Has the AI really improved? Examples please?

Str8_Gain · #1 February 26th, 2001, 06:26 AM

I'm currently in a game with No Warp Points and Finite Resources (galaxy size is Large). AI is set at Difficult, and I gave them a Low bonus, and set the number of AIs to Many (currently at 15). For this type of scenario, I'm not terribly impressed.

When I took a peek at the AIs during the early game to see how they were doing, I noted that:

a)in research, they made it to Stellar Manipulation level 3 long before I did, <b>BUT</B> absolutely refused to build any ships exploiting this, which would've given them access to more star systems. The ship designs they had they couldn't construct since they required Grav Quantum Resonator III or higher and Cruiser hulls (and other stuff like weapons and Shield Generator Vs). Meanwhile, I get GQR I and and expanding like crazy (sticking it on a simple Frigate hull), knocking off three AIs (so far) in the process.

b)related to a), I noticed that the AI in general couldn't manage resources worth a damn. In No Warp Point games, it's absolutely vital to hoard resources in the early game, especially Minerals, since Stellar Manipulation components are so expensive. Add Finite Resource to that, and it's even more so, since planet resource values decrease as you mine them out. If you've got no storage ready for them, then they're just wasted. So even if they had a simple ship design utilizing GQR I or a Grav Condenser, they couldn't build it anyway since they'd run out of resources paying maintenance on it, and lose the ship.

I guess the AI needs more tweaking in that sort of scenario. I haven't tried a "regular" game yet with 1.27, so I can't say how well it reacts in that situation. Time for me to get mucking in the text files to see if I can fix it. Any suggestions from modders would be greatly appreciated.

WhiteHojo · #2 February 26th, 2001, 07:37 PM

It might not sound exciting but so far my favorite is the supply minister is working for all ships.

The retrofit minister is still a little screwey in that it is still trying to retro a design w/cargo - very annoying.

I am in the mid of a large (250) system game, low bonus, low tech start, high difficulty, cluster no connect - 14 total races and at turn 180 3 of em are in excess of 1 mill points.... best so far.

have actually seen computer ships using cloaking. No really large fleet concentrations yet - just now moved out of my little cluster to conquer to universe.

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

JimG · #3 February 26th, 2001, 07:55 PM

how do you get 250 systems???

DirkHowitzer · #4 February 26th, 2001, 08:15 PM

JimG...

Go into your Game/Data folder and open up the settings.txt file. One of the first lines should be the max systems settings. Change it to 255 and there ya go.

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"He's dead, Jim."-- Lt. Commander Leonard "Bones" McCoy |Chief Medical Officer / USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

[This message has been edited by DirkHowitzer (edited 26 February 2001).]

DirectorTsaarx · #5 February 26th, 2001, 08:49 PM

quote:
Originally posted by DirkHowitzer:
JimG...

Go into your Game/Data folder and open up the settings.txt file. One of the first lines should be the max systems settings. Change it to 255 and there ya go.

Don't forget to add one of the extended system name files (there are at least two posted at Shrapnel someplace). The default file only has about 100 names, and when the game runs out of system names it just doesn't name the rest of the systems. (Gets a little confusing to see 100 systems with no name...)

ColdSteel · #6 February 27th, 2001, 01:56 AM

I've been doing some testing and one of the biggest problems still remaining for the AI is that it only seems to build and utilize a fraction of the ship designs in the game after it does the research. I'm watching an AI race around turn 150 that has designs for every ship in the game but will only build the following:

1. Attack ships
2. Carriers
3. Transports
4. Colony ships

That's it. I've never seen a kamikaze attack ship, a stellar manipulation ship or any kind other than the ones listed above in the default game. This does detract from the fun of the game a bit IMO.