AI Modding Consortium - Please read

[Talenn]

Well, I certainly like the idea. I'm just not sure how much use I'd be to it though. My data set is pretty heavily modded.

IMO, there are plenty of unbalanced and/or no brainer items in SE4 that were the focus of my early efforts. I'm quite pleased with the results and with the AI I have modded to account for the changes. Note that most my changes dont include adding 'Level 4 Gadgetron' so I can blow stuff up easier or anything like that. In fact, I have VERY few new items at all.

Most of my changes center around rebalancing and/or tweaking many of the items already in the game. I've still been doing a fair amount of work on it and I'm not quite willing to abandon all that at this point.

If there is any theoretical help I can give, I'm glad to share it though. I'd like to still sit in and make suggestions and comments if y'all dont mind that. Also, of course, some changes are universal across data sets so I might still be useful there too.

Thanx,
Talenn

[SunDevil]

Tampa_gamer:

I just did the whole research thing as well.
It took me a total of 10 hours and six pages to write everything down. Anyway what I was thinking was, for the neutral races have them research everything in a numerical order.

For example I call this round 1. In other words this is the first phase of research for a neutral race.

Round 1 <= 20,000
1.Projectile Weapons 5000
2.Planetary Weapons 5000
3.Smaller Weapons 5000
4.Repair 10,000
5.Propulsion 10,000
6.Explosive Warheads 10,000
7.Ship Construction 20,000

Now the benefits for a neutral race to go through the research tree in order(as in researching the least costing items first) would be first that it doesn't tie itself up in the beginning with large projects. Two it will have a balanced research plan so it can discover things in order and not have to go back. Third if/when MM gets the whole trade aspect of the game right, you know that you could trade/steal research in an area that you might not of covered yet and it will be guaranteed that a nuetral race would at least have the first couple of levels in the field researched already.

This helps because the neutral races will actually have a balanced ship design and colony design because they will research all fields and not just specialize. This will make the ai harder to beat in combat because now you need a balanced fleet to fight the neutral ai.

Damn this is a long post. Give me some opinions about this strategy.

[SunDevil]

Talenn,

Just describing what you modified and why could give everyone a better understanding of the game's ai. I would definitely want you to sit in and give suggestions and theories because I have yet to read a post of yours that I didn't learn something from, except for maybe your Last one.

[Eisenhans]

It is very good to coordinate all that modding. Since I'm new to modding myself I won't be able to contribute much at the moment, but I am interested to learn from the masters. Would you please not forget to keep the interested public informed? Something like: we did this to achieve that would be nice from time to time (maybe a thread like "news from the ebony tower" or so )

[SunDevil]

[Baron Munchausen]

Great idea! I've been toying with the idea of releasing my custom files as a mod, but that means I'd have to work on them to make them consistent and write a bunch of explanations. It would be much easier to send my ideas to the mod consortium, like 'We should add some boarding DEFENSE ability to boarding parties. Security stations aren't the only way to defend a ship. Boarding parties are MARINES, right? So they ought to defend as well as attack.'

Also, you ought to make coordinated parts of this "standard mod" so people can use parts that they like. What if I want the best planet selection/colony build queue for the AI, but want to keep my own components? Make sure that the parts that are not inherently dependent (designcreation and components for example cannot be seperated, or AI research and techareas) are not linked unecessarily so you can use them seperately.

[pathfinder]

Great idea guys. I only have one comment or question. That is, ability to add race set(s) without overiding others. and ease of doing it....some of us (ME!) aren't too swift at adding these things (took me 3 tries to get the EA MOD installed correctly and it actually in hindsite is very easy to add).

I would, as Londo commented, love to have say the EA fight the Romulans and a Star wars race in the same game.

[This message has been edited by pathfinder (edited 12 January 2001).]

[Tampa_Gamer]

I am game. However, my time varies. Some weeks I have a lot of time (very few deals closing) some weeks I have no time (deals + wife steals mouse and backup mouse). Anyway, I initially changed a lot of things in my game (Tampa_Gamer Mod ver 1.00 posted way back) and then due the volume of changes coming out in each patch, decided to take Mephisto's route. However, having said that I did like a lot of the changes Derek made and would not be opposed to coming to a consensus on changes we all agreed upon. If we all agreed - perhaps MM would be more likely to include it in the next patch, then it would no longer be a "mod"!

[Mac]

Great idea. It would be a Godsend for me. I've added peoples mods, done some of my own, added sets and races, tinkered with AI's and frankly, I've lost track of exactly where I am and what I've altered. A centralized uniform collection of these might help keep all these changes straight for those of us suffering from impaired organization.

[Jubala]

I'm in, but I can't promise to always have time. Don't know how much time my courses will take this semester. My tweaking of the AI has so far been centered around getting it to build more base space yards early and colonizers late in the games. Quite succesfully I might add. I have also tried to get it to build troops and use them but not with the same amount of succes. It builds them and loads them on ships and moves the ships around, but I have so far not seen it invade anyone.