Your description there hauangua, sounds more like the "41a_Jap_Convoys_007" or the 003 RGG, and not the Fast Merchant 002. Both Convoys 003 and and Fast Merchant 001 have other warships in their consists, and might have Mutsuki DD or "Generic" DD as "Escorts". The 007 group should have had a subchaser in it, set to 100%, so every spawn of that particular RGG would have it. Those are the 4 groups that go West by your location that early in the game. Now, if it's Eastbound, that FastMerchant 001 & 002 do go back East, but the only other one that goes East is the Jap_Convoys_005, which does not have a Mutsuki DD at all, and if it has a warship, it should be a Corvette. Of all of the groups in the 41a layer, none have an Escort vessel as "Leader", other than the SubHunter group, which isn't very active at that time, in that area... I have no explanation for the Mutsuki's behavior, other than incompetency, and there will be no investigation, this will go straight to trial, and the Captain of said vessel will be found guilty, relieved of duty, and keel-hauled... This issue will cease to be...
- thank you for noticing that
Edit 1715 EST: @ Bleiente - I cannot find any merchants with racks on them, and I cannot find any mod with them as of yet, although I'm certain there was one... maybe... might have been a dream. Anyway, we might try a CapnScurvy idea in the next release, and we'll let you know how we get along with it. All experiments thus far in FotRSU indicates that the Type= line is very indicative of a vessel's AI behavior, whether it chases and attacks, shoots, or runs away or whatever...