Anyone try repair ships for the AI yet?

Sinapus · #1 July 11th, 2001, 04:15 PM

quote:
Originally posted by capnq:

Quote:

Yeah I created them, but haven't had time to test if the AI uses them or not. I have them setup as attack ship, with the hope that they will team up with a fleet...
I think if you make them an Attack Ship, they'll join fleets, but the Space Yard Ship Minister won't recognize that they're SYSs.

Probably not, but if that ship survives any battles in that fleet it will repair any crippled ships so that fleet won't be stuck forever drifting...

Maybe I'll add both. One with a lot of repair bays and make it the SYS. Another with one repair bay, some weapons and shields and an attack ship designation.

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Sinapus · #2 July 13th, 2001, 04:12 PM

Well, one obstacle cleared. Actually got the AI to -design- a repair ship. Now I'll see if they'll actually build one later tonight and use it.

Atraikius · #3 July 13th, 2001, 06:36 PM

Getting the AI to design a repair ship is not hard (have had one of mine designing a tender for a while), but so far I've only had the AI build them once - had 2 attack ships designs, both light cruisers, one had 3 DUC 3's and 2 plasma torp 1's, other had repair bay, and one CSM 3. The attack ship was listed first in the DesignCreation file, and had been designed more recently, yet the AI would only build the tender.

Sinapus · #4 July 16th, 2001, 06:28 AM

Well, I got the neutrals to build repair ships, though it looks like they are not building space yard ships now. Hm.

Q · #5 July 16th, 2001, 11:59 AM

To be really useful a repair ship must be included into the fleets. Until now only attack/defense ships and carriers are included into fleets by the AI. Not minesweepers, not boarding ships, not repair ships. At least that's what I've seen.
So the only possibility is to include repair bays either in attack/defense ships or IMO better into carriers. I tried to do that in my AI modififications of the CueCappa and Phong and in a different way with the Borg. Don't use space yard's because then the AI will start construct something with it and the ships cannot move!!

Tampa_Gamer · #6 July 17th, 2001, 01:14 AM

Q nailed the issue. Until the design file contains a field to indicate whether a given design should be included in attack/defense fleets, you are forced to include it in one of the attack/defense ship designs.

Alpha Kodiak · #7 July 17th, 2001, 12:37 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Tampa_Gamer:
Q nailed the issue. Until the design file contains a field to indicate whether a given design should be included in attack/defense fleets, you are forced to include it in one of the attack/defense ship designs.

Even better would be a fleet composition (perhaps in the fleet file) so that you could specify that an optimal fleet would contain a specific combination of support ships (repair, mine sweeping, stellar manipulation, troop transports, boarding ships, etc.) along with attack ships and carriers. Otherwise, you are likely to get a fleet full of repair ships only, or something equally undesirable.

Even cooler would be allowing multiple fleet types, and specify the general objectives each fleet type would be used for.

Obviously, that would be a major change, and there would have to be flexibility built in to not hold a fleet up if the only available mine sweeper was on the other side of the empire, but it would sure make it easier to get the AI to act more like a human player.