Help - I've fallen and I can't get up!

Alpha Kodiak · #1 July 12th, 2001, 05:35 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Sinapus:
Sounds like you ran into the indestructable colony ship bug. Switch the structure for colony modules to 100kt.

As for how to get your fleet to attack, I have no idea...

I don't know if the colony module strength is anything to worry about. I've seen plenty of colonizers die in mine fields in this game. This particular mine field was quite weak, so I am not concerned that the colonizer survived. My concern is that the AI is not using attack ships to attack it. It would seem logical to attack a colonizer of a race you are at war with, whether it is blocking your path or not. I have noticed other occasions where an enemy colonizer, out of supplies, plods along at speed 1 through a system full of Rage ships, and no one bothers to do anything about it.

Sinapus · #2 July 12th, 2001, 06:15 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Alpha Kodiak:
I don't know if the colony module strength is anything to worry about. I've seen plenty of colonizers die in mine fields in this game. This particular mine field was quite weak, so I am not concerned that the colonizer survived. My concern is that the AI is not using attack ships to attack it. It would seem logical to attack a colonizer of a race you are at war with, whether it is blocking your path or not. I have noticed other occasions where an enemy colonizer, out of supplies, plods along at speed 1 through a system full of Rage ships, and no one bothers to do anything about it.

If the mines were carrying mine warhead I's then a colony ship will survive with the colony module intact. The game treats each mine warhead as a separate combat, so the colony module never gets destroyed by mine warhead I's unless you lower the structure to 100kt. (Or just have the AI never research mines until they have explosive warheads 2 or 3...

Lupusman · #3 July 12th, 2001, 07:08 PM

Isn't it because the ships already have orders to go through the warp point (and not attack the colony ship), but they can't go through the warp because it is blocked. Since they don't have orders to attack, they won't attack, even though that's where they want to go.

Alpha Kodiak · #4 July 12th, 2001, 07:25 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Lupusman:
Isn't it because the ships already have orders to go through the warp point (and not attack the colony ship), but they can't go through the warp because it is blocked. Since they don't have orders to attack, they won't attack, even though that's where they want to go.

I believe you are correct, but the question is, why isn't a ship given orders to attack the colonizer? All of the ships in the group have had multiple trips back to the resupply base, and all of the ships wind up without standing orders at the end of the turn. For some reason, a minister is assigning the ships orders to do something on the other side of the warp point every turn, but never assigns any one of the many individual ships or fleets the responsibility to attack the colonizer.

I keep wondering if there is a setting in one of the AI files that says "Don't attack non-combatants" or "Don't attack non-threatening ships" but I can't figure out what that setting would be. Could it be something to do with the "Maximum Systems to Defend at a Time" setting in the AI_Settings file? It is set to 5 for the Rage, which is as high or higher than most. However, by this time (past turn 100), the Rage have many more systems than that and are at war with four different races. Perhaps this system is not considered threatened enough or strategic enough to warrant defending.

Lupusman · #5 July 12th, 2001, 07:43 PM

What happens if there is a new attack ship built in that system? Will it get orders to attack the colonizer, or will it ignore it like the others?

DirectorTsaarx · #6 July 12th, 2001, 08:19 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Alpha Kodiak:
<snip>
For some reason, a minister is assigning the ships orders to do something on the other side of the warp point every turn, but never assigns any one of the many individual ships or fleets the responsibility to attack the colonizer.

I keep wondering if there is a setting in one of the AI files that says "Don't attack non-combatants" or "Don't attack non-threatening ships" but I can't figure out what that setting would be. Could it be something to do with the "Maximum Systems to Defend at a Time" setting in the AI_Settings file? It is set to 5 for the Rage, which is as high or higher than most. However, by this time (past turn 100), the Rage have many more systems than that and are at war with four different races. Perhaps this system is not considered threatened enough or strategic enough to warrant defending.

I think you've almost got the answer with that Last statement. But it's not the "system" that's not threatened enough/strategic enough. It's that the crippled colony ship isn't enough of a threat to be considered an attack location. Every time your attack fleets have their orders cleared, the AI goes through the cycle of finding the 5 most important attack locations (or whatever the AI's setting is). It assigns orders to attack ships to move to those 5 locations, and ignores the crippled colonizer because it's just "not important". There ought to be a way to program the AI to notice a blocked warp point and either assign it as a highest-priority attack location or find a way around it.

Alpha Kodiak · #7 July 12th, 2001, 10:12 PM

Hmmm....

Seems like the number of systems to defend needs to be a percentage of total systems owned, or some such. This probably explains why all 10 of the AI's I'm using in this test game seem much less inclined to attack anybody now that their empires have grown fairly large. Watching them, it seems like they just keep sending their ships back and forth across their empires. Based on this discussion, it probably keeps rerouting them to different places since the perceived threats probably change with every turn.