Improved Enemy Ship AI V1.0

This mod aims to improve the AI of all ship pilots, making them smarter and deadlier opponents, depending on their level of experience and which faction they belong to. The goal is to make winning a space battle be a little more about tactics and numbers, and a little
less about having an overpowered ship that can crush everything in its path.

In vanilla Starfield space combat, the enemy ship AI isn’t the main source of difficulty. Any difficulty comes mostly from facing multiple ships at the same time, and you as the player changing the ship damage setting. Even on very hard damage, as long as you have plenty of ship parts, you can spam your way through most space battles and be fine.

For me, the game is more fun when you as the player aren’t the most powerful thing in the Settled Systems. With this mod installed, taking on multiple enemies at once should not be done without careful planning and tactics. Sometimes, you might have to run away from a fight you can’t win, or use ship stealth to your advantage.

Disclaimer: I mostly made this for myself, and I use this ship combat overhaul with hard/hard difficulty. I have not tested this mod with straight vanilla space combat, so I can’t speak for how balanced it is if you aren’t using that ship combat overhaul yourself. With that said, make a save before you install this, and if you really hate it you can uninstall and roll back to that save, or use xEdit to tweak AI settings however you like.

Here are the changes made:

All Ships
All ships can now detect you from much further away. Power down all your systems to go stealth if you don’t want to be detected.

Civilian Ships

Civilian ships are more likely to try to run away if you attack them, and will spend less time shooting at you.

United Colonies

The UC is the only faction we know of that has a simulator training facility for their pilots. The Vanguard even publishes their own magazine on space combat tactics. It would stand to reason that they have some of the best pilots in the Settled Systems. UC ships have had their accuracy buffed, and are more likely to perform advanced maneuvers to stay on your tail. The UC Navy is now a powerful ally, and a fearsome enemy. (Includes both SysDef and UC Security ships.)

Freestar Collective and The First

Freestar pilots won the Colony War by using hit-and-run tactics (and incorporating civilian ships into their navy…). It is also mentioned in dialogue that they were very good at picking off UC merchant vessels. As such, they have been given a minor boost to accuracy, and are more evasive, using boost to break target lock.

Spacers and Ecliptic

Spacers have had their accuracy only slightly buffed from vanilla, but can still be deadly in groups. They are aggressive and rely on ganging up on enemies to win. Ecliptic has used the funds from their mercenary work to upgrade their targeting computers and engines, giving them better accuracy and the ability to boost more frequently in a fight.

The Crimson Fleet

What the Fleet lacks in formal pilot training, it makes up for with experience, as seasoned pirate captains pass their knowledge down to their crew. Driven by greed and the desire for loot, they are more aggressive and less cautious than vanilla. This includes the Crimson Fleet Ghosts that attack you during the tutorial in orbit above Vectera. They don’t care that it’s your tutorial, they want your loot!

House Varuun Zealots

Only the best Varuun pilots survived the Serpent’s Crusade, and lived to pass on their combat experience to the next generation. The Varuun Zealots roaming the Settled Systems today are the result of survival of the fittest. They have deadly accuracy and are competent pilots to boot. This includes the Zealots you encounter in Venus’ orbit during The Old Neighborhood quest with Sarah. Going 1 vs. 3 with a stock Frontier is a dangerous proposition; you should seriously consider the stealth option.

Starborn

The Starborn seek to use the unmatched maneuverability and cloaking of their Guardian ships to the fullest advantage. As such, getting a solid target lock on a Starborn Guardian requires exceptional piloting ability.

How should all this affect your tactics?
If multiple enemy ships get you target locked at the same time, from close range, you will get destroyed in seconds. Here are some ideas to avoid getting into that situation in the first place:

Power down your systems and use stealth to decide when and where to start an engagement
Use your scanner to pick out the weakest enemy ship and maneuver to a position where you can pounce and take them out quickly, without being engaged by their friends
Once the fighting starts, if you get into a bad situation with multiple hostiles on your tail, use boost to break target lock, pick up speed, then use thrusters to flip a 180 and return fire while still retreating to safety. If you have a fast ship, you can cause your enemies to get strung out and spread thin, allowing you to whittle them down one at a time.
Use asteroid fields to your advantage. Asteroids offer cover and allow you to break target lock without sacrificing precious boost fuel, but this works both ways.

Installation/Compatibility: standard .esm full master, so you can patch or tweak values however you want with xEdit if needed. This mod only touches combat styles for ships, nothing else. Best practice is to use xEdit yourself to check for conflicts and then change load order/patch as needed.
If you are using the same ship combat overhaul as me, I have carried over the increased detection distance from that mod. Load this below it.

Balance with other mods: if you are using other mods that add more enemy ships on top of vanilla ones, such as Royal Encounters, be warned that the extra difficulty might be excessive. At least there is the option to turn down the damage done to your ship.

Credits:

FlippingEggs