"Worst AI ever"? Really?
And since you mentioned tanks, I had a thought: Have you seen the movie "Saving Ryan's Private" (err... Make that "Saving Private Ryan"? At the end Tom Hanks was shooting at a tank with a pistol; why, you ask? Because he's desperate, and he's got nothing to lose.

So what if the Dragons and Junkers pull you over even though you're stronger than they are? Maybe they're stoned... afterall they are called the "Junkers".

another weak point in the ai is definitely the shield issue. i mean, why don't the npcs RELOAD their shields? and why don't they repair the hull, if necessary? they just let you tear them apart instead. why?

referring to the "stoned junkers" theory i must conclude, that the whole surius sector traffic is totally on drugs. for not only junkers and other criminals tend to fire cruise disruptors at superior enemies, but also the corporation pilots, the cops and the navy - as long as you've previously ruined your reputation with them.

as for the tom hanks - style - desperation: well, he had nothing else to try, but shoot the tank with a pistol. however, the pirates (and everybody else) could simply leave you alone (and stay alive).

conclusion: yep, the ai sucks MAJOR a§§.

What I don't get is how they always target the PC, like they know that if the PC dies they will be fine until he reloads.

Flying with the dragons, assaulting the arch....I had a good, at least, 10-12 dragons with me. Now, when I get into the fight, I'm getting hit all the time from every angle, how in the hell do the Arch fighters manage to kill off 5 or 6 of my dragons when I am taking about all their firepower. In some of the other later missions, against enemies with no cruise disruptors I never left cruise speed. I just sped around and around and around while King and Juni killed about 10-15 enemy military ships.

Happened early in the game too. Im in a Rhino, carrying boron, surrounded by a vicious attack force. Why are they ALL targetting the Rhino with 2 turrets which are not even firing as opposed to the 10 fighter ships tearing their ranks apart?

The AI singles out the PC and that makes it really unrealistic. There should be a script or function that weighs what ship you are flying, what armaments you are carrying, what types of cargo after a scan and who else is in the immediate area and also pilot skill to a degree.

the AI still bothers me, I mean whenever I'm near combat zone, the enemy will drop whatever they're doing and attack me even though there are 3 friendly(to me) ship attacking it...i can waste that little fly in 3 shots, and yet they choose to engage me...
Often the enemy ship is trying to flee when shield is gone, hull is low, i just chase after it and destroy it. cruise distruptors is too easy, i just want to see if that enemy ship will turn around and attack me again once it found its friend.

@ grapedog

why do they target your non firing rhino full of precious boron and not the 10 fighters that are attaking them? hmm lets see .... mayb because your cargo is worth a lot of money ???
ever tought about that?
IF i engage a transport ship for its cargo i also ignore the fighters
why? if i would kill the figthers first the transport has enough time to flee
is it so hard to understand that the computer thinks in the same way? if they would target the fighters u might flee and then they just let a nice cargo slip trough their fingers

about the fighters suddenly ignoring 3 other ships that are shooting at them and engaging u once u are too close ... i just guess that its to make the game a bit more interesting
if enemies would ignore u if they r fighting with other enemies u could just fly around without having many fights. pretty boring dont u think?
+ u are often stronger than the police/navy that is fighting off some enemies
so its pretty obvious that they want to take out the strongest first so the rest of the fight is easy for them

and i can also compare this with the missions u can take
if u have to kill a certain person he s often not at the first mission waypoint and u end up fighting off some of his buddies
they r often very low lvl and arent really a challenge
but then at the moment your primary target arrives i also switch to him and ignore all of his buddies
why? because he often has a much higher lvl than his buddies and is a bigger treat.
once he s down the others are easy to finish

think about it. makes a lot of sence and i have no problem with the AI acting as it does now

Doesn't matter what your ship is. The AI will disengage their current enemy and attack you... drives me nuts.

And as for the lane attacked. You disrupt the lane by taking out the actual propeller (whatever that thing is) is it's like a grab-bag They don't intentionally choose you as their target, they're just having a bad day

During missions I have noticed that the comp keeps a set number of enemies on me, took my battle wagon and tried quite a few cheap missions, against 4 enemies with mission wingmen, I noticed that 2 almost always went for me and 2 for the my wingmen, as I kill one, another would break off from the wingmen and attack me. This is keeping a great distance from myself and my wingmen. If you mix it up in a close firefight it seems they go after nearest target of opportunity, but you still have priority if your within their weapon range. Although its not always possible, keeping your distance from the main skirmish will help limit the number of enemies you get, but seems like you will at least always end up with half.

My favourite is still the gang slayings when emerging from jumpholes, gates, and stations. The comp gives them a couple seconds to whomp on ya before it gives you control of your immobile ship.

I think many of the issues discussed here relate to play-balancing. Sure, the enemy ship AI prefers to target the player, even over other ships that are actually attacking them, but this keeps things challenging for the player.

As for AI ships not using shield batteries and nanobots, again a balancing thing. Your ability to self-repair (and your shield regenerating when theirs hardly does) balances their superior numbers against you. Geez, can you imagine how tough it would be to battle 4 AI VHFs if their shields regenerated, and they carried full stocks of batteries and nanobots, and used them as appropriate?... yikes.

Sometimes low-level ships attack you despite your being clearly more powerful, but sometimes they DO run at the sight of you. Two possible explanations for this may be strength-in-numbers, and the concept of veterancy. A lone pirate may not have the guts to take you on; but if there's a pack of them, they may take a shot at you, thinking they can bug out if they get cut up too badly. And you've probably noticed in the NPC pilot names a rank like "rookie", "veteran", or "ace"; perhaps this measure of their level of "skill" also influences their bravado.

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why do they target your non firing rhino full of precious boron and not the 10 fighters that are attaking them? hmm lets see .... mayb because your cargo is worth a lot of money ???
ever tought about that?
IF i engage a transport ship for its cargo i also ignore the fighters
why? if i would kill the figthers first the transport has enough time to flee
is it so hard to understand that the computer thinks in the same way? if they would target the fighters u might flee and then they just let a nice cargo slip trough their fingers

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Except they do the same thing even when roles are reversed. Targetting you instead of the transport full with 1 million diamonds. Which I would then quickly target myself

If you think this is the worst AI ever you have never played HoMM 4

I actually think the AI is pretty okay, and does a good job at evading your shots.

If you want to see bad pilot AI, try X-Tension. If an enemy in that game gets damaged , he will try to get away from combat and reload his shields. Sounds like a good plan? Theoretically, yes, but enemies in X-Tension try to retreat by merely flying away from you in a straight line - so you can basically sit on their tail for minutes, keeping their shields down, without them trying to shake you.

"why do they target your non firing rhino full of precious boron and not the 10 fighters that are attaking them? hmm lets see .... mayb because your cargo is worth a lot of money ???"

When is boron worth a lot of money when near Pittsburgh for example...and when was the last time you saw a liberty rogue heading off to stokes or ld-14 because he had a big load of boron?

A pirate who never leaves New York or even Liberty should have cargo priorities. If cargo is greater than -- in Liberty then attack freight ship, if cargo is less than -- in Liberty, attack hostile enemy ships. The only exception I could see to this is usefullness. Water, Oxygen and Consumer Goods might be cheap, but they are also needed by everyone...boron is not.

Also, better leveled opponents. Liberty Rogues get better light/medium/heavy ships as the character progress increases as well. Not exactly the same, but at least SOME increase so I can still find a challange in Liberty....sad little Xeno's in their Starfliers.

I love the fact that enemies bob and weave and do it well, circling around and bringing you back in towards weapon platforms or their buddies, but I've only once seen an opponent jump into warp speed and I think it was a SP mission or perhaps a kill this guy random mission. But in the many days of play time only one NPC jumped...i sold my cruise disruptor...it's useless so far and thats level 25 right now.

I would love to see the enemies profile ships according to criteria.

Cargo, type of ship, PC or NPC, weapon loadout, pc level, location. All those triggers could make leveled AI much more interesting. The shields and nano-bots thing I'm still up in the air. I would like to see them use them sometimes, but other times it would make it REALLY tough with the numbers you have to face. It would also make weapons that do major hull or shield damage more interesting and possibly more popular which would be good.

Would love to see more criminal groups working together, or criminal groups moving to other nearby systems and possibly joining up to other criminal groups. Rogues and Molly's for instance in Lib/Bret...

The AI isn't that bad...

I am flying a Titan with a couple class 10 weaps....

I have run across this a lot:

Travelling a Tradelane....It gets hacked....

I hear over the Comm.....Something along the lines of "The enemy is too strong right now, I'm bugging out"

That's with 2-4 ships...No matter if it's Rogues or Corsairs....

When it's 6-10...They stay and fight until I kill all but 2 to 3...then they start bugging out.

They target you most of the time, because you are the greatest threat.I have been flying around in a dinky startracker...and I WATCHED some rogues attack defenders before turning on me.

As for the cargo ships....What makes more sense: Take out the cargo ship while it's escort, or some other stronger ships are around you don't like, or attacking the cargo ship while they procede to hand your rear end to you?

I think the AI is mostly good...Except when you "Go To" and it bounces you off a station....or rams you into the planet....

-Arg

-Narf