Question about the Avarice Tides

[Jaggid Edje]

So, if I set a (AI controlled) ship to do things in an Avarice system, I know they will automatically flee when a tide is incoming. I have seen that the command to flee gets put at the top of their action queue, as one would hope.

I'm curious though, how it works in terms of them coming back into the system to continue, once the tide has passed. Does the flee order stay in their queue until the Tide has passed, and then they will resume whatever default orders they have in the system? Or does it have the potential for them to flee through a gate, and then come back BEFORE the Tide has even happened yet, or during it?

I googled this and found a ton of information about the Tides, but I didn't see anything that addressed, specifically, the questions I am asking. I did note a few people saying the AI can screw up, or be too slow to react, I'm more interested in how it is "supposed to" work, rather than the fringe cases where the AI fumbles. Even Favre fumbled once in a while.

[mystery]

They stay out the system till the Tide has passed. Once the Tide has passed, the order gets removed & they trade again in Avarice.

Note, ships coming in from afar (more then two sectors away/beyond windfall) don't get the warning & can stray into Avarice during a tide. L ships can survive, but smaller ones won't.

You can circumvent the warnings with the purple 100% hazard protection hull mod. Ships with this mod ignore the Tide warnings completely & won't be harmed when the Tide comes. Hence it does make sense to install it in L ships too, as they will ignore the warnings as well then giving more trade opportunities.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by mystery:

Note, ships coming in from afar (more then two sectors away/beyond windfall) don't get the warning & can stray into Avarice during a tide. L ships can survive, but smaller ones won't.

I think they changed this in the beta (which I'm playing), I just had a ship I sent to Avarice wait before entering when a tide was in progress a few moments ago.

Thank you for the response answering my questions! That's what I was hoping to hear. Also grateful for the additional info regarding how they function if I install that hazard protection mod. I didn't even think of asking about that, but I would have immediately after installing it the first time.....

[trooperrob]

It puts a wait command into the order queue.
Originally there was a problem with ships with orders to enter the avarice sectors after those wait commands had been issued.
If Jagged is right, that has been resolved.
A big issue I had was Manticores collecting scrap that can't flee fast enough due to towing, but haven't played for a while.
Also have they totally filled the blocked docking ports issue?

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by trooperrob:

If Jagged is right, that has been resolved.

The Ships that waited before entering did fly quite a ways before arriving, so it may have had the orders to go to Avarice before the Tide alert occurred. I only noticed it did stop and wait before entering because I was headed there as well and when I passed it I looked to see why it was just parked instead of following the orders I had given it.

[Xautos]

As mentioned in the first post. However the flee order won't be immediately removed, it may take a few minutes after the tide has passed to remove that order by the AI and they return to what they were doing.

If you wait out in windfall near the avarice gate as a tide is coming, you'll see a lot of smaller and larger ships coming through just sitting there outside the gate doing nothing for a bit until they return to their senses a few minutes later.

[trooperrob]

That is what I thought, the original rules didn't account for ships way outside avarice that got orders to fly from say argon prime to Avarices.
But haven't played for a year or so...
(reply to Jaggid post)

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by trooperrob:

That is what I thought, the original rules didn't account for ships way outside avarice that got orders to fly from say argon prime to Avarices.
But haven't played for a year or so...
(reply to Jaggid post)

Kind of crazy that you used Argon Prime as your example. That's exactly where the ships I sent to Avarice were coming from. I gave the orders to several of my ships at once, then finished up what I was doing and headed to Avarice myself. It was when I passed them that I noticed they had stopped "for some reason" and then I noted that my tide alert had gone off less than a minute earlier.

[trooperrob]

:)
Kind of logical though, Argon prime is a start position, many people will have built factories there, then wish to send ships to get cheap claytronics / hull parts or feed supplies to a new complex in Avarice tidal sectors :)
(but when I played long ago I noted they hadn't got the wait order...)

[Jaggid Edje]

So I have done a bit more playing in the area, and it seems that if you give an order to a ship to enter Avarice after the tide warning happened, but before the tide rolls in, they will still just enter and carry out their new order. I gave a fly-and-wait command to a ship and it got blown up by the tide :)

My previous observation may have been a case where I gave the order before that warning occurred.

The ship that got destroyed by the tide was a small fighter, it did try to "flee" automatically once the tide started, but it was too far from safety to make it given it's very low shield and hull values.

[blackphoenixx]

Ships without hazard mods still die to the tide occassionally, but it's far less than before. Maybe one or two every couple hours when i had dozens of S traders in the area.

And honestly? It doesn't need to be perfect. Stupid pilots dying stupidly is just realism if it doesn't happen too often. And idiots getting caught by the tide is literally how you get introduced to Avarice.

Also with lost ship replacement now being a thing losing ships is far less of an issue than before, especially low value ones like S traders.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by blackphoenixx:

Ships without hazard mods still die to the tide occassionally, but it's far less than before. Maybe one or two every couple hours when i had dozens of S traders in the area.

And honestly? It doesn't need to be perfect. Stupid pilots dying stupidly is just realism if it doesn't happen too often. And idiots getting caught by the tide is literally how you get introduced to Avarice.

Also with lost ship replacement now being a thing losing ships is far less of an issue than before, especially low value ones like S traders.

Yah, I'm not too concerned about it. The fighter I just lost was an intentional test. I built the cheapest fighter I could specifically to test the scenario where I give the order after the initial tide warning. Just wanted to see how the flee behaviour worked in that scenario.

I don't disagree with you regarding it being semi-realistic to lose ships on occassion due to pilot error. I wonder if pilot skill rank is a factor at all in how well and how quickly the AI responds? It would be cool if it was.

[blackphoenixx]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

I don't disagree with you regarding it being semi-realistic to lose ships on occassion due to pilot error. I wonder if pilot skill rank is a factor at all in how well and how quickly the AI responds? It would be cool if it was.

I don't know how it interacts with the tide warning specifically but combined crew skill determines how fast ships react to getting new orders, acquire new trades and select new enemies during combat.

So definitely at least indirecly (there is a notable delay to a low skill pilot reacting to getting ANY new command, even if it's just a few seconds, which includes automatic ones like the flee command). The tide warning is long enough that that shouldn't really be a factor though.

I don't think low pilot skill intentionally gives a chance to ignore the tide warning if that's what you mean.

[Jaggid Edje]

That's cool, to be honest. I didn't know that the skill level even led to that 'general' delay. I have read a few threads when googling about what the skills exactly effect, but don't recall that particular one being mentioned.

Thanks for the info.

[conrado.lacerda]

Tides in the vacuum of space? Pfff... get out of here...

[blackphoenixx]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

That's cool, to be honest. I didn't know that the skill level even led to that 'general' delay. I have read a few threads when googling about what the skills exactly effect, but don't recall that particular one being mentioned.

Thanks for the info.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3120616748

This guide has about as complete a list as you will find on the internet.