AI construction queue problems (ship construction)

Mephisto · #1 February 3rd, 2001, 05:32 PM

My observations are that the AI is most of the time in "defense" so this should be the queue you should look for.
Can you attach a save game with the AI not building? This would make the whole process much easier.

Emperor Zodd · #2 February 3rd, 2001, 09:07 PM

I would advise you guys to e-mail Aaron whatever you discover immediately.

The patch will be ready soon, and I would like to see your discoveries added to it.

Q · #3 February 4th, 2001, 08:35 AM

Here it the savegave file Mephisto. All AI build very little, only one or to items per turn. The only exeption are the Sergetti! The Earth Alliance and Borg were also building not much until I turned the AI completely off and then one turn later on again. I use Mod Pack 1.01 plus the Borg race. I made some changes in the vehicle.construction.txt files of the Earth Alliance and the Borg, but not the other races. The Earth Alliance has now one identical list for all AI states, so I could better monitor the effects. But all the other race files are not altered. Maximum number of systems is 250. I made a few changes in some components (fighter bay, mine layer, satellite bay) but I don't think this will be important. Futhermore I use modified weapon mounts for weapon platforms and satellites. If you need them I could post them as well. Hope this works for you!
Thank you for your help.

Mephisto · #4 February 4th, 2001, 12:41 PM

O-ho! That are MANY systems.

I "solved" the problem for the EA in the game by building just one more mineral storage facility. They immediately begun to build fighters again.
For the Darlok it was sufficient to cancel their treaty with a neutral race to have them build their ships again.
I will have a look into this (especially the Last thing) but your game is so big that it takes forever to make one turn. Furthermore the Darlok use more ship classes then a "normal" race and your game is so big that even this can result in errors (I had a fatal RCE in the ship design menu with your game for example). So I can't pinpoint it exactly but I will have a look into it.

Q · #5 February 5th, 2001, 02:11 AM

Sorry for the many systems Mephisto, but when I started this game I never had in mind it may become something for others to examine!
It is very curious that you get RCE, because as you can see I played it for 200 turns (and continue to play it) without any error Messages. And I do definitely not have a super computer (Pentium II, 233MHz, 32MB RAM)!
But I am very happy that at least some points you could examine and fix. The most astonishing in this game for me is the Sergetti empire. They continue to grow and construct many ships, units and facilities and became number one with twice the score of number two. What do the Sergetti have, the others lack?? And did you realize, that the lack of construction is not confined to units and ships but also to facilities? Even if there is lot of empty space on the colonies left, no facilities (or very few) are built. These AI behaviour started about turn 150, but I don't have a savegame file from that time.
Thank you again for your work and help.

Tenryu · #6 February 4th, 2001, 08:45 PM

quote:
Originally posted by HreDaak:
Now, if you use the 'normal' construction.txt that has different lists for almost every AI state the building problems usually start when the AI makes contact to other AI empires (this usually causes the change in AI state). But if you modify this so that every AI state uses the same building list no problems appear... although this could use some more testing until one can be absolutely certain of this.

HreDaak,

This sounds like a major problem with the AI opponent.

I haven't done anything myself with the AI files. So I really don't trust myself to modify mine correctly to fix this problem.

I would greatly appreciate some advice from you on how I can fix this in my game. what recomendations can you make on what AI state build list to use for every AI state and how do I modify this.

Thanks

Daynarr · #7 February 4th, 2001, 11:46 PM

Q, I have d/l your savegame too and took a peek at what is going there.

So far I have taken control of Sergetti to see how are they doing, and I must admit that I am kindda proud of them

. However, it took them forever to finish their movement (about 30 minutes at least), so I didn't get any further than that. I can make an assumption on why they don't show problems with building queues like the rest of the races. Assuming that Mephisto is right and AI mostly uses Defensive state, the important change is the Last line in the Sergetti_AI_Construction_Vehicles.txt file that makes them build large number of attack ships (the Last line in the Sergetti defensive state queue, of course). You could try putting these lines at the end of all AI states for all AI empires and see if that helps. I just can't find enough time to test this myself.