IRM, Update...

Good look forward to playing the new version as I am moving and this is sent from a very aged lap top it wont be yet a while

Great!
BTW, seeing how popular your mod has become, why can't you play it on PBW?

Excellent. This currently clearly is the most active mod. I really like the gameplay modifications but what makes me love each iteration of the mod better than the previous one is the very good work on the AI. Maybe sometime in the not so far future may the AI actually become a challenge without giving it massive boosts during setup.

---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.

Maybe its just me but the strategy edit has not been fixed yet. I can't edit the final part of the strategies where it says how much damage and at what distance to fire at ships. Is this an IRM bug or a bug with the game itself. Please help, I would really like my engine destroyer ships to stop firing once they blow up the other ships engines.

---
Space Empires V rocks and rolls all day long sweet Suzy.

It hasn't been fixed yet because it isn't an IRM bug- only MM can fix this one, in another patch.

Those are some nices fixes, but improving the research scripts of the AI some more should be priority number 1, specially towards construction and weapons tech. I haven´t seen any destroyers yet.

I´ve also noticed that the AI still uses DUCs for a looong time too, and is taking much more time to research WPs and missiles than before. Other than that, it´s behaving very well, I can´t wait to see an invading fleet full of cruisers and carriers =)

Research scripts mean nothing if it can't get enough RP. Thus, more Research Centres is first priority.

---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.

Wz up my SE V Bro's

I hope someone can help me.

I can't get IRM .99a to run. SE V tells me it can't read it? I have ver 1.33 & the balance mod works great but IRM won't run .I'm dumber than a box of rocks when it comes to this kind of stuff.Can Anyone out there help?

Stardog

Hey Stardog,

Check to make sure that the "Inter-Related Conversion" is in your gametypes folder. Then open it and make sure you see the Data and Maps subfolders. If you only see one subfolder then that may be your problem. The game looks only looks one folder deep for the files and I think if you extract IRM directly to Gametypes then it is put two folders deep.

-unnamed

I don´t agree. Both issues (RC construction by the AI and research script) have to be adressed. I always play with medium bonus, so the AI has much more RP than me for a loooong time. Specially because I play with 3 starting planets, so I get about 28000 RP, while they get 84000. And yet I always defeat it because I have light cruisers and anti-proton beams, and they only have frigs nad DUCs.

bheusi, what else do you research? As in, do you rush towards LC + APBs and then start beating up the first AI you see? Or more realistically: do you only research the "War Techs" (sensors, weapons, armour/shields, ship size) then go off to war ASAP?

Is it confirmed the AI is getting more tech levels than you?

---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.

Nope, I do research a bit of everything, including fighters, better life support... I don´t know where the AI spends all those RP. I´ve noticed that it likes a lot to research intel and support related areas, but seldom researches physics and construction. Even if I trade those techs with them, it doesn´t make any difference at all... I think:

-giving the AI instructions to increase the priority of construction, armor and sensors (maybe physics too);
-and decreasing the priority of intelligence and support tech (specially repair, since the AI doesn´t know how to use rep. ships well anyway)

Would be a good start.

It's hard, as any specialised strategy can beat a generalist AI. Tech rushing, Ship Massing and Intel Overlord. I suspect the AI would need to learn to project forwards by a number of turns and research in anticipation of situations to be truly strong. There is no point researching better Resupply Depots, better Resource extraction, etc if they are not in short supply and won't be for the future. Actually for that matter, it can alternatively scrap and re-build facilities to increase resource production.

But we discussed some weeks/months ago that the different Ministers don't really have much idea what each other is thinking. A human can go "I want X to happen, therefore I'll research this, and build this and have these ships do..." - for example, if I'm going to fight a war, I prepare a dozen or more population transports to slowly siphon excess population together. Then I colonise some nearby world and immediately populate it with a few hundred million people. Likely I'd have transported weapon platforms and other units to drop on there immediately too. Of course a fleet would have sat there beforehand to oversee safety (escorting or advance guard). Because my ships would then have already been built, I don't bother with any Ship techs and focus on other areas, such as Culture or some civilian support tech. From that forward world, the first thing built is a resupply depot then a space yard which is atypical (normally a space yard then a space port goes up). Maybe I'd have all the ships retrofitted after a Repair Base has been built ASAP - more likely I'd have brought my own repair ships.

The AI running separate algorithms/Ministers to handle different aspects of the empire means it has no hope of being a specialist. Never mind that if Tactical combat is allowed then the human can win much more easily (I have pulled off a "Parthian Shot" with DUCs with equal speed, equal range ships just because my shots are travelling in the opposite direction to our travel).

---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.

If anyone is interested I’ve been working on a techtree for IRM (based on version 0.99b, I hope Fallen Haven doesn’t mind, I just thought I might save him a bit of work). Actually with IRM being so inter-related it’s less of a techtree as it is a techshrub.

Anyway it mostly complete (well the hard part is done). The tech tree showing all the techs and their respective dependencies is done. So far it just list technologies and nothing else.

For instance it describes what you need to research to get the technology Plasma Shell Weapons, but it doesn’t describe how to get the weapon Plasma Shell Cannon or Plasma Bolter .

Because many of the components and weapons in the game need multiple technologies I think it will be necessary to create a second techtree that just lists weapons.
For instance a plasma missile would be linked as requiring Missile Technology and Plasma Weapons, but it would not describe what techs are necessary to get Missile Technology and Plasma Weapons; you would have to refer to the other Tech Tree for that.

Here's a link to the file:
http://interrelatedmod.wikispaces.com/space/showimage/IRM+Tech+Tree+v0.31.xlsx

I created it in Microsoft Excel 2007. If you have difficulty opening it let me know and I'll change the format.

Hmm, maybe once we have the basic functions of the AI properly coded we can think about making each race more specialised. Hmm... there must be some way to specify which AI script set a custom AI race uses ("Aggressive" "Defensive and "Neutral" being replaced with stuff like "Researcher" and "Psychotic War Crazed"). Well, we can get to that later I guess.

---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.

Long Term, I definitely plan on helping making personalities for the AI to spice them up. Some researchers/defense, some psychotic warriors, others politicians/intel/trade, etc. For now though we are working on simply making a general AI that can do most things a human player can do, and then do those things reasonably efficiently. For example a computer properly handling resources and building facilities depending on needs is universal to all types of AIs. Similarly, having a computer smart enough to undome planets is useful for conquering warriors or politicians with migration treaties. Once these basics are in place, alot of what is needed to make different personalities will be to change the balance of the code, not so much creating.

-unnamed

-To err is human, to really screw up takes a committee

Hi FH and bmaxa. I´ve made some interesting discoveries after playing a bit more.

-Someone in the forums mentioned seeing the AI using destroyers. In my games that didn´t happened so far. I´ve made a "trade current tech" pact as well as "share all designs", and no sign of destroyers yet (or light cruisers since I have medium hull tech too... 5 turns have passed). Also, it designed some fighters with particles accellerators as well as shields and ECM (cool!)... but hasn´t exchanged the DUCs for cyclotrons yet on its frigs. Let´s see what happens.
-Weapon balancing issues I´ve noticed: caseless AM torps and fusion tech are underpowered. Wave motion guns are surprisingly underpowered and have awful penalties to hit. On a simulator battle, a cruiser armed with 2 lvl 6 caseless AM torps, 5 light AP beams and 4 lvl 13 heavy AP beams (level 6 large mounts) defeated by quite a large margin (its internals were damaged, but not much) a cruiser with 5 light APBs and 4 lvl 14 WM guns (level 2 HEAVY mounts). Shields, sensor armor etc were the same. In fact it was defeated even if it flied away and remained outside the range of the torps. I bet the higher fire rate and accuracy of the APBs was the cause.

Keep up the good work.

when is the next IRM update coming out?

)

Hey FH found out why WMGs were behaving so poorly. Mounts are actually decreasing the "to Hit" chances, so large mounts decrease chances by 10%, heavy by 20%... don´t know if it was intentional but that makes mounts a poor choice. As I´ve shown im my previous example, a ship equipped with more advanced weapons (and quite more expensive!) was crushed by a ship with less advanced weapons but with a smaller mount penalty. Needless to say that´s unbalanced.

Also, no signs of ships larger than frigates, or frigs using something besides DUCs as their main weapons even through they have the tech to do so. Hope that gets fixed in the next version see ya

PS: Updating... finally the empire I gave tech designed some destroyers. Sweet... However I´ve noticed a bug regarding mines... Whenever I move a ship, even one with sweepers, on a sector with mines, it goes to tactical combat, instead of either sweeping or being hit by the mines... and retreats.

Actually the mine bug is happening only in this particular game I´m playing... I´ve played 1.33 stock and with both latest versions of IRM and BM and it didn´t happen before. Has anyone else experienced that?

Hm... I just think that the mount penalty should be decreased. And a LOT. If a ship with worse weapons and worse mounts can easily defeat a more expensive ship with modern weapons and better (?) mounts, something is VERY wrong. Why would I want to use those expensive mounts anyway then? The better acuraccy of using no mount at all easily beats the extra range and damage of the mounts...

And as for the issue of larger vs smaller ships, well things get even worse. I´ve made an anti-ship cruiser, with 5 lvl 13 WMGs and 1 lvl 17 incinerator beam with lvl 2 heavy mounts, 1350 pts of shields and 4860 pts of armor; 37% attack bonus, -7% defense penalty. Cost: 38000 minerals, 17000 rads. Quite a ship huh? Well to test it I put it against 2 of my Jagger VII destroyer design, a ship with 3 lvl 13 APBs with lvl 6 large mounts, and 4 lvl 16 ripper beams; 3240 armor; 37% bonus for attack, 18% bonus for defense, total cost of the 2 destroyers was 28000 minerals and 14000 rads.

The result? 1 destroyed cruiser, 1 destroyed destroyer and the other was moderatedly damaged. Just see the cost and components of the ships involved and it´s impossible not to see how umbalanced things are. Also, it´s much faster to build those 2 destroyers than the cruiser. And the cruiser stayed outside the ripper beams´ range! Imagine if it went close...

I know that you´re doing AI work for the next version and that´s QUITE a lot of work heh, but don´t forget those balancing issues. Thanx

i noticed something similar when in simulation, a massive starbase of mine equiped with huge numbers of heavy mount plasma shell guns was blasted away by a dozen AI-designed frigates with low level DUCs.....the starbase should had obliterated the frigates with a couple of barrages...

Yep, the theory was that Big ships can't hit Small ships[1] but Small ships can't damage Big ships. Small ships are easy to construct, therefore you can defend fairly easily against an attack of Small ships if spotted in advance (heck, regular units should do the trick). Big ships can't be dealt with easily except for huge weapon platforms. Thus Big Ships can freely walk to a planet and barricade/siege/kill it without being challenged whereas Small ships can be batted away quickly. Hence, there was a point to building Big ships.

Now Aaron's gone and changed the Emissive armour system yet again. Now Fallen Haven will have to re-adjust everything again to bring back the above theory into practice again. Every public patch in recent months has screwed the armour system without telling us in the change logs.

---
[1] Actually that's a lie, you can put the same unmounted, accurate weapons on Big ships so they can fight on equal terms with Small ships but nobody thinks to put unmounted weapons on Big ships (there's nothing like putting 20 unmounted Meson blasters on a big ships and micromanaging their first shots so they fire Gattling Gun style). Even then, there is still a point in building escorts of small ships.

---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.

I just wanted to point out something, I don't know if anyone has noticed this or what but whenever you auto complete a ship design it always puts DUC's on the ship regardless if you have stronger weapons so what I am curious about is if this might have something to do with why the AI only builds DUC ships? I think that the AI just auto completes ships when it is designing them right? Then naturally they would only design DUC ships since that is all that pops up on auto complete. Maybe add some kind of code which always chooses highest tech weapon or something to the auto complete function?

Hmm... those posts explain a lot of things I too felt something wasn´t working right with armor, and the AI was hard-coded to use DUCs... So what are you going to do now FH? If it is impossible to put armor like it was before then thw whole weapon and mount system will have to be changed =(

Ok if its the case then that the aliens only choose their specific weapon, shouldnt they research their weapon tech sooner? I am 100 turns in and every alien race is still using DUCs. It is just annoying continuously fighting alien fleets with just DUCs.

Wz up Bro's

Fallen Haven

IRM is a great MOD . Yes theres a few things that need a little fixing but on the whole its great!
The " AI " attacks now! I mean the first few battles I lost! Then one of my United Defence Alliance" UDA" members pulled a sneak attack on my Home World!! Now that was cool!
I'm just hanging in there.Shoot fire I may even not win this one but its sure better than playing the SE 5 1.33 ver.
Thanks for taking the time to kick this game up a few bar's of fun!

Note: I did try to use a Large Map but it kept crashing so I used a Med Map and all has been fine.

Thanks again!
Stardog

Yeah I see what you mean, I just hope that you can figure it out. I think this will be the crucial hurdle to overcome to really make the AI competitive.

is it me, or is using organic freighter hulls over normal ones pointless? the organic ones are more expencive and don't seem to give me anything more!
same with colony ships.

-----
an se5a is a ww1 fighter, it is also a car.

Yes, I have found this too, they are the same price pretty much (organics switched with minerals) and their maintanence is just a little lower.

These changes are small, but still significant in the long run...

Can you remove supply costs for AI , when it comes to weapons and fuel in general?

It would seriously help it, and reduce the problems coming when I use myself on TEAMPLAY vs AI, and usually I get to fight 1-2 AI, while hte rest are too far away, to bother doing anything with me, so its really not much of a challenge anyway.

If they didn't have supply, they would send more fleets I think.

Janster

Not to sound to needie, but any chance of a small update with the armor fix when you get it worked out? I'm loving this mod, form the sounds of it the armor fixaroo will make it 10x better. Any chance it would be compatable with a saved game or would we have to start a new one? Ok, thanks much. Keep up the good work, like I said, I'm loving the mod, it's a whole new game!

Kyle

Kwok mentioned in another thread of the existence of abilities to make the AI cheat. While it may leave a bad taste in the mouth, until we find more elegant and intelligent solutions it may be worth it to implement the "AI Resupplies regardless of depots" and "AI knows where all enemy colony and ship positions are" cheats to compensate for inherent weaknesses.

But more importantly, I'm looking forward to the Armour fix. I'm thinking of taking IRM into Multiplayer once the next patch arrives.

---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.

But this leaves one more thing - shields. When armor get their damage reductions back as intended shields will be much weaker. Because small ships still be able to chew through them fast as they won't have damage absorbtion. Damage reduction alone that is given with better shield types won't compensate for this.

To my understanding, Shields were never intended to entirely replace Armour. All shields auto-regen so as long as some of them are there behind the Armour, you're protected from things like Boarding and other Anti-Component weapons. Shields aren't supposed to completely save you.

Big Ships have space for all the armour they want and some shields. If you're thinking of loading them up entirely with the best mounted weapons and a couple of shields (the typical stock/BM approach), then that ship has no right to fight Small ships.

Fallen Haven, maybe it's best we give up on trying to make a Research script that is generic and balanced and decent. Might be best to make some specialist races and figure out a way to make sure the AI we (those who just want a good fight ASAP) fight have the warmongering scripts somehow. First priority goes to testing the new Armour system though - I await news on this.

---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.

I would agree...that it might be better to introduce specific race research scripts rather than one general script(tho this script could still be used for some races)

It would add personality to the AI's and make it more interesting for the players...rather than always finding the same old stuff.

Imagine you meet 2 races... a war race and a cunning intel race...you'd be more split between researching war stuff and intel to protect yourself...maybe!

Anyway the combinations are almost endless...

Hmm, I'm using the latest available update of IRM, and on TEAMPLAY the AI seems to have at eachother.

Atleast I get a lot of waiting time for combat that doesn't involve me.

This doesn't seem to be an issue in Balancemod.

Also the intelligence stuff, is still available when I turn it off.
(I don't like it, I want action, not more messages)

Janster