Transport and AI Freeing Behaviour

[TechSY730]

Well, the question in the poll explains it all.

Also, this only addresses how the AI frees ships when encountered with transport presence. What is NOT addressed is alerting behavior. (An AI ship is alerted but not freed if it is awake and trying to attack a target, but still guarding and "chained" to the thing it is guarding). Transports SHOULD alert AI units, just like any hostile unit does (military or otherwise).

EDIT: Oh, and also, this only addresses transport presence. If the transport is being escorted by "loose" military ships, then those military ship would free AI guards, regardless of how the AI would treat the transport if it were alone.

[TechSY730]

Sorry, one more thing. This poll is about what you think the AIs should do, not what they currently do.

Speaking of which, how does the AI currently behave in this circumstance?

[mindloss]

Voted for free-if-military. Seems like it'd be fine gameplay wise (dunno what it does currently), and makes most sense to me from plot perspective, i.e. I suspect the asskicking AI has the ability to scan the inside of a non-cloaked transport, take mass measurements, what have you...

[Trandrin]

This would be a serious trouble for jumping across hard planets then. Ie mk4 between you and anything else. As it is my fleet can transport past until it is strong enough to handle the problem. but if all the stuff on said planet turns ugly and comes after me if I try to jump why bother?

[Nice Save]

I voted for never free. I don't think the AI should be able to see what's in a transport, and always freeing seems pointless as Trandrin said

[Hearteater]

I'm wondering if "Always free" on alerted planets, and "Never free" on un-alerted planets might not work well.

[Nice Save]

I'm wondering if "Always free" on alerted planets, and "Never free" on un-alerted planets might not work well.

I would have voted for this.

[TechSY730]

I'm wondering if "Always free" on alerted planets, and "Never free" on un-alerted planets might not work well.

I would have voted for this.

Since it seems to be getting some support, I will add that, as well as an "other" option.

I will also reset the vote counts so you can change your vote. So please replace your vote if you already cast one.

[Hearteater]

Cool.

*cough* regardless *cough*

[TechSY730]

I'll see if this poll can gather a few more voters (like leave it up for another week), and if any statistically significant winner comes up, I'll take the winning idea and post it on mantis.

EDIT: Mixed major word confusion which changed the meaning of the sentence.

[Nethris]

Sorry, one more thing. This poll is about what you think the AIs should do, not what they currently do.

Speaking of which, how does the AI currently behave in this circumstance?

Not sure WHEN it frees based on transports currently, but it certainly does at least sometimes, including on non-alerted planets.  Early in my current game I had to reload once because I hadn't realized that a decent number of mk 3-4 ships (none of which were from adjacent/alerted planets) and some annoying guardians had become free due to me using transports to scout further.  Having them come in to my homeworld with a wave was painful, fortunately they weren't too hard to clean up by themselves.

I voted for the free based on alert status option, but I'm not sure that makes as much sense as just restricting it to not free on non-alerted planets and not expanding what it frees now under any conditions.  It should still probably free stuff when you haul an entire army through a system, but I think that tends to alert the planet anyway currently (not 100% certain) so probably wouldn't change much there.

[TechSY730]

I voted for the free based on alert status option, but I'm not sure that makes as much sense as just restricting it to not free on non-alerted planets and not expanding what it frees now under any conditions.  It should still probably free stuff when you haul an entire army through a system, but I think that tends to alert the planet anyway currently (not 100% certain) so probably wouldn't change much there.

I am a little unsure about what you are suggesting here. Are you suggesting only free if a transport has military in them on unalerted planets, and current behavior (whatever it is) on alerted planets?

[BobTheJanitor]

Not sure if I'd like the AI to react differently to a transport depending on what it carried. It might cause weirdness with using decoy transports to draw fire from your transports containing units. I foresee something like having to be sure to pack a single fighter in your decoys so that the AI still shoots at them, which would be an extra pointless micromanagement step. I'd rather have it treat every transport the same. Besides, how does the AI know what's in them? X-ray specs?

[Nalgas]

Not sure if I'd like the AI to react differently to a transport depending on what it carried. It might cause weirdness with using decoy transports to draw fire from your transports containing units. I foresee something like having to be sure to pack a single fighter in your decoys so that the AI still shoots at them, which would be an extra pointless micromanagement step. I'd rather have it treat every transport the same. Besides, how does the AI know what's in them? X-ray specs?

Yeah, I'm finding myself agreeing with this.  It just gets weird when the game starts responding differently to things that are visually identical and you have to manually inspect each one of your units (checking your transports to see what, if anything, is in each one of them) to see what will happen when when you move them where, and then keep track of which is which, and so on.  You could add some kind of visual distinction to be able to tell them apart, but that just clutters things up even more and/or is hard to pick out, especially with the large numbers of things on screen at once.

As far as it depending on whether the system is on alert, you just sent something non-cloaked into their system that they can see and consider a threat and are shooting at.  Chances are it's on alert now as long as your crap is still there flying around, at least if there's enough of it.

[Nethris]

I am a little unsure about what you are suggesting here. Are you suggesting only free if a transport has military in them on unalerted planets, and current behavior (whatever it is) on alerted planets?

I was mostly suggesting current behavior on alert planets, never free on unalerted planets.  Having just checked in a quick test game though, it certainly feels like most of the stuff that shoots at a transport already ends up free, so that suggestion may not be very different (if at all) from always free on alert planets, never on unalert.  Not quite sure what I was thinking about the military stuff - I thought military ships in transports could put a planet on alert, I'm not seeing that in my quick test though - 98 mk 1 fighters in a transport didn't alert systems it was in (but did when the transport died).  Freeing based on military vs non-military would be rather clunky, and while I think I was worried about possible problems if it didn't free for military ships in transports I really can't think of any issues that would avoid, so ignore that part.

As far as it depending on whether the system is on alert, you just sent something non-cloaked into their system that they can see and consider a threat and are shooting at.  Chances are it's on alert now as long as your crap is still there flying around, at least if there's enough of it.

If you're just sending transports it doesn't look like that alerts planets, unless I just wasn't sending enough transports in my tests.  I'm pretty sure it treats transports like it treats scouts it can see, shooting at them but not really caring that they're there for alert status.

Edit:  Except that currently it frees stuff that shoots at transports, but usually not for shooting at scouts, so it may be a bit more complex than that for alert status as well.