Pointer Mod -- v1.2 Released

[Urendi Maleldil]

VaultDweller said:
Commercial Organic Warehouse and Commercial Radioactive Warehouse have the same facility family number, which is 1041.

No problem. I'll fix that in v1.2.

[Fyron]

ironman said:
win xp pro with 512 mem and 40 gig hd it's a p3 duron chipset ati 32 mg video card

Now that is really weird... There have been problems with BMPs created in MS Paint under win2k or winXP not working in SE4 in win98, but I've never heard of them not working in winXP. I could have sworn SE4 was able to load these images before... There is something terribly buggy in how SE4 reads image files.

[ironman]

well we ARE dealing with Microsoft here [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/WinLogo.gif[/img]

[VaultDweller]

Urendi

I just wanted to say this a great mod, and it's gotten me motivated to dig through the data files and to learn the nuts and bolts of the different files.

[Urendi Maleldil]

I'm working on the AI again. The most troublesome has to be the DesignCreation.txt.

1. The Required Ability seems to work for some ship types and not for others. I have two required abilities. The second one is Supply Storage. It works on attack ships. Designs add engines, then one weapon (req 1), then the supply storage (req 2)component, then the rest of the components as normal. But the transports seem to add the engines, then five Cargo Bays (req 1) before adding the supply component. This leaves smaller ships without a supply storage component. How does this field actually work?

2. Prefabricated Fortifications (PF), a troop-only component is showing up on Ship and Base designs. It has a unique family number and so it shouldn't be an accidental upgrade. For some reason the AI designs a ship without the PFs and in later turns it will design an identical ship with a whole bunch of PFs tacked onto the end (they're small components). Is there something I can do to prevent the AI from doing this?

3. The AI will have perfectly useable ships and plenty of unexplored warp points, but all the non-colony ships will just sit there. I ran a test game and the AI didn't seem interested in the other warp points until about turn 42. What could keep the AI from exploring?

[Urendi Maleldil]

Ahh!. Thanks to Atraikus's AI Modding cheat sheet, almost all my AI problems are now solved.

If you have a Req Ability like Cargo Storage that has a required percentage on the hull size, the AI will add that percentage of component plus one.

The default AI is now completely working!

I have no idea why the AI wasn't exploring before and I still can't figure out why the AI keeps putting the Prefab Fortifications on ships though. The AI's just adding them at the end. They don't affect ship performance, so I'm not really worried yet.

[Ed Kolis]

They're not the same family as some other component which is used on ships, are they? The AI is notorious for ignoring restrictions such as "small weapons only go on fighters and troops"

[Urendi Maleldil]

Yeah. I checked the families. They're fine. I even changed the old family number to a new one just in case, but that didn't work.

The only ability the Prefabs have is the Armor ability. That's the only thing I can think of that would cause the AI to put them on a design.

[Urendi Maleldil]

Latest progress on v1.2

2/18/05
Abbidon, Amon'krie, Terran and Cryslonite AI now works
increased supply storage for reactors
added tech requirement to High Energy Magnifier
fixed Navigational Shield maintenance reduction
normal missiles now have a standard refire rate of 6
normal torpedos now have a standard refire rate of 5

2/17/05
increased damage of Laser
reduced size of Rotating Gravity Module
default AI now wickeder than ever before!
Railguns now target Fighters and Drones

2/6/05
reduced size of Chemical Booster
changed family number of Commercial Radioactives Warehouse
reduced zero gravity penalty for 100kt Transport

2/1/05
added Supply Storage ability to Tactical Fighters and Tactical Drones (they now work as advertised)

[Urendi Maleldil]

Pointer Mod v1.2 released. Some of the AI works. It will keep you busy, but it's not going to crush you.

The next version will be 2.0 and contain a new tech tree that's easier to use and AI_research.txt friendly.