.com.unity Forums
  The Official e-Store of Shrapnel Games

This Month's Specials

BCT Commander- Save $8.00
winSPWW2- Save $5.00

   







Go Back   .com.unity Forums > Shrapnel Community > Space Empires: IV & V > SEV Modders Knowledge Base

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old November 30th, 2006, 01:58 AM
President_Elect_Shang's Avatar

President_Elect_Shang President_Elect_Shang is offline
Brigadier General
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: WA
Posts: 1,894
Thanks: 5
Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts
President_Elect_Shang is on a distinguished road
Default Strategies.txt Knowledge Base

The following post is a copy and paste quoted conversation between Suicide Junkie and me over the Strategies.txt file. The conversation started when I noticed that a ship using a new vehicle type (a shuttle) would not engage in combat. And any other unit (even those without the new vehicle type) would run from a unit which did have one.
__________________
President Elect Shang; Tal-Re Republic of Free Worlds
Welcome to Super Vegeta’s Big Bang Attack… Welcome to OBLIVION!
“Don Panoz made an awesome car and… an incinerator” Bill Auberlen
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old November 30th, 2006, 02:01 AM
President_Elect_Shang's Avatar

President_Elect_Shang President_Elect_Shang is offline
Brigadier General
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: WA
Posts: 1,894
Thanks: 5
Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts
President_Elect_Shang is on a distinguished road
Default Re: Strategies.txt Knowledge Base

Quote:
President_Elect_Shang said:
During my testing I built a light cruiser with a shuttle bay in it. I didn’t bother with the shuttle just an empty bay. I then went to the simulator and sent it against 2 lighter units (destroyers). The two smaller units ran away. I tried it with ten lighter units and they ran away. Then I tried it with a light cruiser against a light cruiser. They ran away from each other. I have searched through the strategies and can’t figure out what to change to stop this silly running away! If I remove the shuttle bay all units engage as expected. The weapons the units mount are able to target shuttles but as I said at the start I have never loaded a unit with shuttles. What needs to be adjusted to get them to beat the heck out of each other again?
Quote:
Suicide Junkie said:
You need to create a new strategy.

The defaults have garbage orders for the "shuttle carrier" type of ship. Which essentially means "don't get hurt" strategy.

When you add a new unit type (called, "XYZ" for example), the strategies get two new entries;
1) XYZ
2) XYZ Carrier Ship

You'll have to edit the default strategies.txt to include something for those two in order to get sane results
You can also delete your existing strategies and then create new ones in an existing game; the new strategies will have entries for the new unit types.

For reference, I had to have the following lines in GGmod's strategies:
Code:
Target Type 11 Name                         := Militia Carrier Ship
Target Type 11 Engage Distance := Medium Range
Target Type 11 Damage Amount := 100%
...
Target Type 15 Name := Ground Base Carrier Ship
Target Type 15 Engage Distance := Medium Range
Target Type 15 Damage Amount := 100%
...
etc


Quote:
President_Elect_Shang said:
The default strategies for an empire are created when the empire itself is generated; either by the player or the mods creator. So if we want our adjustments to take (such as my Shuttle Carrier or your Militia Carrier Ship) we have to build the empire for the player or delete all empires forcing the player to take our modded Startigies.txt file.

Now I need to copy this thread into the Knowledge Base sub-forum. I can’t admin here can you move the whole thing there SJ? If not I will do it the old fashioned way, copy and paste with credit given.
__________________
President Elect Shang; Tal-Re Republic of Free Worlds
Welcome to Super Vegeta’s Big Bang Attack… Welcome to OBLIVION!
“Don Panoz made an awesome car and… an incinerator” Bill Auberlen
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old November 30th, 2006, 02:06 AM
President_Elect_Shang's Avatar

President_Elect_Shang President_Elect_Shang is offline
Brigadier General
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: WA
Posts: 1,894
Thanks: 5
Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts
President_Elect_Shang is on a distinguished road
Default Re: Strategies.txt Knowledge Base

Quote:
President_Elect_Shang said:
The default strategies for an empire are created when the empire itself is generated; either by the player or the mods creator. So if we want our adjustments to take (such as my Shuttle Carrier or your Militia Carrier Ship) we have to build the empire for the player or delete all empires forcing the player to take our modded Startigies.txt file.
NOTE The last comment quoted above is critical to your mod running correctly when played by another person. If you do not tell the user they will need to create new strategies so that your new unit types are included; or if you do not build new default empires (including any quick starts) the ships they build will just run away from each other. SE5 will only read the new strategies once! That is only when the EMPIRE is created!
__________________
President Elect Shang; Tal-Re Republic of Free Worlds
Welcome to Super Vegeta’s Big Bang Attack… Welcome to OBLIVION!
“Don Panoz made an awesome car and… an incinerator” Bill Auberlen
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old January 12th, 2007, 08:51 PM

Raapys Raapys is offline
First Lieutenant
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 689
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Raapys is on a distinguished road
Default Re: Strategies.txt Knowledge Base

From my experience it's not actually possible to prevent a weaponless ship from running away( when under AI control), regardless of what the strategy says. Anyone else had different results?

Quote:
The last comment quoted above is critical to your mod running correctly when played by another person. If you do not tell the user they will need to create new strategies so that your new unit types are included; or if you do not build new default empires (including any quick starts) the ships they build will just run away from each other.
This can be avoided.

Replace( or make, if you don't have the folder/file already ) the Default_AI_Strategies.txt file in SEV\Your Mod\Empires\Default\ with the modified version and all new empires created will use it by default.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old January 12th, 2007, 10:00 PM

Phoenix-D Phoenix-D is offline
National Security Advisor
 
Join Date: Nov 2000
Posts: 5,085
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Phoenix-D is on a distinguished road
Default Re: Strategies.txt Knowledge Base

The ships in question weren't weaponless.

As for making non-weaponed ships not run- the only thing I've found is to keep them with the gun ships in formation or using a RAM engagement range.

Obviously the later is..not all that useful.
__________________
Phoenix-D

I am not senile. I just talk to myself because the rest of you don't provide adequate conversation.
-Digger
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old January 12th, 2007, 10:45 PM
President_Elect_Shang's Avatar

President_Elect_Shang President_Elect_Shang is offline
Brigadier General
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: WA
Posts: 1,894
Thanks: 5
Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts
President_Elect_Shang is on a distinguished road
Default Re: Strategies.txt Knowledge Base

Thank you PD. As he said the ships had weapons. It was the new units and the default strategies that caused the problem. Anyway that is still some good info and it is great to see all of this stuff pilling up. It should make it much easier for new modders to learn than we "old timers" had it from SE4. Besides who came up the "old timers" thing and what makes someone an old timer? What would I be since I haven't released a mod yet? See were I'm going with this; the old timer thing seems so... click-ish (?spelling?)
__________________
President Elect Shang; Tal-Re Republic of Free Worlds
Welcome to Super Vegeta’s Big Bang Attack… Welcome to OBLIVION!
“Don Panoz made an awesome car and… an incinerator” Bill Auberlen
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old January 15th, 2007, 09:43 AM
Suicide Junkie's Avatar
Suicide Junkie Suicide Junkie is offline
Shrapnel Fanatic
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 11,451
Thanks: 1
Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts
Suicide Junkie is on a distinguished road
Default Re: Strategies.txt Knowledge Base

clique?

Old timers are relative. They're the ones who have experience (tm), and were here for many of the major events.
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old January 16th, 2007, 10:13 PM
President_Elect_Shang's Avatar

President_Elect_Shang President_Elect_Shang is offline
Brigadier General
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: WA
Posts: 1,894
Thanks: 5
Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts
President_Elect_Shang is on a distinguished road
Default Re: Strategies.txt Knowledge Base

What you describe does not sound relative, it sounds purely subjective. I don't care for the clique mentality baggage that could carry with it. It could lead one to being overly defensive, bordering on insulting even, just because they don't agree with an idea. I hope I don't fall into that category; ever.
__________________
President Elect Shang; Tal-Re Republic of Free Worlds
Welcome to Super Vegeta’s Big Bang Attack… Welcome to OBLIVION!
“Don Panoz made an awesome car and… an incinerator” Bill Auberlen
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 09:29 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©1999 - 2024, Shrapnel Games, Inc. - All Rights Reserved.