[Trachmyr]

To get the AI to use abaltive armor, simply create a few tech trees... each one with a diffrent armor type, or if you put them all into one tree... give them a 2nd prerequisite that is diffrent between each armor... then make sure the AI has only researched the Armor-type that you want it to use. I've had to to this with a few things to get the AI to only use specific componets (Sensors, Stealth, Armor, PD, and others).

As for the shields... it can be a problem, you could create a few AI's that only use heavy shield generators once available by doing the same as above, but you'd have to calculate space on the designs carefully. OR you can give the smaller shield a ability tag like for something you've removed from the game (For instance, I've removed "Emergency Supplies", thus that "ability is freed up), then require the ship design to have a few of that ability (Just set the ability bonus to 0)... so your smaller ships wouldn't have any "shields" but a few "emergency supplies"... which ofcourse means the smaller shields! ...but that means that you have to remove an exisiting ability... your choice!

[This message has been edited by Trachmyr (edited 05 May 2001).]