[Alpha Kodiak]

quote:

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Originally posted by Tampa_Gamer:
Awhile back, a lot of the modders starting using "Defense Ships" in their build queues and creating a unique Defense Ship design. We did this despite the fact that MM did not include the design type nor put any defense ships in the default AI queues. I have always wondered why and got a reply back from MM on this issue. I figured I would post it for everyone:

"Sorry it took so long to get back to you. As to your question, the answer is that they're not really used anymore. We had the concept in SE3 of defense ships, but in SE4, attack ships fill the same role. A fleet can be used for offense of defense, it just depends on the situation."

I would like to ask the AI modders out there to once again look at this and give the community any feedback you have. Personally, when using attack ships only, I have noticed two things (1) slightly bigger fleets, and (2) ships join fleets faster (probably because every fleet is a valid one to join). I still have one of my races using the old split attack/defense ship style and the other two using the attack ship only style, so I will continue to monitor this and give feedback.

-TG

[ 06 December 2001: Message edited by: Tampa_Gamer ]

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I think I'm leaning toward it being better to just use the attack ships (though some of my races currently use defense ships). The AI doesn't seem to do a very good job of using defense ships most of the time. A few times I have seen a large fleet of defense ships just anchor itself on some out of the way resupply base and never move again. It just seems that if you build all attack ships, the AI can figure out when to use them for attack and when to use them for defense.