Description

The AI or NPC Class composes of various enemy ships that can spawn naturally or via quest while playing Galaxy. Most AI ships are unique in that they cannot be obtained or controlled by players though everyday gameplay.

Currently there are 3 AI Factions that make up every single AI Ship found in the game, the Aliens, the Pirates, and the U.N.E.

2 of these AI Factions are hostile to players (Aliens and Pirates) while 1 (U.N.E) is passive towards players.

All 3 AI Factions are hostile to each other.

Behavior

ALL AI Ships share the same AI Movement and patterns, no matter the Ship class the AI is in.

AI Ships will always prioritize the bigger ship, depending on proximity (e.g Dreadnoughts will be targeted over Battleships) but the smaller ship will sometimes be targeted if the AI is far closer to it compared to the bigger ship.

Detection Range

AI Ships have an aggro/detection range of 14,000 Studs, anything less than or equal that number of studs and the AI will lock on to you if it's in an enemy AI Faction.

Warping from an AI Ship 14k+ studs away that has you locked on can make one of two things happen; One is the AI Ship will chase you by warping on your warp destination, Two is the AI Ship will give up on you and just stay on the spot.

Note: The AI Ship Jormungand does not follow this rule, instead its detection range is 22k Studs away.

Movement Pattern

Movement patterns of AI Ships depend largely on your proximity from them.

When an AI Ship has no target, it will wander aimlessly throughout the map, warping to random locations, but the AI will not go out of bounds.

Sometimes, an AI Ship is assigned to a Starbase or a fixed location. These AI Ships will stay on their spot, guarding until there is a target, and will warp back to the location they're guarding if they're far away from it.

When an AI Ship has a target, it will start a movement cycle detailed below.

At 1500 studs and above, It will simply move closer to you in a linear path and the AI will attempt to turn the front of the ship it's controlling towards you if you attempt to move behind it.

At 1499 studs and below, the AI will turn it's ship in the opposite direction and will start moving away from you. During this, when the ship moves far away enough from you at 7000 studs, the AI will turn the ship around again, restarting the cycle. This is an exploitable major weakness for spinal based AI Ships (e.g Decimator) as they are unable to shoot their spinals due to having no line of sight. (Exceptions are Galleon and Bruiser as both have backward facing spinals).

When an AI Ship is moving away from you, it will always turn its back from you no matter the direction (e.g. an AI Ship will start to move upwards if you're below it). You can use this behavior to manipulate on what direction the AI Ship you want to move it to. This strategy is mainly used to steer away AI Ships from crossing map borders such as X-0.

Reinforcements

For AI Ships at Battleship-class and above, they have the ability to call reinforcements from ships of the same faction that are present in the map.

Ships that have this ability will immediately call for reinforcements all around the map as soon as it detects you within the detection range.

AI Ships that answer to the call for help will immediately stop engaging whatever ship they're targeting and instead, warps to the target that the ship called reinforcements for.

Note: (All U.N.E ships, even Destroyer-class ships can call for reinforcements).

Additional Info

• Sometimes, there is a long delay before an AI Ship notices and attacks you.

• AI Ships will sometimes warp to you if you caught their attention more than 13K Studs away.

• All AI ships are able to pass through the top and bottom borders (Where players cannot pass or shoot through) of the map as well as being able to warp unrestricted off-map; although they try to keep within the map borders outside of combat. This can cause issues as sometimes their wrecks will be out of bounds and be unlootable. (Best example is X-0)
• AI Ships can be accidentally force despawned by travelling far enough from the Top or Bottom borders, this can be a problem for AI Fighters as depending on the proximity of their enemy, they may try to go off map and get force despawned.

• AI Ships tend to have accurate spinal aim, so it's best to avoid their spinals and to exploit their weaknesses via blindspots or the AI themselves.

AI Fighters

AI Fighters are a premium feature of Carriers unlockable via Robux purchases; They allow a Carrier pilot to deploy AI-controlled fighters, and has the same exact behavior as AI Ships but have exceptions from many rules that a normal AI Ship has, mainly from the ability to command them. To see more details, see AI Fighters.

Trivia

• 2 Ships, Pirate Avenger and U.N.E Judgement were used by NPC's without an AI variant. (excluding the fleets spawned by Admins)
• Waspinator was the only Carrier-class ship to be used by AI Factions (Pirates) during the April Fool's Event 2022.