AI Questions

[Val]

I am trying to work on the AI for the B5Mod, and have been running into a few issues and wanted to see if any of y'all might have some ideas on how to approach this:

1) Cargo Ships (Cargo, Troop and Pop Transports) - How can I get them to put fewer cargo pods on their ships? I have tried to lower the Cargo percentage requirements in the Vehicle.txt and up the Majority Comp Spaces Per One in the AI_DesignCreation.txt, neither seem to make any difference. The Cargo Pods are 75 kt and the ships follow standard sizes.

2) "Older" Tech - Can you make an AI choose an tech that is further up the list than a more advanced Version? For example, if I made cargo pods that were more expensive but held more cargo, but I preferred for the AI to choose the cheaper standard cargo pods, what could I do? WOuld I have to put the preferred one second down the list so the AI sees it as more 'recent', or just add a useless trait to the one and make that the requirement rather than Cargo Storage.


Thanks much for any help

[Mephisto]

I can only say something to #1:

1.) Cargo transports: Don't. The AI doesn't use them.

2.) Troop Transports: Use normal ship hulls. If you don't the Ai tends to not include them into fleets. If not in fleets, they are just dead meat in an solo attack.

3.) Population Transports: Limit the size hull the AI will use (my races don't use any transports above 500kt) as the bigger transports mean depopulated worlds and massive loss of lives if shoot down. You cannot teach the AI to use less then 50% of the size on cargo. You could try to use a standard hull, too, but I don't know if the AI will use a standard hull ship as a population transport.

[Atraikius]

Yes, the AI will use a pop. transport based on a standard hull.

[Val]

Thank you both. Didn't realize the AI wouldn't use the cargo ship.

How do you force the AI to use a standard hull rather than a "Cargo/Transport" Hull?

[Mephisto]

Just don't use these lines:
Num Must Have At Least 1 Ability:= 1
Must Have Ability:= Cargo Storage

but instead something like:
Num Must Have At Least 1 Ability:= 1
Must Have Ability:= Weapon

[Rollo]

quote:

---

Originally posted by [K126]Mephisto:
Just don't use these lines:
Num Must Have At Least 1 Ability:= 1
Must Have Ability:= Cargo Storage

but instead something like:
Num Must Have At Least 1 Ability:= 1
Must Have Ability:= Weapon

---

I think that is not correct. The "must have" abiltity does not determine the hull type that is used, but the majority component is. It goes like this:

majority component -> hull type used

colony -> colony ship
cargo storage -> transport hull
fighter launch -> carrier hull
anything else -> normal hull

So if you want to use normal hull for your transports, use weapon or point-defense, or medical bay (that is something good to put on pop transports, btw) or whatever for your majority component. You can add the cargo storage later as a misc. ability or seconday component.

Rollo