Can anyone explain to me exactly how and why offline traders flee? I found a bit of old information in the forum archives, but it's always hard to tell what has changed from version to version. Is it possible to make an offline trader flee even if Online Auto Flee is disabled? (Short of podding them of course)

<comes out of hiding>
i believe...
offline traders attempt to flee when they have half the fighters that the person attacking them does... (not sure if odds are a factor..)
<goes back into hiding>

and stay there with your WoW people. it's been peaceful here the past few days
If you stay in hiding a few more years, I might even pass you on posts.......

omg, look what the cat drug in.

I think they'll flee if you have enough fighters on your ship to capture/destroy their ship. Alternately, it might just be that they'll flee if you have more fighters than they do. Run some tests and let us know

Roger, I'll fire up the test server, see what I can come up with.

Well I ran a few quick tests and have reached some TENTATIVE conclusions, I'll do some real research when I'm not so fricking tired, heh. When the target was online with autoflee on and the attacker had less figs, the target did not flee from a single fig. With the target online, autoflee on, attacker has more figs, the target fled from a single fig. When the target is offline, regardless of autoflee status, the target fled from a single fig if the attacker had more figs. I was not able to get a ship with a guardian bonus to flee at all, regardless of whether it was online/offline, more/less figs. autoflee on/off. I'll do some real research and see if ship odds, shields, etc have anything to do with it.

Ok, I ran quite a few scenarios and here's what I discovered:

(1) Online autoflee (as the name implies) only matters if you are online. When you are offline, autoflee is always active regardless of what you had it set at when you last logged off.

(2) As near as I can tell, the formula that determines whether or not you will flee is: If attacker fighters > 1.25 * (defender fighters + shields), then you will flee. Notice that it is NOT greater than or equal to, just greater than. This has nothing to do with ship maximum fighters or shields, only what is currently on board. For the purposes of this calculation, there are no practical differences between fighters and shields, they are weighted equally. I tried in excess of 40 times and was not able to cause a flee when attacking with 125 vs 100. 126-129 vs 100 USUALLY causes a flee, but there appears to be a very slight wiggle factor. For example, attacking with 127 vs 100 might not cause a flee, but an immediate followup attack (now at 126 vs 100) might. And yes I checked, this can happen even if no shields/figs were destroyed by the first attack. For the time being, I'm going to put this discrepancy down to the small amount of randomness inherent in the TW combat system. If anyone can find a formula more precise than mine, please let me know. I'd be very interested to see how you account for these small discrepancies. And they are in fact small discrepancies, at 130 vs 100 I never once had a ship not flee, in over 40 trials.

(3) Ship odds have no bearing whatsoever. I got the same results when using merc vs merc, scout vs merc, merc vs scout, scout vs colt, and colt vs scout.

(4) The only exception to the formula I was able to find involves ships with guardian bonuses. I tried many many times with increasingly overwhelming numbers of fighters, but was not once able to get a ship with a guardian bonus to flee at all. A fully loaded ISS will not make a Tholian flee, even when the Thol only has 20 fighters. I think its safe to say that ships with the guardian bonus were intentionally made immune to autoflee. This keeps them from fleeing away from a sector containing corporate planets they are guarding. Interestingly, there does not appear to be a check as to whether or not there is actually a planet in the sector or whether it is corporate owned like there is for the defensive bonus. Tholians show the same flee-resistance in empty sectors, sectors with enemy planets, sectors with personal planets, and sectors with corporate planets.

So that wraps up my first TW research project, maybe I'll even get it published (*ahem* Traitor). Feel free to play with this and see if you can find any holes in it, I covered every possibility I could think of but theres always the chance I missed something.

Thank you for the Psion report on:
how and why unmanned traders flee

If it doesn't make it to Traitors page , I'll have to Add it
to my hints & tips page. And I know it needs more updates ..

I personally think you did a very good job on that [^]
And it should be archived.

I don't know what else to say .. I think if you can't get them to flee cause you surrounded them ..
just hook tow and take them on a world trade tour [}:)] <j/k> already did that once.

Heh. too big for a tip. glossary? donno. maybe I'll toss it into strategy. hmmm...
glossary with a LINK...yeah... [:D]

Psion, you go boy

nerd.....

You don't complain about nerds when you use TWX or run some nifty script do you? Yeah, thought not [:P]

Very nice work, psion. You happen to do any testing with ships that had IGs, either active or inactive? I seem to recall that a ship with an IG won't flee either, but I dont' remember for sure.

Heh. Yeah, Psion! Hurry up and test stuff Dangnabbit! [:D]

quote:Originally posted by Psion

You don't complain about nerds when you use TWX or run some nifty script do you? Yeah, thought not [:P]


heh, point taken [:P] you know my motto, he who don't script, befriends scripters. FRIEND!!! [:o)]