Adamant Mod 0.16.00 Released

[Kraftwerk]

Imperator Fyron said:
Do you have any requests for things you'd like to see?

Itd be nice if pirates could colonize planets but not move any population there or build anything, just use the cargo space, and prevent other races from colonizing..

If the engine allowed it, being able to use any planets cargo space regardless of the owner would be nice...

Also its a little hard to capture ships with the swashbucklers since the AI tends to use Bridges (3 defense) and Luxury Crew (5 defense) and the Swashbucklers are only an attack 5..

And boarding ships with no weapons flee...kind of frustrating, since I build boarding ships so I dont have to build ships with guns...

The first mining sats could do with 500 output a turn instead of 450...since the swashbucklers cant capture anything but neutrals ships, and it takes quite a while to get better boarding crews with the painfully slow research point growth, you need the extra minerals to build actual combat ships, since stealing them is nigh impossible...

Maybe the ability to convert resources on a higher ratio that default? Since pirates would be naturally better at trading and getting the best price..

Maybe a little easier to get along with diplomatically, since pirates are a bit more charismatic than the average bloke...

[Fyron]

If all enemy ships have shield points, boarding ships will flee. They only approach once all shields are down on at least one target. If the enemy has no shields, you might want to check that the strategy is set to board/capture ships for your boarding ship designs.

Note that civilian cruisers, though small and not too strong individually, get an 80% maintenance reduction. It's a lot easier to make an initial raiding force with them than normal ships.

Theonlystd said:
haha lots of things. But with Se5 out and this being rather old mod i was just curius if we could expect many more updates.

SE5 has a lot of issues that need working out...

The Weapons bewteen the Races do seem to be a bit alike just different names.

There is, I think, a fair bit of variety in weapon styles between the original 3 paradigms (physical, magic, organic). Part of what held up 0.16 so long was complete lack of inspiration for machine and energy weapons. I copped out on the machines, just giving them copies of the physical race weapons. Energy has the main bases covered, but not too much variety. Alas...

And Energy and Machine Dudes bit more fleshed out?

Other than in the area of weapons, what else needs more fleshing out?

[Arralen]

Most 3000point - AIs cannot build Colony Ships with 0.16.0.1 !!

I wondered why the scores in my games looked that odd - so I started a test game (large classic midlife, everything visible, medium tech, added 19 AIs by hand and set them to 'computer controlled, use AI from design').

Of all those races from 8472 to Pandoran Alliance, only Abbidon, Eee, Ghizerea and Manai managed to colonize 1-2 planets on turn 20.

To my surprise, when I switched over all the AI players to human control, I found that those 15 races simply didn't have a Colony Ship design. With their current tech, I was oc. able to design some without problem. And the AIs build and used the ships quite eagerly...

Savegame attached ...

ps: Looks like I'm in beta-tester mode again ...

PPS: Working races are -
Abbidon, Crysilonite, Eee, Ghizerea, Manai, Sonne Clan, Swarm Brood, Ticon Consortium, Tylmai, Vidrine.
Other than the Ghizrea (Ice, O2) all are gas giant inhabitants.

PPPS: .. things get even stranger:
The Ghizerea has both Gas Giant and Ice Colony Tech, but uses only the Gas Giant tech to build colony ships.

Effectivly, only GAS GIANT COLONY ships are working in this mod !! [/b]




I figured out whats gone wrong - just tested successfully:
The AI uses
Name := Atmospheric Probes
Description := Component designed to compel the AI to not design colony ships prematurely.

Strangly, all the "gas planet colonization" probes are marked with
Ability 1 Type := AI Tag 12
Ability 1 Descr := Can colonize a gas giant planet.
while the others use
Ability 1 Type := Ship Life Support <=replace: AI Tag 10
Ability 1 Descr := Can colonize a rock based planet.
and
Ability 1 Type := Ship Crew Quarters <=replace: AI Tag 11
Ability 1 Descr := Can colonize an ice based planet.


Default_AI_DesignCreation.txt uses:
Design Type := Colony (Gas)
Vehicle Type := Ship
Default Strategy := Don't Get Hurt
Size Minimum Tonnage := 330
Size Maximum Tonnage := 330
Num Must Have At Least 1 Ability := 1
Must Have Ability 1 := AI Tag 12

Design Type := Colony (Ice)
Vehicle Type := Ship
Default Strategy := Don't Get Hurt
Size Minimum Tonnage := 330
Size Maximum Tonnage := 330
Num Must Have At Least 1 Ability := 1
Must Have Ability 1 := AI Tag 11

Design Type := Colony (Rock)
Vehicle Type := Ship
Default Strategy := Don't Get Hurt
Size Minimum Tonnage := 330
Size Maximum Tonnage := 330
Num Must Have At Least 1 Ability := 1
Must Have Ability 1 := AI Tag 10


Abilities.txt and AI_Tags.txt do not accord with each other either. I guess there's some update needed for AI Tag 01-09 and some addition :

AI Tag 10 Colonize Rock
AI Tag 11 Colonize Ice
AI Tag 12 Colonize Gas

[Fyron]

Hahaha! In my efforts to fix troop design, I was toying with AI tag reqs for the "cockpits," to try to get just one per troop. I copy/replaced the abilities back to the CQ and LS ones after I learned what the actual problem was. I seem to have forgotten to record the AI tags used to make the AI design colony ships, and reused them in the troop testing.

As an interim solution, here is a file that will restore the AI's ability to make all colony ship designs: Components.zip. Note that this will break muliplayer savegame compatibility.

[Suicide Junkie]

An in-depth discussion of Leaky Defenses can be found in the Carrier Battles mod tutorial pages:
DEF 200 : Damage Theory and
DEF 340 : Armor Mechanics
These pages are coming from CBmod, but the underlying game mechanics are universal. Just use your local mod's statistics and follow along.

DEF 340 in particular goes into detail of the tradeoffs between thick (large, low hp/kt) and thin (small, high hp/kt) leaky armors, plus the effects of tech level on damage absorption rates.

[Atrocities]

I had a question about Atmospheric Probes and what the purpose behind them was. It states to keep the AI from prematurely designing colony ships. How so? And why don't you want the AI designing colonyships?

[Atrocities]

SJ those links in your post don't seem to be working at the moment.