New component and screwy design

[Rollo]

There is nothing wrong with the component itself. But you have to start a new game after changing the components.txt. Looks to me you stuck the Universal Colony between the standard colony tech and bridges. That altered the order of the components. So for existing designs all the components have been shifted by one. For said destroyer the bridge became the uni colo, life support became bridge, crew quarters became life support, and engines became master computers.

Also, like Fyron said, you must place the universal colony above the standard colony techs in the components.txt to avoid problems at game start. The AI will use the universal colony on their colony ships, even if it placed before the other components.

Fyron, your Last statement is incorrect. The AI will use the uni colony, because it has a higher tech requirement. For abilities without a value like armor, point-defense, and Colonize Planet - XXXX the AI will use the component with the highest tech requirement (total number of tech levels needed to get that component) first, in case of a tie it will use the component that is further down the list of components.

Rollo

[ August 05, 2002, 10:38: Message edited by: Rollo ]

[Kammak]

Thanks all. That makes sense, also explains why all the AI ships were toasted so easily in that game!

[Kammak]

Spoke too soon...

I moved the component to the bottom of the components.txt file so as not to screw up any compnent-order issues. No biggie if the AI doesn't use it - its only a memo saver for myself.

But after making that change and starting a *new* game, all the AI had Gas Giant colonization tech but not their native colonization tech. This was a low tech game, so an Ice race would start with Ice colony tech, etc...but that didn't happen. All the AI races had Gas tech and nothing else, and wouldn't built gas colony ships, even though they designed them! I finally switched the computer control off for the AI to figure out what was happening and discovered this.

As soon as I removed the uni-colony component from the bottom of the components.txt file and started a new game everything went back to normal.

This is no biggie - I was just trying to save on notes during the game, but can someone explain what I did wrong?

[jimbob]

Kammak: I think that this quote is most applicable to your problem

Also, like Fyron said, you must place the universal colony above the standard colony techs in the components.txt to avoid problems at game start. The AI will use the universal colony on their colony ships, even if it placed before the other components.

My guess is that putting the Univ. Colony component at the end of the file manages to mess everything up (wave magic wand here). Hope that helps.

Just my .02 $Cnd