Teleporter ships' AI is mentally challenged

[Kahuna]

I order my Teleport Raiders to attack an MRLS Guard Post.. they attack it.. they teleport and jerk around.. then they suddenly start attacking the surrounding AI ships.

This seems similar to "auto retreating ships" (zombard) shooting at something with radar dampening (guard post) (this bug has been fixed though(right?)). The AI (not the AI) gets confused and doesn't know what to do.

Has anyone else noticed anything like this?

BOOM Mystery solved! (about shift+clicking)
The reason I thought Shift Clicking doesn't work.. is that Teleporter Raiders shot and instantly teleported far away.. so the shots were "canceled" because the Teleport Raiders were too far from their ammos.. ammos can only travel a certain distance.. so the shots don't reach the target.. SO... the target isn't destroyed.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, it's difficult to convince a decent AI to get installed in one of those things.  Various complaints of "made of tissue paper", "has all the range of a sharp stick", etc.  So they tend to get the, um, "less observant" AI modules.  Perhaps some of the ones from Bionic.


Anyway, is all the mystery solved or what?  If you give them a direct attack order, they teleport over and then shoot at other things... for any discernible reason?  Are they getting displaced too far away to shoot at it?

[Kahuna]

Well. I guess the mystery has been solved.. or revealed.. but not fixed.

If I SHIFT+Attack and then SHIFT+MoveAway the target (Guard Post) wont be destroyed because the last burst of fire that would destroy the target.. never reaches the target because the teleporters teleport away and the shots/ammo disappear. That's because the shots can only travel only x distance.. but the teleporters teleport distance > x away.. so.. this means I have to manually control and micro the teleporters and wait until the target has been destroyed.. and THEN I can teleport away.

Are they getting displaced too far away to shoot at it?

I think this happens with all ships. That's why ships sometimes yo-yo/bounce back and forth when they're shooting at a stationary target (Guard Post).

[keith.lamothe]

Ah, gotcha, so the shots-disappearing thing is the operative problem.  Well, I can look into making that rule not apply to teleporter ships.

[Kahuna]

That would certainly make Teleporters more useful for the player.