Captains AI, brain surgery and "Get lost" command

[sbm311]

Almost finished the another walkthrough of this great game and have some thoughts about it. I'll start with AI captains seemed to me very strange that some of the same captains circle around me as a leash. It does not matter wherever I flew, even on the other side of the map, they always hang out somewhere nearby, while all the other captains behave normally. There is nothing wrong, but a little annoy to see one and same faces. I have not seen this before the new year update.

"Get lost" command does not work for me. I know the response time 3 minutes of map time. But even after it banished captains still hung near my capital, where I chased them away. I flew a little bit to make war on the other side of the map, after returning saw two familiar faces (banished) near the capital. I can offer to make "Get lost" command instantaneous.
Imagine the situation talking killer and victim in the room:
- Go away, or I'll kill you (pulls out a weapon)
- Ok, ok ... after half an hour (makes himself comfortable, asked the killer to bring tea)
- But, but I'm going to kill you ... (attempting to convince with a plaintive expression)
- No matter, I will rise again a moment later (then catch the bullet)
A moment later, the victim enters the room:
- So you give me some tea? :)

By the way, after new year update has become much more difficult to recruit captains in your faction. Previously, they filled 50% of available slots on their own, personally had to hire the remaining 10% after which they started to leave. Now, with difficulty holding half-filled slots for captains. It became more interesting in this respect.

Lastly brain surgery. I think it is useless. These features are not worth spent reputation or resources. Nothing prevents cured captain in a minute again become a zombie. Lobotomy and murder have bad influence on the reputation and at the same time do not bring little or no benefit. If anyone knows a really interesting use of brain surgery, tell, I will gladly try it in one of the future walkthroughs.

[Novaflux]

Lobotomy and execution function as relation-resets.

It gets kinda hard to max out your faction (member-wise)inthe later states of the game as you most likely will have created lots of enemies, so you can just clear their memories and recruit them.

You mentioned above how some captains just keep coming back and annoy you, so instead of killing them over and over again just execute them / brainsurgery(lobotomy) to wipe their memories. This way you can recruit them or atleast reset their relation with you so they won't keep coming back to pick up a fight with you.

Additionally lobotomy adds a "passive" trait which affects captain's aggro-behavior.
Furthermore you can kill off an entire faction fleet by executing their captains one by one.

Both are ways to get rid of hostile faction leaders.

[sbm311]

Originally posted by Novaflux:

Lobotomy and execution function as relation-resets.

It gets kinda hard to max out your faction (member-wise)inthe later states of the game as you most likely will have created lots of enemies, so you can just clear their memories and recruit them.

I do not know what is more profitable, but it is possible simply gift resources or parts to raise the reputation. And if someone does not like me very much, and assigns a bounty for my head, after the duel relationships are reset to zero.

Originally posted by Novaflux:

You mentioned above how some captains just keep coming back and annoy you, so instead of killing them over and over again just execute them / brainsurgery(lobotomy) to wipe their memories. This way you can recruit them or atleast reset their relation with you so they won't keep coming back to pick up a fight with you.

Clarify that a little annoy only one and same faces. But I absolutely do not mind, that they bring me some experience for leveling and parts for sale :)

Originally posted by Novaflux:

Additionally lobotomy adds a "passive" trait which affects captain's aggro-behavior.
Furthermore you can kill off an entire faction fleet by executing their captains one by one.

Both are ways to get rid of hostile faction leaders.

A better way to destroy all faction stations for its extermination. Although at an early stage this can be used. The problem is that the execution of the captains will not prevent factions to recruit new members, but only temporarily weaken it.

Lobotomized factions leaders will be interesting to try, thanks.

[sbm311]

Aha!!! :) It's been a long time and a lot has changed, BUT...

Well, brain surgery turned out to be not so useless, but still I use it rarely. It does more harm than good, has tried these opportunities well over three dozen games since that time. But this did not pose any problem.

"Get lost" command has also been improved, now it really works. After your threat, the captains no longer continue to loot your resources, immediately hide far away. In the sandbox increased the expulsion time by a minute, too quickly they came back. Of course it was fixed a long time ago, but still thank you very much for that.

Now for what I resurrected this topic. This fu****g captains AI(see the first paragraph of the main post). Nothing has changed since that time. The game chooses about five captains, who follow you steadily and spin somewhere in the district.

I realized that this was done so that even on a large map (if I correctly remember the map for 200 sectors added just in that update) the player did not remain alone and could interact with other captains wherever he was. But this mechanics simply kills me(not literally). It seems that these several captains can not live without me, even if I "Get lost" them, they fly off a bit and then return back ignoring "Get lost" time. You can execute them, but the vacant place is immediately occupied by another captain with the same behavior. It's so weird.

To the players - just pay attention and you will easy notice these captains(about 5).The other captains behave normally.
To the developers, please tell me - this is so conceived?, it's the AI tricks? or am I just crazy? Muhahahaha...

[Blorf]

I think it is option 3. :)

There is no code to make captains orbit you at all anywhere that I know of. Perhaps if they really dislike you they are tending to chase down bounties on you, but no where in any captain's brain is there a follow the player task, aside from the wingman who follows very obviously.

Some captain portraits are also more memorable so you may notice them a little more. I know people who hate you will tend to seek you out to fight you too, so you will naturally see enemies come after you, but they shouldn't be circling you like sharks.

[Bozobub]

Personally, I can't imagine how anyone can find disinfecting Zombie captains is useless. In this picture of my perks at the time, look at my pilot's history, part of which appears above:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1137948029
Killing and/or rinsing off Zombie captains is probably my main activity, in fact.

Look at it this way: At least it gives you something to do with your Rez. You every try to sell off 50K+ Rez..? Good luck with that; you'll be doing nothing else for at least 1/2 hour =p .

[sbm311]

Originally posted by Blorf:

I think it is option 3. :)

Huh, thanks for the clarity.

Originally posted by Blorf:

Some captain portraits are also more memorable so you may notice them a little more.

Specially looked at this and this is not the case because these captains vary from game to game. Although this is true for some cases, for example for factions leaders - your character in the game in 90% of cases heads the civil faction and the Vac Youm heads the militia, etc.

Originally posted by Blorf:

I know people who hate you will tend to seek you out to fight you too, so you will naturally see enemies come after you, but they shouldn't be circling you like sharks.

Funny thing is that these are random captains, they can be friendly, neutral, not necessarily hostile. Their behavior returns to normal by execution or entry into any faction. By the way I noticed this only in the sandbox, the campaign is OK with this.

Originally posted by Bozobub:

Personally, I can't imagine how anyone can find disinfecting Zombie captains is useless.
Killing and/or rinsing off Zombie captains is probably my main activity, in fact.

Look at it this way: At least it gives you something to do with your Rez. You every try to sell off 50K+ Rez..? Good luck with that; you'll be doing nothing else for at least 1/2 hour =p .

It looks like a late game with a top ship, although I may be wrong. In that case, you are right, this is a good investment in the captains cure. But before that, it is better to invest rez in the
ship construction(custom order parts) and building starbases. And then cure all the zombies at once, rather than having fun with them :)

Recycling a large number of rez in scrap is not a problem, there are several fast ways. Invest rez in starbase construction(the cost will go to a negative value) and build it, get scrap metal minus starbase cost. Factions leaders can accumulate a large amount of scrap (more than 100K) for exchange, if no one kicks them often. Custom order the expensive part you need and then exchange the extra rez for the scrap received by starbase for this part.