[FEEDBACK] Flee (7.00 Beta)

[j.harshaw]

How's flee these days on the beta? Any feedback?

[LameFox]

It seems to work better in low attention. Hard to comment on exactly what it's doing differently but I've seen unarmed civilian ships get away from things that I would normally expect to kill them, and even sometimes ships under attack manage to enter travel drive between attacks. It's not magic but it's at a level where I'm less inclined to micro them and they don't as often actively commit suicide.

Not really tested in high attention. I have a feeling it would be slightly less effective there because they're less likely to get time between shots to enter travel drive, but can't say for sure.

[rc1149]

Only saw it once in OOS on my map. But it seemed the M-class miner did a good job in getting away, while I was thinking 'Well that's odd'. Now I know why.

[donzi]

Perhaps this isn't part of the Flee exactly, but I have noticed a bit of latency on notification of NPC flilght activity.

EG:

Raid swarm wanders into S and/or M mining group and when I get notice and take a look they've often fled already and I have to pan the map to even find the attacker -- that's good. However when it's seriously in peril and couldn't get far away quickly enough or whatnot, the 5 or so second lag on the alert makes for a challenge.

Another kind of odd situation I have watched, a trader on a highway can get asked to drop their cargo apparently. I get the notice and look and my ship is and AFAIK has been on the highway and has no flee graphic, but I get notified about it.. hehe.. Have no idea where the attacker is could be 3 sectors away. However, I have also seen miners w/o the flee graphic at the time I get the notice. They apparently fled and became calm all within an extremely short time.. or something.

Aside from that, it does demonstrate some odd movements at times. I always go look when I get the alert and I like to see what they're gonna do.

It appears one of the core tactics is head for the highway/super highway or gate. Sometimes to a station. While I guess both offer the same end result if successful, sometimes I have seen them fly past stations or defense very close to them, heading for the highway/gate (sometimes the gate/HW is on the other side of the attacker). I gather from those observations that escape route/target is not taking into account proximity, or it's not capable due to pilot ranking?

I have watched one lil guy go through I think 3 gates before. hehe. Of course I am glad not to loose the ship, but it's not over that easy sometimes.

I watch S miners flee, do their routine (and sometimes it's very fast, EG: station dock or up/back on a highway like in GE) go right back to the hornets nest which still infests the mining spot. Ironically, other times, with gate escapes particularly, sometimes they don't calm for several minutes.


I haven't done a lot with combat ships so far and I guess fleets and such are a bit different than trader/miner flee.

Is your query about flee encompass all of the ship types and fleets?

[j.harshaw]

Is your query about flee encompass all of the ship types and fleets?

Yeah, no specific instances.

[Arisaya]

Well, it seems fleeing has this issue: viewtopic.php?f=192&t=461049&sid=c44841 ... ee6c7be5e9 - where a ship will pre-emptively stop traveldrive in order to change direction to flee from pirates, when it could have just kept traveldriving along.

Today I've also observed a small fighter right next to the correct highway for its destination also right next to a gate it needed to travel through decide to 'flee' onto the highway in the opposite direction, when it could have just gotten on the correct highway and been out of the system entirely.

[donzi]

..hehe, I know what you mean. Especially when the trade endpoint to buy or sell is a stones throw from the fleeing ship. Sure wish it'd just ditch the gate/highway options and go for that station it's intended to go to for the trade.

I do that manually when I can get there in time, but sort of hit/miss with the events happening before I actually know about the flee kicking in.

[Scoob]

Thanks for linking to my post @Arisaya, I was just about to do the same.

I'll summarise though. Basically, "Flee" often triggers inappropriately, when a ship is in no danger what so ever, until that is it stops to flee. This is irksome in v6.2, but by cancelling the flee and allowing a ship just to continue on its way (it'll usually be in travel mode and usually going too fast, and simply not close enough to the Pirate to be in danger), after it's spooled up its travel drive again. However, with v7.0 ships are SIGNIFICANTLY more responsive when they decide to attack.

Last night, I had a situation where I was alerted of Pirate Harassment, nothing unusual there. I Pause the game to check on my ship - an M-Class Transporter - and could see it was 10km+ from the Pirate, in travel mode and moving away at a rapid pace. The Pirate - a Minotaur Raider - wasn't even facing my ship, so it was perfectly safe, readily gaining distance on the Pirate. However, then "Flee" triggered, which caused my ship to stop dead (silly!) slowly turn to a new vector then very slowly move off. This allowed the Pirate to catch, and destroy the ship with ease.

TL:DR - Flee killed my ship, that was ONLY in danger because of Flee.

So, perhaps this is less about "Flee" (even though a fleeing ship seems sluggish turning and spooling up travel drive vs. what I know the ship is capable of) but more about WHY Flee is triggering? I've noticed in v6.2 that a fake "hit" occurs on my Traders from a Pirate. I.e. My ship will be free and clear of the harassing Pirate, even out of scanner range, then my ship can be seen (on the map) to "wobble" just like it's been hit, which is what takes it out of Travel Drive and triggers the Flee behaviour.

I think Flee needs some checks prior to triggering. Sure, Pirate harassment might be a trigger for Flee set by the player (my Civilian ship are set to flee) BUT, there are some things to check first:

1 - Distance, how far away is the ship from the Pirate?
2 - Speed, is the ship in travel mode
3 - Vector, is the ship moving away from the Pirate on its current vector

These together can help decide whether the ship even needs to flee. I.e. it's current distance, speed and vector show that it's in no danger... unless it stops...

[j.harshaw]

I think Flee needs some checks prior to triggering. Sure, Pirate harassment might be a trigger for Flee set by the player (my Civilian ship are set to flee) BUT, there are some things to check first:

1 - Distance, how far away is the ship from the Pirate?
2 - Speed, is the ship in travel mode
3 - Vector, is the ship moving away from the Pirate on its current vector

These together can help decide whether the ship even needs to flee. I.e. it's current distance, speed and vector show that it's in no danger... unless it stops...

This would be bad especially if you had explicitly set it to flee in response to an event. "Smart" decision-making like this always seems to make sense in a specific scenario, but will inevitably not make sense in some other scenario, and the difference could sometimes just be the perspective that that specific user was looking at it from at that moment. And it would be particularly bad in that case since they'd be disobeying explicit instructions. That said, when you leave them to decide for themselves, they do sometimes choose to ignore the threat (and, yes, there will be times you'll disagree with that decision or think that it should've when it didn't and that's the pitfall of clever decision-making). Striking a balance between smart decision-making and clear-but-dumb-as-nails-you-say-i-go-there-i-go-there-and-bonk-repeatedly-against-a-wall is one of the more interesting parts of my job.

All that said.

in travel mode and moving away at a rapid pace.

...

However, then "Flee" triggered, which caused my ship to stop dead

Improvement on the way. Should be in a future update.

@everyone, thanks for the feedback so far.

[Scoob]

Hi,

Yes, that makes sense, though I was (sorry if not clear) referring to this specific scenario, which happens time and time again for me. The key here, I think, is why did my ship choose flee? It was not in any danger, moving away at speed and well out of weapon's range. Yet, despite this, it still looked like it got hit (the wobble) and only then did it flee. The "event" was fake in that regard. Really, this ship never needed to flee, it appears that the fake hit (that's what it looks like) is what triggers flee, which shouldn't have happened. This "hit" was new to v6.x IIRC, with the mere act of hailing (Pirate Harassment) being enough to cause them to flee previously.

Appreciate your efforts improving things as always

If this "hit" on the harassed ship remains, then the transition to flee needs to be smoother. I.e. it takes into account current vector and speed NOT forcing the ship to stop dead. It should be hard to catch a speeding ship, exactly as it is for the player. No magic bullet to artificially make it stop.

This is an issue I find particularly irksome, especially during the early-game when I'm using M-Class Transporters. They're so soft and squishy that their speed - and NOT stopping to wait for the enemy - is their only real protection. As mentioned, the responsiveness of Attack commands is so much improved, that my ships stand little chance now.

Cheers.

[geldonyetich]

Perhaps a little too effective in low attention.

i had a Kestral scout a Xenon sector and get cornered by a half dozen Xenon fighters, I ordered it to flee and it actually escaped despite being under fire and low on hull points.

[capitalduty]

I can say order execution its working way better than before, my fleeing ship (monitor) was saved from certain doom.

Now I have a question, if I order one ship from my wing to flee...why all ships in the entire wing flee? I ordered a monitor supply ship to flee and my whole carrier wing got the flee command. I am the fleet commander while piloting a Raptor, the monitor and the carrier wing are separated.

[j.harshaw]

I can say order execution its working way better than before, my fleeing ship (monitor) was saved from certain doom.

Now I have a question, if I order one ship from my wing to flee...why all ships in the entire wing flee? I ordered a monitor supply ship to flee and my whole carrier wing got the flee command. I am the fleet commander while piloting a Raptor, the monitor and the carrier wing are separated.

The order isn't propagated to the rest of the fleet, but if you could reproduce it in a save with steps, I'd be happy to take a look.

[A5PECT]

Flee seems to be more consistent, but I think there's an issue with ships "stalling" in low attention combat that inflates the effectiveness of the flee behavior. I'm working on getting a demonstrative save file for it.

[Scoob]

I did observe appropriate flee in action last night, and it made some interesting choices...

One of my Elite Vanguards was collecting drops in Hatikvah's Choice I, near the gate to the Xenon sector. I have a Destroyer there on protect position duty, near the Defence Platform that's present in my game. While collecting, a load of Xenon Fighters entered the system, one going for the Elite. The Elite took some fire then chose to flee (wise), however, it was already heading back to dock at the Destroyer. I was a little surprised that when flee triggered, the Elite immediately did a 180, heading back towards the attacking Xenon, taking a few more hits. However, it then blasted past it, before turning around again. It did this back and forth a number of times, but it did actually eventually escape.

Now, when In Sector, this might be a good tactic to reduce the time exposed to fire and gain some distance from the attacker. OOS however, as I was observing this event, I don't know if cone of fire (i.e. where a ship with fixed main guns is pointing) is obeyed quite as strictly. I assume it is these days. So, let's assume that was a good tactic in isolation. However, the Xenon could also turn really quickly, so it was very quickly back on the Elite's tail. Additionally, that initially 180 degree turn, took the Elite towards the Gate and a larger group of Xenon. So, at time it seemed like the Elite was making bad choices, but it did indeed eventually escape, flying away from the gate and remaining not hit for long enough to engage travel mode. Results matter lol.

Now, I used the word "Appropriate" above for a reason. In this situation, the Elite was in IMMEDIATE danger and already under fire. In the example of my Trade ships from earlier, they simply were not in any danger, until that fake "hit" took them out of travel mode and they freaked out. It did NOT respond promptly like the Elite, taking decisive evasive (180) action, rather it just stopped and started to turn oh so slowly to the chosen escape vector. However, it was dead before it could engage travel mode. Of course an M-Class Transporter turns far more slowly than the Elite Vanguard, that's a given. However, while the Elite seemed to turn as quickly as it could (fast) the Transporter seemed to turn far more slowly than I know it can, from when I've piloted it. Also of course, it's vector choice was BAD, it was already flying away from the attacker and, if it stopped by the fake hit, it should have continued on the current vector, re-engaging travel mode right away.

Side note: I've manually intervened in a couple of near-death scenarios for my ships in v7.0 Beta 1. I'm noticing that they often respond more promptly to manual orders and will retain some momentum when turning around. I.e. one of my Destroyers was heading East while running Protect Position, but there was a Xenon I there (yikes) that it'd already taken fire from. I ordered the Destroyer to fly directly West, away from the Xenon I, effectively a 180 degree turn. Rather than stopping and rotating slowly on the spot - all the time taking fire of course - the Destroyer turned while moving, basically doing a U-turn, rather than a stop and rotate. Despite momentarily getting closer to the Xenon I, it was successful getting away. No flee, just manual orders. I was watching this one OOS too - Destroyer had alerted me it was under attack - and while I know a moving ship can throw off the aim of enemy fire when the player is present, does relative movement speed have any effect OOS? Regardless, it seemed to as my Destroyer survived when I was sure I'd lose it.

[j.harshaw]

I was a little surprised that when flee triggered, the Elite immediately did a 180, heading back towards the attacking Xenon, taking a few more hits. However, it then blasted past it, before turning around again. It did this back and forth a number of times, but it did actually eventually escape.

I'll keep an eye out, but would be good if you could provide a save where this is reliably reproducible.

Rather than stopping and rotating slowly on the spot - all the time taking fire of course - the Destroyer turned while moving, basically doing a U-turn, rather than a stop and rotate. ... No flee, just manual orders.

That and the attack not interrupting the manual order in such a case when attacked are parts of the improvement. Good to hear they're working.

[Scoob]

I'll keep an eye out, but would be good if you could provide a save where this is reliably reproducible.

That and the attack not interrupting the manual order in such a case when attacked are parts of the improvement. Good to hear they're working.

Sorry, I didn't even consider making a save at that point, nor did I have a recent one, which is in part why I was watching so closely. When I'm in that location again, I'll try to snag a save as the Elite is collecting but Xenon are incoming too - see if it plays out like before. I assume just before the ship is attacked is good, not when flee is already triggered?

Yes, that second part is key here. Previously, I'd have had to tell the ship to (temporarily) IGNORE attacks, to allow it to escape correctly, obeying my order over all else. It's good that the game acknowledges that "player knows best", even if we often don't lol. In this situation though, acknowledging that the player's order take priority is really good. Is the timing of that order considered in decision making here? I.e. if the ship already had that move order, then was attacked by the Xenon I, might it have triggered flee? Obviously, in this case, the ship had already alerted me to danger (under attack message) and then I gave the order. These subtleties are good to know.

[j.harshaw]

I assume just before the ship is attacked is good

Yup, that would be ideal, although while it's fleeing might also be useful. Understand that this could be difficult to anticipate.

Is the timing of that order considered in decision making here?

I'd prefer not to state the precise logic just yet in case I missed a few good cases where it would be good to implement while we still have time to. I'm sure you're aware that I generally won't hesitate describing precise logic after the beta's over, though.

[Scoob]

Yup, that would be ideal, although while it's fleeing might also be useful. Understand that this could be difficult to anticipate.

I'd prefer not to state the precise logic just yet in case I missed a few good cases where it would be good to implement while we still have time to. I'm sure you're aware that I generally won't hesitate describing precise logic after the beta's over, though.

Hopefully I'll get some time a little later today.

No worries.

[capitalduty]

I can say order execution its working way better than before, my fleeing ship (monitor) was saved from certain doom.

Now I have a question, if I order one ship from my wing to flee...why all ships in the entire wing flee? I ordered a monitor supply ship to flee and my whole carrier wing got the flee command. I am the fleet commander while piloting a Raptor, the monitor and the carrier wing are separated.

The order isn't propagated to the rest of the fleet, but if you could reproduce it in a save with steps, I'd be happy to take a look.

I just retry it, my last statement wasn't entirely correct, maybe this case is WAI. I will try to explain. I am the fleet commander while piloting a Raptor, I have a wing with a supply monitor which have its own defending wing and my Raptor carrier wing which is in another letter. I order the command "wing: retreat/flee command" to the monitor wing resulting in all wings and subwings levels executing the flee command. This is intended? I will try to have a save to reproduce.