AI advice needed.

[Deathstalker]

Currently working on a new AI 'style'. This style was to have ships above 400kt(Light Cruisers) to have the Launch/Recover fighter ability, so that all ships above destroyer could carry and use fighters. The ships do carry the components but I can't seem to get them to carry fighters, the fighters are on the planet but only get loaded into carriers, not the light cruisers that have 2 figher bay II's. At least I have not seen it happen yet. Currently in turn 16 of a test game, at med tech with a few other test AI's and the Xi'Chung/Punidon.

Any suggestions on how this style of race could be implimented. Have not seen/developed the Heavy Attack Ships, which are just copies of the Carrier in the Design Creations modded down to 600 size and larger, but will be interesting to see if they will load fighters.

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"The Empress took your name away," said Chance.
Owen smiled coldly. "It wasn't hers to take. I'm a Deathstalker until I die. And we never forget a slight or an enemy." -Owen Deathstalker.

[Q]

I think it is only possible if you design the ship as "carrier". Otherwise the AI will not load fighters. What do you think would be the advantage of a small number of fighters in attack ships compared to the special carriers? The carriers are the only "special" ships that are included into the fleets.

[Deathstalker]

Q. Just trying to make a race similar to the old 'Moo2' ones that pack interceptors on every ship. Just trying something different. And if it works and we can have different cargo on different ships then we could finally have 'troopships' work. Like the example Atraikius played out. But if only the 'cargoships' and the 'Carrier' loads cargo then my designs won't work.

But, if the Carrier in Atraikius's example DOES capture the planet, then we can mod a Version of the Carrier for carrying tonnes of troops, and AI's will land troops!....Finally.

Heres hoping.

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"The Empress took your name away," said Chance.
Owen smiled coldly. "It wasn't hers to take. I'm a Deathstalker until I die. And we never forget a slight or an enemy." -Owen Deathstalker.

[Atraikius]

I ended up starting a new game before I could see them do that again, but in the current game they have been in a see-saw war with the pyrochette - orks go through warp point and loose all ships to mines, pyrochette counter attack the orks wax tiny barren rock, orks finish construction of new fleet and destroy every pyrochette ship outside of pyrochette system, recolonize the barren rock, and try to go through the mined warp point again. They just finished researching mines, and immediately started construction of 8 minesweeping light cruisers (pyrochette just got destroyers). They have fighters and troops and are almost done with thier first carrier - I'll let you know if they try it again.

[Sinapus]

quote:

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Originally posted by Deathstalker:
Q. Just trying to make a race similar to the old 'Moo2' ones that pack interceptors on every ship. Just trying something different. And if it works and we can have different cargo on different ships then we could finally have 'troopships' work. Like the example Atraikius played out. But if only the 'cargoships' and the 'Carrier' loads cargo then my designs won't work.

But, if the Carrier in Atraikius's example DOES capture the planet, then we can mod a Version of the Carrier for carrying tonnes of troops, and AI's will land troops!....Finally.

Heres hoping.

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Maybe designate a carrier hull in the troopship design entry?

[Atraikius]

Deathstalker,

Did that to the Zorians (noticed a slight goof on one of the designs but several of the other do put carrier bays on), I havn't seen them put fighters on them either, but it may be because I havn't gotten far enough in a game for them to have enough fighters for them too. Not sure about the only putting fighters on carriers though - just saw my Version of the Orks go after the Xi'chung homeworld with 2 dreadnaughts and two heavy carriers, one of the carriers also had 100 small troops on board. All four ships headed towards the planet smashing through about tweanty Xi'Chung ships and a lot of fighters. Sadly the Xi'chung crippled the carrier with the troops so I didn't get to see what would happen if they reached the planet.

[Atraikius]

Just as an update to the troops loaded on a carrier -

I was able to get the AI do repeat it, but it was real messy. In the process I was able to get the AI to actually use hangers when they are on destroyers, cruisers, etc..., although I'm having a hard time getting the AI to build them because of how it selects which type of ship to build, and been able to get the AI (Orks twice, Zorians once) to start including loaded troopships in its fleets.

[Atrocities]

Or edit a new ship into the carrier class that has a lower requirement for fighter bays and a higher kt ability. Thats what I would do.

Then simply paste and copy another ship BMP to fit it, and do the same for the Generic ship files so that all races will have the ship if they choose to build one.

[Deathstalker]

Atraikius, HOW did you get the non-carrier ships to load fighers?? I had tonnes of ship classes with bays (all classes had them) but none loaded them.

If you can get this and the troopships working 'correctly' I will kiss your virtual feet

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"The Empress took your name away," said Chance.
Owen smiled coldly. "It wasn't hers to take. I'm a Deathstalker until I die. And we never forget a slight or an enemy." -Owen Deathstalker.

[Atraikius]

Deathstalker -

For the carriers, I found that ships were only loaded with fighters if they are classified as a carrier as you found. But, the design type in the Vehicle Design file is not what determines which type of hull to use, its the Majority Weapon. If the Majority Weapon is Cargo - you get a transport hull, if it is launch/recover fighters - you get a carrier. Useing this theory, I temporarily removed the carrier entry from the design file, and made a new carrier that used weapons for the majority and secondary abilities, with launch/recover fighters as the first add. ability, and cargo as the second - the race started building frigate sized carriers and loading them with about 15 light fighters. They could only launch one fighter at a time, but 5 of them in a fleet early in the game was tearing the AI they were at war with to pieces. The problem is that with both a normal carrier style and a warship style in the Design file, when the AI decides to build a carrier, it tends to always pick the true carrier over the warship style. I haven't been too worried about this as when I was originally making the zorians I wanted them to use almost exclusively the warship style of carrier but couldn't make it work - now I have them building almost exclusivly cariers from the beginning of the game - can't wait to see what happens when every ship in thier fleet starts launching fighters - should have a new fVersion of them on monday.

The troopships I believe was a similar issue to the carrier bays, the AI would build troopships using the transposrt hulls, but would include transports in its fleets. As the number of troops that can be fit in even a small transport is excessive unless your trying to take a planet with a very large pop. or a lot of troops, I had the AI design the Troop transport with three cargo must have abilities, and then weapons for its majority and secondary abilities, with cargo as its first add. ability. After a few turns, my Ork AI had two fleets with loaded troopships (one was even the flagship), and the Zorians had one. All three fleets broke up shortly after that, and I restarted a game then because I had made a bunch of tweeks that would be more apparent at the beginning of the game so I havn't seen it happen again yet, but the Orks are currently researching troops in my game now. I believe that the fleet break-up were because all three of the troopships still had some cargo space left, and both the Orks and Zorians had begun building troops again resulting in the troopships breaking off to finish loading.