Illithid Shuffle - Why?

[Norfleet]

Units ordered to fire will advance until a designated enemy is in range of their weapons, then fire.

Illithids have a prec-100, unlimited-range attack. Why is it that Illithids can be sometimes observed to perform this ground-shuffle instead of remaining in their orderly block? It's not that they can't reach their targets, obviously, because their attack is unlimited range and can hit anyone anywhere on the battlefield with perfect accuracy....so why do they do move at all, while they still have ammo?

[Yossar]

I've never seen Ilithids move before they run out of ammo when they're set on fire. What kind of circustances have you observed this under?

[calmon]

Maybe all the enemies were mindless?

[ June 04, 2004, 06:26: Message edited by: calmon ]

[Cohen]

Commander can't be mindless ... but perhaps it has been killed and enemy was immobile on battle field.

[Yossar]

Originally posted by Cohen:
Commander can't be mindless ... but perhaps it has been killed and enemy was immobile on battle field.

Golem is a mindless commander and there might be a few others.

[Norfleet]

No, they didn't start moving because there were no valid targets, they merely shuffled a few squares randomly forwards, then resumed firing, just like archers sometimes do when their targets are out of range....except Illithids CAN'T be out of range.

So why do they do that?

Originally posted by Norfleet:
except Illithids CAN'T be out of range.

Are you sure that prec 100 = 100% to hit ?
I've seen a Smite missing its target recently.
Nobody seems to know how does precision _exactly_ works, BTW...
Cheers

[HJ]

It seems that AI for ranged units was adjusted a bit so that they don't cause as much friendly fire incidents any more. Usually they'll move forward to get a better shot, or just do something when there are lots of friendlies around the target. Maybe the illithids just follow the pattern of the ranged combat AI, even though their shots are 100%?

[Reverend Zombie]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

So why do they do that?

To get their groove on?

But seriously, is there a line-of-sight check that goes on, I wonder?

Maybe they are trying to "see" their targets better, even though they can't miss.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by HJ:
It seems that AI for ranged units was adjusted a bit so that they don't cause as much friendly fire incidents any more. Usually they'll move forward to get a better shot, or just do something when there are lots of friendlies around the target. Maybe the illithids just follow the pattern of the ranged combat AI, even though their shots are 100%?

Well, I've noticed that this behavior has occurred in every single patch edition up to 2.11, and this has been observed to occur even when friendly units are not engaged with the target.

Originally posted by Reverend Zombie:
But seriously, is there a line-of-sight check that goes on, I wonder?

Maybe they are trying to "see" their targets better, even though they can't miss.

That's an interesting theory, although it doesn't necessarily hold much water as Illithids don't have any problems firing at targets on the back wall without shuffling around, and often shuffle around in an attempt to fire at targets closer than that...plus there's no evidence that there's any LOS blocking at all, as archers will happily fire at other archers even though both sides are screened behind block walls of large, tall units which would certainly block LOS if there was one.