A few comments about the Romulan

[dominion]

Full tech from start includes all technology. I was building Battle Cruisers during my initial turns while the Romulan was sending frigates against me.

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"Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges"

[PsychoTechFreak]

quote:

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Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
Self-destruct only kicks in if you lose in a boarding party battle.

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???

I have never lost any boarding party battles, even with the lowest level boarding party. But every time when I have forgotten to observe the enemy ship for SDD then both ships exploded, so I think SDD always kicks in if you board another ship.

The difficulty with SDD is this: I shoot a ship down until the SDD is destroyed randomly, then I do boarding. Oftentimes the important devices are destroyed after that, so you can't analyze anything new.

SJ, I see the human strategy problem with the Dreadnought against frigate destruction, but it's better to die than to get captured in this case. Also I think especially the bigger AI ships should be better prepared against boarding: More phased shields (I can bring them down easily with shield depleters, everyone of my battle ships is equipped with one large scale shield depleter and ONE boarding party, which is enough to capture almost every ship in one or two turns!), and security troops...

BTW, what about security parties (I don't know the right name for the boarding defense), I have never seen that on AI ships, maybe because of the research area which might be excluded due to boarding difficulties for the AI ?



[This message has been edited by PsychoTechFreak (edited 28 May 2001).]

[jc173]

The AI can use security stations, but most don't because the ability isn't included as one for their ship designs. It's easy enough to fix if you want to though. It's probably not included because the AI hasn't quite gotten the hang of boarding enemy ships so the tonnage used on a security station is wasted unless they run into a human fleet.

[God Emperor]

dominion,
Sounds like you were using the "basic_KlingRom" mod which incorporates small and large attack and defence ships (this was done to ensure that early on the races used missile weapons only).
Unfortunately the AI builds a lot of the small ships early on for some reason with this setup (which doesnt manifest itself so much in a standard/basic game).
If you use the Romulan_DesignCreation file from my "KlingRom" mod though (which only has one type of attack and defence ship) they will build whatever the largest ship is that is available to them.

General;
I'm not sure that its possible to design a decent AI ship to counter many of the tricks mentioned in this thread - putting lots of shields or security stations sucks up space that could be used for weapons (see Master Belisarius's early comment on firepower).
At the end of the day, I think we all have to restrain ourselves a little in using some of the tricks available.....


[This message has been edited by God Emperor (edited 28 May 2001).]

[Master Belisarius]

Hi God Emperor.
I can say it in a different way: games where you don't need to research! When you have available all the tech from the start.

[PsychoTechFreak]

quote:

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Originally posted by God Emperor:
... putting lots of shields or security stations sucks up space that could be used for weapons (see Master Belisarius's early comment on firepower)...

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Yes, but all the firepower is useless, if the ship does not get the chance to fire: optimal boarding strategy (human): waiting one field beyond weapon range+movement points and maybe one shot from the shield depleters, next turn brings the boarding ship next to the defender, eventually the next shield depleter brings down the rest of the shield and the ship is mine before it could discharge its guns.

I don't use security stations as well, the boarding party is enough to defend against eventual boarding attacks with the possibility to board another ship. But I see, the AI needs much to learn... (But I think it just can be improved if we don't ignore the human strategies to help the AI, better would it be if the AI could be tweaked to counter these strategies... In another thread someone has suggested an open source AI, oh that would be the nicest present from MM since SEIV has been released !)

[God Emperor]

PsychTechFreak,
What do you see as the best defence then that us modders could design into AI ships - boarding parties? Must admit, I'm not entorely sure what approach to take....
Regards,
GE