How is merchant speed affected by panic?
 

Hello

So when a ship in a convoy is hit, I believe that an automated program I call Panic Mode is initiated. In Panic Mode the ships scatter and also increase speed.

After 10 minutes or so they settle back into convoy columns again(unless further attacks happen during the panic period which means the increased speed is maintained) and resume their old speed.

What I want to know is, is there a set formula for Panic Mode Speed?

Do the ships

1) Stay at the old before Panic Mode speed.
2) Do they increase speed by a certain multiplier like x1.5 or 1.75 etc
3) Or go to their max speed
4) Or is it based on something else?

Answers appreciated

Enemy AI is the secret sauce of the game, we cannot really divulge all the details or it will make the game stale. We prefer to let people speculate based on their observations. One cannot simply ask the enemy Captain how he handles a torpedo attack and expect to get a straight answer ;)

In my experience and in the current game state, the ships will individually change their speed. Some of them will decrease it, other will increase, and they will be changing it to keep the convoy together.


Have an eye on the smoke, while wind isn't implemented, it's an easy way to know what a ship did, just compare with the original angle. You could go with a calculator, newspeed = originalspeed x tan(original-smoke-angle) / tan(new-smoke-angle). You may do a table too.



I prefer do it judging by eye, or just taking the half of the ship lenght to calculate its speed (I'd like an vertical hovering line on the identification manual, toghether with the current horizontal for calculate ship height).