Captain Obvious (on a quest for better AI ships)

I wrote this as a forum post for an entirely seperate space combat simulator sometime back, but i think it could apply here. That game had fleet vs fleet actions with a very primitive AI, compared to what is in Artemis and what we can make with the mission scripts. In fact, about half of this could be programmed with current Artemis mission scripts.

In this list, I praise the stupid AI tactics by listing what my "fallible" human responses would do in a variety of situations. Of course, it's meant to be humorous -- this is really a suggestion for how I think the AI should work.

Some of this won't apply to Artemis single ship vs many combat, but some of it does, especially the stuff that involves enemy ships coordinating and communicating with each other. This would, of course, also have some interesting repercussions for the COMMS stations.

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It's a good thing we've got all these sophisticated AIs to run our ships for us instead of fallible human captains, because I tell you: I don't have their kind of patience at all.

1. If something shoots me, I'm going to shoot it right back. I don't care if I am shooting something else at the moment, that ship becomes my nav and gun priorities.
1a) If many people start shooting at me, I'll target the one doing the most damage.
2b) If a whole lot of people start shooting at me, I'll get out of dodge and rejoin the fleet.

2. When I retreat, I don't run to the side of the screen. I find the nearest, tightest formations of friendly ships and hide out in the middle of them.
2a) If I can, I join them in firing at whatever they are firing on at the moment.

3. When possible, I join small packs of ships to engage a single lone target. If the enemy starts joining in packs, I flee.

4. If I have a lone ally under fire who can't retreat, I'll shoot at the ships firing at him to try to lure them away so my ally can rejoin the fleet.
4a) If too many enemy ships notice me, I'll run and leave my ally with his own mess.
4b) If too many enemy ships notice me, I may call my friendly ships to cover my escape. When they catch up with me I will join them in firing at the ships chasing me according to rule #2a.

5. I will always retreat if I have no weapons. If I have repair capability, I may retreat earlier.

6. I will remember to take bathroom breaks before engaging in starship combat.

7. If the enemy retreats I will chase him. if I start noticing that I'm the nav and gun target for a bunch of enemy ships, then I will return to the fleet.

8. Enemy fighters are not ships, and I'm not going to be distracted chasing after them. I'll fire at them with anti-fighter weaponry if there's an opportunity, but I'm not going to chase them or fire anti-ship weapons at them unless I have very specific orders.

9. If I am a cruiser, I will use my awesome radio technology to call friendly ships to me rather than retreat to friendly ships.

10. I will listen to my admiral as best I can so long as I haven't taken damage. Once consoles start exploding, I can't be held liable for my fight-or-flight reactions.