Enemy ships going beyond their range

[Greystone]

Enemy ships have a habit of traveling beyond their range; sometimes WAY beyond it.
Anyone else see this?...

[cleverwise]

What version are you seeing this in? All? Vanilla? Which mods?

Are you sure they don't have an alliance or affiliation with a minor or major?

[Greystone]

Thanks for responding..
As a matter of fact, yes, the ship(s) in question belong to the Romulans which have an affiliation with 2 others (Feds, Klingons),
but the closest Outpost to one of the ships is Romulan and It's 10 sectors north and 3 sectors east of it. The closest Fed outpost
is further still and the Klingons have none. Another stack of Romulan ships are currently one sector beyond their range and I fully
expect them to keep on going like the former has. Neither of the ships are in their respective affiliation partner's space.

The game's installed from the original cd.
The only change is implementation of the user-made patch: Botf-102-W2K-XP-9x-English-German.exe, instead of the
original Microprose 102 patch.
I'm running Win7 Service Pack 1.
I also noticed the behavior when I was running WinXP also, using the same patch.
I can't recall whether it happened or not before I ever used the above patch.
I do know that the game was pretty much unplayable straight from the cd, especially in longer games, before using the patch.

If you and others have never run across this problem, perhaps you could let me know how you've modified
the vanilla install. I'd like it to run the way it was meant to from the original cd, had it been shipped without the bugs.
Thanks..

[CommodoreGray]

I recently saw a few destroyers tucked off somewhere well away from anything giving them support, which sounds like what you have. They disappeared eventually; I don't know if they got destroyed by someone else, just moved on, or were scrapped (I've seen AI ships get scrapped due to stranding a numer of times so I know it happens).

[cleverwise]

Well it also depends on the type of ships. All ship range extensions like outposts, starbases, shipyards etc extend the short, medium, and long. So with long it is far more than two or three spaces away. Also don't forget about minors. If a major is affiliated with a minor they (and you) can extend your range past outposts and starbases. If the ships aren't moving then what could have happened is the range was there but the outpost, starbase, ship yard, or affiliation was destroyed or terminated and now the ships are stuck. Plus don't forget if the whole map hasn't been explored that power could have a near by system.

[Greystone]

Cleverwise: All your points are valid and cover a lot that could be overlooked, but I tacked on the -Mudd extension to the target
field under properties of the desktop shortcut and hit F11 in-game to show everything on the map and found that there's still no way
the ships in question could legally be where they are.
Usually, my first thought is "If they can cheat, so can I..", and I end up hitting F10 a time or two for the 10,000 credit cheat, but
that just leaves me with a hollow feeling and a sense of "what's the point?"; cheating just becomes an exercise in useless clicking.
I'll check around on this site and others to locate another way to install/setup the game that, hopefully, will eliminate the problem.
Meanwhile, thanks for all your responses.

[cleverwise]

Well I ask again are the ships moving or just sitting in a sector?

[thunderchero]

upload your saved game so it might be explained...

thunderchero

[Greystone]

Don't recall you specifically asking, but they ARE moving.
In case you missed it, the patch I'm using (Botf-102-W2K-XP-9x-English-German.exe),
is not your BOTF_1.0.2_English_German_e.exe one.
I'm more than a bit tech-challenged, so I hope the saved game uploaded correctly..
P.S. The ships in question are Romulan and they're cloaked; one stack is located at M7, while a destroyer
is located at N13; you have to do the -Mudd thing and hit F11 to see them.

[thunderchero]

All those ships are well within range.

you will see all other races are at peace with each other (except Klingon with feds), so they will go though the other races territory since they are at peace.

If you were at peace with any of those races your range would also increase.

screenshot 01242015_160959370.png (2.3 MiB) Viewed 5690 times

thunderchero

[Flocke]

one good maquis counter tactic btw is to destroy / capture an enemy outpost or system while the ai attempts to invade you
the ai will immediately scrap it's fleet when it becomes out of range

[thunderchero]

one good maquis counter tactic btw is to destroy / capture an enemy outpost or system while the ai attempts to invade you
the ai will immediately scrap it's fleet when it becomes out of range

I would rather just kill their fleet myself for experience

thunderchero

[Flocke]

well I've used that tactic tech1 vs 3 impossible more than once with overpowered ai fleets
further they mostly run back home after conquering a system and you can conquer it back
but when you have the fleet power, sure, go for it

[Greystone]

Oh boy, now I'm confused; I know the enemy can move into another civilization's space if they're at peace with them (except non-aggresion pacts), but none of the ships in question are in any of their peaceful partner's space; are they?...
I know you know what you're talking about and that you've got a firm handle on all this, but there's something I'm just not getting.
Please, take a look at my perceptions and reasoning and let me know where I'm off base:
What I do is I look at my systems and outposts and see the extent of their allowable ranges (green, yellow, red lines), and transpose those ranges onto their outposts. When I see that their ships are meandering beyond those ranges, it looks to me like they're going beyond their allowable ranges.
I can't see how that destroyer, especially, can wander 13 sectors beyond the closest friendly outpost.
Is it one of their friendly systems closer than outposts, with a shipyard on it, that accounts for it?
It's difficult to ascertain just how far the ships can go without being able to see the enemy's green, yellow and red range lines.
After all these years of thinking the AI is cheating, I really look forward to making sense of "wandering" enemy ships.
A big thank you for your time.

[thunderchero]

I loaded up your saved game as romulans

(since you said you had already used mudd to view) here is screenshot

screenshot 01242015_194247589.png (538.19 KiB) Viewed 5680 times

you can see they are using the federation as ally to move. they have an affiliation with both feds and Klingons.

thunderchero