Balance Mod Available for SE:V

[Captain Kwok]

se5a:
I'm thinking that shields might need some help, particularly at the earlier levels.

[phalzyr]

I'm not really sure Kwok. I thought about that but at time was thinking they did and didn't. I.E. those that did had 100% chance of suicide but still another race would from time to time, at tleast that is what i was thinking but I can take another look tonight if you want (don't have game here, and don't have internet at home )

though when I was playing my mod (slightly changed yours where I altered and made a different style of resupply depot that did half as good but had sensors on it, I didn't change much in the AI scripts at the point they were suiciding and nothing with siad file at all) I was getting more self destructs than not and I noticed that one guy self destructed one time in but not the next, so I'm thinking something else is going on also. I wish we could change mid-game who was NPC and who was PC so I could look at exactly what was going on.

I'll test it some more tonight and get back to on that tomorrow and see what I come up with, but for now just simply add that one line of code in either at beginning or end and that will be a major plug to the problem.

Of course you could just start a 14 player game take one turn without doing a thing and look to see who self-destructed (their resource will drop to 600 and research to 0)

I just looked at the ai scripts and it seems 5/14 players have natural merchant as a choice so if only 3/14 were commiting suicide...

[Captain Kwok]

In my test AI games I haven't seen the self-destruct before, but it has been mentioned once or twice. The only way the code would get executed would be that the system would be listed as not having a spaceport or resupply depot. When I get home I will check the script and make the appropriate changes. Thanks for your work on this matter.

[phalzyr]

You're welcome. I wonder why you haven't. Every 14 player game I start it happens to at least two players usually three. I have a clean 1.33 installed with your latest release...(I deleted dir after uninstall before reinstalling). Oh and I always play the largest amount of systems, so if my theory about the code issue is correct then number of system would make the issue more previlant.

I'll play with it some more without the fix so I can see results better and see if I can narrow down the reason it gets into the code when they do have both facilities, but at worst with that fix it only kills one facility on the planet rather than all of them

[phalzyr]

Captain Kwok: OK it does seem to be only those that have Natural Merchants racial traits right now. I can't get it to happen for others (unless they don't have a resupply or spaceport of course). After adding the line I mentioned yesterday I found a way to fix the trait issue but I'm sure you know how but anyway:

1: Go into Script_AI_GlobalVariable.txt file and add:
bool_Race_Uses_Natural_Merchants: boolean := FALSE

2: Go into the main_script.txt files for those that have this trait(Cue Cappa, Phong, Terran) and add:
set bool_Race_Uses_Natural_Merchants := TRUE

3: Go into Script_AI_Construction.txt and go to the Remove_Uneeded_Items function and change:
if (lst_AI_Our_Spaceport_Systems.Get(index) = 0) or (lst_AI_Our_Resupply_Systems.Get(index) = 0) then
TO:
if ((lst_AI_Our_Spaceport_Systems.Get(index) = 0) and (not bool_Race_Uses_Natural_Merchants)) or (lst_AI_Our_Resupply_Systems.Get(index) = 0) then


BTW: Did you know JRaenar has 6000 racial points worth of traits in their file. Natural merchants is last but is ignored because of that.

I'll let you know if when I start remaking my mod if it starts doing strange things again, but I was editing a lot so might just of changed something with the race that I had die once then not between two games...

[Q]

Kwok probably I do not understand the script correctly but does in the AI State change script the following

"AI_STATE_DEFEND:
call Compute_Defend_Systems()
if (not Enemy_In_Territory_Or_Nearby()) then
set new_ai_state := AI_STATE_INFRASTRUCTURE
endif"

mean that the Ai will remain in the defend state as long as enemies are in or near the empire territories?
If so, it will probably never change to any other state (attack state) against a human player?
That would explain my observation that in the curent game (BM 1.05) the AI does not attack although he has 5x more ships than I do.

Second very strange finding is that the AI in this game has 109 fleets but absolutely no ships in any of these fleets!!

[Captain Kwok]

Phalzyr:
I came to the same conclusion last night - similar fix except I just check to see if the race had the natural merchants ability, which will cover off the default AI that the player's ministers or neutrals would use as well.

Q:
There is a known bug in the mod with disbanding fleets that is probably responsible for that weird occurrence with fleets. I know IRM has some sort of workaround for this - I'll look into it.

[Captain Kwok]

Q:
In v1.05, the AI will likely be in defense state if enemies are in 2 or more systems. In that case though, there fleets should be attacking in those systems with enemies, so I think what has happened is that fleet bug is interfering. Larger attacks are given to fleets and if they have no ships, they have no strength, and therefore do not attack.

[phalzyr]

Great. I haven't looked into scripting AI and what functions exist much so figured you'd know a better way. sometime I'll have to look for a guide or such about it, unless I'm over looking something obvious that is included with the game...

[Q]

Thank you Kwok for the explanation.

In general I believe that the defense state is seldom beneficial for the AI if he faces a human player, as the human player always will select the weakest points of the defenses to attack. However counter attacks of the AI (even if quite random in its location) may cause problems to the human opponent.

One more thing I read in the scrips (1.05):

" // Our Mine Sweepers should join fleets if they have nothing better to do
if (not orders_given) then
set orders_given := Send_Ship_To_Join_Fleet(ship_id)
endif"

Don't you think that minesweepers should always join fleets with highest priority? A lonely minesweeper is doomed, while an attack fleet without minesweepers is easily stopped by mines.