Should AI ships dodge the Devourer?

[KDR_11k]

Currently the AI seems to ignore the Devourer inside of a system and lets it eat all the ships it wants, should AI ships attempt to dodge it or is that just a balancing decision? I'm asking this after a CPA turned from near-loss to fine because the Devourer jumped into the system right underneath the bulk of the CPA fleet.

[x4000]

It's computationally infeasible in a lot of ways: the Devourer is always moving around AI planets, and having a lot of AI ships actively trying to avoid it would be a big hit to regular game performance just by having the devourer on.

There's also the problem that if the AI ships are able to move out of its way, that's actually putting them into free/threat mode, and that in turn was causing massive early threat spikes in past versions of the game.

Hence the devourer goes around and eats the AI ships, and they largely don't notice, and if it happens to be at just the right battlefield for you then that's just your good fortune at the moment.

[TechSY730]

I guess you could say that the AI has so many ships (both in this galaxy and off wherever it is that they are doing these days) that losing even a few thousand regular ships is so cheap that it doesn't even think the small amount of micro needed to move them out of the way is worth it, especially from a powerfull but single and "dumb" threat like the devourer.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, iirc AI ships used to automatically avoid the Devourer, but this was leading to endless problems (ships getting freed as threat, etc) so we just disabled that behavior.

[Hearteater]

Probably the easiest thing, if it is even a problem, would be to have a "free" reinforcement triggered on any AI planet a Devourer leaves.  So instead of avoiding the Devourer, the AI just figure it'll replace the loses when the threat leaves.  Of course that would be a little unfortunate for the player, especially if AIP is high resulting in higher Mark replacement ships.

[Philo]

They do avoid it a lot of the time. Having a devourer golem come into a planet that has say 1000 units just sitting at the wormhole when the golem comes in, all the AI ships will rampage into my world at the same second the golem comes in. They hardly lose any ships at all to the devourer. The AI has some damn good reflexes

The fun thing is seeing hundreds of ships with their engines shot down and having the Devourer pay a visit to them.

[keith.lamothe]

The fun thing is seeing hundreds of ships with their engines shot down and having the Devourer pay a visit to them.

AI Subroutine 1: "Why did those Riot Starships just leave?  They had us defenseless!"
AI Subroutine 2: "And why were they smiling?"

[Giegue]

AI Subroutine 3: Holy Crap.exe

[Ranakastrasz]

Devourer Golem: Om-nom-nom

[Hearteater]

New ship:
Devourer Golem Beacon
Although it has no guns, this heavily fortified ship calls any Devourer Golem in the system to come and eat it, with fairly dire results for the system the Devourer Golem Beacon is currently residing in.

[TechSY730]

New ship:
Devourer Golem Beacon
Although it has no guns, this heavily fortified ship calls any Devourer Golem in the system to come and eat it, with fairly dire results for the system the Devourer Golem Beacon is currently residing in.

Cool idea, but it would have to be pretty expensive and take a good amount of time to build to keep it from being overpowered.

[Hearteater]

New ship:
Devourer Golem Beacon
Although it has no guns, this heavily fortified ship calls any Devourer Golem in the system to come and eat it, with fairly dire results for the system the Devourer Golem Beacon is currently residing in.

Cool idea, but it would have to be pretty expensive and take a good amount of time to build to keep it from being overpowered.

Yeah, I'd say make it slow to build, but have it start calling the Devourer from the moment you begin building it.  If possible, make it buildable only by a CS, not a mobile builder.

[Lancefighter]

as long as it cant physically outrun the devourer....

[KDR_11k]

I'd say just make it only work on human planets (and only attract the devourer if it comes within a certain number of jumps).

If it can work from the moment it starts building you can just place it and pause it and get the attraction without paying anything. Remember that the devourer will not attack buildings so you could just withdraw your mobile forces from the system until the devourer leaves.

[Coppermantis]

If it does get considered, I'd say make it require supply and have a cooldown time like the Fortress and Mobile Repair Station before it starts attracting the Devourer.