Game to Game Ship Design Carryover Bug

Aristoi · #1 May 29th, 2001, 06:59 AM

I've found that the saving of design files from game to game with a race is nothing but annoying. All it means is that I am forced to obsolete many designs before I can play. There should be a way to not export the designs when you save the race.

This leads me to an appearant bug. If you export a race and then remove a special tech they had (one that you used in the previous game on your ships), you get the message warning that your ship design has tech you don't understand. When I make them obsolete, no problem for that turn. But the next turn, they somehow un-obsolete themselves and clutter up my design list again.

The only way to get rid of them us to manually go in and remove all the special tech from them and then save the new design. This can be a real pain with a few dozen old designs from a previous game.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Deathstalker · #2 May 29th, 2001, 08:08 AM

Don't know, but this brings up an interesting idea. Could this be used for AI ship design?? Make an emp file from high tech within a game, make say 5-10 ship designs with full weapons etc from differing tech states within the game (ie a destroyer with level 3 ppb, then a light cruiser with level 5ppb etc.). Now will the AI use these designs when it plays?? I've givin AI's ships outside their normal ones (ie, plain old 'defense ship' vs. 'defense ship alpha') and they seem not to delete them and will build them, but I have never saved the EMP and tried a new game.

Anyone???

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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.

capnq · #3 May 29th, 2001, 04:50 PM

quote:
Could this be used for AI ship design??

I certainly hope so; I've been planning to try just that when I start working on that part of the AI for my Tikstin.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

Suicide Junkie · #4 May 29th, 2001, 05:19 PM

Try removing all the designs from the AI files, then they will only be able to use the designs saved in the EMP file.

What about obsoleting designs? Will the AI eventually make everything obsolete and stop building?
Will it continually try (and fail) to build the most advanced ships in its list, or will it only try to build ships with known tech?

Nitram Draw · #5 May 29th, 2001, 05:28 PM

This might be a great way to limit/program what the AI builds, especially in a high tech game. If this could be used in conjunction with the ship size limits in the AI settings file you could control, for a limited time, the types of ships they built. I don't know if more than 3 steps can be used in the settings file but if you can add an unlimited number you could have it build DN for 10 turns, BB for 15 turns, BC for 5 turns etc. You could then custom create the AI fleet. Now if you could only tell it how to use them......