Quote from: Froggiest1982 on July 14, 2025, 04:45:25 PM

I was reading and waiting to see where this was going. I can see only a couple of solutions that would not end up in a Risk stalemate where you just piling up armies on the other side of a jump point:

• Going back to the old advantage where NPR have no jump shock to deal with, effectively "cheating", or by giving them a reduced jump shock, so that you are still getting the advantage but for limited amount of time compared to the current and player
• AI would send a scout in advance prior jumping and if an enemy fleet is on the other side would decide if the mission they are carrying over justifies the risk and pretty much still ending up wiped out eventually

The problem with 1 is that we are trying to get away from cheating AIs in favor of a more "smart" one. The problem with 2 is that we could go back to the old peeking problem with scouts jumping in and out systems every cycle.

We could have a random zero-time jump shock, valid also for the player.

• Going back to the old advantage where NPR have no jump shock to deal with, effectively "cheating", or by giving them a reduced jump shock, so that you are still getting the advantage but for limited amount of time compared to the current and player
• AI would send a scout in advance prior jumping and if an enemy fleet is on the other side would decide if the mission they are carrying over justifies the risk and pretty much still ending up wiped out eventually

Exciting stuff. Looks like the multi-system NPR is working as intended. Forward surveyors are a must here as is a robust auxiliary corps to establish bases as you advance through enemy territory.

Various comments I had from reading this:

• Will NPRs ever get suspicious that a system holds a dormant JP and resurvey it? It seems like the player could have the option to jump into a system, meet a dangerous NPR, and then just hide behind that dormant JP forever to completely mitigate the threat until they feel like invading, while the NPR doesn't really know how to defend itself in this situation.
• It seems like NPRs in general don't understand how to handle jump points. With the tech + doctrine disadvantage, I don't think this NPR would ever have a chance to win a JP assault anyways, but I don't think they at any point used a squadron jump to get out of beam range and/or reduce the jump shock time to get their weapons online quicker. Either tactic might have enabled the Vorchan to at least do some damage.
• Similarly, the NPR would have been smarter to defend at the JPs where they could fight an engagement better suited to their fleet doctrine. Missile fleets are awful on the attack, but defensively they can mass fire against a fleet dispersed after a squadron jump to at least kill something.
• I notice the Vorchan never combined fleets to achieve superior mass, despite this supposedly being added to the AI some time ago.
• I'm curious if you have other thoughts on NPR performance here. Again, they have a tech disadvantage (or at least a lack of advantage coupled to an ill-fitting doctrine), but between this and the previous Japanese campaign it seems like NPR lack of tactical skill is the major weak spot right now.
• Maybe future campaigns should be played with a difficulty above 100%, so the NPRs generally have more of a tech advantage to counter the player's advantage of not being as dumb as a bag of rocks. 

Probably some others I forgot in reading this majestic epic of an update...

Hoping that this one goes on long enough to meet other NPRs including these mythical NPR carriers we have been promised! 

• I don't think there is resurvey code right now, although they can still find the jump point by detecting a transit.
• Jump point assaults are tricky for the NPRs as it stands. I haven't updated their ship designs to take account of the jump point changes, plus NPR fleets have AI that functions differently depending on their role, so splitting them up for a while with independent actions before they recombine needs new AI code. I just need to devote some time to it.
• After losing some fleets, they did position some defensively at jump points. Also, I think something else is going on because fleets keep moving across their Empire into the areas I haven't seen yet. They may be fighting someone else too.
• The NPRs will combine fleets, although I think that is currently a tactical (System AI) choice, not a strategic one (Empire AI).
• Aurora is very complex so the AI is never going to be competitive with an experienced human player. The AI struggles in many AAA titles with large dev teams and much simpler mechanics - plus I suspect the average Aurora player is smarter than the average gamer, which makes the AI gap wider. All I can really do is keep adding new considerations for the AI and tweaking the code as problems present themselves.