AI ships need be faster and more aggressive at higher difficulties

[SageThe13th]

As it stands now the AI are complete push overs at all difficulty levels.  A big reason for this is that they seem pretty indifferent when it comes to fighting.  Always pulling into some nominal firing range and sitting there waiting to die or sluggishly chasing you with no hopes of catching up.

 

Koonschi stated that he wanted the players to have the option of running away to avoid the frustration being unable to escape battles you can't win.  This reasoning works well until you play on harder modes where AI is basically no threat because they can't be bothered to try and fight at their most effective ranges or even try and keep pace with you if you break off.  Victory is reduced to a simple matter of leaving when your shields get low and coming back once they've recharged.  The AI ships need to get faster and smarter at higher difficulty levels to counter this.

[Weylin]

Maybe AI aggression could scale with proximity to the core as well?

Like, at the outer rim they'll be really lazy about pursuits, but as you near the core they get fucking merciless and start using their engine boosters and such.

[Falkenherz]

I disagree. At late game, I also run away because fights just take long and are boring. Imagine being stuck every five to ten minutes in a fight which takes five to ten minutes, when you want to do something completely different, like exploring or mining or trading.

 

In my impression, the game tries to make you keep on your toes, by spawing enemies after a given time in an otherwise tranquil sector. This works fine, until shield and ship min-maxing takes the challenge away. There must be a way to feel powerful without trivialising said central challenge of the game.

[Hûvy]

They need to be harder at higher levels but spawn a lot less, because atm i am trying to set up a home sector for myself but with attacks almost like every 10 mins its rather annoying since i have to divert my attention for a few minutes