Re: AI+Minefield/AI+Black Hole=Disaster (longish)
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by HreDaak:
AI+Minefield
Ah.. and that colony ship bug with minefields still exists after the patch 1.19.
Send a colonyship into enemy minefield and it will suck all mines from that sector with only the colony component staying intact.
Possible and easy solution to this is to change the colony components Tonnage Structure value from 200--&gt;50. I have tested this and the problem is gone now.
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Hm. I've never had that problem. Of course, I always research explosive warheads 3 before I do mines. Mine Warhead IIIs do 200-300 damage, IIRC, so they probably wipe out that colony module quite easily. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: AI+Minefield/AI+Black Hole=Disaster (longish)
 

Making a colony component only take up 50kt of space is not a good idea. It's much better to set its damage resistance to 50kt and leave it taking up 200kt on the design. Otherwise you can just use an escort hull as a colony ship with +1 engine.

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Re: AI+Minefield/AI+Black Hole=Disaster (longish)
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nyx:
Making a colony component only take up 50kt of space is not a good idea. It's much better to set its damage resistance to 50kt and leave it taking up 200kt on the design. Otherwise you can just use an escort hull as a colony ship with +1 engine.

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And it would require to put more than one colony component in colony ship hull (it has to have at least 50% of space filled with colony components).

Re: AI+Minefield/AI+Black Hole=Disaster (longish)
 

Mines are too powerful because they are invisible. A ship has to decloak to fire it's weapon. Mines should have to do the same. Or make them visible. If they are visible you would have to combine them with ships at ambush points(WP's) to be of use.
The mines should have a short range and would hamper the enemies manuvering while you could be firing seekers from all directions. Of course this would bad for mine lovers,but would be easier on the A.I.

Re: AI+Minefield/AI+Black Hole=Disaster (longish)
 

I did not intend to change the amount of space the colony module takes. I only changed the amount of damage it can take.
There are two lines in components.txt file:

Tonnage Space Taken := 200
Tonnage Structure := 50 (was 200)

Now you have a colony module that still takes
200kt of space but can only take 50kt of damage...

Re: AI+Minefield/AI+Black Hole=Disaster (longish)
 

In my games, I turn off the Mines technology, and I've modded the SystemTypes file so that unstable warp points no longer exist. I still get black-hole systems, but all their warp points are normal. Just two of the many steps I've taken to hide as many weaknesses of the SE4 AI as possible.

Re: AI+Minefield/AI+Black Hole=Disaster (longish)
 

Gryphon, anything else you do?

Re: AI+Minefield/AI+Black Hole=Disaster (longish)
 

I still have unstable WP's, but I lowered the damage from 200 to 50 instesd of disabeling them completely.

AI+Minefield/AI+Black Hole=Disaster (longish)
 

AI+Minefield

Even with the improvements in patch 1.19 the AI is still totally hopeless with minefields.
I've watched in awe as the AI throws dozens of attack ships agains minefields. Sometimes
it will try to sweep these minefields, but the problem in this is that it sends only 1 sweeper. Usually this is not enough to clear the minefield. AI should create Mine sweeper
fleets as it now creates fleets of attack ships and carriers. Or it would be even better that those sweepers would be included
in these fleets. It is clear that the mines
are too powerfull at the moment. You dont need any other defense against AI except mines. An easy way to protect your colonies
is to just build few mines on the planet and then launch them to the orbit. Works way better than Sats/WP/Bases. It is strange also that at the moment you can put 2/3/4 mine warheads in mines. They would be powerfull enough, even if this would be lowered to 1/2/3 warheads. I know that you
could play without mines, but that is just
like playing the game with one hand tied behind your back. Also one partial solution to this problem would be to include 1 or 2
mine sweeping components in Attack ship designs. It would lower their effectiveness in combat but in games where players use mines the AI hardly ever gets to attack anything because of those minefields. One other nice solution would be to change minefields to decaying minefields. Perhaps it could be made so that each minefield would lose 10% of it's mines or 1 mine whichever is greater per turn. Also one solution and perhaps the best one is to change the point defense component so that it acts also as a minesweeping component.
One could imagine mines then as small missiles with engines and sensors. They would activate themselves when enemy ships enter their sector. Then they would fire up their engines and start acting like missiles... this would justify the use of point defense against them. Also no minesweeping components would be required then.

Ah.. and that colony ship bug with minefields still exists after the patch 1.19.
Send a colonyship into enemy minefield and it will suck all mines from that sector with only the colony component staying intact.
Possible and easy solution to this is to change the colony components Tonnage Structure value from 200--&gt;50. I have tested this and the problem is gone now.

AI+Black Hole

These are a real pain in the butt for AI.
Combined with unstable warp points these black holes are a real death trap for AI ships. At the moment unstable warp point does 200 points of damage. Any smaller ship
(colonizer for example) is almost guaranteed to lose most of its engines, and then it is history. I have also seen the AI to throw
dozens of ships in these death traps from turn to turn (i remember that someone else has mentioned this before). So when AI encounters a black hole in a game, it's almost guaranteed to lose most of it's ships
in this death trap. A couple partial solutions could be:
- Change the unstable warp point damage lower, possibly 200--&gt;50, it would give the ship entering a black hole system at least a small chance of survival.
- Lower the percentage of systems with black hole. Currently this ranges from 5% to 15%
of all systems. Could be something like 2% to 5%. This could be also closer to reality, i doubt there is 1 black hole per every 20 star systems in real world http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif.

Phew.. sorry about this long rant.. had to let some steam out http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif. All in all the SEIV is the best 4X game ever made... even better
than MOO2 IMHO.

Re: AI+Minefield/AI+Black Hole=Disaster (longish)
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jpinard:
Gryphon, anything else you do?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm currently turning off intelligence projects, but I'll have to add that back in if I throw the Darlok mod into the mix. And I turn off the Applied Intelligence tech when I turn off intelligence projects, just so I'm sure the AI doesn't waste any research points on a device they can't use.

In addition to turning off Mines and Applied Intelligence technology, I turn off Computers --because the AI doesn't know how to put master computers on ships, and because the AI puts the planet-based stuff in really stupid places. It has the side effect of costing me a 30% advantage in research, which is good as I get enough of a research edge as it is. (Somebody should make a mod where an AI race builds fewer ships but more research worlds.) Besides, turning off Computers makes levels 4-9 of the resource extraction techs worthwhile (Mineral Scanners get you 10-30% additional minerals from a planet, for example), where before I was just building the automated factories that the Computers tech gives you (which boost generation of all three resources by 10-30%).

I turn off Events, because I don't think the AI knows how to evacuate planets and whatnot.

I turn off neutral empires, because they slow down the expansion of the full-blown AI empires way more than they slow me down.

I turn off gifts and tributes, because it's too easy to make the AIs happy with you if you use them.

I turn off technology trading, because the AIs are way too loose with their tech. When they ask for a trade treaty, counter that you'll give them a trade treaty if they'll give you the most expensive technology they possess (Ice Colonization, for example) and they go for it 99% of the time.

Outside of my one-line mod to turn off strange warp points, and adding in the Mephisto mod and the Xenophobe AI speech hacks, I haven't changed the data files. Although I'll probably add in the Eysk and the Darloks shortly.

I play with both AI settings at max. I've been varying how many AIs I play against, and whether I play in a large or medium galaxy.

Does anyone else have any game settings or minor mods they use to hide the ineptness of the SE4 AI?