Escorts and Interceptors are buggy

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Escorts will often "orbit" around a target without actually escorting it properly. I've reported this behaviour before for autons, but I'm now seeing it for NPCs escorting freighters as well.

It's also linked to interceptors trying to attack a slow target and ending up flying around it (reported in my big bug thread). I believe that the code section that tells NPC ships to stop thrusting when they're at the right speed/position is failing to function, causing ships to continue to thrust, thus preventing them from turning to attack or finetune their position. As a result, they try to turn, but are still thrusting at full power....causing an "orbit" around the escort or attack target.


This may be linked to 'escort drift', where an escorting ship drifts off in an unpowered coast after the main ship has docked. This can be commonly seen around Korolov stations. This is the exact opposite problem, where an escort is failing to thrust when required.

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It's worse than this even. The "continue thrusting when I shouldn't" issue can also affect NPC wingmen and critical mission NPCs. Sometimes Volkov has some trouble keeping station on a slower ship: he'll fly back and forth when you stay still because he can't quite get in the right place.


But the worst case scenario is this: Anton Nasser doing doughnuts around the dead Silla chimera base (rough trajectory indicated). This makes the mission impossible to complete:

You spin me right round baby.....

SillaSpin.png (186.28 KiB) Viewed 2272 times

Edit: Also, he did this during combat. AI ships lose accuracy if they fire at the instant of their turning. Thus, even more wildfire howitzer incontinence than usual. I ate a bunch of the smaller shots, and darned near got Mk.VII'd again. [End edit]


I could upload a savegame if required for this, but I'd also need to add in the mod that I'm testing (which shouldn't mess with NPCs, let along Nasser) so that it functions.