[Starman01]

Hey,

as always the AI is my biggest problem in mission programming, it does what it wants

I have a group of capitalships centered around my carrier. The formation is quite open, between each ships is around 1000 meters distance.

Now I have several group of bombers coming in, and I want them to ignore the escorts and go straight for the carrier. But no matter what I do, after a few seconds they drop their goal and start bombing the other capships. I have dynamic goals disabled (in ship- and in wing-edit), and I also gave the wings additional orders (first 4 ignore orders to evade the escortships near their arrival position, and at last the "attack carrier" command)

So what do I have to do, that these suckers ignore the escorts and their AA-Fire and go straight for the carrier in the center ?

[Shade]

The attack order is set to a priority of 89 right? You could also temporarily protect the escorts during the initial bombing run.

[Starman01]

Yes, I have all goals set to 89. But the "protect ship" is a good Idea, didn't thought about that. Gotta try that

[Starman01]

No, that's not working either, it's really driving me crazy  I really wish it would be possible to give AI orders with 100% priority.
The bombers / the AI react on the AA-Fire of the escort ships and therefore attack them or defend themselves.

Any other solutions for that ?

[Trivial Psychic]

Wait a minute... you've given ships "protect ship" flags, and the AI are STILL attacking it?  That sounds like an SCP bug to me.

[karajorma]

What about simply ticking the no dynamic orders box? They should do exactly what ordered to do then and nothing else.

[Starman01]

What about simply ticking the no dynamic orders box? They should do exactly what ordered to do then and nothing else.

I already have. Both in Ships editor AND wingeditor, and also tried both in single variant

[karajorma]

Sounds like a bug. Test it in a simpler mission to make certain and then mantis it. (post the simple mission too).

[Shade]

Just tested this with the Jan. 29th build (using that since it has yet to crash on me) and using your protect/ignore combo works just fine there. So if it's a bug, it has happened since then. The simple test mission can be found Here. I'll grab the latest build and see if that behaves differently.

[karajorma]

Which build were you using that did have the bug?

[Shade]

Newest build also acts as it's supposed to. Only time the protected cruiser in the test mission takes damage is when it destroys bombs aimed for the unprotected one and gets caught in the shockwave. Also tried different AI levels for the bombers, but it made no difference. Would you be able to post the mission that's giving you problems (assuming it's not classified campaign material) so perhaps we can try to duplicate it?

[Edit] Ignore and protect on their own seem to work as they should too.

[Starman01]

I'm using a build from the december (Release from 18.12.). I'm forced to use that one since the new fred doesn't work for us and older fredmissions aren't compatible with newer builds (which actually angers me more each day, since the old builds are so buggy  )
It's always a bad idea breaking compatibility. I haven't get any response yet on the error I mantised, I can only hope that someday someone will take it at hand. So long, it is not possible building missions with the newer FRED when you position objects in great distances

[Shade]

Ok. Tried making a test mission for the build you're using (dec. 18. 2005. Surprisingly, it ran flawlessly... I must have done something right recently to so luckily avoid crashes), and I still can't get this problem to occur. The bomber wing merrily flies right past the pissed-off-but-protected leviathan to attack the disabled and unprotected one further away. All the while being pelted by 4 AAAf's as well as plasma turrets, having their own bombs blown up in their faces, and generally being seriously messed up.

You can get the 18.12. compatible test mission Here. If it works as it's supposed to for you, too, then it may simply be that you've overlooked something in FRED and that's the cause of the whole thing. Again, if you can post the mission without revealing anything secret, we may be able to help you track that down. But even if you can't post it due to secrecy, at least you'll know to look it over again and that it can in fact work even with your older build

[Starman01]

Well, It's not that I have so many problems sharing stuff with people willing to help me, but it's just a little difficult making the mission work in Freespace (actually I don't even have a working freespace installation )

I'll try again, but I can't imagine what I should change else. Maybe the problem is with our AI.tbl ? I have no Idea. Currently the mission features all 4 possibilities. No dynamic goals in each ship's editor, the no dynamic goals in Wing edit and also seperate "ignore capship" goals and the protect ships option.

What did you use, only the "protect ship" option ?

[Shade]

I used all three, protect, ignore and no dynamic goals. Actually now I think about it, I only checked no dynamic goals in the wings editor, not for individual ships.

I can't really say if ai.tbl has anything to do with it. One, I've never messed with it, and two, I tested it on a basic scp install (mediavps only). I suppose some errant table might mess things up though, it has certainly happened before. If I had to make a guess, I'd be more likely to pin the blame on species.tbl, that has caused all sorts of weird errors regardling AI behaviour. But you can just try the mission I put up and see for yourself - I know it works on the build, so if it doesn't for you, it's something else.

But I'm not much of a modder so table problems honestly are really not my ballgame. I just FRED and occasionally try to get acquainted with the source. Well, mostly just the sexp part of it for now, since that seems the easiest point of entry.

Regardless, good luck It sucks spending hours on a mission only to have something not work and not being able to find out why.

[Starman01]

Hm, tested your mission and it seems to work fine. Though two fighters flown a evasive maneuver due to the AA-Fire, they didn't attack the first destroyer and approached right on the second. I will have to try it again only with the protect ship stuff, maybe that will solve my problem.