AI late game Ship Designing problems (turns 100+)

[HreDaak]

New Design Created -
A design is created when a new Component or Vehicle Size has been researched
after the date the design was created. All Vehicle Sizes as fair game, and any
components which are part of the design type. (extracted from AI_DesignCreation)

I have problems getting the AI to design new
ShipDesigns in late game (turns 100+).

As stated in AI_DesignCreation file new design is created as soon as the necessary
technology for this hull is gained. So far so good, this is true, but the real problem
is to get AI to design new ships in late
game when there are no new hulls to be researched. I have this old colony ship hull
that has not been redesigned since turn
39 when it was upgraded to include level
3 ion engines. It is now turn 250 in the
game and the AI still uses that old design.
In all my games i have never seen the AI to
redesign it's colony ships after turn 70...
I usually play my games in huge galaxies with 254 systems, and it would be nice if i could get the AI to include Quantum Reactors
in its colony ship designs. Currently this
seems to be impossible unless i make it to
research resupply level 5 before turn 50,
and that simply is not reasonable.
There are also problems in other ship types, but these are not so acute, as the AI regularly researches new types of Hulls in
these ship classes. Partially the problem could be solved by adding a new colony ship hull type which is available when AI researches resupply level 5, but i would not like to do this...

Any input on this matter is greatly appreciated...

PS: I really dont understand what is said in those few first lines in the AI_DesignCreation file, but this could be just my problem as my native language is not english.

[Grognard]

For your example, I never upgrade my colony ships past level 3 Ion Engines and level three cargo storage. Seems like a waste of money (including additional maintenance) to include better engines and quantum reactors, only to be dissassembled upon colonization. To me, this is the correct AI design. This design would be an AI problem if it tries to colonize too far away without the ability to resupply along the way.

The AI seems to do a good job updating its warship destigns with the latest tech, although the designs themselves are questionable.

Grognard

[This message has been edited by Grognard (edited 11 January 2001).]

[HreDaak]

Yes, it is true that the problem is mainly in the hard coded AI as it will not resupply its ships until it has reached its objective.
I'm just trying to find a way to get around of this problem by adding quantum reactors to colony ships. I know they are expensive and all but in my test games there are literally dozens of AI colony ships which have an ETA of 200+ turns. This seriosly damages AI's expansion in huge galaxies and is a real strain on it's economy. I think that by adding Quantum reactors the AI would expand a lot faster (in late game). This would ofcourse be only a temporary solution to the problem, atleast until Malfador decides/has time to correct this.


[This message has been edited by HreDaak (edited 11 January 2001).]

[Taqwus]

If the cost of reaching Resupply 5 is an obstacle for the AI, how about instead using supply storage -- which should provide a decent, 'tho finite, range?

Or instead a solar collector (hrm. Stellar Harnessing, which requires... Astrophysics?), which will help and should still be much cheaper (both to research and to build) than the QR?

The AI (including Minister-controlled ships) do seriously need to be more clueful about running out of supplies and certain other pitfalls, like damaging warp points.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[SunDevil]

The way the AI goes about researching is a major hinderance to its effectiveness. I'm in the process right now of reworking the whole ai research file to get better results. The problem is not quantum engines so much as the ai not researching stellar manipulation until way late into the game. By moving stellar manipulation closer to the begining of the research file, the ai will use solar collectors and solar sails which will definitely help with expansion. I hope this helps.

[Sinapus]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grognard:
For your example, I never upgrade my colony ships past level 3 Ion Engines and level three cargo storage. Seems like a waste of money (including additional maintenance) to include better engines and quantum reactors, only to be dissassembled upon colonization. To me, this is the correct AI design. This design would be an AI problem if it tries to colonize too far away without the ability to resupply along the way.

---

I tend to manually load colony ships with population, then send them to resupply depots along the way to the planet I try to colonize. Maybe there's some way to calculate the path the computer takes when you simply order it to colonize a planet to go to the nearest resupply depot along the path and then continue on. Or something.

(As I suggested this, I imagined some horrible bug where colony ships keep running from depot to depot, but never reach their targets.)



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--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough
to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a
pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors
come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless
eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your
associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

[Mephisto]

The "not designing" problem could be connected to the name files. The Ai will add roman numbers to design names but only up to 10 or so. If this limit is reached, the Ai stops designing new ships altogether.

[HreDaak]

Uh.. does the AI really add those roman numerals to it's design names? I'm quite sure that i have never seen it using them
with it's design names. In my games it just
chooses a new name for the next design .
Also i have made sure that the AI does not run out of names in it's *.txt file.

I made a special names.txt file for my test race that consists of numbers between 1-1000.
Every time when the AI has used something between 250-350 design names it completely stops designing new ships or units. It starts to ignore new research advances and only makes a new design when a new type of Hull is researched.
When it makes this design with this new hull type it uses the latest technology available but it never redesigns old hull types again.

[This message has been edited by HreDaak (edited 11 January 2001).]

[LintMan]

Some people stick with and Ion 3 colony ship design for the whole game? I use 3-4 colony ship designs for each type of colony:

1) Basic colony ship - uses colony ship hull, best engines I have the tech for (I have a need for speed), and a cargo bay for extra pop. I think that's basically all that fits in the colony ship hull. As I tech up, I upgrade the engines and cargo bays.

2) Long Range colony ship - same as #1, but with a supply bay instead of cargo. I use this rarely, to colonize a planet a good bit outside my resupply range.

3) Fast Colony ship - uses Destroyer hull (I think), adds a Solar Sail III and extra supply to #1. The extra expense is really marginal - (maybe 1 extra turn build time). I build this design mid-late game when the planet I'm colonizing is more than 2 turns away, mostly then using #1 for in-system colonizations

4) Armored Colony ship - like #3, but with a few pieces of armor for passing safely through (several) damaged warp points. In my Last game, there was a system with several juicy worlds to colonize, but its sole entry point was through 2 damaged warp points in a black hole system, hence this design.

[HreDaak]

That roman numeral has actually much more meaning than the fancy number on the icon.
It also tells AI which component in the family is better. This explains that late game design quirk. I changed those numerals on all engines so that the ion engines are 1-3, contra terrene engines 4-6, jacketed photon engines 7-9 and quantum engines 10-12.
Guess what, as soon as AI researched new engines all designs using engines were updated. No longer were those old colony ships stuck with the same old ion engine 3's.

Yippee!!!