Does the AI use creative tactics?

[Gandalph]

I can save you the time with some of these.


1). Does it always find the right planet, or is there some ramdomness. Or is there some other rule, how nice the planet is, how close a planet is to it's homeworld, what direction the ship was traveling, etc?

There were only 2 planets in the system and both were homeworld, large, breathable, identical population numbers, identical facilities, and identical distance from the warp point, which is why, in my previous post, I said "all things equal". The AI randomly chose a planet if no defenses on either. With WP's or fighters, it always chose the planet it could defeat. If it could not defeat either, it seemed to choose the lesser populated, (the differences were minute, ie 4184 to 4056). If there were sufficient defenses it would attack the weaker planet and , if it could not defeat either, it would hold from attacking.

2). So it can count fighters in cargo. If it can see the difference between 50 and 20, can it see the diference between 20 and 25, 20 and 21? Could this just be a non-obvious bug -- it should be able to count fighters in orbit, maybe MM did'nt put in a flag to hide this info when they are cargo? Does it care about small medium large shielded armored fighters or would a ton of cockpits and life support fighters keep a planet safe?

See above observations.

[QB}3). What can it see of the weapon platforms. What's it more afraid of large full of armor and point defence vs mediums with engine destroyers?[/QB]

Again, see above observations.

4). Obviusly it can see sats in orbit, but how about cloaked ones?

I did not test this, but based on my obsevations, if the AI had sufficient sensors to see the Sat's, it would again pick the weaker planet.