odd 1.30 observation
 

Guys. I've noticed with the new 1.30 patch the AI runs out of resources quite early in the game typically <50 turns. The AI appears to be building it's ships compliment up faster than it can afford it. Anyone else see this happen? I'm using the stock game (no mods), quick start.

tic

[This message has been edited by tictoc (edited 17 March 2001).]

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

Yes, I have noticed.
The AI builds better now but can't manage it's resources like a human does.

There are two alternatives.
1. Slow down their production, but they will play a very weak game.(Not acceptable)

2. Play with a bonus to help them out.(A must)

Im waiting for the next modpack to start a new game with low bonus.
I hope it will be out soon.


[This message has been edited by Emperor Zodd (edited 17 March 2001).]

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

Saw the Ai still building mineral miner facs at a 4% world, because it needed more minerals.
I hope this was fixed with SE4, but the game behaves as dumb as SE3 sadly.

Shouldn't be that hard to get rid of this ?!

A.

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

I noticed the same thng with the AI running out of resources. I guess since the modders have tweaked the shipbuilding routines now the resources are a little out of balance.
As Emperor Zodd pointed out you should always play with a bonus, I usually play low or medium and get a decent game. Be aware that the AI bonus gives extra resources, research and intel points.
I generally choose the other races manually edit them to account for this. I lower their research and intel abilities a little. I reduce their maintenance cost and increase resource production, usually mineral. This still gives them an advantage in research and intel but not 2-5 times. It also helps them keep large fleets in action.
This is not perfect but I think it will be a huge task to get all AI to use all aspects of the game well. It is so complicated and interlocked that there will always be some comprimises.

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Arralen:
Saw the Ai still building mineral miner facs at a 4% world, because it needed more minerals.
I hope this was fixed with SE4, but the game behaves as dumb as SE3 sadly.

Shouldn't be that hard to get rid of this ?!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually this can be modded away. The reason it happens is simple. Each world has to have some facilities and these are scripted by what is needed and the order they are scripted in. The Last scripted world type for all AI states is a mineral miner world so it is the catchall for whenever they colonize a world that doesn't fit any other catagory. So any world that is colonized and, either doesn't fit the classifications, or they have already colonized enough of the specified colony type that that world fits, then it will become a mineral miner world even if it would be perfect for something else. The "fix" is to make some other type of world the catchall. But you could have the same problems with that type of world becoming too numerous and/or being perfect for something other type that has already been built up to its current quota. I believe some mods address this area already but I don't know if a perfect fix has been made yet.

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 18 March 2001).]

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

Marty...

As i said in my first post, i'm not using any mods, so theoretically, the resources (or AI management of them) should not be 'out of balance'. I would have thought that even at the most basic level (for players new to this amazing piece of software), the AI would be smart enough not to cripple itself or (Emperor), have to rely on the players intervention to give it a bonus just to play on a level par. Maybe this needs to be addressed in the next patch.

tic

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

Heya, guys http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

This is a rather complex issue, I fear. I mean, it's easy to underestimate the complexity of the decision-making process that we, as human players, go through in playing SE4.

I'm not really much of a programmer, so I hesitate to criticize Aaron too much on this.

On the one hand, one can look at the Q3 bots, and the incredibly complex fuzzy logic they use to make their fighting decisions. And one can look at the AI in Homeworld, and that seems to behave pretty intelligently.

On the other hand, those games do not really involve the same complexities of long-range planning; both are essentially tactical situations only.

But the gripping hand is, the SE4 AI does work, if not always quite as well as we might wish it would http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Just as Aaron never stopped supporting and improving SE3, I think we can confidently expect him to keep refining SE4 for a long time to come.

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tomgs:
Actually this can be modded away. The reason it happens is simple. Each world has to have some facilities and these are scripted by what is needed and the order they are scripted in. The Last scripted world type for all AI states is a mineral miner world so it is the catchall for whenever they colonize a world that doesn't fit any other catagory. So any world that is colonized and, either doesn't fit the classifications, or they have already colonized enough of the specified colony type that that world fits, then it will become a mineral miner world even if it would be perfect for something else. The "fix" is to make some other type of world the catchall. But you could have the same problems with that type of world becoming too numerous and/or being perfect for something other type that has already been built up to its current quota. I believe some mods address this area already but I don't know if a perfect fix has been made yet.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What Arralens said is correct, when AI runs out (has higher maintenance then income value) of some resource like organics, he will make next colonized world Farming colony no matter what resources the planet has and no matter what the AI files contains. In ModPack all my moded races have Last call for research compound instead of mining colony and this still happens to them. Sergetti and Xi'Chung don't have ANY Mining colony call for any planet with value below 101% and still, when they run out of minerals, they build mining colonies on mineral-poor planets.

However, it seems that since the 1.27 patch the following line is not used by AI anymore: Maximum Maintenance Percent of Revenue := 80

This line used to make AI stop building new ships and bases when it had maintenance at 80% of total income and that way AI wouldn't run out of resources and would not stop building facilities and units. However since the 1.27 (and 1.30) patch it appears that AI is simply not using this line anymore.

I don't think it is intentional since it causes AI to run out of resources and brings his production to a standstill (or worse, it makes AI scrap its existing bases and ships), so this has to be reported to Aaron to fix it.

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

If the AI is not paying attention to the maximum maintenance line that would explain a lot of what I have seen.
I my current game the AI has huge fleets but I think it has reached a level where it can't build any more facilities or add new designs because all their minerals are used for maintenance.

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

Daynarr.
So does mephisto's modpack 1.61 address this problem or is it hard coded and therefore inherent in the mod as well?

tic

[This message has been edited by tictoc (edited 18 March 2001).]

[This message has been edited by tictoc (edited 18 March 2001).]

[This message has been edited by tictoc (edited 18 March 2001).]

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

It's likely a problem with the engine itself. Some of the modpack races have ending queue entries that tell the AI to build multiple attack ships per colony world. In particular in my new game Earth Alliance and the XiChung which both had maybe 15 or so planets but had 50-70 ships each. They were of course running massive losses on their resources. Hopefully they'll fix it so that max maintenance cost flag works again. Not really sure how you else you could ensure a big military buildup without destroying your economy since the sitiuation is very dynamic and varies from game to game.

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

AI decision to make a mining (or other) colony when he is lacking minerals (or other) resources is hard coded and is a good thing actually. It is still much better for AI to make a colony on a planet with 40% when it has no minerals then building intelligence center or something else.

However, the fact that AI is ignoring that is hurting it VERY much (and is hard coded also). There is nothing we can do at this moment but to report it to MM and hope for quick fix.

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

In the settings file for the AIs, I noticed some blank Tabs at the end of the lines. Sometimes blanks have hidden characters that can case failure when uploading a text file into another program like C++. I deleted them and will see if this is better. Maybe somebody else could try the same.

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Daynarr:
It is still much better for AI to make a colony on a planet with 40% when it has no minerals then building intelligence center or something else.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If the AI knew how to trade (I know that's a big if at the moment, but it should be possible to get the AI do at least resource trading), it would be more efficient to build the facilities for the highest resource value of this planet and then trade for minerals (or use resource converter in the later game. The use of resource converter by the AI should also not be to hard to program).

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

The problems with AI building lots of ships and collapsing his economy can be partially slowed down by changing 'Minimum Empire Point Storage' value in settings.txt file to something like 500000 so that AI will gather enough resources before getting negative resource income.

It won't solve the problem, though.

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

Guys, i have been using mephisto's mod in my latest game and the resource prob still exists but at a much reduced level and recovery from it is much quicker (i gave up on the stock 1.30 patch game after no recovery after 30 more turns). Here is some more observations from the 1.30 patch:

1. In the log display after a warp point is opened, the source is stated but not the destination.
2. In the face of defeat, the AI refuses to offer appeasement or even enter trading when offered, to avoid destruction, but will remain on a war footing until wiped out.

Any thoughts?

Kudo's to the Toron race in mephisto's mod pack, they have a very good strategy IWO building their infrastructure defence before building up a strong strike force (would still like to see the use of AI boarding or AI use of smart bombs on a planet, but these will come i suspect).

tic

Re: odd 1.30 observation
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tictoc:
Marty...

As i said in my first post, i'm not using any mods, so theoretically, the resources (or AI management of them) should not be 'out of balance'. I would have thought that even at the most basic level (for players new to this amazing piece of software), the AI would be smart enough not to cripple itself or (Emperor), have to rely on the players intervention to give it a bonus just to play on a level par. Maybe this needs to be addressed in the next patch.

tic<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm surprised no-one's provided this answer before:

One of the things improved in both 1.27 & 1.30 was the AI build queues. It's reasonable to expect that these problems had been around for a while, with the real source unrecognized, and both MM and the modders just kept increasing the number of build calls in an attempt to make the AI build an appropriate number of ships and bases. Now that the routine has been fixed, the increased build calls just need to be lowered again (or better checks made for % of resources dedicated to Maintenance).

In other words, the resources were pretty well balanced in early patches, but when the latest patch improved the AI's build ability, it's created a situation where resources need to be re-balanced. The law of unintended consequences applies to everything, especially software patches... http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

BTW - relevant pieces of History.txt:

Version 1.29:
5. Fixed - Rare case where the AI would go into an infinite loop trying to purchase new items.

Version 1.23:
23. Fixed - The AI would try to build defense bases at planets without spaceyards.