Unused weapons causing me to lose battles

[skigrinder]

Thanx for the comments Arkcon.

I agree with what you say and believe it makes the AI worth playing against.
I especially like 'team mode' where you don't have to spend time on treaties and alliances that are unpredictable. My race accepts that it lives in a harsh, aggressive universe.

In order to successfully defend my population (and resource developments), I must invest heavily in WP's for each planet.

At least one of the TDM AI races (Space Vikings) prefers to skip boundary systems and head straight for the interior. This can be quite unnerving with lots of big fleets around my homeworld planets.

My theory is that one heavily defended (and shielded) planet should be able to knock out a very large fleet (100+) of very large ships.

I've modified the systemtypes.txt file to create more moons per planet (this needs to be done anyway to make things more realistic - i.e. Jupiter with 10 moons). The moons are filled with Cargo Facilities, Massive Planetary Shields, and Weapons Platforms to aid in the defense effort.

I've also created a (WP only) missile weapon component - Planetary Defense Missile Spread - to balance the playing field and make planetary defense possible.
These missiles have maximum range, quick reload, and big punch.
Again, the theory is that a large, heavily populated planet with lots of resources should be able to fire thousands of missiles and overwhelm very large fleets of attacking ships.

It has taken several games, but I've gotten the balance to the point where it's possible to take on six or eight of the TDM AI races in good back and forth battles and games that Last for several weeks.

I reduce the AI Intelligence capabilities (and increase my own) to correspondingly balance that aspect of the game. Again, I've worked out the balance to the point where Intel is a very interesting part of the conflict.

Anyway, that's my philosophy for a more realistic universe.

The only trouble is, I have available WP's that aren't firing in combat.

Please let me know if you can think of a way to fix this.

Thanx,
skigrinder