Forcing the AI to do ships with 3 weapon families

[Ragnarok-X]

Indead. You can always get two different weapons by using the majoraty and secondary component things. Getting a third weapon could work if calling for any type of ability through the must have. I knew that, but as mentioned in my first post, i dont have enough dummy tags or ai tags to assign a new one to each point-defense weapon.

[Nodachi]

Ragnarok-X posted:

i dont have enough dummy tags or ai tags to assign a new one to each point-defense weapon.

Wow! That means you've used a ton of them. Are you sure you've used them all? How about Open Warp Point with a zero value? Spaceport? Warp Point - Turbulence with a zero value? Star - Unstable? Sector - Sight Obscuration? There's a lot of them that can be used with zero values and because you use a zero value if you have a design that calls for component that really does use one of those abilities the AI will pick the correct one because it should have a value greater than zero.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong!

[Ragnarok-X]

You are indeed right, but the problem is editing all weapons to include the dummy abilites you mentioned is already a majorpain in the arse, imagine ~20+ different point-defense weapons, all which have 10 components/levels. In addition it becomes very hard to design a douzen AI designcreation.txts with all those weird abilites name which you wont remember. If we could just create new tags/abilitres, such like "Brakiri PD- Tag".
It would make work so friggin much easier..

[Nodachi]

I agree. Hopefully SEV will let us define our own tags.

[Rollo]

If this is all about adding specific point-defense, it can be done without AI-tags or dummy abilities. In fact it can be done without altering the designs, too.

Add higher tech level requirements (dummy levels) to the PDC that the AI should prefer. And establish a hierachy or pick order for the AI by adding redundant tech levels.

Example:

Name := Comp X
Number of Tech Req := 4
Tech Area Req 1 := Tech A
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Tech Area Req 2 := Tech A
Tech Level Req 2 := 1
Tech Area Req 3 := Tech A
Tech Level Req 3 := 1
Tech Area Req 4 := Tech B
Tech Level Req 4 := 1

The component still need only 2 tech levels. Tech A Level 1 and Tech 2 Level 1. But it has 2 dummy levels of Tech A. Thus making the level total 4 and the AI will use this component over any other that has 3 levels or fewer.

I hope this helps.

[Ragnarok-X]

Yes indeed. Thanks a bunch, that will greatly reduce the amount of work involved.

[Fyron]

Rollo said:
Add higher tech level requirements (dummy levels) to the PDC that the AI should prefer. And establish a hierachy or pick order for the AI by adding redundant tech levels.

Wasn't this my entire suggestion from the beginning?

Ragnarok-X said:
You are indeed right, but the problem is editing all weapons to include the dummy abilites you mentioned is already a majorpain in the arse, imagine ~20+ different point-defense weapons, all which have 10 components/levels. In addition it becomes very hard to design a douzen AI designcreation.txts with all those weird abilites name which you wont remember. If we could just create new tags/abilitres, such like "Brakiri PD- Tag".
It would make work so friggin much easier..

Why are their 20 PDC available to all races??? If it is race specific, shouldn't it require a racial trait? This solves the problem very cleanly...

[Ragnarok-X]

Unfortunally it isnt race-restricted. Babylon 5 offers many weapon branches, like pulse weapons, gravitic weapons, plasma, laser and so on. Each brance offer at least one PDC system, and its each species decision which weapon brance to research. Of course some species may get better weapons in certain areas, but its still open...