modding issue
 

After making various modifications to the SE IV data files to account for my own personal tastes, I've been confronted with a problem that has completely thwarted the realization of my own humble galactic domination.

When sending a ship into strategic combat, it will totally avoid the enemy. It simply flies into a corner on the map regardless of how much more heavier-armed armed it is than its opponent. The exact same problem when my ship is up against a single planet with absolutely no defenses, it just zooms away from the battle.

I've messed around a bit and discovered that the absence of a spaceyard component, any cargo components, and both the gravitational condenser and resonator will make the problem go away and the ship will merrily lay to waste any enemy on the battlemap. However, I really like those components.

Does anyone recognize what the problem might be? I'm completely at a loss here.

Re: modding issue
 

Look at the ship's default strategy visible in the ship design screen - it is likely being set to 'Don't Get Hurt'.

Re: modding issue
 

Ah, that is the cause.

What could have resulted in that strategy being set like that? I've never had this problem before, and I can't think of anything I could have done different this time around.

I did, though, set the default ai to defensive when creating the empire, but I corrected that to neutral when trying to fix the problem myself and I see that new ships are still being automatically set to "don't get hurt".

Re: modding issue
 

Always set your strategy after creating/editing a design.

When the game has to guess it very rarely turns out good.

Re: modding issue
 

Hah, alright.

Thanks for the help, all.