Some suggestions to avoid unending grav well relays

[GoogleCodeExporter]

The only drawback to dynamic movement is the "unending grav well relay,"
wherenin you chase someone forever or they chase you forever b/c you're
right in front of/behind someone.

Playing as the Roms, I think that this is a huge problem, and I think I
know why.  The Rom Z-1 gets caught up in this all the time b/c it has only
forward facing weapons.  Similarly, the Rom Colonizer has no aft weapons,
and it also gets caught up in this.

I strongly recommend an aft weapon for all cap ships (these two are the
only ones I've seen that don't seem to have them, though I haven't checked
the klinks).  Putting an aft weapon on them completely solved this problem
and avoided the huge headache of finding your ships halfway across the
screen at sublight.  The weapons don't have to be huge, just enough to take
on the local militia.  I would recommend values, but it seems you have the
"balance" tables set up.  

The AI is awesome now, and this is probably the only drawback to them,
since a human figures this out quickly.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by thomas.s...@gmail.com on 9 Jan 2010 at 6:34

[GoogleCodeExporter]

A better method of fixing it is having no two ship classes move at the same 
speed. 
Even a fairly minor advantage in speed will allow a pursuing ship to break off 
the
attack and swing back, breaking the flight of the pursued ship, which will then 
swing
around itself, returning them to a reasonable manner of behavior.  It's only 
those
situations where the targeted ship moves at the exact same speed that the 
fleeing
vessel flees indefinitely.

Original comment by psych...@gmail.com on 10 Jan 2010 at 8:50

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Eh, that's possible, but I wouldn't want to count on it.  With the Z-1, for 
instance,
it just about gets to where it can swing around to attack a ship behind it (gets
enough distance between it and the ship behind it), and then as it starts 
swinging
around it loses speed, the distance closes, and it's once again headed out to
nowhere, albeit at a slightly different angle.  Note that none of the Rom ships 
seem
to be able to catch the Z-1 and a single militia bomber if they head off to 
nowhere.

When you also add on whether ships can heal faster than an occasional shot, I'm 
not
sure it works.  Note that the only ships I've seen do it lately are the Romulan 
ships
w/ no aft weapons, and then only the Z-1 gets really bad b/c at least the 
colonizer
has port/starboard weapons.

Original comment by thomas.s...@gmail.com on 10 Jan 2010 at 10:28

[GoogleCodeExporter]

resized the gravity wells again

Original comment by jtaylor...@gmail.com on 18 Jan 2010 at 7:50

• Changed state: Fixed