AI Findings.....

[Deathstalker]

This may or may not be common knowledge but there are a few things I have learned about ship designs the past 2 weeks in modding another shipset AI from scratch.

First: Fighter bays work only on Carriers, and only in the Carrier section. The AI will just not load ships that are not true carriers. I even had a Heavy Assault attack ship with a carrier hull (listed in the sizes as light carrier, but under attack ship for 'role definition'.) but it would NOT load fighters, even though other carriers in the fleet had fighters.
Now when I modded the Carrier class to carry more weapons it worked fine, although the weapons seemed to disappear on later models, no matter what I set the 'number per tonnage' to.

Second: Emergency Resupply does NOT work for AI. I have witnessed three seperate fleets run out of fuel and 'limp back' to the nearest resupply depot. Even though they ALL had emerg resupply pods. The AI would not use them. Would also not use the xtra movement pods that are destroyed after use as well. Does this mean that 'one shot components' are out of the AI's 'reach'??

Ah well, most probally know this stuff and more but thought I should post for anyone running into these problems who are new to AI making.

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"The Empress took your name away," said Chance.
Owen smiled coldly. "It wasn't hers to take. I'm a Deathstalker until I die. And we never forget a slight or an enemy." -Owen Deathstalker.

[jc173]

I noticed that also. I tried giving the AI cruiser sized carriers to help stiffen up their fleets, but they never loaded anything onboard either. I think it has something to do with the ship needing to be defined as a carrier in the design file so that the proper invidual minister will take control of it. I hadn't tried modding a carrier to carry weapons, but I may. What about making hybrid hulls that have a lower required percentage of launch bays, do you think that would help?

[God Emperor]

Deathstalker,
Thanks for those observations. Thought I had noticed the Emergency Supply problem before myself but wasnt sure - deleted the pods from my races anyway though and just stuck with Solar Collectors which they are happy to use...

[God Emperor]

Also,
I noticed at low bonus that most mod pack races (and mine) are generally having resources going to waste (although their maintenance does occaisionally exceed production thereby auto triggering mining, organics, and refining colonies).
The corrollary to this is that the AI races will not receive a lot of additional assistance from having medium or high bonus in terms of resources (in terms of the additional research points of course they will though).
Therefore, if players want to play at medium or high bonus, they should adjust the Planet per One Item number for the Last Attack Ship entry for each of the AI_States in the Construction_Vehicles files.

[jc173]

Ah adjust the value up or down?