Interesting AI Behaviour

[John Channing]

So here I am, on my first patrol as Captain, near the southern end of my patrol zone when my sonar operator picks up a contact. I surface and move in to investigate. It's dark and a little foggy so I have to close the range for a while until I see it is a warship of some sort. Now, I'm here to sink merchant tonnage, not to get into cat and mouse games with warships, so while I am still outside of his visual range I reverse course and move out slowly.

But he follows me.

I am still out of his visual detection range so I increase speed. He increases speed.

I change course. He changes course.

I slow down. He slows down.

I decide to submerge, head north and go to silent running for a few hours in hopes he will get bored and go away. Nope.. he just hangs around. Never getting within attack range, and never moving away. I surface, change course and pour on the coals and he matches me course and speed. We are now over 100 miles from where I picked him up and he is still there.

Again, he never closes the distance, never moves in, but he is stuck to me like an annoying kid brother.

I may have to sink him just to get rid.

JCC

[Sunfighter]

Ive heard quite a few people talking about this, never had it happen yet myself.

Im curious to see what would happen should you drag him all the way to a friendly port of yours, to see if the port guards engage him.

It almost sounds to me like its a scripted counter attack from the merch sending out a distress signal, but its obviously screwed up in some way.

[Ziggy]

I had German ships doing this. They followed me into the English Channel... Think they got sunk eventually. I would try to close in to see what ship they were (didn't know they were following me at first I thought, hey they are going on the attack I am going to support.) When I tied to close in, they turned away. I tried this a while, they would try to stay the same distance away from me no matter the direction or speed I went, they always matched. I know one was an escort from outside the Kiel Canal, but one was a biggin as I could see his huge puffs of smoke and make out a big black smudge on the horizon.

Was very weird, I think they saved me from a huge mess of escorts that I made mad when I attacked a tanker between Dover and Calais.

[SteamWake]

You got an AI stalker there JC :haha:

Have you tried closing the distance? Will he sail away to keep the distance?

Oh I know drag him accross the map into a friendly convoy ! :D

[shawnyp420]

This little annoyance plagued me the last time I tried SHV. I heard a warship and cruised in on the surface to investigate. Looked small so I turned away, then I noticed it was following. Encountered the same strange behavior everyone else has noted. So I tried to play his own game against him. I got him in between me and the coast of England. I drove in at him at flank speed headed toward the coast with men on the deck gun. Once he got within deck gun range I manually blasted him with a few close calls. THAT got his attention. He change course and headed for me. I tried bow shots with torpedoes but they either bounced off or never got close enough to trigger. Short story, I ended up on the bottom.

Haven't played since.

[ReFaN]

had the same problem loads of times, dont know what is causing it.

[Frederf]

Maybe this is the "wolfpack code" designed to make other U-boats stick to the player sub to recreate group behavior.

[Dowly]

I've had a group of three enemy DD's stalk be west of Ireland and once german DD followed me from Wilhemshaven all the way to east of Scapa flow before it turned back. :hmmm:

[BaronVonDuncs]

Maybe Robert Mitchums the captain and just wont let go :DL

Haven't had this happen yet, mind you haven't played much yesterday or today as the master Servers seem to be borked.

[John Channing]

Maybe Robert Mitchums the captain and just wont let go :DL

Haven't had this happen yet, mind you haven't played much yesterday or today as the master Servers seem to be borked.

HA! I was thinking the exact same thing. Kept remembering the line "Well... he certainly squirms like a pigboat".

Well, me and Hymie might have a surprise for him!

JCC

[Hartmann]

It´s a hidden Ubi DRM policy :haha:

Now seriously i think that could be a broken script, perhaps following the u-boat and requesting assistance to other units , like hunter killer groups, but not funtional.

[bigboywooly]

Had 2 dds folowing me this way the other day
Increased TC and they stayed following at a respectfull distance
Then they pounced
Due to TC and blind watch crew got the death roll as dropped to 1
Nice

[John Channing]

Well I got sick of him hangin' around so I went to PD, turned into him, kept the scope up and when he was at 600m, 0 AOB, Bearing 0, I let him have it.

Quite satisfying, really!

JCC

[mookiemookie]

Had 2 dds folowing me this way the other day
Increased TC and they stayed following at a respectfull distance
Then they pounced
Due to TC and blind watch crew got the death roll as dropped to 1
Nice

This is almost exactly what happened to me. Had 1 following just like John Channing described. Put on the speed, upped the TC, and wham. Got me.

[longam]

I had the same thing first patrol but it was friendly. He finally went away but was a pain. The only saving grace wace the patrol mode to keep friendly from tripping TC

[Fmilk]

This happened to me in SHIV a few days ago.
Since the ship was constantly SW from my location, I set my course SW, and, eventually, he ran into some... land.
Now I've got the same issue in SHV, and Bretagne ain't that far. :)

[Conrad von Kaiser]

Happened on Patrol last night. Had just taken out a few merchants when 3 destroyers made their way on the scene. Went to 50 meters, stayed quiet until the passed. Surfaced and got a 4th contact. Bad weather so he was outside visual but I could see him spinning around like a top. Moved in to see what was going on, he kept distance. No matter where I went he stayed at the same distance spinning around in circles.

Got tired of having my crew constantly calling him out so I started moving towards him to torpedo him. Couldn't close the distance and he ended up crashing into the coast of France. :hmmm:

[Merlin.75]

Here's another one for you had a DD try and sink me but sunk himself instead.

[AndrejD]

So here I am, on my first patrol as Captain, near the southern end of my patrol zone when my sonar operator picks up a contact. I surface and move in to investigate. It's dark and a little foggy so I have to close the range for a while until I see it is a warship of some sort. Now, I'm here to sink merchant tonnage, not to get into cat and mouse games with warships, so while I am still outside of his visual range I reverse course and move out slowly.

But he follows me.

I am still out of his visual detection range so I increase speed. He increases speed.

I change course. He changes course.

I slow down. He slows down.

I decide to submerge, head north and go to silent running for a few hours in hopes he will get bored and go away. Nope.. he just hangs around. Never getting within attack range, and never moving away. I surface, change course and pour on the coals and he matches me course and speed. We are now over 100 miles from where I picked him up and he is still there.

Again, he never closes the distance, never moves in, but he is stuck to me like an annoying kid brother.

I may have to sink him just to get rid.

JCC


it happens on almost every patrol run. 1-5 Destroyers are folowing you. They always match the speed and course. One time the same happened with a convoy of merchants... You can`t get close to sing them, and you can`t run away. This game has so many bugs that it should be named The silent hunter bug game.
And the only thing that`s important to UBISOFT is the DRM and the money.
Go to h**** UBISOFT.

[Noren]

Got tired of having my crew constantly calling him out so I started moving towards him to torpedo him. Couldn't close the distance and he ended up crashing into the coast of France. http://174.123.69.202/~subsimc/radioroom/../../%7Esubsimc/radioroom/images/smilies/39.gif

Haha! There's your solution gentemen! Round them up and crash them to the nearest continent!

[PhantomLord]

Hope you get the renown for this fine art of sinking ships. And an extra medal for saving eels :D

[JamesT73J]

I do think it's a broken script of some kind; it is as if they are going into a hard-coded escort routine. I'm sure someone poking about could find it.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

it happens on almost every patrol run. 1-5 Destroyers are folowing you. They always match the speed and course. One time the same happened with a convoy of merchants... You can`t get close to sing them, and you can`t run away. This game has so many bugs that it should be named The silent hunter bug game.
And the only thing that`s important to UBISOFT is the DRM and the money.
Go to h**** UBISOFT.

Excellent idea! "Bug Hunter 5" or BH5. :D Sounds much better than SH5 actually...

[robbo180265]

Das Bug? lol :yeah:

[Deimos01]

I wonder if this also has to do with friendly ships that you encounter in the Keil Canal. Ill come across ships heading the other way and they stop and reverse engines as if they are trying to pace my boat. Found it curious. Anyone else see this?

[Conrad von Kaiser]

Pace me no, but I have had some rather close calls. Seems the AI on friendly ships see you as "Der Supreme unterseeboot Commander" and do everything they can to give you the right of way.

Still hasn't stopped me from colliding here and there though lol.

[mookiemookie]

So here I am, on my first patrol as Captain, near the southern end of my patrol zone when my sonar operator picks up a contact. I surface and move in to investigate. It's dark and a little foggy so I have to close the range for a while until I see it is a warship of some sort. Now, I'm here to sink merchant tonnage, not to get into cat and mouse games with warships, so while I am still outside of his visual range I reverse course and move out slowly.

But he follows me.

I am still out of his visual detection range so I increase speed. He increases speed.

I change course. He changes course.

I slow down. He slows down.

I decide to submerge, head north and go to silent running for a few hours in hopes he will get bored and go away. Nope.. he just hangs around. Never getting within attack range, and never moving away. I surface, change course and pour on the coals and he matches me course and speed. We are now over 100 miles from where I picked him up and he is still there.

Again, he never closes the distance, never moves in, but he is stuck to me like an annoying kid brother.

I may have to sink him just to get rid.

JCC

Dragging this thread out to say that I've found if you save and reload, this behavior goes away. I had some stupid DD dogging me this way...spinning figure 8's about 8 or 9 km out, following me around the Faroes - I saved, reloaded, and he was gone. Hope this helps anyone else having this issue.

[SteamWake]

Seems like loading saved games 'forgets' alot of things....

Anyhow last night I did a surface attack against a convoy, had two ships down before the escorts came over to visit.

I dived and went to slink away but watched the escorts on the external cam.

Thats when I noticed them shooting, shooting their big guns and little ones at an open patch of water. Not even close to where I am / were. Just popping off rounds into the water? I had to double check to see that they werent shooting at one another.

I turned north and sailed away while they shot at beer cans or something floating on the water :hmmm: