I remember seeing this a few times in early versions of SH4 (before final patch and mods), where one or more merchants suddenly start acting like escorts. So it could be a legacy bug in the code rearing its head again.
I'm no expert (maybe Ducimus or one of the others can chime in here)... but it might have something to do with the way the "AI leader" position shifts to another ship when the leader is sunk. Somehow merchant AI gets shifted to escort AI, and one or more of them will start listening for your position, and doing simulated depth charge runs over you. Funny to watch on surface cam, but not that much fun if you're trying to polish off a slow sinker.
The behavior hasn't shown up again in my modded SH4, so either the final patch or the modded AI scripts fixed it. Maybe the SH5 modders can identify and fix this, or maybe it gets fixed with any major overwrite of the AI.
|