Repeated Jumps

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I'm running a test campaign and I have encountered the issue where an NPR is jumping a ship back and forth through the same stabilised jump point, causing a long series of small increments. I am considering the best option to prevent this behaviour and welcome any suggestions. For example, should jump shock prevent a ship from jumping again until it wears off?

[TheTalkingMeowth]

That seems like an appropriate solution.  The only issue that springs to mind would be in making it really, really hard to probe defended jump points. But that might not be a bad thing.

[cdrtwohy]

That seems like an appropriate solution.  The only issue that springs to mind would be in making it really, really hard to probe defended jump points. But that might not be a bad thing.

honestly that might be a good thing i second Meowth's suggestion Steve

[Droll]

The idea of jump shock preventing jumps I think is a good idea on its own but I am uncertain how that would solve the issue at hand.

This just sounds like instead of 5s increments you will be stuck at 1-2min increments forever.

Why would the AI opt to repeatedly transit through the same JP connection is what I would want to know.

[Iceranger]

I'm running a test campaign and I have encountered the issue where an NPR is jumping a ship back and forth through the same stabilised jump point, causing a long series of small increments. I am considering the best option to prevent this behaviour and welcome any suggestions. For example, should jump shock prevent a ship from jumping again until it wears off?

What is the logic for the NPR jumping back and forth through the same JP? Perhaps fixing that loophole will resolve this issue? Adding a jump shock will likely just change the behavior from '5-s hell' to 'a-few-minute hell'.

I recall someone also reported a similar issue caused by a geo survey ship with the 'survey unsurveyed system' standing order, jumping back and forth between 2 partially surveyed systems, where the remaining bodies are more than 10bkm from the JP (so the standing order won't add such bodies to the order list automatically). This situation should also be fixed better by fixing the underlying reason causing the situation.

[Demonius]

Maybe have it only cause jump shock jump drive interrupt on hulls above FAC class? So you can still peek a boo with a Fighter/FAC as a player?

[Blogaugis]

Um... It does not prevent it now..? Like, you jump in the new system, suffer jump shock, then you have a bad feeling about this, order to jump back, you do, and thus you've evaded like several hundreds of AMMs and ASMs and a bunch of other stuff?
Then... what does jump shock even do now?

[TheTalkingMeowth]

Maybe have it only cause jump shock jump drive interrupt on hulls above FAC class? So you can still peek a boo with a Fighter/FAC as a player?

NPRs use FACs too though. Especially the Swarm.

[Gabrote42]

Um... It does not prevent it now..? Like, you jump in the new system, suffer jump shock, then you have a bad feeling about this, order to jump back, you do, and thus you've evaded like several hundreds of AMMs and ASMs and a bunch of other stuff?
Then... what does jump shock even do now?

Disables Active Sensors if I remember correctly, so you can't fight for a long time if you don't Squadron Jump

[nuclearslurpee]

For example, should jump shock prevent a ship from jumping again until it wears off?

Yes. I will echo other sentiment that ideally the poor AI logic that causes these things to happen would be corrected, but even so there is no good reason for the NPR ships to have this cheap way of rendering JP defenses impotent.

Why would the AI opt to repeatedly transit through the same JP connection is what I would want to know.

What is the logic for the NPR jumping back and forth through the same JP? Perhaps fixing that loophole will resolve this issue? Adding a jump shock will likely just change the behavior from '5-s hell' to 'a-few-minute hell'.

What I can gather is that there are a lot of reasons. One example from recent practice: NPRs do consume fuel, but their ships are still able to move when out of fuel and the NPR is coded to send such ships to the nearest refueling location. This can cause a behavior loop where the NPR will jump into a system because it is on the way to a fuel depot (in this case the NPR home system), however they will then immediately jump back out because the system has a very high threat rating - because I have occupied the system and blown up a lot of their ships. Notably, they will jump out even if they did not actually detect any of my ships in-system.

Based on this it seems like the NPR should be checking the danger rating of a system before they jump into it, not after. I think this would solve a large amount of the problems that currently occur.

[Droll]

For example, should jump shock prevent a ship from jumping again until it wears off?

Yes. I will echo other sentiment that ideally the poor AI logic that causes these things to happen would be corrected, but even so there is no good reason for the NPR ships to have this cheap way of rendering JP defenses impotent.

Why would the AI opt to repeatedly transit through the same JP connection is what I would want to know.

What is the logic for the NPR jumping back and forth through the same JP? Perhaps fixing that loophole will resolve this issue? Adding a jump shock will likely just change the behavior from '5-s hell' to 'a-few-minute hell'.

What I can gather is that there are a lot of reasons. One example from recent practice: NPRs do consume fuel, but their ships are still able to move when out of fuel and the NPR is coded to send such ships to the nearest refueling location. This can cause a behavior loop where the NPR will jump into a system because it is on the way to a fuel depot (in this case the NPR home system), however they will then immediately jump back out because the system has a very high threat rating - because I have occupied the system and blown up a lot of their ships. Notably, they will jump out even if they did not actually detect any of my ships in-system.

Based on this it seems like the NPR should be checking the danger rating of a system before they jump into it, not after. I think this would solve a large amount of the problems that currently occur.

In the specific example you gave I would argue that the NPR should just ignore threat rating. This could result in tactically unsound movements but I would consider that the consequences of an NPR running out of fuel and not necessarily bad design.

However in the more general sense your suggestion of checking threat before not after is still good if not already implemented.

Edit: Your comment regarding JP defenses becoming impotent has me confused. Surely jump shock preventing ships from immediately jumping out would do the opposite? You effectively force yourself to take 1-2 mins of weapons fire instead of 5s when you jump in on a defended JP.

[nuclearslurpee]

Edit: Your comment regarding JP defenses becoming impotent has me confused. Surely jump shock preventing ships from immediately jumping out would do the opposite? You effectively force yourself to take 1-2 mins of weapons fire instead of 5s when you jump in on a defended JP.

To clarify, I mean player JP defenses against NPRs, as the NPRs jumping out at a 5s increment makes it impossible to actually fire on them. Strategically I suppose the job is still done, but it's extremely frustrating and annoying to not be able to shoot things, with ships designed to shoot things, in a game about shooting things.

[Blogaugis]

Disables Active Sensors if I remember correctly, so you can't fight for a long time if you don't Squadron Jump

Ah, so passives still stay.
I suppose jump shock should do more than that. Leaving the ships sitting ducks.

Although, if the jump point is stabilised... Although wait - unstabilised jump point does not allow any kind of movement through it? While stabilised - jump shock if non-squadron jump, normal transit if squadron jump?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

What is the logic for the NPR jumping back and forth through the same JP? Perhaps fixing that loophole will resolve this issue.

There are two mutually hostile non-combat NPR fleets on the same jump point. They both try to escape the other by transiting the jump point, at which point they find themselves in the exact same situation - repeat ad nauseam.

Unless jump shock was identical for both fleets, one would transit before the other and break the cycle.

[Iceranger]

What is the logic for the NPR jumping back and forth through the same JP? Perhaps fixing that loophole will resolve this issue.

There are two mutually hostile non-combat NPR fleets on the same jump point. They both try to escape the other by transiting the jump point, at which point they find themselves in the exact same situation - repeat ad nauseam.

Unless jump shock was identical for both fleets, one would transit before the other and break the cycle.

I agree that in this particular case, adding a random jump shock will break the cycle. Although in the cases mentioned by others, jump shock doesn't really fix the real issue.

Maybe for the NPR, instead of making decisions using "if A then do B" logic, some randomness can be added into the decision-making, like "if A then x% do B, y% do C, ...". The list of options and the weight of each option can be determined by say the race's properties, or the battlefield conditions (such as friend-foe force ratio, or known intel about the ships insight). This way, the NPRs will not always make the same decision in the same situation. In this particular example, if one NPR knows the other NPR's ships are non-combat, it may decide no need to escape, or the NPR with a 'larger' fleet may decide not to escape.