GidMod 4.7.0b

Sounds interesting,

I'll give it a try, after I finish my current Balance mod game,
thanks,

Henk

Is your AI race specific or the same for all races?

Also, how is it playing so far? Challenging? Difficult? Fun?

Just wondering what your playtesters think of it.

Amazingly we're reaching the point where there are enough good AI's so I need to be a bit choosy. Might have never though we'd get to this point!

But keep up the great work!

javaslinger

Will you release the AI source files, too?

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http://bt.spaceempires.net/browse.php - Mods and Shipsets for SEIV and SEV

dude, this version of the mod is...well, effective at using intel. I find that even though I'm making about 6x as many intel points as the culture that I'm pretty sure is attacking me, I have a bad record of repelling their intel attacks... any advice?

Overall, great work!

I get espionage intel attacks left and right, but not a single sabotage attack so far.

No matter, I prefer the traditional way, I'll crush 'em all with my huge armada!

There's no real point to espionage for the AI, it will never really understand the information in any useful way. It's better for the AI to use those points for defense or sabotage projects instead.

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

Could you describe exactly how Intel works in your mod? BM made its own and stock has its own too, so we can't compare notes.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Hello,

Here's what I've noticed so far playing this mod:

1.) The AI's feel like they're in some sort of blank default mode if you know what I mean. In my game, none of them have treaties with anyone else (which might explain why the're having a hard time). Early in the game, there's one shining moment when the AI attacked one of my fleets guarding a newly-colonized planet. I have only 3, well-designed ships while the AI attacked with 7. They had lower technology but I was overwhelmed... and not only that, a freighter even dropped troops and captured the planet! It was awesome!

Unfortunately that didn't happen again. As everyone expanded, everyone seemed to be at war with everyone else... or I'm not sure what's going on really. The AI kept sending singular ships at well-defended warp points, NO ONE has any treaty with anyone else. Either they're at war, or there's no treaty at all. It seemed like none of the AIs have any sort of personality to them. Their ship designs are also all the same. There doesn't appear to be any direction at this point in their actions... or maybe they're sending their fleets somewhere else because like I mentioned, everyone is either at war, or has no treaty. I was hoping to face large strike fleets but all I keep getting is the occasional scout ship and even colony ships! Imagine: the AI sending colony ships to a system controlled by a race they're at war with.

2.) This one is about the components. Could you consider changing the allowed targets for point-defense weapons? This includes flak cannons, bomblet missiles, PD beams etc. as well. Currently they're allowed to target ships, which means they also fire on enemy ships when they're within range aside from the usual seekers, fighters and satellites. However, I noticed in my simulations that this makes ships highly vulnerable to seekers. I loaded a cruiser with lots of PD cannons, and heavy anti-proton beams and simulated it against 2 frigates and a destroyer all armed with capital ship missiles. Initially none of the missiles could get near the cruiser because of the PD... but when the cruiser closed the distance to fire its beams, it got fried really bad and eventually destroyed.

This is because I noticed the PD cannons were firing on the SHIPS and not the missiles. Consistently, this has happened in all of my simulations. When the distance is close enough to fire, PD weapons fire on enemy ships, at the cost of shooting down seekers and torpedoes which are their primary purpose! Could you consider removing ships from the allowable targets list of PD weapons?

Anyway, I know the AI is not polished yet but it's performance in my game was rather... well, strange.

EDIT: Oh and I am playing at Hard difficulty with Low bonus

Thanks for the reply! Here's my thoughts on each point:

1.) Yep it seems so... I have a lot of AIs getting angry at me for launching espionage activities when I spend 100% of my intelligence points on DEFENSE . And currently, almost all of them seem to have the same personality.

2.) Nice to hear that you've improved it . I hope it all boils down to a better performing AI in the end.

3.) Great! right now, at every turn I get attacked by 2 or 3 enemy ships jumping through the warp points one at a time into my systems. I keep thinking to myself what if the AI simply grouped all those ships together and waited maybe 5 turns BEFORE attacking through the warp point? After all, it already KNOWS I control the system, shouldn't it assume I'll have a fleet guarding the front door?! I'm really looking forward to how you've improved this in the next update.

PD Weapons:

Ok. I actually like it that PD attacks ships, however, it should also be intelligent enough to fire on seekers, etc. when they're in range regardless if they're already firing on a ship. In my simulations, the amount of PD doesn't matter. ALL of them fire on enemy ships and don't let go unless out of range, so there's a huge swath of time for seekers to hit the ship. I hope there are targetting priorities there somewhere that can be edited, but if not, I'd strongly suggest altering the allowable targets as this is a bit of a gamebreaker.

Any way good luck and thanks!

Too bad

But for gameplay's sake it has to be done. Well I'll download and play when I have time in a couple of days.

I'll post the stats on my empire when I'm next at my PC
GREAT mod!

As for targetting ships with PD, could you make versions of PD that only do PD, and versions of PD that can target ships, too? That way, you can have your cake and eat it too...

I knocked out the empire that was targeting me with intel attacks by taking all their planets with troops. That pretty much stopped the sabotage attacks. It was being done by a small, 1-system AI which had about 7 planets and 6000 points in intel. Now that I've got about 350K points in Intel, I see plenty of espionage get through, but no sabotage. I'm also playing merry hell with the various AIs through my own sabotage attacks.

Oh, one little thing I've noticed: On occasion, one of the my colony ships will do a little dance when it spots an enemy ship at a warp point: it moves 1 hex away from the warp point (out of sensor range) then 1 hex toward the warp point (into sensor range). Then, it repeats that little jig until it's out of movement...

Anyway to prevent that from happening, besides fitting weapons to the colony ships?

What about changing the Target priorities in the orders section to get the PD's to fire at seekers first?

IE...Change 'Point Blank' (Change them all actually) target priorty to choose seekers as their first target. Most weapons can't target seekers, so they will skip that option and fire on ships, etc. The PD's will fire on the seekers over the ships in the target priority and when no seeker is present they will fire on ships.

I'm at work....it may need to be the Smallest Target if you can't choose seekers. Though, that could be troublesome if you have fighters in the mix as your Anti-Proton beams fire at the fighters and not ships? Try different options and see what you can g et to work in the simulator.

SE5 Files hosted on Filefront (Patches, Mods, Races, etc)

I'll update to the new version ASAP. My game is just getting interesting in the old mod, tho!