Balance Mod Available for SE:V

[Captain Kwok]

Ed Kolis said:And speaking of restricted systems, there isn't any way to get a list of marked "systems to avoid" via the script code, is there? If so, maybe said minister should check for colony ships headed there, too?

Colony ships are never sent to a system that has a known enemy presence, regardless of whether or not it's marked as a system to avoid.

[Ed Kolis]

Sorry, I was talking about a minister for human players to use, not part of the AI...

[Arralen]

Did a test game after patching to 1.74 and 1.14b,
(large galaxy, full AIs, paradies quadrant, 3k races, 50k research points, medium research cost)
and this is what some spot tests showed:

@turn 10

- Drushoka (AI no.1) researched "org. engineering" @19% .. ~4.0 years at least
- Drushoka had 2 "research & intel" colonies, but only build units there with all facility spaces open except 1 which was used for a space yard
- it didn't have a single pop transport

- Norak (AI no.4) researched "religious studies" @ 40% in 3.1 years (!)
- "research compound" (max 500pop/5fac): 1 space port and units build, no research centers, no intel (later one not researched)
- no pop transport either

- minor nation: no research centers on "research compound" colony either


@turn 20

- Drushoka was happily using the single pop transport I ordered them to build in turn 10/11, but hadn't any more build

- no research centers build by any race

conclusion
=> AIs should start researching with cheaper techs and go for speicals (organics, religious etc) later when more research points are available. Past turn 20 maybe?

=> AI should build research centers. (it did fine in 1.71/114a)

=> AI should build 1-2 pop transports based on small freighter hull early: colony ship building cannot keep up with pop growth in the early turns, therefore pop growth is wasted. More pop on new colonies would help with construction/mining rate as well.

=> colony ships not build on the homeworld should be routed there before been given colonizing orders - dunno if thats possible via scripting, though.

[Captain Kwok]

In the upcoming v1.15, empires with technology racial traits will actually start off with them right from the beginning, so the research issue is no longer.

Population growth on domed colonies is not such a big deal in the mod, considering there's not much benefit to production unless you're talking hundreds of millions. I used to have the AI pick up population at other planets, but changed that when the auto-colonization amount was re-introduced. It sometimes wasted movement picking up population which for domed planets wasn't significant.

There was no changes to facility preferences for construction. Usually they try and use a planet for what's its best at, which means you might not see an even distribution of facility types until it has 10-20 colonies. Also, once in a while, a research compound might end up with 0 research facilities if a spaceport or resupply depot gets built first.

[Arralen]

Let me rephrase (or simply repeat, partly):

On turn 20, the AIs had several planets designated as "research compound" which where producing units only, while there where:

- 0 research centers on them
- 0-1 facilities build, therefore 1-9 free facility spaces !

.. therefore I can savely concluded the AIs build units instead of research centers, what does not make any sense within the first 20 turns !
This might be an issue of 1.74 (and not your quite great mod) but, frankly, I was too lazy too test that ...

[Captain Kwok]

Facilities have higher priority than units, although sometimes if a planet has a Space Yard it might push vehicles ahead. Did you notice if there was a SY present?

[Arralen]

Captain Kwok said:
Facilities have higher priority than units, although sometimes if a planet has a Space Yard it might push vehicles ahead. Did you notice if there was a SY present?

Some have spaceyards, on others the AIs seems to build non-colonytype buildings out of desperation , on other its only building tons of units.

I'll try to attach a savegame.
Master Password is "master", I only peeked into the Drushoka, Pong, Norak and xxxef (last one down the bottom) turns, but most likely the others don't behave any better ..

[Captain Kwok]

I looked at the save game and a number of the races you mentioned are in potential danger from nearby enemies, which is why they have started building more units. A couple of the other races are just getting started really and only have a few colonies, so their facility distribution tends be a bit skewed until they colonize more planets.

You sure got a crowded galaxy there!

[Arralen]

Bad news:

Started a quick test game (large quadrant, few AI, no events etc) .. after 20 turns, those 2 (!) AIs again have "research compounds" with 1 spaceyard build and 4 empty facility slots ... and even an empty build queue !

And now don't tell me they're both building scouts all day long because they're feeling so lonely in that large quadrant

Savegame attached .. in case someones wants to have a look .. master-password is "master", again ..

[Captain Kwok]

I identified the problem. The AI has a desired research to intel ratio (typically 4:1 research to intel) that it would like to maintain. Sometimes to keep them in balance, it will add an intel facility on a research planet. This mostly exists for smaller empires that don't have a lot of colonies and may not have declared a planet specifically for intel purposes. What is happening here with research compounds is that the AI is wanted to add an Intelligence Center but hasn't yet researched intelligence services, so the planet gets stuck not building anything until Intelligence Centers become available.

I'll have to put a fix for this.