Faction owned defense stations not firing at ENEMY ships unless first fired upon

[stooper88]

I hope someone can help with a problem I'm having. I previously posted that the Holy Order was on the verge of collapse in my game. On one side is PAR who've taken control of Pontifex's Claim and mostly seem content to stay there. But the main threat comes from ANT who have brought their battlefront directly into Holy Vision. Until I intervened, the ANT behemoth fleets were attacking completely unopposed (and had originally destroyed the HOP wharf and shipyard until I reloaded from an older save).

As I want to preserve HOP but remain militarily neutral, I've been actively sending traders to prop up the HOP economy and have been boarding ANT and PAR destroyers as needed to protect the HOP stations. I've also been pouncing on every station build mission that HOP have offered (though they've been few and far between). To that end, I've now built 5 defense stations and "fortress" factories (production stations with excessive defenses) in True Sight and Holy Vision.

The problem is that the completed HOP stations are not firing "on sight" at the ANT and PAR invasion fleets, at least not from what I've observed. The stations I've built and transferred to HOP work great at destroying enemy ships, but only when those ships were actively attacking. Otherwise, the stations are content to let any enemy ship mosey on by, including the endless parades of behemoths flying straight past defense stations I've bult alongside the main travel routes and superhighways. (I'd love to place defenses at the jump gates too but sadly have had no such mission offers.)

Anyhow, I've confirmed the turret configuration for every built station was "attack all enemies" prior to when control was transferred to HOP. Do NPC factions reset their station turrets to "defend" only by default? I would've thought otherwise as the Xenon and Kha'ak defense platforms always seem eager to fire upon my ships immediately as soon as they're within range. So what can I do to activate these defenses so that they proactively protect HOP from their enemies?

On the one hand, I've captured 30+ behemoths so far and sort of enjoy the easy targets. But on the other hand, I kind of would like to be able to do something else and just have the defense stations deal with the invading destroyers, instead of allowing them to rampage unopposed and eventually wipe out the key HOP stations. For what it's worth, HOP themselves are gradually improving but frustratingly inept at defending their own ships and stations. Any new military assets which they manage to build get scattered about to individually meet their destruction, preventing HOP from being able to assemble a cohesive fighting force able to stand up to their enemies' fleets.

[stooper88]

I'm posting an update in case anyone else runs into this issue. I realized that HOP are only at "enemy" reputation with the other commonwealth factions and not at openly "hostile" reputation (as they are with SCA, KHK, and XEN). It's strange because I would think they would have a stronger hostility toward ANT and PAR given how many HOP ships and stations have been destroyed by those two. With that in mind, I noticed that the default fire authorization requires reputation to be -20 or below for military targets and -25 or below for civilian. This is consistent with the stations not firing until they were fired on first. So I applied a new fire authorization rule with all enemy factions set to ruthless (fire on all military and civilian targets regardless of reputation). I did this to a new station just prior to it transferring ownership to HOP. I honestly don't know if it made a difference or was just coincidence, but unlike the other defense stations I created for HOP, the new station has been immediately rocking and rolling.



One caveat that occurred to me is that the ruthless fire authorization would still target ships if HOP was no longer at war with any given faction. But I don't think that's ever likely to happen. Or is it actually possible for two NPC factions to reach "peace" or neutral reputation after having been enemies?

[azaghal]

One caveat that occurred to me is that the ruthless fire authorization would still target ships if HOP was no longer at war with any given faction. But I don't think that's ever likely to happen. Or is it actually possible for two NPC factions to reach "peace" or neutral reputation after having been enemies?

There is a couple of events that may change some allegiances - but I'll refrain from saying more to avoid eventual spoilers. Just in case you were not already aware of this particular tidbit of info.

Best regards,
Branko

[stooper88]

One caveat that occurred to me is that the ruthless fire authorization would still target ships if HOP was no longer at war with any given faction. But I don't think that's ever likely to happen. Or is it actually possible for two NPC factions to reach "peace" or neutral reputation after having been enemies?

There is a couple of events that may change some allegiances - but I'll refrain from saying more to avoid eventual spoilers. Just in case you were not already aware of this particular tidbit of info.

Best regards,
Branko

Yes, I'm aware of plot/story missions that would settle differences between two rival factions, but to my knowledge ...

Spoiler

Show

the "peace" option would give rise to an entirely new faction and eliminate the HOP all together. I don't intend to go that route, but I am curious if the station behavior would break or otherwise be adversely impacted.

[azaghal]

Yes, I'm aware of plot/story missions that would settle differences between two rival factions, but to my knowledge ...

Spoiler

Show

the "peace" option would give rise to an entirely new faction and eliminate the HOP all together. I don't intend to go that route, but I am curious if the station behavior would break or otherwise be adversely impacted.

Ah... Well, apart from that one, the base game does not seem to have anything else more dynamic in terms of relationships between NPC factions (although there's that one end game thing I have not encountered yet - so no idea if things change around that one a bit). There has been a couple of interesting mods that play around with the relationships, though.

Best regards,
Branko

[stooper88]

Silly me, I forgot that diplomacy is supposed to be on Egosoft's roadmap for a future release. However I vaguely recall it was with regard to the player faction and NPC factions, not between NPC factions themselves. But I'd hope it does include ways to influence relations between factions (outside of the various plot missions). In which case, I hope they take care to reset things such as station hostilities and fire authorizations.