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Posture Frustrations - 12/7/2011 3:02:16 PM   
MartialDoctor


Posts: 388
Joined: 3/7/2011
Status: offline 		After a couple week hiatus, I came back ready to play some Distant Worlds. Unfortunately, upon loading up my old game, I've become extremely frustrated.

The AI keeps overriding my commands and getting my units killed. I set the posture to defend system while I move into an enemy system. The idea being I don't want the AI to go running and attacking the heavily fortified planet in the system. However, that is what the AI continues to do! Not only that but, when I manually tell them to move elsewhere, the AI will override my command and go back and attack the station again!

I thought postures were supposed to fix this sort of situation. Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong here? Is there a different posture that I should be taking?
Post #: 1
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/7/2011 3:26:29 PM   
Nedrear


Posts: 702
Joined: 10/29/2011
Status: offline 		Am I hearing right? You are DEFENDING an ENEMY system? Of course they would try to kill all enemies there!

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RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/7/2011 3:55:31 PM   
MartialDoctor


Posts: 388
Joined: 3/7/2011
Status: offline 		And thus my question remains.

What sort of posture would you have it set to so that they don't do what is occurring.  There are only two postures... attack and defend.

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Post #: 3
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/7/2011 3:57:06 PM   
w1p

 

Posts: 135
Joined: 11/23/2011
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quote:

MartialDoctor

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong here




quote:

Nedrear

Am I hearing right? You are DEFENDING an ENEMY system? Of course they would try to kill all enemies there!


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Post #: 4
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/7/2011 4:07:00 PM   
Nedrear


Posts: 702
Joined: 10/29/2011
Status: offline 		Just tell them to do nothing! If you just want to play police and mess with the enemy... but that will hit your reputation. Deactivate automatic.

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Post #: 5
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/7/2011 4:52:04 PM   
MartialDoctor


Posts: 388
Joined: 3/7/2011
Status: offline 		They aren't on automatic.  I am simply moving them to a system with the intent on attacking the mining bases and patrolling ships that I see fit.  However, the AI keeps overriding my commands even if I tell them to stop and do nothing.  And so I am asking how to get the AI to stop doing that.

Changing posture, engagement stance, it all does nothing...

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Post #: 6
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/7/2011 5:16:37 PM   
Nedrear


Posts: 702
Joined: 10/29/2011
Status: offline 		Tell them to HALT ACTION and park them in a opposite area in the system. Tell them manual commands - fleet and ship alike - and monitor it regulary while deactivating the AI movement of fleets. As long as the AI is allowed to move them it will do it after the last order is finished. This will happen if your ships are attacked and kill the enemy!

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Post #: 7
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/7/2011 5:26:58 PM   
spacht

 

Posts: 7
Joined: 12/6/2011
Status: offline 		I'm also a bit confused about the postures. It's also not clearly documented in the manual where it talks about a "middle ground" between automatic and manual control but doesn't say if you have to enable the fleet ai or not to get posture settings to work.
According to my observations Fleets in defense posture with ai on seem to work as intended but in attack posture the ai constantly overrides my homebase and target settings.

Adding to the confusion is the relation between posture and engagement stance and the fact that engagement stance gets changed depending on the order you give your fleet as per your empire settings. For a new player it can be hard to get your fleets to do exactly what you want them to do.

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Post #: 8
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/7/2011 5:35:30 PM   
theonlystd

 

Posts: 74
Joined: 6/8/2004
Status: offline 		Yea the whole posture thing is confusing and a total pita so far


I find my fleets wondering all over..

And of course without fuel half the time

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Post #: 9
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/7/2011 5:42:29 PM   
MartialDoctor


Posts: 388
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Nedrear

Tell them to HALT ACTION and park them in a opposite area in the system. Tell them manual commands - fleet and ship alike - and monitor it regulary while deactivating the AI movement of fleets. As long as the AI is allowed to move them it will do it after the last order is finished. This will happen if your ships are attacked and kill the enemy!


As I said, this is what I was doing. Sometimes the AI would even override my commands after I gave them.

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Post #: 10
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/7/2011 5:52:10 PM   
MartialDoctor


Posts: 388
Joined: 3/7/2011
Status: offline 		Ok guys, I figured out a bit of this after some tinkering around.

If you go under options, Empire Settings, you will get a whole list of useful settings for default stances.

Apparently, what was happening with me was, even if I changed my stance, it would be changed back to whatever the settings are here once I gave the fleet a new order.  So, the default for "other" seems to be "Engage System Targets."  So, if you move your fleet somewhere, they will then change to "engage system targets."  This explains why my fleets would then change their stance and go attack the highly defended colony.

However, I found a couple of small annoyances with these stances.  The stances are taken on a ship by ship basis, not a fleet basis.  So if in a "Engage when attacked" stance, only the ship that is attacked will respond.  Your other ships in the fleet will sit around unless they are, individually attacked.  For the "Engage nearby targets," one ship may break off and attack a ship(s) while the others sit still.  And for the "Engage system targets," ships may break off into groups and attack different areas in the system.

Hopefully, this can be changed so that the fleets will act together as a fleet rather than individually.


< Message edited by MartialDoctor -- 12/7/2011 5:53:26 PM >

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Post #: 11
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/7/2011 8:20:29 PM   
Johnnycai


Posts: 10
Joined: 1/26/2011
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: MartialDoctor

Ok guys, I figured out a bit of this after some tinkering around.

If you go under options, Empire Settings, you will get a whole list of useful settings for default stances.

Apparently, what was happening with me was, even if I changed my stance, it would be changed back to whatever the settings are here once I gave the fleet a new order.  So, the default for "other" seems to be "Engage System Targets."  So, if you move your fleet somewhere, they will then change to "engage system targets."  This explains why my fleets would then change their stance and go attack the highly defended colony.

However, I found a couple of small annoyances with these stances.  The stances are taken on a ship by ship basis, not a fleet basis.  So if in a "Engage when attacked" stance, only the ship that is attacked will respond.  Your other ships in the fleet will sit around unless they are, individually attacked.  For the "Engage nearby targets," one ship may break off and attack a ship(s) while the others sit still.  And for the "Engage system targets," ships may break off into groups and attack different areas in the system.



I changed that Empire Settings option to 'Attack nearby targets' and it addresses both issues you are addressing here. I often warp in and attack a mining station within an enemy system and then await the enemy response/fleets and my fleet does what it should. It works for me.

Have fun!

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Post #: 12
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/7/2011 8:23:22 PM   
Gelatinous Cube


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Status: offline 		http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2973167

I worked pretty hard on this quick little how-to for fleet postures. It may solve some of your problems.

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Post #: 13
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/9/2011 5:03:10 PM   
MartialDoctor


Posts: 388
Joined: 3/7/2011
Status: offline 		Just wanted to point something else out.  Not sure if it is intended but maybe someone can elaborate.

I've noticed that an action taken by the AI due to a fleet stance will override a command that you personally give.  For example, I recently told a fleet to move to a system.  However, after giving this order, an enemy ship came into range of one of my ships.  That individual ship cancelled it's move order, that I had given, and instead went to attack this ship.

The AI's orders should never override your own orders, correct?  Is this a bug?

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Post #: 14
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/9/2011 5:11:28 PM   
Gelatinous Cube


Posts: 696
Joined: 10/26/2011
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: MartialDoctor

Just wanted to point something else out.  Not sure if it is intended but maybe someone can elaborate.

I've noticed that an action taken by the AI due to a fleet stance will override a command that you personally give.  For example, I recently told a fleet to move to a system.  However, after giving this order, an enemy ship came into range of one of my ships.  That individual ship cancelled it's move order, that I had given, and instead went to attack this ship.

The AI's orders should never override your own orders, correct?  Is this a bug?



If your ship is set to Auto AND has a valid fleet posture/stance, they will do whatever is best for the posture nearly always. It is a third level of control, in that sense. The up-side is that by manually attacking something and then clicking auto AFTERWARDS your ship will complete its mission before going back to its duties. That is, unless it needs to refuel, or needs to flee, or whatever--in which case its not the posture at fault, but rather the bahavioural settings for the ship (or the empire-wide cautionary settings).

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Post #: 15
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/9/2011 5:36:37 PM   
MartialDoctor


Posts: 388
Joined: 3/7/2011
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Gelatinous Cube


quote:

ORIGINAL: MartialDoctor

Just wanted to point something else out.  Not sure if it is intended but maybe someone can elaborate.

I've noticed that an action taken by the AI due to a fleet stance will override a command that you personally give.  For example, I recently told a fleet to move to a system.  However, after giving this order, an enemy ship came into range of one of my ships.  That individual ship cancelled it's move order, that I had given, and instead went to attack this ship.

The AI's orders should never override your own orders, correct?  Is this a bug?



If your ship is set to Auto AND has a valid fleet posture/stance, they will do whatever is best for the posture nearly always. It is a third level of control, in that sense. The up-side is that by manually attacking something and then clicking auto AFTERWARDS your ship will complete its mission before going back to its duties. That is, unless it needs to refuel, or needs to flee, or whatever--in which case its not the posture at fault, but rather the bahavioural settings for the ship (or the empire-wide cautionary settings).


It's not an auto. It's doing this when I'm manually controlling the fleet.

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Post #: 16
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/9/2011 5:54:53 PM   
Gelatinous Cube


Posts: 696
Joined: 10/26/2011
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: MartialDoctor


quote:

ORIGINAL: Gelatinous Cube


quote:

ORIGINAL: MartialDoctor

Just wanted to point something else out.  Not sure if it is intended but maybe someone can elaborate.

I've noticed that an action taken by the AI due to a fleet stance will override a command that you personally give.  For example, I recently told a fleet to move to a system.  However, after giving this order, an enemy ship came into range of one of my ships.  That individual ship cancelled it's move order, that I had given, and instead went to attack this ship.

The AI's orders should never override your own orders, correct?  Is this a bug?



If your ship is set to Auto AND has a valid fleet posture/stance, they will do whatever is best for the posture nearly always. It is a third level of control, in that sense. The up-side is that by manually attacking something and then clicking auto AFTERWARDS your ship will complete its mission before going back to its duties. That is, unless it needs to refuel, or needs to flee, or whatever--in which case its not the posture at fault, but rather the bahavioural settings for the ship (or the empire-wide cautionary settings).


It's not an auto. It's doing this when I'm manually controlling the fleet.


In which case the problem has to be somewhere in your empire settings. The caution and flee settings in the policy menu, and some of the sneakier options in the actual options menu can affect this. As well as custom settings in ships you designed.

I'm no expert on ship design, and I usually leave my ship behavior settings (in the policy settings) on the default, and I've actually managed to eliminate most of the issues I used to have with fleets disobeying my orders thanks to being able to have an extra level of control with postures. Wish I knew what your problem was... I'll keep an eye out in game.

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Post #: 17
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/9/2011 8:35:47 PM   
feelotraveller


Posts: 1040
Joined: 9/12/2011
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: MartialDoctor

Just wanted to point something else out.  Not sure if it is intended but maybe someone can elaborate.

I've noticed that an action taken by the AI due to a fleet stance will override a command that you personally give.  For example, I recently told a fleet to move to a system.  However, after giving this order, an enemy ship came into range of one of my ships.  That individual ship cancelled it's move order, that I had given, and instead went to attack this ship.

The AI's orders should never override your own orders, correct?  Is this a bug?



It's not a bug. It has been this way since before this expansion.

When you give a ship/fleet an order it is also given an 'engagement stance'. You can cycle through these when giving the order with "," from memory. There is a setting in the options which specifies the default engagement stance for particular mission types. This will override the mission, at least temporarily. So you gave a movement order, probably with a default engagment stance of 'attack nearby targets'. Your ship saw a nearby target and attacked it. Hopefully, after completing its attack it will continue with its 'move' order (but it depends on the outcome of the attack).

It is working as designed - whether we like it or not is another question. What you can do is change the options settings, but beware this applies to all missions of this type. You should also be able to manually specify an engagement stance when giving the order but I am not sure how this works out in practice. (I seem to remember problems in RotS with this being overridden by the default engagement stance... but I coudl be wrong.)

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Post #: 18
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/10/2011 3:50:21 AM   
MartialDoctor


Posts: 388
Joined: 3/7/2011
Status: offline 		This is really, really annoying.  Why would anyone want the AI to override an order that you personally gave?

I think the idea of stances are great.  But to override orders given by a player.  How could this possibly be a good thing?

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Post #: 19
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/10/2011 4:58:41 AM   
HectorOfTroy


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quote:

ORIGINAL: MartialDoctor

This is really, really annoying.  Why would anyone want the AI to override an order that you personally gave?

I think the idea of stances are great.  But to override orders given by a player.  How could this possibly be a good thing?



I have all my fleets on manual and they always sit where I tell them and defend themelves and needed, works perfectly. If I put some ships on auto then they can do their auto thing and I'm happy with that .

If you have ships on auto then they will listen to your last order and once that is completed they will go off on their own as they are on auto.

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Post #: 20
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/10/2011 5:54:34 AM   
Gelatinous Cube


Posts: 696
Joined: 10/26/2011
Status: offline 		On the flip side, I usually only have one or two fleets on manual at any given time, out of around 50 at least. Are they disobeying because they are low on fuel, low on shields, damaged, or seriously outgunned? If so, the solution is probably in the policy settings somewhere, or in the design of your ship.

*Also, knowing how to take fleets out of Auto, give a queue of orders, and then press the automate button afterwards, is a HUGE thing. It allows you to know that your fleets are doing stuff without your intervention, while at the same time doing the specific things you want them to do. The only time this breaks down is due to combat that goes badly, poor supply, or strange settings.

< Message edited by Gelatinous Cube -- 12/10/2011 5:55:46 AM >

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Post #: 21
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/10/2011 6:24:20 AM   
Grotius


Posts: 5798
Joined: 10/18/2002
From: The Imperial Palace.
Status: offline 		I strongly recommend Gelatinous Cube's post in the War Room about postures. I learned a lot from it.

But I learned something from this thread, too. I didn't know about default engagement stances. Good to know.

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Post #: 22
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/10/2011 6:38:41 AM   
MartialDoctor


Posts: 388
Joined: 3/7/2011
Status: offline 		Well, my last situation was this.  I was moving from an enemy system into my home system.  I gave the move orders and the fleet starts to make the warp home.  Suddenly, a small fleet comes in to attack me.  3 of my ships leave the fleet to attack them while the others warp home (the fleet was set to a stance of attack nearby).  So, they disobey my move order and instead go to attack, leaving them helpless, basically, since they can't take the fleet on by themselves.

And, again, they are not set to auto, just so there is no confusion.

Before, when they were set to attack system (stance), they did this sort of thing a few times.

And, yes, I read Gelatinous's thread as well, it was very helpful.


< Message edited by MartialDoctor -- 12/10/2011 6:40:28 AM >

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Post #: 23
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/10/2011 6:41:25 AM   
Gelatinous Cube


Posts: 696
Joined: 10/26/2011
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: MartialDoctor

Well, my last situation was this.  I was moving from an enemy system into my home system.  I gave the move orders and the fleet starts to make the warp home.  Suddenly, a small fleet comes in to attack me.  3 of my ships leave the fleet to attack them while the others warp home (the fleet was set to a stance of attack nearby).  So, they disobey my move order and instead go to attack, leaving them helpless, basically, since they can't take the fleet on by themselves.

And, again, they are not set to auto, just so there is no confusion.

Before, when they were set to attack system (stance), they did this sort of thing a few times.

And, yes, I read Gelatinous's thread as well, it was very helpful.



There is absolutely a setting somewhere in the options of empire policy that affects what percentage of your fleet has to be out of fuel, damaged, or otherwise messed up before they break ranks. I just cannot remember where it is for the life of me.

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Post #: 24
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/10/2011 6:46:18 AM   
MartialDoctor


Posts: 388
Joined: 3/7/2011
Status: offline 		Ok, I did see two settings that I believe you are referring to.

First assemble when this percentage of fleet needs fuel

First assemble when this percentage of fleet is dispersed

It doesn't sound like this would affect my current situation though.  Obviously, it's not a fuel issue.  Although maybe the second one would affect it....

(in reply to Gelatinous Cube)
Post #: 25
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/10/2011 6:49:29 AM   
Gelatinous Cube


Posts: 696
Joined: 10/26/2011
Status: offline 		The other probability is that since they were on auto (they were on auto right?) they apparently valued their own estimation of the current conflict higher than yours. I have no idea on what exact protocol the AI makes its decisions when it is set to Auto--all I can say is that using postures and smart basing makes the automation far more effective at what you want it to do.

The best way to clear all this up would be to have the exact priority of orders clarified somewhere simple, but only so long as it doesn't sacrifice any depth.. I may not understand the AI all the time, but I seem to have it pretty much doing what I want.

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Post #: 26
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/10/2011 6:54:58 AM   
feelotraveller


Posts: 1040
Joined: 9/12/2011
Status: offline 		The settings G Cube is after are in the options settings under the advanced button.

Manual is never fully manual (ie. doing only what you order). Even with everything possible turned off ships will engage when attacked. One thing to pay attention to is that often ships switch between orders. An example: you give a move to system order, fine, but once they arrive in that system they switch over to no mission and pick up the appropriate engage stance.

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Post #: 27
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/10/2011 7:06:58 AM   
MartialDoctor


Posts: 388
Joined: 3/7/2011
Status: offline 		I think it's good that we have these stances that ships assume after they have completed their orders.

But I think you guys still aren't following me completely.

They have orders currently and are set to manual control. They are in the process of moving out of system. Then, a few ships come in and attack. Then the AI changes a few ships orders to attack from the orders that I gave them. These ships are all in the same fleet. The other ships do not change their orders and continue to leave the system.

And, again, they are not in auto.

Hopefully, that is clear.

< Message edited by MartialDoctor -- 12/10/2011 7:07:14 AM >

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Post #: 28
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/10/2011 7:09:14 AM   
Gelatinous Cube


Posts: 696
Joined: 10/26/2011
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: MartialDoctor

I think it's good that we have these stances that ships assume after they have completed their orders.

But I think you guys still aren't following me completely.

They have orders currently and are set to manual control. They are in the process of moving out of system. Then, a few ships come in and attack. Then the AI changes a few ships orders to attack from the orders that I gave them. These ships are all in the same fleet. The other ships do not change their orders and continue to leave the system.

And, again, they are not in auto.

Hopefully, that is clear.


Did the ships who fought back actually get shot by the enemy? The AI will ignore you to defend itself, but you can just re-affirm your order once more and it will usually get the point, unless you start getting whooped.

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Post #: 29
RE: Posture Frustrations - 12/10/2011 7:12:28 AM   
feelotraveller


Posts: 1040
Joined: 9/12/2011
Status: offline 		I understand that they are on manual (but seem my last post). I believe that the explanation is that some of your ships were close enough to the hostile ones to be considered 'nearby', and some were not. Hence the engagement stance applied to only some of the ships. If you had the engagement stance set to 'engage system targets' then (assuming that some of the fleet had not already left the system) the whole fleet would have changed its orders.

(in reply to MartialDoctor)
Post #: 30
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