Balance Mod Available for SE:V

[Captain Kwok]

Nope. I made it 4000 just to irk you.

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I had hoped to post v1.12 for tomorrow, but that depends if I can fix it's problems before then.

[Captain Kwok]

I'm still finalizing the AI scripts for v1.12 as I've observed some inconsistencies that I'd like to iron out and there's a couple of fixes I almost forgot for unit designs.

[Q]

One more observation in a later game (2430.0): The AI stops to explore unknown warp points even if they are adjacent to their systems. They miss systems with many empty planets they could colonize.
Scout ships are available but they have other survey orders for systems deep in enemy space!
My suggestion: make the priority order for scout ships to warp through unknown warp points. And don't give them suicide missions into known enemy systems.

[Captain Kwok]

Do you know if these enemy systems to be surveyed are provided via shared maps or from a scout ship? Are they "geographically" closer?

The scouting/explorer priority is survey/explore/patrol. Survey needs to be first because it uncovers new warp points to explore. The lists that store locations for surveying or exploration are sorted by proximity to the home system.

[Q]

The enemy systems are seen by shared maps from other AI empires and they are much more distant than the unexplored warp points.
It seems that the distance is less important than the survey order. And I am not sure if the survey priority over warp point exploration is good: as human player I frequently give warp point exploration first priority. I still can later survey the systems.
About these list: I do not understand at all how they work. If you could explain what for example this list instruction gives you priorities, I could try some little changes myself:

// Attack Location Priority - Nearest attack location
call Sys_Prepare_For_List_Sort()
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(1, lst_AI_Attack_Location_System)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(2, lst_AI_Attack_Location_Sector)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(3, lst_AI_Attack_Location_Strength)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(4, lst_AI_Attack_Location_Assigned_Strength)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(5, lst_AI_Attack_Location_Owner)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(6, lst_AI_Attack_Location_System_Distance)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(7, lst_AI_Attack_Location_Ship_ID)
call Sys_Set_List_Sort_Field(8, lst_AI_Attack_Location_Ship_Count)
call Sys_Add_List_Sort_Sort_Column(6, FALSE)
call Sys_Execute_List_Sort()

[Captain Kwok]

The problem is that if survey is not first, new warp points are not being discovered. However, I could probably switch how the orders are assigned, if there are no unexplored warp points, then survey first or something like that.

It's funny you would post that example from the v1.11 scripts. It actually has an error, as the sort condition should be set to true, which would sort the list by field 6 (distance to home system) in ascending order - ie closest first. False sorts it by descending order (oops!). Attack locations store info about enemy colonies in the AI's non-colony systems.

In v1.12, I did correct it to arrange the attack locations by closest to our home system. In the actual determination of targets though, that list is cross-referenced with the priority level of the target empire (a new variable in v1.12). So, the final targets for attack are highest priority enemies that are closest to our empire. I also changed how the AI interprets the strength of a planet, it was counting all the hitpoints of the population, which often gave colonies a high strength versus fleets - which made them not want to attack. So I adjusted the enemy strength estimation to more or less disregard hitpoints from population.

[Q]

Thank you for the reply Kwok.

"However, I could probably switch how the orders are assigned, if there are no unexplored warp points, then survey first or something like that"

Yes that is exactely what I meant.

As you say the list example I mentioned is sorted by the distance (field 6). So what are all the other parameters for?

[inigma]

yea, we need a good guide on AI development.

[Captain Kwok]

The other variables are there because they contain information that needs to remain associated with whatever "column" is chosen for the sort. Basically, it's like creating a new "list window" screen where you have all these columns and can sort by each one. In this case, we're just sorting by the distance column.

For example, the value stored in lst_AI_Attack_Location_Owner index 1 is associated with the value stored in lst_AI_Attack_Location_Distance index 1. When a sort is executed on the values in lst_AI_Attack_Location_Distance, the indexes are changed, so that index 1 might become index 5 etc. In conjunction, the index 1 value for lst_AI_Attack_Location_Owner needs to be switched to index 5 as well, to maintain the integrity of the data.

[Q]

Thank's again for the valuable information.
I eliminated the error in the attack location list you mentioned by changing the false to true and recompiled the script for an AI that had a fleet very close to my ships for quite a long time without moving at all. Now for the first time this fleet moves! I still have to see if they attack, but the change seems to do something important.