Some observations on AI ship building in Proportions, Babylon5 and other QNP mods...

[oleg]

Well, there've been some complaints about erratic AI ship buildind, namely that AI build exclusively escort (frigates) even in late game when AI designs big ships but does not build them.

Here is what I learned from observations on Jraenar AI in Proportions 2.42.
First of all, for people unfamiliar with Proportions, it utilizes Qusi-Newtonian propulsion. It nesecciates the diferent design entries for different hull sizes. Thus, we have "attack escort", "attack frigate", etc. All of them belong to generic "Attack ship" class. Now, AI_construction_vehicles.txt calls to "attack ship" and there are plenty of them, from escort to dreadnought. One can assume AI will build the biggest one but no, AI will buils the FIRST ENTRY in design file. Since first "attack ship" in Jraenarinan design file is escort, AI builds ONLY escorts. True, occasionally it builds bigger ships when it see difeerent names in AI_construction file, but vast majority are escorts.

I rearranged the order in AI_design file in descending order and now it builds bigger and nastier ships with dramatic improvement in AI combativeness ! If there is interest. I can look through other files and post them here.

[ September 20, 2002, 19:45: Message edited by: oleg ]

[Elowan]

Oleg -- you must really be of Cossack blood? Da ili nyet?

[oleg]

Nyet, but my wife is from Don region

[oleg]

All right, not many people seems to be interested in improving Proportions AI (PvK is apparently out of the forum for a time being ) but anyway, here are my changes:

1032547066.zip

The zip file contains several edited AI_design files, Xiati_research file (old one has a bug preventing Xiati to research temporal weapons) and complete AI set for Phong (It is a copy of Nostropholo AI, old Phong AI completely ignored Crystalline race trait). The zip file is not organised (sorry about that), you will have to move all files into appropriate directories after unzipping. I _strongly_ recomend this AI tweak to anybody who plays Proportions with computer races.

[ September 20, 2002, 19:46: Message edited by: oleg ]

[pathfinder]

hmmm...I missed this I guess. Gonna try it in the "Gold" Version to see if it works. Thanks Oleg!

[ September 20, 2002, 23:03: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

[PvK]

Ya, I had to work the Last twelve days in a row straight.

Well, my solution was to massively mod the AI's in Proportions (and use as much help as I could get from you, Oleg, and John Sullivan). In my experience, this has solved the problem you describe, for Proportions, anyway. You have to mod the AI construction file to ask for "Attack Destroyer" instead of attack ship. Or, if you want a Category that means "largest class available", you can list the ship sizes in decreasing order of size in the designcreation file.

These techniques do get the AI to build whatever mix of ship sizes you have the time and patience to tell it to do. However, it is a lot of work, and it would be nice if it were easier to specify in the AI files. Sounds like an "SE5" feature to me, though.

PvK

[oleg]

Replacing all entries for "attack ships" by packs of "attack cruiser","attack destroyer"..." is rather tedious and even impractical since the same AI_construction file is used regardless of the level of ship_construction. The best solution is to use new design_creation files and add few entries for "attack destroyer", "attack light cruiser" and may be "atack frigate" into AI_construction file. Small ships have nice abilities in proportions but still, later in the game the bulk of the navy should be made of bigger ships IMHO.
I checked files for your and John' XiChung, Amonkrie, Abbidon and CueCuppa and they work fine.

[ September 22, 2002, 01:21: Message edited by: oleg ]

[pathfinder]

Listing the ships in decending order for the attck-type ships (largest then going to small as read down) in the AI_designcreation file seems to work. At least it did with a test of a modified Minbari in the B5 1.49 MOD.