Couple of AI design questions

A few quick answers...

1. For the Balance Mod, I added some extra list variables for use in the AI_Add_Extra_Comps function (it's in Script_AI_GlobalSettings) that includes the vehicle type (ie ship, base, etc) and role (ie combat). There are recent Balance Mod scripts available at my website (link in my sig) that you can see exactly how this was done.

2. You need the appropriate design type entries into Script_AI_GlobalSettings in the AI_Set_Race_Design_Types function.

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

I noticed that AI ships in BM tends to have ordonance even if they don't use it.

It's something that is on the to-do list, but it's not as straight-forward as it might seem, since their is no direct boolean function that tells you if a ship uses ordnance or not.

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

I solved that problem in my mod. The design script check if there is something that store ordnance in the current design (all ordnance weapons have some ordnance storage). If it exist, the script add some ordnance storage, if not, it add some supply storage. It's done right after weapons are added to the design and it work perfectly.

Of course - does ship have component with ability ordnance storage! So easy!

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

Can I create for my custom race an intellegent AI that will work in stock? IE are Script_AI_GlobalSettings set into a script when compiled? If so, could I realistically setup my AI so it researches and builds the facilities I want? I'm working on the shipset now, but after that I am giving it a script based on what they SHOULD do (Scripting in tactics that generally disadvantage people who play missile boat combined with an attitude of nasty defense with timing attacks to be crippling should prevent players from playing "Snatch and grab" from this AI, possibly allowing a more aggressive AI to team up with them and cause havok.

Entirely possible to create new AI's for the Standard game. Though any patch will then subsequently overwrite the new AI's. So your best treating it as a mod even if you just change the AI's anyway and giving it a new folder.

The best way would be to copy the stock source scripts, modify them to your liking, and then compile your AI's script files for distribution.

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

My goal is to make an AI for a race with a shipset. I don't need a mod, I just want it to behave in a unique way. One of the characteristics of the Jrii are that they don't use drones. They will use kamikaze fighters though. They will also use other kinds of fighters, PD ships, Decoy ships, and big sluggers too. I want that to be true for anyone who downloads the shipset and has the Jrii in their game

Oh, and gravitonic bombs. It's important that the Jrii occasionally favor destroying worlds of people they are at war with, and I want them to turn down certain treaties and demand certain things be in all their treaties. I've already copied a stock source script. I don't understand how to do these three things
1) Set ship designs that are unique to that race (AKA no DUC ships)
2) Set research priority so that the race researches the tech trees it should be (No Torpedo research! )
3) Set custom settings for how much value a treaty element has (make it so you've got to have quite a score to get them to agree to a no research treaty, but it'll be easy to get a standard non-agression or no intellegence)

But to make that happen, you will need to figure out how the AI works and most likely start to code. Several things can be adjusted through simple variables, but ship designs need to be made from scratch. In my mod i have next to 90 design types using all the ship sizes in various configuration from the sneaky scout to the juggernaugh battle line ship. Also my AI is much more advanced than the stock AI, though it still need some fixing with diplomacy...

But it can function if I packaged it all up into an empire file and distributed, someone downloading it who plays stock (I'll eventually do a BM version, then an IRM version) will have an AI who builds their own kinds of ships and researches it's own paths and has it's own attitude to diplomacy?

I don't want this to edit anyone who installs it's files, I only want it to create a new folder in an empire location that just blows the minds of people expecting just a Shipset and another pushover race.

I know how to code, and what I don't know I can learn, I just don't want to spend 2 weeks on the AI and then discover I have to change a file taking it from a simple shipset with included race into an actual mod.

If I've got someone so nice as to make a portrait for the race, you can be damned sure I'm gonna put 100% effort into this race and ensure people download it just for the race, let alone the shipset (Which is turning out nicely)

An AI must be tailored for the mod it's used with. Either my mod or Kwok's use custom tech trees and altered script files, you can't use stock scripts with either. So this means your race would need to be compiled using our script files, and be updated each times we change them...

Sorry, but a strong AI needs a bit more involvement than that. Marans did a special AI for stock to use with his custom races, but it was not compatible with BM or IRM.

Modding the AI takes time, and lot's of it. And once you start, you don't know when you end. And each new version of the game may require an update of your mod...

You can look around on the net and find pictures used for role playing games, you might find something you can use as race portrait.

Key of that quote that was missed was Eventually. I know what the heck I'm doing when it comes to the effort required for mods, and I also know that because IRM and BM use custom tech, it stands to reason the AI for them would have to be ajusted. Still, ajusting off a base stock is easier then making a brand new one each time, though I won't know exactly what each takes until I reach that point. I still will be doing it just the same, but not for the first. It goes stock, BM, then IRM.

I think again you misunderstood me. I am willing to do tons of editing from my end, but of files that to get the fully functional race on the end user level, I want no extra stuff except the standard race information. I want there to be no extra files that have to be distrbuted beyond the ones that would be found in the empires/jrii folder. Naturally I'd do some work for BM(first) and IRM (Second). I also will have to update the AI when new patches come out I'm sure, but as I said a bit higher up in my clarification here, once I have a base to work with I'll do alot better.

Time I have, it's the goal of ensuring that I can do my end goal, and that's establishing a real good race without having to mod anyone else's files that is my goal. I don't want a "Mod" I want a "Race." It takes coding, it takes time, and it takes effort, but what I am trying to find out is if I can make it a single empire file and have an intellegent AI that does it's own design using files that are all stored and accessed out of the space empires/Empire/*Name* folder. Once I am sure of that, I'm gonna begin the weeks of long coding to get an AI setup, followed about the same amount of time of testing and tweaking. I know what's in store for me, prior to changing my major to Architecture I majored in CIS with programming specialization.

Origionally this shipset was going to be just that, a shipset, with the AI included being very crude, no racial pictures or anything, however I took Kwane up on his offer at spaceempires.net to do some picture creation, and if he does do what he says he's gonna do, I'm gonna do what I say I'm gonna do, and that means a very nice and polished race to go with the set. So I don't need to knock off work for it, I've got commissioned work just for it

What I want to know is this, and I only need the answer to just this. Anything else is just frosting and not pertenant to what I need to know before I crack open the AI script and get scripting:

What files, besides these, will my race with Custom designs research and Diplomacy (IE it doesn't use DUC, Doesn't Research Drones, and Doesn't take No Research Treaties: That accomplishment is what I am referring to) have to have included for the end user to use as I intend it to be used:

(The 17 Ships models in .x Format)
(the 17 Ships textures as .bmps)
(the 17 Ships as Large Portraits)
(the 17 ships as Small Portraits)
(the 17 ship inventory .jpg s)
(the 4 flag pictures)
(the small and large Race Portraits, and the third one too)
Unit Combat texture.bmp
Veichle Main Texture.bmp
Main Script.ctf
setup script.ctf
Design Names, AI general, AI Main, AI Speech, Invconfiguration, Ships Xfile classes.txt

so, Besides those, which are all found in Space Empires V/Empires/*Name* Folder, what do I have to INCLUDE in a .zip file distributing this race?

Before I do tons of custom editing, I want to be sure the answer to that question is "Nothing" (Edit, To Prevent this kind of answer from the people with smart postieriers, a Readme and Version history will also be in the zip file, so sit on it badger! )

THAT is what this has been about from my end.

You need to compile a new empire file, one that include all the custom scripts. Ship designs have to be coded in the AIshipdesign (or something like that, don't remember the exact name). It's a lot of work, especially if you want your AI to have more than generic designs. As for weapons, your AI must do with what it has availiable, DUC are a freebe you have right away. To make it research better techs, you might need to take a look at the reseach script and tailor it to your needs (my research script is way different than stock or even BM). And to mod the diplomacy, you might need to edit globalsettings and Politics scripts, along the race file.

You can compile a race to be a stand alone mod, as long as the changes are not too extreme and cause issues with AIs using stock files...

Well, looking at Myron's race, it doesn't add anything other then the files that I've mentioned. I know he changed the diplomacy settings since it's not a warmonger race.

From what I understand, and this would have been the answer to my question instead of a "It's a lot of hard work" (As I've mentioned earlier, I know it's alot of hard work, so saying that doesn't answer the question I keep asking) is that when you compile your Main.txt to be main.ctf, it takes the files and crunches them into the script file, so it doesn't call them, but actually places whatever is called into the script file so that the script file holds them.

That is the answer to my question, and now that I am sure that is what happens, I can (Finally) begin coding.

Expecially since the UV unmapping of my ships is done!