Slow AI turns (1.13)

[raynor]

In another thread, someone speculated the new delays are related to the AI chasing after other AI ships in repeated combats. In other words, pre 1.13, the combat between a frigate and a colony ship might just end unresolved until the next turn. But now in 1.13, the colony ship will retreat and the frigate will chase it--thus triggering a new combat. This will then continue until the strategic movement of either ship has been exhausted.

If this is the case, (and I have no idea since it was just someone else's speculation), then I hope Malfador will make the whole retreat setup a configurable option. In other words, with one toggle, allow folks to choose the limited combat map of SEIV.

All the alternatives seem significantly more complicated. Here are some ideas:

1. Increase the strategic movement expended when you retreat. Let's call it the "tax" on "flooring" your engines to escape and say that you instead expend two or more strategic movement points. If the AI turn delays are related to multiple combats, then increasing the retreat penalty to two lost movement points will at least HALVE the number of repeated combats. This may be the absolute easiest fix. (Again, this is all based on one long line of assumptions. )

2. An alternative that would be harder to code and probably not even remotely workable would be one where the game calculates in advance whether or not one ship is likely to pursue the other one, compares their movement points and then determines if one ship can retreat from the other one. For example, consider two scenarios:

A. A Frigate with more remaining movement points than a Colony Ship attacks the colony ship. Let's assume the colony ship will run and the frigate will chase. If the Frigate has more movement than the colony ship, do not let the colony ship retreat. Then, when the combat is over, you may want to set the Frigate's remaining movement points to Frigate Movement - Colony Ship Movement. Of course, to be "fair", you might say the Frigate needs to be moved in some random direction "towards" the most like escape path of the colony ship. But I say you should just forget about that one. Let's just say they had a long and circuitous escape route in just one sector.

B. A Frigate with less movement points than a Colony Ship attacks. Because the colony ship has more movement points left, it *can* retreat. After the retreat, the Colony Ship will have a new strategic movement total that is its previous total minus the movement points of the Frigate. Similarly, the frigate will have its strategic movement points reduced to zero. Again, ideally, you would might want both ships to have moved a number of spaces on the strategic map. Again, for the sake of simplicity, I say to just ignore that.

Oops. I guess I better get to work.