AI Federation fleet weirdness

[Bryartuck]

I'm seeing some weirdness with AI federation fleets in my game, and I'm wondering if this is a bug or WAD.

Playing on 2.2.4 beta branch.

An ally and I are at war with an AI federation. For simplicity's sake, our empires are arranged as so:

Enemy1 - Ally - Enemy2 - Me

Enemy2, who I believe is the federation leader, has had 100% of his systems controlled, though not all planets occupied. In his capitol system, federation ships keep spawning on the edge of the system. They are not being built at the starbase (I control it), and they definitely appear at the edge of the system. They do not travel there from the other fed member, as my ally and I control all system in between, and they would not get that far. They are also not appearing at a hyperlane jump point.

I don't play federations very often (usually easier not to bother and do everything myself, since I have to do that anyway), but it has been my experience that fed ships need to be built in a shipyard, and do not just spawn. Is it different for the AI?

 

[InvisibleBison]

I'm pretty sure those are defeated ships emerging from emergency FTL. I've seen similar things happen with non-federated empires.

 

[Bryartuck]

Hmmm... I suppose that is possible. Thinking about it, I'm starting to wonder if it is the same ships over and over. I thought I was destroying them in detail, but they may be escaping and then winding up back in the same place later. I would expect them to arrive in Enemy1's space, but maybe not. I'll try to take a closer look at it when I get the chance.

 

[Matoro_TBS]

Yeah when a ship retreats with emergency FTL it will materialize to either capital or closest unoccupied starbase or planet. If everything is occupied, they'll arrive to capital system and try to retake it.

 

[Bryartuck]

The weird thing is the other fed member is not occupied at all, so I would expect them to retreat there.

 

[Bryartuck]

So I fired my game up and waited for these ships to start showing up. When they did, I started taking note of the names of the ships. After about 1/2 dozen ships coming through, the same ships started popping up again, so it was an issue with E-FTL. I just find it weird that they kept showing up there instead of jumping to the other empire's space. Oh well, mystery solved. Thanks for the input.