This is a frustrating NPR behavior which I've been going back and forth on whether it is a bug or merely an undesired behavior, but I think this is a poor enough game experience since v2.0, for reasons given below, that it should be considered a bug:I've noticed in several instances that NPR ships/fleets which appear to have an objective set that requires them to go to a particular planet have a janky interaction if they detect a player ship or fleet at that planet which they deem sufficiently threatening, usually when hostilities exist between the two races. What happens is the following:
- NPR ship on approach to the planet detects the player's ship or fleet.
- NPR ship changes course to retreat.
- NPR ship apparently "forgets" that they have a known contact for the player fleet at that planet.
- NPR ship approaches the planet and detects player's ship or fleet.
- Repeat ad infinitum.
This creates a situation where the player must either (1) attack and destroy, or at least chase off, the NPR ship, or (2) use short increments
ad infinitum until the player is in a position to do (1). For various reasons, including roleplay, (1) may not be possible or desirable which forces the negative play experience of (2) unless the player prefers to use SM/DB means to resolve the issue. For example, in my current game this is occurring near a colony which is guarded by one ship, and while my knowledge of the NPR AI tells me that it is fine to go attack and destroy the other ship, in-character it wouldn't make sense to leave the planet unguarded in the face of a possible bait-and-switch trap, thus I am gritting my teeth and using automatic increments to advance time slowly but surely.
I have noticed this behavior in the past but it is
significantly more common
since the introduction of the Raiders in v2.0, as the Raider scouts absolutely love to do this kind of thing all the time, since they are naturally hostile to every other race and have rock-checking missions hardcoded into their AI. This leads me to seriously question if I want to play with Raiders active, simply because I don't enjoy having to pass between construction cycles using 5-minute increments. I have also noticed complaints about this phenomenon on the subreddit.Note that if the player does not use a short increment, the NPR ship will at some point cover sufficient distance to reach the planet from "out of sensor range" in one big step, so just using a large increment is not a workaround.
My suggested fix is that NPRs should remember the sensor contact for the player's fleet for an appropriate amount of time (8 hours, 1 day, or 5 days all seem reasonable to me) and behave as if it expects there to be an enemy ship there, instead of getting surprised again every two increments. Alternatively or additionally, NPRs could increment their danger level for a system if they detect a player fleet and consider them hostile, which should eventually convince them to either retreat and try again somewhere else, or else commit a force to battle instead of dancing back and forth at the edge of sensor range.