Knights and mercs, we've got a follow-up update here to the big AI tactical decision-making update that we released yesterday. It catches up on a few bugs (like Investigating! on bodies) and improves a few other areas that players have since helped us identify in feedback and F10s. We're exciting to hear the stories of more exciting tactical battles coming to light already, so this is a great move for the game, now we just have to clean up a bit and move into the stealth area to improve the AI there as well to finish out this final enemy improvement push.
Investigating! Loop / Stutter Step
There was a bug injected where an enemy might become repeatedly interested in the same dead body, over and over again Investigating! it. That is now resolved.
This could cause a lock up where the AI never ended their Turn, but this was hotfixed out yesterday within an hour or two of the initial update.
Better Event Prioritization
Enemies receiving dispatches from security and encountering their own events in the field now have better prioritization cues as they can look at the turn of all of the events. This new data helps them make better decisions, as the newer events should garner more of their attention.
More Tactical Decisions
We've gone another level deep with the tactical decision making improvements with this update. Where the first High-Stakes update focused mostly on the short-range movements that an enemy would make in a gunfight, we've now certified some of the improvements to longer range movement thinking that can help the enemies make smarter decisions.
- They are less likely to head into dead-end areas that will require later backtracking.
- The flanking limitation rules which could cause an enemy to say "Beyond Flank Allowance!" before moving have been fixed and are now better applied only at combat range, instead of any range. They were causing some enemies to have a really hard time closing distance with players, especially in maps with non-direct routes (bridges, interiors, etc).
- Improved how much enemies like to stay in optimal range, avoiding getting in too close especially.
v1.10.3 - #231: High-Stakes Tagalong - 3/31/2025
- Fixed issue where enemy could get locked up in a stutter step loop
- Fixed issue where enemy could repeat "Investigating!" over the same dead body
- Improved enemy prioritization of security events based on the mission turn they occurred in (more recent, more priority)
- Improved enemy decision making to stay in optimal range especially when very close to mercs
- Improved enemy decision-making around approaching/flanking mercs, no more "Beyond Flank Allowance" alerts
- Improved enemy decision-making to avoid going into dead-end areas that can't reach mercs
- Improved combat log ability to report on attacks blocked by shield, or Shredding blocked by effects