RC8 Enemy ship behaviour bug (minor)

[Spectrum]

Just had a strange incident while rescuing a colony from some Centauri warlords. Two of the Centauri raiders started attacking the third one, chasing it away to the stargate (I believe that's where it was going - I blew them up). I think that what happened is the first one tried to shoot at me as I came flying in, but hit the colony. A minor thing but thought it should be mentioned in case it affects any other behaviour.

[Song]

I can confirm this. I have seen it happen as well.....

Amazingly, they appear to be able to kill each other. That's about all they can do

[Arisaya]

This seems to be part of the new random encounters; nolonger just the player is harassed; sometimes different enemies of the players will attack each other (ie, anarchists vs. pirates seems to be rather common)

...

or was the centauri also docked at the station along with the two others?

[Song]

This seems to be part of the new random encounters; nolonger just the player is harassed; sometimes different enemies of the players will attack each other (ie, anarchists vs. pirates seems to be rather common)

...

or was the centauri also docked at the station along with the two others?

Yes. Then after the player attacks, sometimes they'll infight.

[Psycholis]

'this is all your fault, bob!' 'what??' *cannon fire*

[Song]

'this is all your fault, bob!' 'what??' *cannon fire*

Perhaps George has managed to accidentally create a true Artificial Inteligence.......Ironic that it should be the centauri that go sentient on us.

[Spectrum]

This seems to be part of the new random encounters; nolonger just the player is harassed; sometimes different enemies of the players will attack each other (ie, anarchists vs. pirates seems to be rather common)

...

or was the centauri also docked at the station along with the two others?

From what I remember, there were 3 raiders docked to the colony (one of the ones you rescue and are given Centauri rice). I approached so they did their thing and moved off to attack me. One of them shot at me, hitting the colony. The others started attacking him.

[Song]

This seems to be part of the new random encounters; nolonger just the player is harassed; sometimes different enemies of the players will attack each other (ie, anarchists vs. pirates seems to be rather common)

...

or was the centauri also docked at the station along with the two others?

From what I remember, there were 3 raiders docked to the colony (one of the ones you rescue and are given Centauri rice). I approached so they did their thing and moved off to attack me. One of them shot at me, hitting the colony. The others started attacking him.

That's what happened to me as well!

Are they using the "guard" command? That might be it...

[SparcMan]

That actually makes a lot of sense. The "guard from hostiles" directive must take precedence over the allied status because the station is an enemy faction to start with and then the accidental attack on the station sets off a retaliation.

[Arisaya]

That actually makes a lot of sense. The "guard from hostiles" directive must take precedence over the allied status because the station is an enemy faction to start with and then the accidental attack on the station sets off a retaliation.

hostility is entirely relative; the player is but another faction; its not based off of allied-ness to the player. What probably happened is that they were set to respond aggressively (ie, shooting some ships just once, even if friendly (like the smuggler escorts or BM guards (i think)) will cause them to retailiate; the problem is that they will also retaliate against members of their own faction, apparently, as I'm getting from the evidence in this situation.

[Song]

That actually makes a lot of sense. The "guard from hostiles" directive must take precedence over the allied status because the station is an enemy faction to start with and then the accidental attack on the station sets off a retaliation.

hostility is entirely relative; the player is but another faction; its not based off of allied-ness to the player. What probably happened is that they were set to respond aggressively (ie, shooting some ships just once, even if friendly (like the smuggler escorts or BM guards (i think)) will cause them to retailiate; the problem is that they will also retaliate against members of their own faction, apparently, as I'm getting from the evidence in this situation.

Awww. I was so hoping they'd gone sentient on us.

[Song]

yeah. it's definately the "guard" order, if one is used.

I just baited a centauri into hitting the station the two had taken over. The other one, right on cure, attacked it.

"Oi! Bill! Don't 'arm the 'ostages!"

[kay.py]

Bump, cause Clumsy Bill is still on guard in RC9.

I have a save file (after Bill shot the station, just as the squabbling starts) if the cause isn't self evident.

[Jeoshua]

Remember in the original Doom games, that one could line up enemies and make them in-fight. All you would need to do is get two different types of enemies in a line, and let one hit the other.

Also note that in the earliest example of this kind of behavior I can think of, there was a certain amount of immunity for creatures of the SAME kind. If you lined up 3 Imps and they hit each other, they did not fight each other... in fact, they didn't even take damage from each other's attacks.

This is a fairly important point tho. Members of the same faction shouldn't be fighting each other. Crazy Bill should get a sharp reprimand later on from his Centauri overlords... but when the player character is right there harassing them, they shouldn't turn on each other. In other words, they shouldn't be able to use the "F" button to select a target, only "T"