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Captain and Defense Officer AI Overhaul (Basic)

The Captain and Defense Officer AI Overhaul (CDOAIO) mod adds a variety of new features and performance improvements to captain and defense officer AIs, most of which vary in significance with NPC skills. It includes a complete re-write of the defense officer AI used for capital ships, as well as the AI for capital ship captains attacking enemy ships. It also makes huge changes to the defence officer AI for stations, and the generic movement and undocking scripts for capital ship captains.

As of v0.05 beta, this MOD adds special, custom fight behavior for the captains of different ship types to let their defense officers make the best possible tactical use of their particular ship's weapon systems and their layout. When ordered to attack (a large target), the captain of a Balor Frigate will NOT simply charging into battle, as they do in the base game, but will roughly alight their torpedo tubes with the target, and stay back, so as be well within range for the Balor's torpedoes, but out of range for virtually all other weapons. (This behavior makes Balors absolutely devastating against undefended stations, allowing them to bombard a station with volley after volley of torpedoes until it is destroyed without ever getting close enough for the station to return fire.) The captain of a Sucellus Destroyer, when given the same attack order, will carefully align their ship's IHC cannon with their target, and stay as far away from the target as possible while still staying within the IHC cannon's range. This keeps the Sucellus Destroyer out of range of many turrets on an enemy captial ship unless and until that ship approaches, and ensures that the defence officer is nearly always able to use the IHC cannon. Note that the frequency at which captains realign these weapons to their (possibly moving) target depends on their navigation and combat skills.

Changes to defence officer (both on stations and capital ships) include:

- Defense officers with at least 2 star combat skills can target surface elements on stations.
- Defense officers with at least 3 star combat skills can target surface elements on capital ships.
- Defense officers on capital ships which carry drones can launch groups of combat drones much more frequently with in increasing leadership skill. A defense officer with 5 star leadership skills can launch drones a little over four times faster than a defense officer with 1 star leadership skills.
- Defense officers scan the area more often during battle with increasing combat skill, meaning a defense officer with greater combat skill is very likely to realize when a new enemy has arrived, or an existing one has been destroyed, faster than one with lesser combat skill. (There is an element of random chance here though, as well.)
- Defense Officers can become demoralized and/or panic in battle. When this happens, they will occasionally randomly miss an opportunity to launch drones, or miss a scanning cycle. Their level of panic/demoralization depends on the outlook of the battle (how strong friendly ships are that are fighting with them, and how strong their enemies are). The defense officer's morale determines how easily rattled they are by long odds in battle, and thus, how likely they are to make a mistake under pressure.

Changes to captain include:

- (New in v0.05 beta) Captains in combat will fly their ships in ways that make the best use of their particular ship's weapons systems and their layout.
- Captains with at least 3 star navigation skills can use their jump drives in sector. Captains with 3 star navigation skills can jump a minimum distance of 300km.
- Captains with 4 star navigation skills can jump a minimum distance of 200km.
- Captains with 5 star navigation skills can jump a minimum distance of 100km.
- Captains keep their crew organized and motivated better with increasing leadership skill, which means that a ship with a captain highly skilled in leadership will often respond to new orders much faster than one with a captain who is a poor leader. (There is an element of random chance here, as sometimes a poor leader will still respond quickly, but a skilled leader always will.)
- Captains can move their ships more precisely, and will maneuver closer to objects or points in space they are trying to approach with increasing navigation skill.
- Captains will take note of enemy ship movement and relocate their ships to stay within firing range of an enemy they are attacking more regularly with increasing combat skill.

Important notes on compatibility:

There are two versions of this mod because it is incompatible with the IgnoreFuel mod by Hiiro, and possibly other mods which also allow player ships to jump without using fuel. The base mod (CDOAIO Basic) is for those who want to play having to refuel their capital ships' jump drives as is done in the base game. The other version (CDOAIO Ignore Jump Fuel) is identical to the basic version, except that it also allows player owned capital ships to jump without consuming fuel.

This mod should be compatible with most other mods I have seen, and the ability of skilled captains to perform in-sector jumps should work when they are ordered to move with the Manual Command Extension by Jack08/Berserk_Knight (a mod that I highly recommend for this game).

Mods known to be incompatible with CDOAIO:

"IgnoreFuel" by Hiiro
"Warning System Extension" by Azalrion

Hints:

All changes made by this MOD apply equally to AI controlled ships/stations and ships/stations controlled by the player. Players need to be smarter in battle, as enemy ships and stations may not always just blindly fire at your ships' and stations' hulls as they always have. They may target surface elements as well. They may also be able to unleash a storm of drones like none ever seen in the base game. Unlike in the base game, a weaker ship with a good defense officer can sometimes defeat a more powerful ship with an incompetent one, and there is no way to predict the skill of the captain or defense officer on a ship spawned for a mission.

Also, there are some ship types in the base game that the "vanilla" captain AI is unable to use effectively, which makes them seem underpowered or easily destroyed, particularly the Balor and Sucellus. As described above, with this MOD in place however, captains and defense officers use these ships properly. These are both powerful and effective ships, particularly against slow moving targets. Despite having the exact same design as in the vanilla game, you will find them both extremely formidable. They are worth owning, and not to be underestimated as foes.

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Changes and Updates
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v 0.05 beta
- compatibility with base game version 2.10
- fixed wierd bug that could randomly raise the combat skill level of defense officers on AI controlled (but not player) stations, eventually giving them all 5 stars
- added custom fight behavior for some different captial ship types to make better use of their weapons and abilities in combat

v 0.03 beta
- compatibility with base game version 1.30
- fixed bug preventing highly skilled captains from using jump gates
- fixed minor, rarely seen bug that could (rarely) interrupt and restart capital ship defense officer script when no enemies were present

v 0.02 beta
- fixed bug that could occasionally, in some cases, cause defense officers on friendly stations to briefly open fire on the player ship for no reason, then realize the player was friendly, and cease fire

v 0.01 beta
- initial release