[grumbler]

Here is my proposal for the AI_Design_Creation standard. Note that the goal here is to get effective ships designs in a file that is easy to playtest. After we are sure the “stock” AI_D_C is working, specialized AI_D_Cs can be prepared or the races by simply modifying the stock A_D_C. The specialized AI_D_Cs will be needed for such things as stealth components.

In this post I will just talk about warships. Other ship types can be dealt with similarly if everyone likes this approach.

Warships are considered to belong to one of four different size categories, each with three subdivisions which determine the types of components installed. The four major categories are:
1. Escorts: Escort (150kt), Corvette (200kt), ****
2. Destroyers: Frigate *(300kt), Destroyer*(350kt) Heavy Destroyer*(400kt)
3. Cruisers: Light Cruiser*(500kt), Cruiser* (600kt), Heavy Cruiser* (700kt)
4. Capital Ships: Battlecruiser* (800kt), Battleship**(900kt), Heavy Battleship*(1000kt)
5. Massive Ships: ****, Dreadnought*(1200kt), Heavy Dreadnought (1400kt)
* renamed ship
** renamed ship, new size
**** no ship in this Category (as there would be no rational reason to design such)

Within each Category, the subdivisions are equipped as follows:
1. Lightest ship: main (and secondary) weapons only
2. “Standard ship” main (and secondary) weapons plus PDF
3. “Heavy Ship” main (and secondary) weapons, PDF, and more armor.

Each Category of ship (cruisers and above) will have its own weapons mount. Larger ships will have more effective weapons with a given tonnage allocated. Smaller ships will retain the current defensive bonuses. Each Category (cruisers and above) will require an additional crew space and life support. Each succeeding Category will have a larger reactor size and each reactor size will be enough to power 120% of the ships engines required for the Category’s largest ship (much as it is now, but with the reactors “rationalized” a bit). Larger ships will also have additional components like scanners and such.

Speeds:
Warships will have the same “standard speed” regardless of size. While it might seem kinda cool to have battleships, for instance, be slower than destroyers, the computer doesn’t pay much attention to speeds when it creates fleets, and different speeds for different sizes will result in AI fleets being slower than they need be. Also, ships with different speeds tend to result in worse fleet performance in strategic combat.

Effective ship speeds by engine tech (ignoring such things as Ship enhancement):
1. Fission drive: 4
2. Fusion drive: 6
3. Anti-matter drives: 9
4. Gravimetric: 12

My idea is that these speeds should be achievable using 40% of the hull size for any given ship. Scouts will "cheat" a bit by having no requirements for LS or CC due to small crew size for the hull.

Now, how is the “generic AI_D_C” gonna work? It is really pretty straightforward. Each ship will have 5 main weapons family choices (ships larger than destroyers having secondary weapons as well), and, where appropriate, 5 PD weapons family choices. These will be numbered as follows:

21001-21005 PD weapons
22001-22005 First through fifth main weapons for escorts Category
23001-23005 First through fifth main weapons for destroyers Category
24001-24005 First through fifth main weapons for cruisers Category
25001-25005 First through fifth main weapons for capital ships Category
26001-26005 First through fifth main weapons for Massive ships Category

Now, the key is that for, say, the Minbari, weapon 25001 might be a Neutron Laser, while for the EA it might be a Trans-Phased Plasma Cannon and the Shadows would have the Heavy Molecular Slicer Beam. So long as no race has more than one choice for 25001 (or whatever), this seems to work out in testing. Secondary weapons for the larger ships would logically just be the primary weapons from the destroyers Category, though we can add more families if this doesn’t make sense.

It is entirely possible that 24001 and 25001 (or 25001 and 26001) will end up being the same weapon in different mounts, in which case we might not need all the families listed above. Not having the B5 wars books, I am unsure as to how much differentiation they have between the types of ships.

I would expect the xx004 and xx005 to be the general weapons. Thus early designs will all tend to look the same (unless we want to do away with general weapons entirely?)

Any thought on this approach? It is more “generic” than we will probably want to end up with, but at least it will get us started and will allow us to chase down the AI gremlins a bit faster.