Master Belisarius' and my findings about design rotating:
If the AI uses different weapons for a certain ship or unit type sooner or later it will begin to rotate designs (using obsolete (smaller) designs even if much better ones are available). If all of your attack (or whatever) ships (or units) will use always the same weapon, design rotating will not occur.
To give some examples:
Units:
Small fighters DUC III, medium fighters TKP I. Rotating back to small fighters happened immediately after medium fighters were researched. DUCs III were discovered before medium fighters.
WPs: Small WPs CSM V, Medium WPs TKP III. Rotating back to small WPs happened immediately after medium WPs were researched. CSMs V were discovered before medium WPs.
It seems, that if the highest level for a certain weapon is attained the AI will not "forget" this achievement. On the other hand the AI tries to use the newest design for a certain vehicle type without considering the level of the weapon this design has. To solve this problem it rotates between the old "achievement" and the newer (bigger) design. This rotating will take place regardless of any other - more recently - discoveries. Even if large fighters with small TKPs III are available the AI will rotate back to the small one with small DUCs III.
Ships: CSMs V were discovered before Cruiser class was researched, at this time TKPs II were available. TKPs V were researched before battle cruiser tech.
Rotating occured only after DN class had been discovered (about 20 turns after that) and AI rotated back to LCs not cruisers.
Ship Designs: Escort to cruiser with CSM, BC to DN with TKP.
It also seems that the AI rotates back to the first design which had the highest level of the first weapon (again: never forgetting the "achievement", the LC was the first design coming with a CSM V.) Exactly what it did with units. The only difference is that - as far
as we know - rotating back only occurs somewhat after the DN tech is researched.
This bad habit can be avoided by adjusting the majority weapon picks.
Using
....
Majority Weapon Family Pick 1 := 34
Majority Weapon Family Pick 2 := 2
...
for
all your your attack (or whatever)ships/fighters/WPs will prevent any design rotating. The drawback is that the AI will use the first pick immediately after it is researched or the first design with it becomes available. You have to live with low levels of the TKP for lots of turns...
There is another possibility. Create 2 different designs for DNs (different weaponry) and large fighters/WPs. The AI still rotates designs. However, it does not fall back to smaller ships/fighters/WPs but only rotates between the two DN designs. It is crucial that the designs come with different weaponry, it seems that design rotating is triggered by weapons. This approach makes it possible that the smaller ships still can use the best available weapon (and not the one which is most recently discovered), that means for the example above the first TKP-ships which appear are coming with a TKP V and not with the TKP I.
For any more details about this approach check MB's AIs. (As I said: no mercy
).
Re: AI DEATH MATCH 2
. I am sure a lot of valuable data is produced that way. Hopefully I can find the time and review some games, once I get my new system running.
(my fault, I know).
Hybrid Mode
