AI Patching requests

[Suicide Junkie]

Right. Now to translate that into a programmable plan.

Research:
- skip to "*begin*"
- insert block text of orders to research bases2/sats2.
(Note: Must find an exact quote of the desired research command)
- skip to next instance of "ship con" or "base con"
- multiply value of entry by 3
- repeat from step 3 until EOF

Design_creation:
Not quite sure what all the changes here are...
- do you want to copy-paste the attack ship, colony ship, and then make two flavours of edits?
- for the others, do you just want to set the properties after the "..."?

Note: arbitrarily setting the majority weapon family could be dangerous, since the AI might not do any research in that area.

[ 11 February 2002: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]

[Phoenix-D]

"I can always update things later, and from what I gathered from your other post was that your mod should be a simple cut and paste from what I've already got."

Well, let's see..
The engine scheme currently works just like P&Ns, which is what I was using the patcher for before. I've changed the names of some tech areas, as well. Other than that it's probably too complictated- too many changes. I've got *7* diiferent ship areas, for example.

Phoenix-D

[Suicide Junkie]

Phoenix:
So, you've got a code copy-paste, a couple search-replaces, and something crazy

How do you go about the manual patching of AIs to use the 7-way ship areas?

[Phoenix-D]

Very carefully. The tech areas are (early names, trying to find shorter ones):
Starship Construction
Escort Class Construction
Advanced Escort Class Construction
Crusier Class Ship Construction
Advanced Cruiser Class Construction
Capital Ship Construction
Advanced Capital Ship Construction

So for each AI, I have to decide what type of ship they are going to focus on. The goal here is to make using small ships a viable option instead of the rush for capital ships that is normal SE4. "Starship construction" is like normal SE4, but cheaper, and the ships are of lower quality (very slow, easy to hit, maintance increases). An AI using just that would have to rely on "rush" tactics, and would be woefully outclassed one-on-one.

Complicating things is the advanced level of ship construction. That doesn't just give hulls- it gives special bridges, components like maintance reducers or weapons, and what I'm calling "specialization modules".

Each of those has an auxiliary control ability, so you can only mount one, and they give bonuses. So for example you can either have a combined LR sensor, combat sensor bonus, and slight speed increase or a full-spectrum cloak, ECM increase, and minor minesweeping ability. I haven't gone into getting the AI to use them..

The simplest way to get a SE4 Ai running, now that I think of it, would be to make them research escorts then cruisers then capital ships then advanced capital ships.. that's the most similar to what standard SE4 does. Dunno how hard that would be to program though.

Phoenix-D

[Andrés]

quote:

---

- skip to "*begin*"
- insert block text of orders to research bases2/sats2.
(Note: Must find an exact quote of the desired research command)
- skip to next instance of "ship con" or "base con"
- multiply value of entry by 3
- repeat from step 3 until EOF

---

That's right exact quote should look something like this:

quote:

---

AI State := Exploration, Infrastructure, Prepare for Attack, Attack, Secure Holdings After Attack, Incursion, Prepare for Defense, Defend (Short Term), Defend (Long Term)
Tech Area Name := Base Construction
Tech Area Level := 2
Tech Area Min Percent := 25

---

Not sure if increasing a value of 9999 to 29997 can generate an error, think not, max allowed value must be 65k. But ship construction in this mod only reaches to 60, so maybe multiply by 3 if < 60.

quote:

---

Design_creation:
Not quite sure what all the changes here are...
- do you want to copy-paste the attack ship, colony ship, and then make two flavours of edits?
- for the others, do you just want to set the properties after the "..."?

---

Smallest ships need/can only fit a few engines. And all bigger ships need 6 engines.
Copying and pasting seems as the easiest way to patch it.
Note that some AIs include different designs for different sizes. I don't know if it's possible to make the program able to recognize and patch those accordingly.

Colony ship design is very similar in all races, so maybe it's easier to make the program add a block text with the 3 (rock/ice/gas) small colony ships.

quote:

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Note: arbitrarily setting the majority weapon family could be dangerous, since the AI might not do any research in that area.

---

I know and it was only done to benefit very small and very early ship sizes.
If there's not enough space in the ship to accommodate the majority weapon pick 1, AI will not try with pick 2 but it will create a weaponless design. What isn't that bad since those ships suck in combat anyway, and the only reason you need this small attack ship is as an early explorer.

[Suicide Junkie]

Phoenix-D: AIPatcher2.exe, supporting Generic QNP Patches.

Andrés:
What's the name for the sat construction tech area you wanted at the beginning of the research file?

Also, do you have a "before and after" copy of a patched AI design creation that I can look at?

[Andrés]

quote:

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What's the name for the sat construction tech area you wanted at the beginning of the research file?

---

Standard name, I didn't change nor make any new tech area. IIRC "Satellite Construction"

quote:

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Also, do you have a "before and after" copy of a patched AI design creation that I can look at?

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I had included some patched standard races in the mod. I'll see if can send you the files later.