Planetry Defence |
The AI could really do with some help in this area, I have rarely seen any planets with weapons platforms and when they do use them they tend to go for ripper missles with no range, the AI needs to be instructed that for WPs range is ALL important, after all if the attacker out ranges it then they can jsut sit back and destroy the defences at their leasure.
Also I have yet to see the AI use troops for either capturing planets or in defence, this is just silly.
One thing I would do is change the amount of milta that is generated by planets, I would probably increase it by a factor of 10. (If you could keep this as an ideal number that takes time to replinish then even better) It is stupid that a homeworld with nearly 4000 million defenders one manages half a dozen defence units. Yes I know this would end up making for huge battles. One way around this is to make milta troops seperate from noraml troops (and only able to be used in defence) where milita troops are significantly bigger so can hold far more armour and weapons.
I would also like to see the positioning of space stations and satilites changed, make so they are spread around the planet rather than clumped, it would give the planet better defence. Also encourage the AI to make PD satilites.
I get what you are saying
I get what you are saying Omnius, but I have to disagree with you when it comes to safeguarding planets.
If you don't believe me start a new game with a load of planets and races starting in the same system, so you have an AI planet in the same system. Then build a dozen or so troops with basic armour and weapons and use them to attack the AI planet..... Capturing AI planets is just FAR FAR to easy at the moment.
Something needs to be done to make this a far harder option. SEIV handled this well be making it take a lot longer before you could launch ground invasions.
Thinking about it more, maybe the best way to handle this would be to significantly upgrade Milita troops, this way the AI doesn't have to think about them or build them. Make it so milita troops are 100+ tons, and armed with the best weapons it can be (decided by level of tech available), and increase them by 10-15 tons for every level of troops the race has.
AI and moving units
Outside of better designed combat ships - an obvious improvement for stock - the AI can use the other types of the ships effectively but there are several things blocking them from doing so.
For example, minelayers. The AI will use these to drop mines off at WPs leading to systems of enemies. This behaviour is rare to spot in-game because the AI doesn't build enough mines or minesweepers to do this in any sort of timely fashion.
It's the same problem with Carriers and the number of fighters available to be picked up. And again with Troop Transports. Believe it or not, but giving a supply of troops, the troop transport will eventually make it to a fleet and be used in a potential ground invasion.
What's really missing is specifying the number of units/space to build on a given planet as it was in SE:IV. Instead, we have a priority to build units in SE:V, but it's no specification to do it for each planet, but as a leftover for any queue that isn't filled by ship or facility building. So you end up with units only being built here and there, making it even harder for transports to pick up and distribute. There is also no scripting in place yet to tell the AI to scrap old units, which would help encourage them to upgrade their defenses as the game progressed. Instead, we get lots of old defenses that compound the problem by decreasing the priority to build new units... it's something I've been working on to remedy.
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That helps explain some of
That helps explain some of the problems, similar to what I have as a player *LOL* Lots of well redundant WPs littering my planets..... One way to fix this would be to make an auto update for weapons platforms, if it would be possible to make the game treat them like facilities and upgrade them in a similar manner.
I still like the idea of altering the milita troops if thats possible, as it would be a very simple way to increase planetry defences without putting any extra load onto the AI.
Militia amounts
I tried increasing the militia troops in settings.txt, but it seems to be overridden by something that's hard-coded to the default amounts.
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Hmmm what about increasing
Hmmm what about increasing the size of milita troops (from 10 tons to 100 tons) rather than increasing the numbners. Or is that what you tried doing? Maybe they use the base stats for troops.
Too Much Garbage
cordas,
The problem with the AI's is they build too much garbage units and WP's. Anything they build stinks because the AI has been poorly programmed in the building of good stuff, be it units or ships. Way too many worthless satellites and minefields too. I don't waste my time with units or satellites or minefields and I do just fine. I build good solid combat ships with some smart support ships like repair and they serve me very well. I'd rather see the AI concentrate more on better combat ships and waste less time and resources on minelayers, carriers, satellite carriers and all that esoteric crap it doesn't know how to properly utilize.
Omnius