Understanding NPC in-combat Behaviours

Heyo,

We’ve got a bit of an issue with some specific AI behaviours in our mod at the moment. We have a set of encounters where solo NPCs spawn on the regular to provide easy access to player 1v1s. Unfortunately when NPCs are solo they are very reluctant to engage on their own. They seem to stay stuck in an EVADE (not a flee!) state for a long time and often won’t attack the player at all. This is a recent observed behaviour, seen after we’ve ported the mod across to a new repository by hand, so obvious we’re missing something.

My question here is what actually affects NPC behaviours outside of state_graph.db and pilots_population.ini? We’ve not changed either of these blocks. We’ve done some theorizing that it might be toughness (which I’m still not convinced is even used) or adjustments in ptough.ini, but at this point and with a bit of testing, we’re drawing a blank. Has anyone had any experience of behaviours like this, or would have an idea of what would influence it?

(We’re generally keen to get a better understanding of NPC behaviour in general, so it’d be neat to make this thread a place to discuss this. A lot of the tweaks we’ve made to pilots population so far have been done blind, and it’s not always clear what changes as testing this stuff can be rather fuzzy. Filling out the wiki with what we’ve found is very much on my to-do list.)