new SEIV patch !!

[couslee]

Thats what I was thinking. a MC of ANY size of a colony ship is stupid.

sigh

[Krsqk]

Well, I did a quick test, just being hopeful. Unfortunately, all ship designs use MCs, including transports, colony ships, etc. Hopefully, this can be patched in the DesignCreation file. Maybe a Master Computer line with choices of "Prefer," "Allow," and "Disallow" or something like that. Then the AI could use it when available, use it as needed but also discontinue it/supplement it with B/LS/CQ when necessary, or simply not use it according to the design.

[Rexxx]

Still haven't tested the new patch yet but I read about some very bad news.

I would say we've got a new ultimate weapon. Against those poor AI races who like robotoid factories and conquering my planets I would design a large weapon platform. Large WPs with combat sensors, 5 CV III and 6 PDCs should do the trick. This mounted CV has a range of 12, it skips shield and armor. Extremely efficient.
Well, an attacking fleet of direct fire ships will be getting in trouble. I would call that the renaissance of the plasma missile.
Add to this the talisman and direct fire ships become useless for planetary attacks. My next AI will be religious (as a bonus this trait allows access to resorce boosting facilities without the vulnerability against CVs). As I said very bad news...

Please, please tell me that this scenario is flawed.

[ January 28, 2003, 09:00: Message edited by: Rexxx ]

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
But now there is Yet Another Vulnerability in the AI. Before, it was vulnerable to Psychic races because it didn't know to use the MC when it was in conflict with a Psychic race. Now it is vulnerable to ALL human players because it doesn't know to NOT use the MC when the player comes after it with the Computer Virus. And it will use the MC even in transports which is a ridiculous waste of resources. And yes, it will use them in any size ship so designing an AI that uses both large and small ships in the late game is impractical. This is a very bad change.

BM, it is better to have them just lose the MC from a virus than to have them lose the whole ship to an AS.

[Q]

You are all right about the AI problem with the master computer after the new patch. But IMHO the solution is quite simple: make the cost of a master computer equal or less than a bridge plus one life support plus one crew quarter and the size equal or less than 30kT. Then it will not harm the AI to use the MC even for the smallest ships.
In my personal mod I went a step further and made the master computer technology a racial technology and this works very well.

[Q]

Originally posted by Rexxx:
Still haven't tested the new patch yet but I read about some very bad news.

I would say we've got a new ultimate weapon. Against those poor AI races who like robotoid factories and conquering my planets I would design a large weapon platform. Large WPs with combat sensors, 5 CV III and 6 PDCs should do the trick. This mounted CV has a range of 12, it skips shield and armor. Extremely efficient.
Well, an attacking fleet of direct fire ships will be getting in trouble. I would call that the renaissance of the plasma missile.
Add to this the talisman and direct fire ships become useless for planetary attacks. My next AI will be religious (as a bonus this trait allows access to resorce boosting facilities without the vulnerability against CVs). As I said very bad news...

Please, please tell me that this scenario is flawed.

I believe it is flawed.
Look everything you describe was already possible before the new patch against human players who used master computers. Did that prevent the use of master computers??
You slow down ships by destroying their master computer, but they will still be able to fire and therefore destroy your colony if you have only the weapon platforms you describe. Then it is easy to repair the master computer after the combat if you have a repair ship in your fleet. And advanced AI races have ships with repair components in their fleets.
Therefore I don't think the computer virus has become an ultimate weapon.
But you point to a problem I criticized when the first news about this patch came out: if you start "balancing" the game by hard coded changes you might get more new problems than you solve.

[ January 28, 2003, 10:48: Message edited by: Q ]

[Rexxx]

Originally posted by Q:
I believe it is flawed.
Look everything you describe was already possible before the new patch against human players who used master computers. Did that prevent the use of master computers??
You slow down ships by destroying their master computer, but they will still be able to fire and therefore destroy your colony if you have only the weapon platforms you describe. Then it is easy to repair the master computer after the combat if you have a repair ship in your fleet. And advanced AI races have ships with repair components in their fleets.
Therefore I don't think the computer virus has become an ultimate weapon.
But you point to a problem I criticized when the first news about this patch came out: if you start "balancing" the game by hard coded changes you might get more new problems than you solve.[/QB]

Well, I don't give up so easily.

My point was that a human player can easily exploit this new "Yet Another Vulnerability in the AI". Add lots of fighters to the WPs described above and the attacking fleet will get serious troubles.
You're right, advanced AIs use repair ships. However, so far I found no way to divide these ships evenly between my AI-fleets or to make sure that each fleet gets at least one. The only workaround I know of is to build "enough" of them and hope for the best. Another AI-problem which doesn't exist for the human player.