When AI scrap ships ?

[PvK]

Anyone tried setting maintenance level to zero or -1 to see if it causes the scrapping to stop altogether in a puff of illogic?

[Krsqk]

AFAIK, the scrap minister moves ships on his own, just like the resupply and retrofit ministers do. I'm assuming the "ship movement minister" is actually the attack, defense, patrol, and exploration ministers (all the individual ministers can move ships, in fact, except for facility construction and possibly space yard ships).

We'll figure out how to set the maintenance properly the same time we figure out fleet experience.

[oleg]

I don't think Scrap minister (curse him ) )moves ships. He scraps any ships that are currently sitting over shiyards. Unfortunately, that makes shipyard bases primary candidates, as well as population transports. Attack ships, which are usually away from the planet or in the fleet, seldom get scrapped.

[Q]

Originally posted by Mephisto:
I cannot confirm the problem. I have set up a game with the EA, one empire under human control, the other computer with high bonus.
In the next step I activated the ministers for the human empire except for ship movement (so no colonies were set up) and de-activated ministers in the computer empire likewise.
After some turns the human empire hit the maintenance limit with 8 ships, using up some of the stored resources.
The computer empire had build 15 ships in this time. It had crossed the maintenance limit by 5k minerals (because the bonus was now gone after human control). It still had full storages, a sign that it had no lack of minerals at all in the past turns.
My conclusion is that bonus are working quite well.

Question: did the human empire start to scrap ships in your test? If yes, try to switch this human empire to complete AI control and the former (not scrapping) AI empire to human control.
My test involved bases that were scrapped by the AI while in the same turn he completed the construction of an identical base at the same location as the scrapped one! So the construction is not impeded and the bonus are added to the storage correctely. That's not the bug. The bug is according to the observation we made, that the decision of the AI to scrap or not to scrap does not take the bonus into consideration.

[oleg]

Just an idea: AFAIK, AI can not retrofit or scrap ships with cargo. What if I rename construction baces to curriers and add one fighter bay ??
Will AI still use it for construction ? Hmmm..

[Q]

Here is the savegame:
1054815517.zip

It is a simultaneous game with the standard SE IV Gold Version 1.84. No passwords needed. Just login as the Phong (who are an AI empire) and control the log and empire status: You will find that a ship has been scrapped although there are more resources generated (AI high bonus included) than needed and the resource storages are full. And an identical ship type as the one scrapped is under construction at the homeplanet!!

[Mephisto]

Uh, sorry Q, that is possible. However I think it is not a game breaking bug because the scrap minister will only kick in if the ship has no other orders. Usually important AI ships always have an order.