Carrier Battles Mod

[mac5732]

for the AI mod, where can i find delux v1.94, for the mod?

[Fyron]

http://www.spaceempires.net/home/downloads-cat-10.html

[Suicide Junkie]

Well, this was embarrasing. I sent Alpha fleet to attack a combined CueCappa and Viking fleet massing beside a fresh military base in Cue space.

All I got was one measly Cue carrier.
The vikings had made an end run around my forces, smashed my entire anti-Cue defense net with only a single fighter casualty, and were charging drunkenly through my system.

I initially thought they might attack my thinly populated military base in the system, and gathered all my damaged ships to it.
However, instead they went to liberate the old viking colony that I had captured earlier.

The Vikings were back to claim their own, and the Cue were still a threat in the outer system. Most of my attack fleet was chasing down the vikings, and I scraped every ship in the system together to make a two pronged assault force.

The vikings arrived on day 12, swept away the defenses easily, and landed 180 stormtroopers.
Very very fortunately, I had troops left over there, since my assault transports were heavily damaged in their next operation, before they had a chance to remove all the troops. The ground combat stalemated.

My two fleets arrived on day 30, and it was a quite the battle. Viscious exchange of missiles, and my skirmishers took a solid beating holding back most of the viking horde.

One problem noted: The vikings have a destroyer with 40mm DUCs and 20MM torpedoes, that repeatedly attacked one of my shielded skirmishing cruisers, doing minimal to no damage.

The viking dogfighters did get through on my flank, and chewed up my guys pretty good.

In the end, I defeated them with relatively little losses.
We had equal numbers of carriers, but I had 20 more support ships. The extra point defense, assault guns and cannon-fodder-ism pushed the battle through to a solid victory.

Suggestion summary:
- Design/strategy fix on the 40mmDUC / 20mm Torp destroyer
- Try to increase the number of support ships in the fleets. Or, increase the number of DF attack fighters. They did good. Reduce the point defense missile fighters they don't seem to have much effect.

However:
- I think I will increase the point defense missile speeds. Right now they are weak.
- I will reduce the hitpoints of said missiles, to aid in targetting priorities against them.
- Offensive missiles will be made slower. They seem to be a bit too powerful.

This may make those defense missiles more useful, but I would still reccommend installing them on ships instead of fighters. Ships can fire one missile at each incoming target, whereas fighters fire the whole stack at once.

[Ed Kolis]

You're going to make offensive missiles slower? Wow, I thought speed 2 for heavy nukes was slow enough already... that's already slower than many ships! Are you trying to return to the days of SE2 where missiles moved at speed 1 and ships could easily outrun them in tactical combat?

[Suicide Junkie]

No, mostly the explosive missiles.
I'm leaning towards:
Antiplanet 1, Nukes 2, Explosive 3, Heavy kinetic 5, light kinetic (antimissile) 10

[Rollo]

Thanks for the feedback, some very valueable hints.
Here are some comments in chronological order:

I have noticed the same thing about the Laser/Missile heavy Interceptor, and changed the design and strategy as recommended. Added AI Tags for the Kinetic Missiles and the fighter now carries 3 weapons and fullfills a role as a interceptor/space superiority hybrid.

A fleet with only explosive missiles can happen. The AI does use a lot of different designs to get a decent mix, but the composition of fleets cannot be controlled.

As SJ already said the beneficial Intel will be dealt with. Not an AI thing really, but a mod /data thing.

Repair bays are indeed hard to fit in, the AI already uses all design classes that will join attack fleets (Attack Ship, Kamikaze Attack Ship, and Boarding Ship) as well as Troop Transports and Carriers. Right now I see 3 possibilities how to fit them in: 1)use late-game Carriers, 2)use mid to late game Troop Transports, 3)use one of the 3 warship classes, add a repair design for one class, and use construction calls by designname, rather than designclass. I tend to avoid this, since construction calls by designname isn't really working as intended and can get hard to control. In either case, the AI won't use repair bays until it has reached a certain and yet to be determined treshhold of repair tech. And keep in mind that the AI is bad at strategy, so the repair ships wil be added to fleets randomly and if the fleet gets damaged heavily, it may disband anyway regardless of repair present. Certainly don't expect the AI to send out repair ships to rescue damaged and stranded fleets/ships. Although I may have yet another try to use the SYS design class, and see how the AI uses them on a strategic level.

Politics and Anger are mostly just copies of the stock files, except for a few changes. They may be changed later to make more sense for the CB mod cultures. But that's easy to do. I am more concerned with research, design, strategies, and construction at this point.

Yeah, lighty defended HWs are an issue. I have changed the unit_construction a bit and hope it helps. Defense bases, as dicussed in IRC, are an issue for themselves. I have added them now and going to monitor their build locations. But since the locations are erratic and bases don't have a maintenance bonus, I think mobile defenses are the way to go for the AI. I will certainly leave the bases in for flavour, but don't expect them to have a major impact.

Attack Bases don't join fleets and thus cannot be used as repair ships. They are best used for scout designs. As mentioned above, all other design classes that join fleets are already taken to get a mix of warships.

Thanks for the AAR on the CueCappa-Viking front:
the 40mmDUC/20mmTorp DD is a troop transport. I wasn't really concerned with its strategy besides dropping troops and stuck in some weapons to clear the way. I'll have a look at the strategy of the TTs. As mentioned above, I may add repair bays to them.
More support ships? Like what? Missile, PD or Close Combat? All them them? Is the AI using too many carriers?
Fighter mix is a bit hard to control, since they all use the same designclass and are being called for construction by designname, but I'll see what I can do to get less Interceptors and more Bombers and Jaegers. The laser/missile interceptor has been fixed and behaves nicely now, I think.


Phew, that's all for now. Sorry if I missed something. Keep the reports coming, please =).

[Suicide Junkie]

As a troop transport, the best targetting priorities would probably be Seekers(on us), and fighters.

As to ships vs fighters, I've been seeing carriers comprising more than half the fleet sometimes.
With the limited fighter control, having more support ships to ensure the combat roles are all covered is probably a good thing.

[Rollo]

Yes, I agree with the targetting for the TT. Done.

Yep, I have been aiming for about 50% carriers in fleets. And I am seeing the AI going wild on unit construction in my current test game (homeworlds with 11000 to 17000kt of units and colonies filled to various degrees with about 1000 to 3000kt). I'll tweak the construction file for more support ships. But mind you, fleets with missiles only are still possible =P.

[Suicide Junkie]

And, now, here we have an update!

Download, play, and let me know if there are any small bugs before I upload it to PBW and start the CB AI Safari game.

[Suicide Junkie]

Oops.

THIS version has been whacked with the shovel of QA.
(And is now obsolete)