If the A.I. can go into dogfight with any of your vessels in flight I would like to know:
Its a feature that would increase difficulty and surprise players, and make it seem believable. And would make you consider 3d chess when it comes to air combat because then it makes you wonder "Is this a trap, am I going to get dogpiled on for going after this particular freighter".
Also for simplicity sake I wouldnt suggest this being applied for any scenarios other than:
* Air Combat - faction friendly ship was shot down or destroyed
* Air Combat (lower priority) - faction friendly ship was attacked but not downed
* Enemy Hideout - faction base was attacked and destroyed
* Enemy Hideout (lower priority) - faction base was attacked but not destroyed
* Air Patrol (low priority) - one of your ships was detected by their radar
notice that im also only suggesting this apply to factions, so if this dynamic was turned on in vanilla game it would literally only apply to "sectoids" or "snakemen" or "floaters" even though they are all managed by the central martian intelligence...
but in Piratez and other mods it can make sense that the Traders Guild or the Academicians or the Raiders honestly only give a crap about themselves and snicker when the piratez start poaching the whales of other factions.
It actually would be too over the top to do a "worldwide manhunt" where literally anybody who has an interceptor is coming after you in response.
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It would be limited to ships designed for that thing like Fighters... so there would be an Aggression rating... with anything above 0 meaning that this shipping/ufo may be game for trying to attack you in midair... a high value means "this is what this ufo does".
To confine the radius for this checking it would have to be determined when the provocation occurred, any ship with an aggression rating has a retaliationRadius for which they can be called upon to respond. If the incident occurred too far away then they will not divert course. Default value if uninitialized should probably be 2 or 3 times the radar range of that interceptor.
Also high priority, low priority types of response would adjust the effective aggresison rating. High priority being at the full value, Low Priority subtracting a static amount from it (id suggest the same amount that constitutes the threshold where there is a 100% chance of a response, so that only shipping that has interception in its job description will even bother to go after a low priority retaliation). So for example if 10 is the point where a shipping would always respond, with each point below representing a multiple of 10% chance... then a low priority call to respond would subtract 10. Ships that might intercept but aren't really interceptors would have values like Aggression: 5 to 9 and they would only get involved if it was important. The regular definition of an interceptor would probably be around Aggression: 15 so it would always respond, but for a low priority response there'd only be a 50% chance (aggression 15 minus 10) that it would get involved.
Likewise it would also give a reason to have cloaking devices installed on ships, allowing a cloaking rating to be given, so that more stealthy ships are less likely to be potentially gone after. Provides a game dynamic to this principal (just how stealthy is your ship).
How many shots?
All shipping that have weapons use Craft Beam Laser of varying strengths and batteries, which is obvious from the sound effect and the instant beam effect displayed when they shoot you. Since these are ships typically of alien design or incorporating standardized alien tech
they have always had Infinite Shots. There is such a thing as superior technology.
While you can often find gauss cannons, 50mm cannons, 25mm cannons, plasma spitters and other equipment in these vessels it is not apparent that they are using them at all, and its the onboard inseparable built-in space weapons which are being used.
(this is something that I recognize really is prohibitive to code, giving enemy ships custom projectiles and sound effects for their air weapons, determining how many shots they have left and then placing that many in a special inventory item on its map, etc... not gonna happen)Reversed crashed Vessel?Historically every time your aircraft is shot down it is
destroyed. You lose the craft, all of the crew, all of the items and all of the craft weapons. There isn't even a mission debriefing, the craft is just gone. Figured this was obvious. Their shipping crashes... yours limps home... destroyed in both cases means it explodes in a brilliant fireball.
Unarmed Dropship?An additional label to counter Aggression rating could be applied to cancel it out, at least unless it fits certain criteria like using it to shoot down one of their friendly shipping. The name for the label doesnt matter. That way if you have an Airbus or Airvan these seem civilian enough to not go after, so their IFFfriendly tag can be really high and enemy interceptors wont bother with it.
Again one reason for having retaliatory air combat is adding consequences for taking actions. Strategy - making sure the cat's away when you pounce on their cheese. Waiting until there are no enemy interceptors around when you go to attack one of their bases. Actually watching what is going on and taking your shot when the time is right.
An Airbus or Skyranger may have a good IFFfriendly rating but when it comes to a high priority retaliation it might not be enough to prevent an enemy interceptor from possibly going after it (if the interceptor in response range has aggression 15 and 10 is the threshold of absolute response, and you have IFFfriendly: 11 then it would still leave an Aggression: 4 chance of it coming after you. But in a Low Response situation the total effective aggression against that ship would be -6 and thus it would never go after it just on general principal). Thats how id code it anyway.
You are pirates after all, most wanted, in the commission of a capital crime and considered dangerous - a threat and if they have the resources available to instantly thin your numbers and teach you a lesson then I think they'd take it.
