Playtesting Notes and Questions

[Noble713]

I've started testing my MOD's AI today, and I have some questions.

How do other people keep tabs on what the computer is doing? Do you switch on/off AI control (Game Menu button -> Players) every few turns, turn on Omnipresent View, or something else?

As for myself, I started all the players under human control, and went into the ministers screen and turned Complete AI on. This causes some problems, as the computer stills asks for my input.

Some things I've noticed:

If you don't assign a colony type, the AI will pick one itself next turn. For colonies in other systems this works fine, but it seems to always pick Homeworld for colonies in its home system. This often results in low-resource worlds being full of miners, whereas it may have chosen Research Colony for the planet if it had been in another system

The AI seems to design new ships every turn. By the second turn of my test game, it had designed a Kamikaze ship, a Defense ship, a Defense base, etc., despite the fact that it was only building Attack ships. This is the main reason why the AI runs out of ship names, and all this designing makes its turns longer too. MM might want to look at having the AI only design certain ships based on the AI state, or something like that.

[Deathstalker]

This is what I do.....not necessarily the best but...

I usually just turn on all the ministers and just sit back, inputting when I have to and making the choice the AI seems to do anyway (ie, it will always enter enemy square etc.), for colony choices I 'fudge' a little, I choose what is best due to the planet resouce %. After I seem to have a fairly 'stable' AI (after 25-40 turns) I start a new game including them, assign computer control and 'look' every 20 turns to see what is happening (ie, take away computer control, check research, ships, ship design, race relations, etc.)

The one problem with omnipresent view or all players can see all sectors is that the computer seems to treat this as all AI's having the 'Ancient Race' ability. All players can see all planets so it will try to colonize a 'ruins' planet 20 sectors away, etc.

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"The Empress took your name away," said Chance.
Owen smiled coldly. "It wasn't hers to take. I'm a Deathstalker until I die. And we never forget a slight or an enemy." -Owen Deathstalker.

[Noble713]

Ok, so you monitor it close to see how it holds up, then switch to peeking in on it every now and then.


Another note:
Seems as if the AI picks Homeworld for the 1st new colony in its home system, but doesn't assign a colony type at all for the next one. As such, the planet has been building weapon platforms only, not facilities. Any ideas on how to fix this?

EDIT: Nevermind, it assigned the planet a Homeworld type, it just waited a few turns.

Maybe a series of conditional statements would make for a better AI facilities file. Is this how it works now, and I just don't realize it? For example:


IF (Minerals>= 90 AND Organics<100 AND Radioactives<100)
THEN BUILD (5xMineral Miner)

IF (Minerals>100 AND Organics>100 AND Radioactives>100)
THEN BUILD (5xMonolith Facility)
ELSE BUILD (3xMineral Miner AND 1xOrganic Farm AND 1xRadioactive Extractor)

IF (Mineras < 90 and Organics < 100 AND Radioactives < 100)
THEN BUILD (5x Research Facility)
ELSE BUILD (5x Intel. Facility)

If there are multiple build statements then the AI would pick the one that provides the points it needs at this moment (shouldn't pick the Intel one if it hasn't met anyone).

[This message has been edited by Noble713 (edited 21 May 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Noble713 (edited 21 May 2001).]

[God Emperor]

Noble713,
The planet types are selected from the Planet_Types.txt file and facilities are constructed as per the Construction_Facilities.txt file.
Most of us race modders have extensively modified the above two files for our races as the defaults were pretty poor in terms of optimisation.
My races never have more than one homeworld type planet as it is not an option in their Planet_Types file.
Also, any planet with a minerals value above 100, that does not end up being an Organics or Radioactives world, will end up being a Minerals planet. All others end up being Construction Yards, Resupply bases, Research Compounds or Intelligence Compounds. Check out the Planet_Type for for the Klingons, Romulans, Shadows or my Borg variant and you will see how extensive you can make the selection criteria, such that you generate logical OR or AND operators (cant replicate NAND or NOR operators though).
Also currently there is a fault with the selection process in that any value less than 101 is treated as a 0 (have emailed Aaron about this) - I had considered making any planet greater than 90 a possible candidate for a mining colony if the AI didnt have many already.

With respect to construction of facilities, open up the Construction_Facilities file and you will observe in a game that the AI builds strictly in accordance with the sequence defined for a given planet type.

Hope what I have said is of assistance.
Regards,
GE

[Noble713]

GE: Thanks. I haven't looked in either of the planet files too much, but I'll probably start screwing around with them today or tomorrow. Other than the Homeworld problem, they seem to be doing okay though ( 1 or 2 really bad choices for 3 AIs over 30 turns).

Note: First First Contact between 2 AIs. One of them started to build troops, possibly in preparation for an invasion (sweet!), but the dummy has filled its planets with weapon platforms and has no storage!

[God Emperor]

The No Storage issue is one that modders need to look at very carefully. Some races have been programmed to go berserko building WP's and Satellites and frequently end up getting No Storage Messages.

As an alternative, my Klingons for example, arent programmed to build WP's and Satellites and so end up filling their planets up with Fighters instead. (I basically view WP's and Satellites as being pretty hopeless as they can generally be avioded in tactical combat - fighters on the other hand are a little bit more difficult to deal with).