The AI in elite is excellent, but currently one aspect is surely lacking: pursuit ability.
The AI seems to be terrible at running down fleeing players, even in slower ships. The main problem being they seem to boost only rarely. It makes interdictions by hostile AI in even vaguely nippy ships more of an annoyance than a threat.
I would suggest the following changes:
1. Give all AI above "mostly harmless" rank class A power distributors, to match the priority players give this module when upgrading.
2. When a player hostile to the AI boosts directly away, put the AI into pursuit mode: 4 pips to engines, 2 to weapons and target the player's drives
3. When in pursuit mode, boost as frequently as possible to maximise speed
The AI seems to be terrible at running down fleeing players, even in slower ships. The main problem being they seem to boost only rarely. It makes interdictions by hostile AI in even vaguely nippy ships more of an annoyance than a threat.
I would suggest the following changes:
1. Give all AI above "mostly harmless" rank class A power distributors, to match the priority players give this module when upgrading.
2. When a player hostile to the AI boosts directly away, put the AI into pursuit mode: 4 pips to engines, 2 to weapons and target the player's drives
3. When in pursuit mode, boost as frequently as possible to maximise speed