AI attackers

I'm trying to make a top down game similar to this using path finding. I've sort of got it working, but is there any way to do it smoothly? Right now I get the enemies to pathfind to the players x,y every 0.5 seconds but it seems like they jitter a lot. How can I make it smoother or is there a better way to do this?

My first idea would be to use a move behavior of some sort, bullet maybe? Then alter speed/acceleration every X seconds to aim towards players position.

The way I do it in my space game is every 1.0 seconds instead of 0.5

I also have the enemy ships turn to face the player independent of the pathfinding, so this gives them a more 'realistic' feel because when the AI is searching for a path, the ships are still turning and firing.

vee41 I was thinking of using bullet behavior but it still needs to slow down.

vee41 I was thinking of using bullet behavior but it still needs to slow down.

Something like this?

Bouncy enemies example

EDIT: Took a second look at that game, you can probably remove the whole 'phase' thinking and just give them high acceleration.

EDIT2: EncryptedCow Redid it with custom movement, fits a lot better. Collision rebounds have to be done manually but that's quite simple. :)

Why do you need pathfinding? It doesn't look like there are obstacles around which to navigate - you just need to accelerate towards the player location.