When AI scrap ships ?

oleg · #1 March 2nd, 2003, 09:09 AM

I do not understand it. Full coffers, positive income, AI plays with bonus. Yet, at some moment it decides to scrap quite a few ships. Few turns later it start to build ships of same class. Normally it is not a big deal, ship here, ship there. But I saw several times how AI scraps base space yards ! Now THAT is a problem - in Proportions most shipbuiding is done by base space yards and AI can sometimes become completely stagnant

I use a very high "percentage of income for maintanence" in AI_settings, like 95%. May be that is problem. Would it help if I make it lower ? Once again AI has no resource shortages

[ March 02, 2003, 07:11: Message edited by: oleg ]

oleg · #2 May 31st, 2003, 12:14 AM

All right. I asked this question long time ago and apparently nobody have any ideas.

Why AI scraps ships when it has no problem with resources ?? I was hoping 1.84 fixed this problem
______________________________________________
2. Fixed - Computer Players which had a "Computer Player Bonus" set above
None were not using all of their bonus funds.
________________________________________________

But now I think not. AI is still scrapping ships even though the net income is possitive.
It really ruins Proportions game when AI scraps all orbital shipyards.

Taz-in-Space · #3 May 31st, 2003, 03:48 AM

This is just a guess:

Perhaps the AI is hard-coded to scrap and rebuild ships and bases rather than refit old ships and bases. This would require less decision making on the AI's part. Perhaps this is a question for Malfador.

oleg · #4 May 31st, 2003, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Taz-in-Space:
This is just a guess:

Perhaps the AI is hard-coded to scrap and rebuild ships and bases rather than refit old ships and bases. This would require less decision making on the AI's part. Perhaps this is a question for Malfador.

No, AI refit ships very happily. That should not be a problem. However, it is possible that some ship/bases designs have not been improved for long time (no relevent advances) and AI scrap very old designs. But I am not sure about this. Of course MM can answer this but I did't have much luck communicating with him

(no replays)

Q · #5 May 31st, 2003, 02:34 PM

Oleg how did you observe this?
Was the AI empire temporaryly switched to human control? In this case the computer bonus would not be granted anymore and if the maintenance costs exceed the production the activated minister will scrap ships.

oleg · #6 May 31st, 2003, 04:19 PM

No, AI scraps ships still under its control. I keep track of save games (classic turns) and then take look back into them, switching AI to my control and checking the events log and statistics. Really puzzles to me.

Q · #7 May 31st, 2003, 05:37 PM

But this might be the cause! Did you check the empire status to see if the resources balance is negative? I believe when you switch to human control the empire looses its resources bonus and the minister therefore immediately starts to scrap ships before you start your turn.
I see the same thing too when I control the AI's but when I leave the AI undisturbed there seems to be no scrapping. However it's hard to be sure about this.

PvK · #8 May 31st, 2003, 06:46 PM

You could test the theory about the switch to human control by running the game as a human player but turning on all the ministers. Of course, that wouldn't prove that it didn't do it when under complete AI control.

You could also play a game with the "constant view of all systems" turned on, but that would require carefully watching each turn to see if the AI's ships were suddenly vanishing, so that proabably wouldn't be easy.

Actually, it would be simpler to test the part of the theory about the bonus having the effect, by running a game with no AI bonus, and see if it happens.

Of course, you can't prove it doesn't happen - only prove that it does, unless it happens very frequently or predictably.

Another theory would be that maybe the AI scraps when it can't retrofit a design to the new design it likes, but I don't think that is the case. Hmm, unless the BSY design has something at higher tech levels that won't fit on the BSY hull - a 500kT space station only has 50kT space left after standard control components and the spaceyard. It has only 40kT after upgrading to cheap life support. Maybe then it has its design set to try to include other junk that would be over 40kT?

PvK

oleg · #9 May 31st, 2003, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Q:
But this might be the cause! Did you check the empire status to see if the resources balance is negative? I believe when you switch to human control the empire looses its resources bonus and the minister therefore immediately starts to scrap ships before you start your turn.
I see the same thing too when I control the AI's but when I leave the AI undisturbed there seems to be no scrapping. However it's hard to be sure about this.

I am pretty sure this is not the case. See, I have several save games in row. Say at turns 10,20 and 30. Now I load turn10 game with my control and check statistics. Then I load turn 20 game, which progressed through turn 10 under AI and compare ships. What I see AI scraps all shipyards when it was fully independent.

oleg · #10 May 31st, 2003, 07:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by PvK:
You could test the theory about the switch to human control by running the game as a human player but turning on all the ministers. Of course, that wouldn't prove that it didn't do it when under complete AI control.

....

PvK

I did see it when I ran my empire with all ministers on. After a while, AI starts scrap ships when income is negative. I can live with this for sure. BUT, when I monitor detached AI with bonuses, it start scraping ships at about the same time !!! That means it either still do not "see" bonuses when scraping is concerned or it is indeed related to the upgrade issue. In any case, AI is still not performing well