AI Invasions? How?

[Rlaney]

Ok, I need some help here. What files do i need to edit to make the ai actually try to invade a planet rather than throwing ships at it. If you can please be specific because I haven't ever messed with the AI files before.

What I have done is increased tech cost by 10x to make for it more interesting research-wise, no more hold out for max tech then kill everyone. And I increased the "damage points to kill one pop" in the settings to make it harder to just bomb out a planet and move on. I also added in some different techs from other mod files. A little more realistic I think. So far it seems good but I'd like to see the enemy actually try to take planets by force. TIA

[Rollo]

Hi Rlaney,
welcome to the forum.

Sorry I can't be very specific at this time (it's getting kind of late here and I have to go to bed), but check out the Orks, Aquilaeian, and Space Vikings for troop invasions.
Also this thread might help.

I'll post a more detailed answer tomorrow or at the weekend. (if somebody doesn't beat me to it ).

Rollo

[Rlaney]

ok, here are some of the things I have done. I'd appreciate any input. to make glassing planets more difficult I made it so that most weapons cannot target planets, unfortunately this means that most weapons cant target fighters, seekers or SATS! So to offset things I expanded the point defense weapons and increased their range, weakened the structure % for weapons mounted on satellites (had to make special mounts for that) and to keep fighters from being overwhelmingly effective en masse multiplied the size of launch bays by 10x. This also better reflects the need for support personnel, maintenance, etc. If anyone is interested I will try to post it as a mod so that I can get some good feedback. Now all I need to do is to get the ai to actually try to invade instead of throwing ships at planets.

[Rlaney]

One other thing. I don't know if it is in the ai settings or not but they keep sending ships with weapons that are now non planet targeting at my worlds. Is this fixable? Possibly if I give them some more time to build new ships they will stop sending useless ships at my worlds. Any Ideas?

[Atraikius]

Here is what I found out about getting the AI to invade planets.

1. The AI seems to handle using Troop Transports built using a stadard hull better than ones using Transport hulls. To do this, change the Troop Transport entry in the AI_DesignCreation file with these lines:

Num Must Have At Least 1 Ability := 5
Must Have Ability 1 := Weapon
Must Have Ability 2 := Cargo Storage
Must Have Ability 3 := Cargo Storage
Must Have Ability 4 := Cargo Storage
Must Have Ability 5 := Cargo Storage

and

Majority Comp Ability := Weapon

These lines ensure that the Troop Transport will be build will at least one weapon so that it will not end up running away and hiding in a corner, planetary napalm actually works good for the primary weapon as the ship has to get right in close to use it. It also ensures that the Transport is built with at least 4 cargo bays; this provides enough storage space to carry about 80 troop1's. I found that there is a noticable difference in by using ground cannons, and as long as the race does not have any penalties to physical strentgh, 80 troop1's armed with 2 ground cannons, and 1 armor typically can capture a planet with a population of about 1000.

The majority component determined the type of hull used for the ship, Cargo Storage as the majority component results in the use of a transport hull. Changing this to anything other than Launch/Recover Fighters or Colonize Planet will give you a standard ship hull.

2. In the AI_ConstructVehicle file, add lines for the AI to build at least 200 troops, and at least one troop transport to each state so there will be enough troops to fill the transport, and a transport available.

3. In the AI_Strategy file, ensure that the primary movement strategy for capture planets is Drop Troops if carrying.


I hope that helps some.

[Rlaney]

Another question. Are unique techs anywhere other than the tech area? If I put a tech in the techarea.txt file and give it a new variable for unique will it crop up occasionally on ruins planets or do I need to amend anything else? Easier to ask than play enough games to see if I can find it randomly.

[capnq]

There are two different types of Ruins, defined in the planet's Abilities in the Map Editor. One type gives one or more random standard techs, the other a single Unique tech identified by its own component family number.

There's a bug in 1.49 which prevents setting up Ruins planets in the Map Editor, which is supposed to be fixed in Gold, according to the posted Version history.

[Rollo]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Atraikius:
Here is what I found out about getting the AI to invade planets...

I hope that helps some.

---

Aah, thanks Atraikius. You saved me a lot of time (and typing). Good, so I have more time to test AI .

Rollo

[Rlaney]

Hey guys, I noticed that on some of the custom races I've downloaded there are more than one entry for some items per state in the contruction_vehicles.txt file. (i.e. multiple entries for troops with different values) Will this cause the AI a problem? Also, is there something that tells the Ai what weapons to put on a particular ship. I have tried to make it so that planets don't get glassed very easily by limiting the weapons that can target planets but now the AI seems to throw useless ships at a planet. If not I'll have to change all the weapons back and just decrease their damage. I already upped the damage to kill pop but its still to easy to glass a planet.

[ 28 January 2002: Message edited by: Rlaney ]

[Rollo]

Multiple entries are quite common and do not cause any problems.

You can tell the AI what weapon to use by the weapon number. Look in data/components.txt for the weapon number that you want to use and put that as primary/secondary weapon in the AI_designcreation.

Rollo