[grumbler]

Originally posted by Timstone:
Another question for you. I have read through your AI Facilities Construction File. I see you haven't used the COlony Hub anywhere. So there is actually noi point in keeping it in the mod now is there. I see it as an "quick" to build Version of the Homeworld Hub.

True. The Colony Hub isn't used right now by the AI (but could be used by human players, though I never do). Frankly, it is a bit of "do everything that the colony already does, but at great cost."

The way I see it, is that there must be a main structure in the colony and seconday buildings to define the function of a colony. A few examples (these examples are only for the Standard races):

[examples snipped]

In other words, I want to have each building a specific task in the colony. I'm worried that if that isn't done a lot of buildings go unused.

Well, this is true for the human player, but for the AI the plan is a bit different: the Ai needs to be programmed to build the next building which is "most efficient."

As way to get around this is to make the AI build a larger number of different colonies, like "Huge World Agricultural Colony," "Small World Agricultural Colony," "Medium World Research Colony" and the like from the _AI_Planet_Types file and then make a custom Faciliyies build list for each type. I think I could do this if that's the route you want to take. It would make the AI a lot "smarter" in terms of the colonies it ends up with.

Furthermore, how is the Homeworld (very, very, very important planet coz of the slow construction of new colonies) put together? Does it contain a Homeworld Hub or a Trading Post as main building? If the Trading Post is the main building, shouldn't you give the Homeworld Hub the "palace" insignia?

The Homeworld as designed right now gets filled by the setup process, so the Facilities list in the AI_Contruction_Facilities file seems a bit redundent. There is no need for the Trading Port on the homeworld because the HH already has a spaceport (and note, importantly, that Natural Merchants do not get a homeworld hub!)

You cannot put "palace" on the HH because then the IA would try to build HHs first thing on the first planet of every system, and so the system would have no spaceport for many many years. The palace ability should be left to the trading ports only. The downside to this is that the first colony in the home system will build a trading port needlessly in order to get the palace ability, but this is something we can live with, I think.