AI Ship Modeling |
After Aaron gets done fixing the annoying bugs that mess up gameplay I sure hope he will fix AI ship modeling. It's really a pity to see the AI do a simplistic top down approach while ignoring the three decks and the interior hull positions. The AI ships are therefore far less challenging than if they were smartly designed by using interior hull positions first before going to outer hull positions.
The other annoying thing is that AI's don't seem to use master computers even when they've got them. In my latest game start I had 2 AI's with all techs at the start. I built cheap colony ships with the maximum of engines, a colony module, a master computer and a cargo container. I was able to crank them out in 1 turn. I also built some recon frigates that were done in 2 turns. After finding one AI right next door to one of my 10 planets I sent my frigate in to investigate. On the next turn the AI completed a frigate, all dolled up with a bunch of useless junk that took the AI 3 turns to build. Since I had two homeworlds at my mercy I decided to attack and snuffed both AI homeworlds real fast and easy. Sometimes filling a ship with everything you can is a waste. I like smaller cheaper colony ships as they build quicker and thus start colonizing quicker.
Why don't the AI's use Master Computers? Seems like a problem leftover from SE4 as I saw the same problem there too. Especially now in SE5 with the 3 decks and interior/outer hull positions it makes a lot more sense to use master computers as they take up only one build slot rather than a minimum of 3 for smaller ships and more for bigger ships.
I also hope that someday the AI's learn how to upgrade ships or scrap them in favor of saving those resource expenditures for bigger newer ships. Seems like the AI never met a ship it didn't like to keep for the posterity's sake.
Omnius
Balance Mod AI Designs
In the standard AI design algorithm, there is no distinction between types of ships when it comes to added extra components. The Balance Mod has more refined AI designs and a wider variety of design types that the AI will use.
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemod.php
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Yes, but do those AI scripts
Yes, but do those AI scripts function independently of your other modifications that we don't necessarily care for? I rather liked all the hundreds of tech levels.
Sorry, they're specific to the mod...
Unfortunately no. They are specific to the Balance Mod.
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Mods Not All Bad
Worth noting is that decks and positions are largely cosmetic, and only A/I/O matters. The fact that the AI crams all his components on the upper level, and the fact that his engines are lopsided, will not, in fact, cause his ship to be incapable of doing anything other than flying in circles like such an imbalance would in real life.
Crappy AI Designs
Then I become bored and start a new game when it becomes clear nothing is even going to try to effectively resist.
And frankly, tactical thinking has never been an AI's strong point. In basically every game with enough shiny buttons to push, the AI will get hopelessly lost. Sort of like how he doesn't quite grasp that he needs to heavily lean on seekers if he wants to have any chance of hitting a +150% evasion frigate.
Never Met a Mod I Liked
Fishman,
I never met a mod I liked or that seemed to improve a game. I still think that it's up to the developer to improve a game not the modders. Making a game moddable just seems like a copout to me. Hearts of Iron comes to mind as the worst game ever produced and that had the worst mods. They copped out that if you don't like something you could mod it to your satisfaction. The problem with that is that they never fixed the game properly because they got lazy and figured customers could fix things by modding them. I'm not interested in modding a game because I want to play it. I'm not interested in having to remod a game after patching it or hoping some modder comes up with a new version PDQ. It all comes down to personal preference and I prefer no mods but others like you like mods and modding. As we used to say when I was young "Different Strokes for Different Folks"! 
You and I think alike on colony ships. I like a cargo container so I can drag more population along to start up a colony which helps decrease building times when starting a colony. Otherwise I keep colony ships stripped down since I know they're mainly traveling through friendly space.
Omnius
AI Designs, Mods and stuff
Notes on AI design:
The main problem with stock designs is that the larger ships use less space for engines per kT than smaller ships. Since the AI design routine dedicates a fixed percentage for weapons, the big ships don't use an optimal amount of space for weapons and instead fill up their designs with extra components. To make this worse, the extra components are not all that optimized either and do not take into consideration the design type or potential role of the ship.
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Balance Mod note:
The Resupply area does provide components and facilities as well so I'm not sure why you are so sad, with Starship Support was converted to vehicle systems for items like Life Support, Crew Quarters, and a couple of other items.
Anyways I always recommend trying something before you decide you don't like it. Don't let one bad mod experience sour your gaming appetite!
Mods in general:
Mods are actually very good for certain types of bug finding, especially considering that the strength of the SE series has always been on the moddability side. Modding works to test all the abilities and make sure they are working, various game functions, balance issues, and a number of gameplay issues.
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Follow the Thread
Fishman,
If you followed my thread from the beginning I mentioned I started the game with all techs meaning that the AI had all the techs as did I. No tech disadvantage for the AI's, just a logic disadvantage in ship design and how to take advantage of the new wrinkles of multiple decks and inner/outer/armor hull sections.
AI's don't gloat nor do they react to gloating, remember AI stands for "Artificial Ingnorance". I seriously doubt that even if we gave the AI's our brilliant ship designs they would actually be smart enough to use them. I agree that the AI's tend to shortchange themselves on research. I also think they're not programmed to use some of those nifty production/research/intel boosters like planet or system facilities that boost production/research/intel. The AI's do a good job of mineral mining to be sure.
Omnius
I used to think that too.
But I figure it's cheaper to attach a small warship to escort the colony ship, a warship that will NOT have to be rebuilt, than to try, unsuccessfully, to equip a colonyship for war only to scrap it for nothing on arrival. Or, if I'm really cheap, cheaper just to chance it and accept that some colony ships might be shot down....but at least they're cheap. Right now, I don't even bother with cargobays anymore, although I can see *WHY* you might use them, such as stuffing a few weapons platforms to defend the colony with. Right NOW, I just colonize empty, and then scrap the free 1M population and let whatever race was suitable for that world in my empire migrate to it. If I want to masspopulate that planet, there's no way a colony ship is going to hold enough peasants to make a significant difference anyway. I'll just bring over one of my heavy "instant population, just add people" heavy transports.
As a side benefit, the heavy transport also provides a significant level of escort protection, seeing as it can ram and kill dozens of enemy ships with impunity, even though it's not actually ARMED.
Amusement
Plus, I'm kind of a zookeeper. I like to collect specimens of every single race in the galaxy. It's a kind of a hobby.
Back in MOO2 I've been known to wage wars across the galaxy to save the last INSERT ENDANGERED SPECIES HERE, where by "war", I mostly mean "smash and grab raid".
about AI Desings
i don't know if it's even possible .... but is there anyway that the AI would create multiple classes of ships ... no fleet is only composed of one tonnage class ... example a mine sweeping dreadnought? lol or worst a kamikazi dreadnought! the terrans are fond of that one..
the question again :
is there anyway to make the AI design different classes of attack ships instead of only one?
I don't make multiple classes
I really only tend to make one class of attack ship, generally the largest thing that can still satisfy my requirements to DRIVE FASTER DAMMIT. Ultimately, that attack ship succumbs to massiver feature creep and is never actually built, and so I attack by ramming with freighters instead, or hijacking enemy ships and using them to bombard their own planets using the same pirate frigates I was using to hijack their colony ships for slaves.
I don't, however, use the largest hull available for everything. A minesweeping ship will typically be constructed out of a cheap frigate hull, just in case there are are too many mines. Kamikaze dreadnought seems a bit much, though. Even the best shipsets aren't going to give you more than 8 armor slots a deck, and dreadnoughts aren't fast enough to pursue and ram fleeing prey. And I'm not sure whether shields actually help your ramming strength, since I have yet to actually install shields. Shields always seem to succumb to feature creep...just one more level....yeah....oh, crap there he is. Oh, well. Not equipped with shields? Well, then, buckle up!
FLEETS!
well i usually have a couple a (heavy) frigates "stock game" attacking about thier same number in cruisers .. and guess what ... my frigates whips the AI cruisers which lack even the combat sensors.. while my frigates are damn hard to hit even with sensors ..
patheteic..
and haven't the AI ever heard of point defence?
to expliot that i usually make a couple of "missile destroyers" armed with 4 CSM's each .. and set to max wep range ... by by AI
I've seen the AI upgrade
I've seen the AI upgrade ships, but the way the AI designs ships in general is somewhat baffling. Why does he bother strapping a colony ship with a ton of weapons, shields, and armor plating? This is a waste of money, since the colony ship is completely destroyed when colonizing and the weapons do not become a part of the planetary defenses. Since the colony ships simply flee the moment a fight begin anyway, there is little point in putting any other defenses on them.