AI construction queue problems (ship construction)

[HreDaak]

Last Posts way caused the AI to limit it's expansion to it's starting system. Here is another way to produce the same effect but now AI is not limited to it's starting system... (AI uses only Attack ships/Carriers to explore new systems)

AI State := Exploration
Num Queue Entries := 4
Entry 1 Type := Colonizer
Entry 1 Planet Per Item := 200
Entry 1 Must Have At Least := 2
Entry 2 Type := Attack Ship
Entry 2 Planet Per Item := 0
Entry 2 Must Have At Least := 1
Entry 3 Type := Defense Base
Entry 3 Planet Per Item := 100
Entry 3 Must Have At Least := 3
Entry 4 Type := Attack Ship
Entry 4 Planet Per Item := 0
Entry 4 Must Have At Least := 10

This should have same effect, except in addition AI should have 1 attack ship.

[Q]

Daynarr you have every reason to be proud of your Sergetti empire. They are just doing great!
I tried your suggestion and I even copied the whole Sergetti_AI_Construction_Vehicles.txt file in other races with empty construction lines. No effect until now. I get more and more the feeling that the problem lies not only in the AI_Construction_Vehicles.txt file but somewhere else. But I have no idea where this might be.

[HreDaak]

Ok guys, just modify your vehicle construction files and watch the AI kick some major butt .

1. Do not let the AI build defense bases!!! I think that there is some sort of conflict between defense bases and colonizers, this conflict (when it appears) can cause the AI to get stuck on its build queue.
2. Avoid filling planets with stuff. This concerns especially weapon platforms as they take HUGE amounts of planets cargo space. I suggest not to build more than 1 weapon platform per planet. If you let the AI build all/almost all of it planets full of stuff it causes AI to get stuck on its build queue when it is building things that use up planetary cargo space.

After these changes i am pretty sure that the AI will never experience building problems, unless ofcourse its running out of resources...

Some time ago i was talking about changing construction.txt file so that all the AI states would use the same build list. I was using the default (malfadors) construction file. In this construction file there are defense base calls only in infrastructure AI state. When the AI changed its state to infrastructure state it sooner or later caused that conflict between colonizers and defense bases. This in turn caused the AI to stop its building...

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by HreDaak:
Ok guys, just modify your vehicle construction files and watch the AI kick some major butt .

1. Do not let the AI build defense bases!!! I think that there is some sort of conflict between defense bases and colonizers, this conflict (when it appears) can cause the AI to get stuck on its build queue.
2. Avoid filling planets with stuff. This concerns especially weapon platforms as they take HUGE amounts of planets cargo space. I suggest not to build more than 1 weapon platform per planet. If you let the AI build all/almost all of it planets full of stuff it causes AI to get stuck on its build queue when it is building things that use up planetary cargo space.

After these changes i am pretty sure that the AI will never experience building problems, unless ofcourse its running out of resources...

Some time ago i was talking about changing construction.txt file so that all the AI states would use the same build list. I was using the default (malfadors) construction file. In this construction file there are defense base calls only in infrastructure AI state. When the AI changed its state to infrastructure state it sooner or later caused that conflict between colonizers and defense bases. This in turn caused the AI to stop its building...

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I've known for a long time that the AI doesn't check if a planet has cargo space for what it is building. This results in loads of satellites being built and then LOST with nothing to show for the allocated resources. I have asked MM to let satellites (at least) be automatically deployed when built if there's no cargo space. But the defense base thing is odd. I can't imagine what might be going on there. BTW, the AI _does_ build colonizers even if it doesn't know of any colonizable planets. The "must have" entry in the queue works for colonizers. I've seen every "Neutral" I ever invaded keeping a colonizer at its homeworld even though there are no planets left that it can colonize. Too bad. This is also a useless drain of resources.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 05 February 2001).]

[HreDaak]

[quote]Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
I've known for a long time that the AI doesn't check if a planet has cargo space for what it is building. This results in loads of satellites being built and then LOST with nothing to show for the allocated resources. I have asked MM to let satellites (at least) be automatically deployed when built if there's no cargo space.
[quote]

I think that the AI checks if there is enough free space in the planet to build ONE unit of the things it is trying to build. If there is less space on the planet than one of these units would take it will not try to build these on that planet. But if there is enough space for ONE unit then it will try to build as many of these units on the planet as it can in one turn, the excess units that cant fit on the planet are simply not build on that planet (log Messages: not enough storage or something). Problem in the late game are Medium and especially Large weapon platforms that are so big that many of the planets cant hold even one of these monsters. So now if there is a call to build say 2 per every planet the AI has there will soon be very acute space problems on AI planets. Some larger colonies especially the ones with breathable atmosphere are able to hold several Large weapon platforms but the amount of these planets is very limited compared to the total amount of planets the AI has. So this can cause very severe building problems for the AI in late game as only those planets with breathable atmosphere and maybe some other large/huge planets are the only ones able to hold them. This also limits the amount of planets that can even try to build them and this in turn can cause the AI build queue to advance very slowly (or stop completely if AI runs out of space) if there is a call to build huge amounts of these Medium/Large weapon platforms...

[quote]
But the defense base thing is odd. I can't imagine what might be going on there. BTW, the AI _does_ build colonizers even if it doesn't know of any colonizable planets. The "must have" entry in the queue works for colonizers. I've seen every "Neutral" I ever invaded keeping a colonizer at its homeworld even though there are no planets left that it can colonize. Too bad. This is also a useless drain of resources.[quote]

Have you tried one of the examples i have posted in my previous Posts? These will reproduce that conflict bug. I suppose this could be a typo or some other small quirk in the hard coded part of the game that partly somehow mixes up defense bases and colonizers, but only Malfador can say if it is so...

Hummh.. i meant that the AI will not assign any more colonizers in its build queues if it does not see any more colonizable planets. This does not prevent the AI from having few leftover colonyships from turns that it still had one planet left to colonize. You can easily test this by making a construction file that has only 1 entry in the exploration AI state.

AI State := Exploration
Num Queue Entries := 1
Entry 1 Type := Colonizer
Entry 1 Planet Per Item := 0
Entry 1 Must Have At Least := 1000

AI will build new colonizers as long as it has free colonizable planets in its home system. Once there are no more free planets left in its home system it does not assign more colonyships to be built. Note that this can cause the AI to have 1 or more leftover colonyships depending on how many turns it took for the Last colonizer to do its job.
I think this is the reason why neutrals can have few colonyships left even though they have no more planets to colonize.

[This message has been edited by HreDaak (edited 06 February 2001).]

[Daynarr]

You should forward these findings and savegames to MM before the patch comes out.

[HreDaak]

quote:

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Originally posted by Daynarr:
You should forward these findings and savegames to MM before the patch comes out.

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I will, but could someone else also try one of those construction lists and report if he experiences same kind of behaviour as i have.
I would like to be absolutely certain of this until i bug MM.