Carrier Battles Mod

Suicide Junkie · #1 March 5th, 2006, 01:53 PM

Possible high-level strategy issue:
Ukra tal have countered my invasion of their colony with a huge attack from the other side of the empire.

Three carriers and two destroyers.
However, the weapons being carried are 100% explosive missiles. An ungodly wave of missiles wiped out all my defenders, but the Ukra were unable to attack my colony itself.
I suppose I should expect a troop invasion soon.

Will · #2 March 5th, 2006, 04:33 PM

Quick note regarding Intel with AIs. In a low-tech start, one homeworld game, the Phong and Terrans researched Intel around turn 70. Only problem is, with such a low number of points, they began using the cheapest operations: Resource Gift. Not a very good op to use against your enemy, since it depletes your resources and gives it to the hated ones

I was getting used to the changes between 1.0 and 1.4 for that test game, so I don't have much to offer on AI strategies or designs; except I have noticed a general lack of repair and supply capacity in AI fleets. It's hard to do repair in CB, but the AIs could have saved a few fleets by having repair priorities set to Drive Reactors and Engine Ports (only) and having a small amount of repair capacity and a supply tanker or two. It's a lot easier to get a speed 5 fleet to safety than it is to get a speed 1 or speed 0 fleet to safety.

Captain Kwok · #3 March 5th, 2006, 04:44 PM

There should be a tech area with the beneficial gifts and other positive items that the AI doesn't research, since it doesn't understand them.

Suicide Junkie · #4 March 5th, 2006, 11:54 PM

Yeah. That is definitely gonna be done.
Perhaps as a racial tech "Good Samaritans: Allows access to helpful intel projects"

The main problem with getting the AI repair ships as I understand it, is that it would use up one of the warship design types. And the AI can't really afford to lose one.

Putting one of the small, high tech repair bays onto larger carriers could be a good solution.

An interesting political setup has appeared in my game:
- The drushocka are offering treaties, while everybody else is getting quite grouchy.
Since the druk are Neutral culture that might make some sense. Although Traders and Pacifists are the ones that really benefit from treaties.

Suicide Junkie · #5 March 6th, 2006, 12:11 AM

An interesting thing here on the comparisons chart:
After 40 turns on medium tech start. 7 races, 3 neutrals...

The Eee appear to have lost their homeworld on turn 35.
The Drushocka had their homeworld blockaded on turn 38, but liberated it on the next turn.
The Ukra Tal had their homeworld blockaded on turn 20, liberated it on the next turn. It was down to 50% production, so it took some damage. Then on turn 26, it was hit again. This time it only lost a little bit more, to maybe 40%. They are slowly rebuilding.
The Terrans had their homeworld blockaded on turn 35, and it only came back to 50% as well.

Half the AI races have had major attacks on their homeworlds by other AIs.
Some defense bases may be in order.

Captain Kwok · #6 March 6th, 2006, 02:17 AM

You can use one of the other design type designations (like attack base etc) for a repair ship design.

Suicide Junkie · #7 March 6th, 2006, 02:47 AM

Well, having played a couple of decent battles, I think I need to do some work on the missiles. They're really dominating in combat, especially the light explosives, which pack enough firepower to hurt ships, but are also really fast.

Missile speeds will definitely be adjusted downwards. That may be enough.

I believe Rollo is already using all the available designs.
The nature of CB is that you need a wide variety in ships to field, and we picked the X most important types I could think of, where X was the number of available AI design slots, including attack base.

Will · #8 March 6th, 2006, 04:38 AM

Hmm, wasn't aware of a hard-code limit to the number of designs an AI can have. Pity, since CB basically encourages using as many designs as possible.

Also, a suggestion for a sort of tweak to the mod overall; is there a setting for Combat To Hit Defense for planets? I know it's normally an obscenely big penalty, but how about changing it to a really big bonus? Explain it away as atmospheric interference, or difficulty targeting a specific spot on a constantly rotating sphere, whatever; but the result is, a lot of the damage to planets caused by direct-fire weapons is nullified, and you really would have to use Planetary Bombardment Missiles to glass a planet, or capture it with troops. Or just spend a really long time bombarding it with "conventional" weapons.