Anyone try repair ships for the AI yet?

[Tampa_Gamer]

Q nailed the issue. Until the design file contains a field to indicate whether a given design should be included in attack/defense fleets, you are forced to include it in one of the attack/defense ship designs.

[Atraikius]

So far I've found that Attack Ships, Carriers, Boarding Ships, Kamakaze Ships, and attack bases will be included in attack fleets. Defense ships are only included in defense fleets, and if designed as a warship, Troop Transports will be included in attack fleets.

Since Boarding ships seem to work like Troop Transports in that the fleet strategy needs to be set for boarding as the primary movement choice, I've found that having an AI use the Boarding ship as an alternate design will allow some control over the AI building mixed ship designs. I've also found that by using the Boarding and Kamakaze ships as the support designs, they will be included in fleets, which has allowed me to get an AI to build two separate types of attack ships (one using attack ships, the other attack bases as an attack base is classified as a ship in the vehichle data file), a fleet tender (repair ship) using the Boarding ship, and a point defense ship using the Kamakaze ship. All of these ships are included in attack fleets, and with carefull balancing of the Construct_Vehicle file, some control over the fleet composition can be made.

[Atraikius]

Tampa - I've been seeing about 100% on the Kamakaze ships which I've been using as Point-Defense/Minesweepers, and except for one AI, I've been seeing about 80-90% of the Boarding ships included in fleets, it may be higher, but the AI seems to wait longer before including them in fleets than it will with other ships. I have noticed that Kamakaze ships actually armed primarily with explosives with normal secondary weapons act similar to what I have been seeing with the Boarding ships where they will sit over a planet for very long periods of time before they actually are included in a fleet.

[Tampa_Gamer]

So do you think that their "willingness" to join a fleet may be based on their type of weaponry? If so, what layouts seem to be working and which do not. This is very interesting. This will definitely open up some new doors in AI design if this is working now. Cool

[Tampa_Gamer]

Atraikius - what is the frequency of the Kamikaze Ship and Boarding Ship in the attack fleets (i.e. approximate % total vs % added to fleets)? A number of us AI Modders tried this method back in January for adding additional support ships, etc., but for the most part these ships just sat at the Homeworld and did nothing and were rarely, if ever, added to fleets. Perhaps MM slipped this change in (or correction) since then. . .

[This message has been edited by Tampa_Gamer (edited 17 July 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Tampa_Gamer (edited 17 July 2001).]

[Atraikius]

Oops on that Last post of mine - problem with going from memory at work.

Had the Boarding and Kamakaze ships flipped around, so it should have been 100% of the boarding ships are being included in fleets. I also had flipped the ship designs in the AI that was using the other type (Kamakaze)so it turned out they were also boarding ships.

Attack Ships, Attack Bases, and Boarding Ships are all included in fleets with no problems. Attack Bases just need to have the minimum size changed, and boarding ships can just be set for weapons as primary and secondary weapons.

Defense ships will only be included in defense fleets.

Carriers and Troop Transports can be made as attack ships, but they AI will not include them in fleets until they are at least partially loaded with the appropriate cargo.

Kamakaze Ships will be included, but from the times I've seen it, it seems as if there are some odd requirements. Each time I've seen them included, the AI was in a defensive mode had recently lost a significant number of ships, once it was included in a fleet it seems to stay in though.

Sorry about the goof earlier.

edit:
After observing how the AI actually uses repair ships in fleets, I noticed that it dosn't make a difference anyway. When a fleet has taken damage in combat, it always moves all ships of the fleet back to the nearest resupply base at each ships best speed - thus breaking up the fleet before the repair ship has a change to make repairs.

[This message has been edited by Atraikius (edited 18 July 2001).]

[Atraikius]

On the bright side - at least we know there should be at least three attack ships to work with as (from what I understand) using boarding ships and Troop transports is exclusive as they both require the fleet strategy to be set appropriately, so by having AI build some cheep troops and ensuring that the troop ship has only one cargo, the troop ship can be used as a attack ship design.

Just a note on troops/planetary assaults - in my current game my Orks currently have SIX planets that they have captured and held long enough to build them up (there also in first place with 880K - captured planets making significant difference, with second place having 350K - I'm at a lowly 6th with 200K)

[Atraikius]

***bump***

Rollo and MB - heres the thread I was refering to.

[Rollo]

Thanks, Atraikius,
this is exactly what I had in mind .
Judging from the dates of the earlier Posts, this topic must have been just "before my time". Either that or I skipped it, because I was not interested in AI stuff a few weeks ago .
Rollo

[Sinapus]

Well, I've been modding the Terrans a bit and added a repair ship in the design file. From what I can tell, they will build one, but haven't seen one go off and repair a crippled ship.

I have the same design in some files I made for Neutrals. They tend to build at least two repair ships. Haven't seen them go after any cripples that sometimes result in battles.

I'm guessing I'm going to have to set the individual ship minister for my own race and see if it will send a ship over to repair another ship.