Why the AI builds the Ships it does

[Deathstalker]

I have been wondering this for a long time. I will have created an Ai that has 3 ship 'classes' for attack or defense and only 1 of them seems to get built, the odd other one will. Recently I discovered why (maybe the various modders already know this, but I didn't, and I know a few others didn't as well, so heres my story )

The game builds the ships exactly the same as it selects weapons in the ship designs. that is to say the most recently discovered is used exclusively. (this means the FIRST one in the file!!) So if you build an AI that has 3 attack classes listed as 10-300, 301 to 600 and 601 to 1500 in size listed from the 10 down to the 601 and with all carrying redundant weapons (ie, all have say weapns listed as torp/apb/duc) then only the size 300 will be built as it is the first one the Ai comes to in the design file that meets its non-obsolete criteria when new tech is discovered.

How to get around this: build backwards!

List the Heavy attack ship first in the ai file, then the medium, then the light. this goes for all other ships as well (and bases). This way has been tested and works. Another way to do this (if not seperated by size) is by weapons (this has not been tested, don't know if it works since engines etc are being discovered all the time as well). List the most 'advanced' model first, and DO NOT include lower weapons like DUC's or ABP, just the 'advanced' weapon (pick 1) that it will use (ie, list the Null-space ship b4 the DUC ship). (the duc ship will be obsolete and the null space will be 'new tech') At least it should work this way.

If anyone has comments/corrections please post them here, I know the first part works, but would dearly like to know if the 2nd does without completely re-vamping a shipset for testing.

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"The Empress took your name away," said Chance.
Owen smiled coldly. "It wasn't hers to take. I'm a Deathstalker until I die. And we never forget a slight or an enemy." -Owen Deathstalker.

[Atraikius]

I think it may be more than just that. I've seen one of my AI's building a combat support ship I had put in its design file over its normal attack ship - when I tried to figure out why, the only thing that I could come up with was that the AI must evaluate the designs against each other in a solo duel using the ship strategies - thus it chose to build a fleet tender (attack ship with repair, and 1 cap missile 3 - maximum/dont get hurt) over the normal attack ship (2 plasma 1, 2 DUC3, optimal/short) because the tender would be able to beat down the attack ship at the long ranges.

As a related question - has anyone else noticed that the AI will occasionally loose it and start designing ships with 1 primary weapon, 1 secondary weapon, additional abbilities, and then fill up on the primary weapon regardless of how many primary and secondary weapons it is suppose to place on the design?

[Atraikius]

Miss-read post first time -

1st part - yes I have observed that.

2nd part - as my earlier post - when AI has ships with different weapons combinations it seems to evaluate them in some way because it does not neccessarily build the first one in the list, or the most recently designed/newest tech one - in the attack ship/tender example I stated previously, when I switched the tender strategy to optimal/short - the AI switched to building the attack ship although the tender was both a newer design, and had newer technology components on it, while the attack ship came before the tender in the design file.

[Deathstalker]

Strange, anyone ever emailed MM and recieved and answer to how the AI reads/builds ships???(and how we can consistantly get it to build the ships we want?)

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"The Empress took your name away," said Chance.
Owen smiled coldly. "It wasn't hers to take. I'm a Deathstalker until I die. And we never forget a slight or an enemy." -Owen Deathstalker.

[Atraikius]

Nope figured it was just something we had to deal with/work around.

Has anyone noticed if the AI not designing redundant ship designs in the latest update. I've noticed that some designs that end up being the same early in the game are not being used and am not sure if this is from an improvement, or related to the AI flaking out on the ship designs (the 1 primary, 1 secondary, fill up afterwards one)

[Alpha Kodiak]

I get quite a bit confused by how this works. For fighters, I usually set up two designs, one for "guns" and one for rocket pods. The designs seem to toggle back and forth between the two and I get a decent mix. When I tried adding a third design only the one in the middle got built.

With attack ships, I wanted to get a mix of sizes, so I set up a class that goes up to battle cruiser first, then a second that is battleship only, and a third that is dreadnought only, with the smaller designs listed first. When I played a full tech game, I got a mix of the sizes (after I had played enough turns to get past the size limits at the start of the game.) Then, the low tech game I was playing finally got to the point where the larger sizes are available (and show up in the design screen), but so far, only the smaller class is being built.

I think that the construction minister somehow cycles through the list of available designs on a periodic basis whether it needs to start building one or not. Then when one needs to be built, it grabs the one it is currently looking at.

I do know that if you list the larger designs in the file first, it typically won't even create new designs for the smaller ships once the larger designs are available.

[Urendi Maleldil]

I think I have figured it out.

The design minister creates a new design for a ship if there are new components available that that ship uses.

The build minister builds the newest available ship design of that type. (attack, etc.)

If you have a missile attack ship and a PPB attack ship, the AI builds whichever design is the newest. If you just gained tech in missiles, the design minister will have designed a new missile attack ship and made the older PPB ship obsolete. Likewise if you just gained PPB tech, the PPB design is newest. The build minister then cues shipyards to build the newest available design. If two designs are updated simultaneously (like if you gained engine tech), the most recent design is the one on the top of the list.

What this means is that the mix of ships and the number of different classes of a given ship type designed and constructed is actually controlled by the research minister!

Try a full tech game and you will see that the AI builds only one class of ship of any given type. (nothing to research)

I've only tried this with two different classes of ships of a given type (not 3)

[This message has been edited by Urendi Maleldil (edited 29 June 2001).]

[Master Belisarius]

Urendi Maleldil said:

"Try a full tech game and you will see that the AI builds only one class of ship of any given type. (nothing to research)"

I must disaggree 100% with you here.
I did two attack ships models for the Pyrochette race, but the second model, only to be used in games with full tech or long games (the Ship2 only can be BB or DN).

The AI was building both of them, but in the way that Alpha Kodiak said: usually send to build a group of Attack ships model-1. After some time, the AI send to build the group of ships model-2, in a cyclic way.

[Urendi Maleldil]

In that case, I have no idea how the AI decides what to built.

Oh, well.

[Marty Ward]

MB,
How long did you run your test? I noticed you have ship size restrictions in place for a certain number of turns. My observations are that most AI only build one type of ship in a high tech game. If the default ship size limits are in place they will build 3 types.