Starting facs for homeworlds...

Nitram Draw · #1 May 3rd, 2001, 08:15 PM

I only modified shipyard I but it would probably work with any level if the extra values were increased above the normal facility, ie shipyard III also generated one more research point than research III.
I as thinking of creating special facilities that have unique abilities that would be chosen for homeworlds. I would make the facility so expensive, 100k of each resource for example, that you wouldn't normally build one. The only problem may be the AI trying to build them so maybe shipyards are the only one that can be done, since you can't build more than one. At least you wouldn't have to create a special tech, it's available from the start to everyone. You could add any facility ability you desired and it would only be used on a homeworld. Maybe I've found my valuable property!

[This message has been edited by Nitram Draw (edited 03 May 2001).]

Nitram Draw · #2 May 5th, 2001, 01:09 AM

Tested the modified shipyard and it causes problems with the AI.
If you give the shipyard the research or mineral mining capacity the AI tries to build it instead of the standard facility on new colonies but they can only build one per planet so their colonies do not grow. I only tested it for about 35 turns so that may not have been a long enough to test. I am not real familiar with how the AI builds on colonies. Maybe a more experianced modder could figure a way around this.
The best I could do without changing the game to much was give the shipyard the ability of a resupply base. This put two yards per homeworld and didn't seem to affect the AI, again the test was not long. Not much of an increase but at least it is sort of logical to have the yard act as a supply base.

Trachmyr · #3 May 4th, 2001, 11:37 PM

The way around this is simple... don't add research, add resupply or spaceport abilities to it... and mod AI_facility_creation.txt(?) so that the colonies only build one of the approprite item. For instance, add resupply to shipyards... your homeworld will start with 2 shipyards, then modify the AI_facility_creation.txt(?) to remove all instances where a colony is to have both a shipyard and a resupply depot. Of course the drawback is that now you need only build a shipyard and you'll get a resupply depot for free... but if you increase the costs of the shipyards some, and reduce the costs of the "normal" resupply depot, then that will give human players a reason to only build the less usefull resupply depot as it will be built 5x/10x faster than the shipyard.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

Devnullicus · #4 May 4th, 2001, 11:46 PM

I think you could get this to work, but you'd have to make sure that any resource/research generation was less than the value of the lowest facility that does that generation. For example, if a level 1 research facility generates 500 points, your shipyard would have to produce less than that.

The problem is that the AI tries to be semi-intelligent and build the facility that generates the most of that particular resource. This is what caused the monlith facilities to never be built by the AI way back when.

Marty Ward · #5 May 5th, 2001, 03:03 AM

I'm not to good at modding the AI files. I just look for the resupply facility and delete it? This must be done for each race I guess

If you don't make the value higher, tried lower but not equal, on the shipyard than the standard facility the AI will pick the standard facility at start.
You could add the Spaceport ability also and get 3 yards at start and that might work too but that doesn't seem as logical, I can see the yard and resupply being done by the same facility.
Do you think having 2 yards on a planet is worth it? I was hoping to get 7-10 yards and create a real important planet. Doesn't seem possible though.

Trachmyr · #6 May 5th, 2001, 10:25 AM

Now that I think about it, you might not have to delete the resupply entries... I'm not sure what will happen though, it might work fine, it might build an extra resupply fac when the shipyard covers it, or it might frezze up.... I'm not sure. You'd only need to delete a "resupply fac entry" when it also occurs with a shipyard entry... and you would have to do it for each race plus the defaults.

I don't think you can have a homeworld start with more than 2 or 3 shipyards w/o causing serious problems in the game, sorry. I just wish MM would remove the 1 shipyard per planet/ship hardcode restriction, and just enforce it with the "Restrictions" line in componets.txt and facility.txt.

Marty Ward · #7 May 5th, 2001, 06:59 PM

I know that 9 shipyards on the homeworld caused the AI to pump out ships! Maybe I will try a few games with three yards on a homeworld, I think I could modify 2-3 AI's to get a feel for how they handle it.
I'm definately gonna try 9+ in a hotseat game though. Then you would have a planet worth risking you entire fleet to capture, or defend!