Am I nuts or did this really happen?

geoschmo · #1 March 6th, 2001, 01:09 AM

I had assumed that once I gave a colony ship an order to colonize a planet, it set its course and then followed that course regardless.

I had some colony ships enroute to the other side of the quadrant. I opened a warp point into the system they were passing through that cut some time off of there trip. I was planning on the next turn redirecting them to use the new warp point.

Lo and behold when I hit end turn they changed course automatically to take advantage of the new warp point!

I didn't think they would do that.

Anybody else ever see this happen before?

Drake · #2 March 6th, 2001, 01:48 AM

They basically just follow what's listed in their orders, not a predefined path.

Geo, on a side note, did TG contact you about the contest. You do have the highest verified score after all. (wtg geo!)

Possum · #3 March 6th, 2001, 01:50 AM

Congrats, geo

Seawolf · #4 March 6th, 2001, 04:59 PM

Geo,

I believe that colonly ships check each turn for the shortest distance to a destination. What happened in your games seems to have proved that out. Very nice for a computer to do that on its own. Kudeos to Aaron and MM.

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Seawolf on the prowl

alasyr · #5 March 6th, 2001, 05:08 PM

Although it seems that ships in general have a hard time when storm gets in their way.They do not always get the shortest way around a storm.

#6 May 27th, 2001, 11:25 AM

quote:
Originally posted by alasyr:
Although it seems that ships in general have a hard time when storm gets in their way. They do not always get the shortest way around a storm.

I noticed the storm thing myself, same goes for enemy ships/planets. Also when an enemy blocks the next wormhole the ship should just stop and wait for revised orders, NOT expend its Last movement trying for an alternate route. The clear orders when entering enemy system does not seem to apply here. A "clear orders when enemy enters current system" option needs to be added or make it the default.

Also I noticed a couple of weeks ago in my Last game that the AI was NOT taking the shortest path between two planets on a move to order. The shortest was 50 but it was taking a 52 path instead, chose the wrong initial warp point in the starting system. When I made the move to order after the ship had warped through it arrived without running out of gas. Is this a new bug ? I never noticed the problem in previous games....

[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 27 May 2001).]

Dracus · #7 May 27th, 2001, 05:16 PM

They have always been able to change paths. send a ship to some other system. Look at it's path then either close those wp's or mark the next system as do not enter. They will pick another route.

rdouglass · #8 May 27th, 2001, 06:57 PM

quote:
Originally posted by alasyr:
Although it seems that ships in general have a hard time when storm gets in their way.They do not always get the shortest way around a storm.

Yeah, but they used to go through 'em!

sunzoner · #9 May 28th, 2001, 04:47 AM

Another thing about the path-finding:
The Ai night be stuck in a system (D) trying to decide which way is the fasterest. Let say there are 2 warp going to 2 different systems (A and b). The 2 system then lead to the same system (c).
The Ai-controlled ship when given an order to go to c, will be stuck not knowing to go to A or B. It will move one turn towardds warp A then another turn towards warp B until the supply ran out.

capnq · #10 May 28th, 2001, 08:45 PM

I see a lot of pathfinding problems around other ships in Tactical Combat, also.

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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