Need design Creations help

[douglas]

AI tags are just a set of 20 meaningless abilities that were added in patch 1.91. They don't actually do anything, but the AI treats them exactly the same as any other ability. If you set up a design creation file to call for something with the ability "AI tag 1" (that might not be the exact ability name, look it up in ability.txt), it will work just the same as if you had called for, say, the quantum reactor ability. The AI would look for the best component it has the tech for and use that. For AI tags, "best" is defined in terms of the number of tech levels required to get the component. Listing the same tech area multiple times as a requirement for the component will have no in game effect, but will increase the AI's evaluation of how advanced the component is.

Note: While the above discussion mentions only components, AI tags are valid anywhere they might reasonably be used to aid AI decision making.

[Fyron]

The abilities are named "AI Tag 01", with leading 0s for the numbers below 10. Case is also very important, for all abilities. There are 20 possible AI Tags to use. Look in Abilities.txt to see all abilities that can be added to ships, components, facilities, planets, etc.

SEnet ModWorks provides a tutorial detailing how the AI chooses which component to add to a ship design or which facility to build (it is the same process):

http://www.spaceempires.net/home/ftopict-448.html

Incidentally, chapter 16 of SEIV Modding 101 provides a more detailed overview of all abilities, including which files they can be used in.

[Emperor's Child]

Thanks folks, that's been a great help!

[Atrocities]

Should note for the record that saved designs with EMP files are lost when used with mods.

[Fyron]

Actually, I think that may be a result of them using mounts. Any ship design that uses a mount will not be saved with the empire file, even in stock SEIV.

[Atrocities]

Mounts and mods. I keep running into the problem so I know.