would be if it kept moving at that speed and my ship kept moving at its speed. I.e. it's planning an intercept vector for a target that's since changed speed and vector. We see quite often how our ships with regular attack orders will fly to where a target ship was at the time of issuing an order. I.e. they've not updated the target vector en-route at all. So, I wonder that might be what we're seeing here. An attempt to anticipate where a ship will be (smart) BUT not updating that calculated vector until after it's reached that location.

[LameFox]

Could be. There was a time when it first began in the 7.0 beta I'd see it with Xenon capitals at gates but since then it's mostly been Xenon/Kha'ak S and M sized ships being targeted when it occurs.

Not entirely sure how one would confirm it though. I guess dropping some defend position orders around slow (or crippled) hostile targets might at least indicate if there's any difference based on speed, but finding enough of them to be sure it wasn't just chance might be a pain. Stations might work but they might also just have different logic for attacking those.

[Scoob]

Could be. There was a time when it first began in the 7.0 beta I'd see it with Xenon capitals at gates but since then it's mostly been Xenon/Kha'ak S and M sized ships being targeted when it occurs.

Not entirely sure how one would confirm it though. I guess dropping some defend position orders around slow (or crippled) hostile targets might at least indicate if there's any difference based on speed, but finding enough of them to be sure it wasn't just chance might be a pain. Stations might work but they might also just have different logic for attacking those.

Yes, it was during the v7.0 Beta phase it first started I thought.

In my game, I'm currently almost exclusively vs. Xenon as they come in through a Gate. I have fleets on a tight (12-16km) Protect Position behaviour. They they zoom off like they are, it leaves a huge hole in the defences and any stray ships - the formation does spread out a lot when this happens - can easily get taken out. In several instances of this, I do have a Bait/Tank station near the gate too. So, ships emerge from the gate and are almost immediately shot at by the station.

I'm going to change all the Protect Positions to Protect Until further notice on the Defence Platform where I have one. Some are just fleets - no DP - so not an option for those of course, I just want to observe the different behaviour.

I think to show it you just have to sit and watch, it can take some time, but it does seem to happen. I do want to put more time into this in a specific test-case save to demonstrate this as best I can. I know the issue was reported during the beta, so it should be on Egosofts radar already. I assume they just need an easy reproduction case, if possible. For me, I only usually notice the issue when I'm already quite some time (hour+) into the session. I don wonder is playtime since last load is a factor as numerous other things can break down during a longer session.

[jlehtone]

Yeah, the radius is sadly ignored totally once they have an order.

We do know that both player and behaviour can issue orders and that they do not identical. However, is it the order that is different, or is the behaviour (like the player) that decides to remove an "inappropriate" order? Furthermore, if it is the (parameters of) order that differ (rather than intervention by behaviour), then it still the behaviour that sets those parameters when it issues the order.

Granted, in the shown situation the removal of order (if it has happened at all) has not occurred "intuitively near" the assigned area of operation.

[LameFox]

In the screenshot I didn't see it lose its attack order, but in my observation it happens either when the target ship dies or leaves the sphere. There's a good chance the station or a miner killed it.