MAKING THE AI BETTER

Is this a generic AI update, or is it specific to any particular race?

Also get the AI to research sensors as an early game priority so it can cover more gorund easily. You could also get the AI to seed spy satalites around warp gates to make it so it can see any ship coming in and out (it should be possible to make a little function to allow it to seed sats to cover the entire system).

Slightly decrease the number of attack ships the AI will add to fleets will free up a free lone ships that could be used for this purpose.

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

Your LS/CQ script gave me inspiration to change this for the Balance Mod, where I was able to condense it some more...

Snippet:
...
"Life Support":
set tech_id := Sys_Get_Tech_ID("Vehicle Systems")
set tech_level := Sys_Trunc(Sys_Get_Empire_Research_Tech_Level(sys_long_Player_ID, tech_id) * 0.4)
set num_to_add := Sys_Trunc(lst_AI_Vehicle_Sizes_Num_Life_Support.Get(index) / (100 + (tech_level * 25)) + 0.99)
return num_to_add
...

I grab the level of required tech, then because the mod only has LS/CQ components at levels 1-3-5 (and not at every tech level) I needed to throw in a multiplication factor after. In global settings I changed the lst_AI_Vehicle_Sizes_Num_Life_Support variable to carry the number of crew required (rather than number of LS/CQ to add) and then did a calculation to figure out the number to add.

Sounds great!!

Any chance of getting Aaron to put this into the next patch for all the stock races?

Sys_Trunc() just cuts off the decimal, so 3.97 becomes 3 and so on.

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

I like the script - but what about adding a provision to calculate the distance (Sys_Get_Hex_Distance_Between_Sectors) to the object so only the closest ships are given orders to attack? Right now it looks like each free attack ship might be given the same attack order on the first object that is found.

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

Oops. Neglected to pick up that the ship's orders would be only issued for enemy ships in the same system, since it's just a scan of objects in the same system as the ship and not empire wide.

Although I suppose the distance clause might work ok for attack ships in an adjacent system - like a situation where the AI has a colony but no attack ships in the system where there is a valid target.

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

Strategies determine how a ship will behave in combat. You can make new strategies and reference them in the AI's main scripts. Right now it seems the strategies for design types are hard-coded, but it's probably fairly easy to assign a default strategy in the design creation script.

It seems that sometimes with SPACE_OBJECT_TYPE_PLANET ability that uncolonized planets get picked as attack targets. I'll have to double check the scripts I made with this provision though and the debug log to see what is happening exactly when I get home tonight.

Unfortunately the abilities on mine hulls that are supposed to make them invisible to basic sensors are not working properly. Anyhow I believe even the stock AI will launch mines above it's planets and at warp points (if they have mine layers available). The Balance Mod AIs do it though.

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

The ballence Mod should be called the Mine mod as the AI loves its blasted mines so much. The last game I played every planet I took required two fleets first suicide mine sweepers as you had to clear 150+ mines then the battle fleet excorting troop ships

If the enemy is using that many mines, proper minesweepers may be required... "polish mine sweeping" only goes so far.
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