Big ship supremacy... Can little ships keep up?

[Dizzy]

What about the AI that seem to never get into bigger ships? At that point, they can stay competitive... I'm not penalizing AI by making larger ships suck, smaller ships are just not so out of date...

So, what are some tips for modding the AI to build a few of the smaller ships?

[Fyron]

You can easily limit the largest ship size a race will build in AI_Design_Creation.txt.

[Captain Kwok]

The main problem is that you can only really make about 4 or 5 ship types for the AI to use as combat ships. This makes it very difficult to have the AI build a variety of sizes through an entire game in addition to having it design ships with different roles (i.e. point defense, missile ship, etc).

[StarShadow]

How does the AI determine what the biggest ship available to it is? Tonnage or Tech level? I was thinking that instead of altering the smaller ships, it might be an idea to add in (extra) improved versions of those ships. For example, once you research cruisers, you also get 'advanced escorts'. The AI won't use them though, if it goes for highest tonnage.

[Captain Kwok]

It goes by the largest allowed size of the last valid entry for a given design type.

[Urendi Maleldil]

I might make a Small Ship Masters racial trait for the Masters Mod, and I was wondering what advantages might be good to add to advanced small ship hulls.

faster?
cheaper?
stealthy?
+defense?

[StarShadow]

I'd go with faster, extra defense and extra abilities.

Example:

Name := Escort
Short Name := Escort
Description :=
Code := ES
Primary Bitmap Name := Escort
Alternate Bitmap Name := Escort
Vehicle Type := Ship
Tonnage := 150
Cost Minerals := 150
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 0
Engines Per Move := 1
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Ship Construction
Tech Level Req 1 := 5
Number of Abilities := 5
Ability 1 Type := Combat To Hit Defense Plus
Ability 1 Descr := Small size makes ship 60% harder to hit in combat.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 60
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
Ability 2 Type := Phased Shield Generation
Ability 2 Descr := Advanced hull design incorporates a phased energy matix.
Ability 2 Val 1 := 100
Ability 2 Val 2 := 0
Ability 3 Type := Combat To Hit Offense Plus
Ability 3 Descr := Advanced targeting system increases chance of hitting enemies.
Ability 3 Val 1 := 25
Ability 3 Val 2 := 0
Ability 4 Type := Emissive Armor
Ability 4 Descr := Advanced hull design is resistant to damage.
Ability 4 Val 1 := 30
Ability 4 Val 2 := 0
Ability 5 Type := Extra Movement Generation
Ability 5 Descr := Lightweight composites enable faster movement.
Ability 5 Val 1 := 7
Ability 5 Val 2 := 0
Requirement Must Have Bridge := True
Requirement Can Have Aux Con := True
Requirement Min Life Support := 1
Requirement Min Crew Quarters := 1
Requirement Uses Engines := True
Requirement Max Engines := 3
Requirement Pct Fighter Bays := 0
Requirement Pct Colony Mods := 0
Requirement Pct Cargo := 0

Unless I've misunderstood how to apply some/all of these abilities, this would result in an 'Advanced Escort' with a 60% defense bonus, 100 phased shields, 25% attack bonus, immune to weapons doing less than 30 damage, and a movement of 10 using (a max of) 3 engines (assuming ion engines).

Probably over-powered but just an example after all.

[Atrocities]

Imperator Fyron said:
You can easily limit the largest ship size a race will build in AI_Design_Creation.txt.

How?

[Fyron]

All entries have two fields for min and max size of the design class.

[Atrocities]

If you want to make smaller ships more practicle, give them the ALWAYS HITS ability.