Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

[Atraikius]

I view any games AI as being only as good as the person who wrote it. With the AI in SE4 set up to be easily modified by the players, there should be virtually limitless possibilities for it.

I think the biggest problem with the games AI levels is that so much of the modifiable files are not fully understood by the people making the modifications. When you look at the races included in the game as they were originally, they were all fairly generic, only using a few different abilities or techs from the others. As each new modification for them is made, and each generation of custon Race Styles is seen they seem to get a little better. I see this as an example that the people that are writing up the AI are getting better thus the AI gets better.

What I think is really needed is a full description of how each line that can be edited is used in the program so that settings that currently are typically left alone because thier use isn't really understood could be developed to thier full potential. This should allow tremendous strides to be taken in making new Races since every feature could be tailored specifically for the race instead of just being essentially duplicated from a similar existing race.

From a addition to the structure of the game, what I would really like to see would be an additional (or 2) combat mode line in the strategy file, with qualifications for them. Then when I was modifing a race that primarily used missiles and Anti-Proton beams, I could set the primary attack strategy to Maximum Range, set with qualifiers such as: Enemy Range > 5, and Move 50, then when that ship was involved in a battle, it would look at the enemy ships weapon range, and if the enemys range was greater than 5, it would use the Maximum weapons range strategy, otherwis it would go on to the next strategy, and the Move 50 qualifier would tell the AI that the ship should expend 50% of its movement to move into range and fire, then the remaining movement should be used to increase the range between itself and the enemy ship.