Modding Q--AI DesignCreation

oleg · #1 April 25th, 2002, 05:35 AM

I am not absolutely sure about this since i never ever actually played high technology start except for "final" design check, but to my best knowledge, AI redesign ship when and only when new advance ih ship components/hull is achived. In your case it is physically/mathematically impossible and AI stuck with the first design in the list

Krsqk · #2 April 25th, 2002, 05:40 AM

I had thought of this, and so I modded research to go faster by orders of magnitude (to take less time to test) with low tech start, but with same result. When I ordered the designs from largest to smallest by hull size, then the AI would use the largest (read: highest up) design it could build. Sorry; I should have mentioned that in my first post.

Mephisto · #3 April 25th, 2002, 09:21 AM

The Ai will not mix sizes any more after 1.60. It will just build one attack ship time. If you want diversity, you have to call the ships by names.

Gandalph · #4 April 25th, 2002, 09:46 AM

This is taken from the history.txt file and should explain:
The Default_Ai_Construction_Vehicles.txt file will now allow for the design name or the design type. The term "Colonizer" is still hard-coded to be evaluated to the needed type of colonizer. When looking for the design to build, the game will look for the latest design which matches the design name. If no match is found, then the latest design which matches the design type will be located. If neither is found, this purchase item will be skipped.

Krsqk · #5 April 25th, 2002, 03:18 PM

So, I can enter the design *name* in Construction_Vehicles.txt now, if I want? I thought I tried that, and it told me "Massive Death Ship" wasn't an accepted design type. I'll have to test that again.

[edit] Oh, look! I'm a "Seargeant" now...whatever that is.

[ 25 April 2002: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

Krsqk · #6 April 25th, 2002, 03:39 PM

Okay, I just tested this, and it did work. I must have had a typo before. Great, now I can specify the exact content of my forces!

DirectorTsaarx · #7 April 25th, 2002, 10:11 PM

I have an interesting question related to this; my problem isn't getting the AI to build particular items, it's trying to get the AI to DESIGN an item. Details follow:

I had a bright idea to add a Temporal Space Yard for ships (since the Temporal races had special Yard facilities, why not ship-based ones?). Anyway, I thought I should make the new ship-based TSY's bigger than standard SY's. Well, the temporal AI's choked on that, creating space yard bases and space yard ships with no space yards (still trying to figure out why it didn't automatically choose larger ship/base sizes, but I'll leave that for further testing). So, first, I limited the new TSY to bases, then I created two designs for base space yards: one was space station sized, and I added the "Star - Unstable" ability to the standard space yard & tried to use it to force the AI to use standard space yards in the smaller base space yards. The AI never created a design for the smaller yard, even when I finally remembered to use different names for the design. At turn 41, the AI created a design for a starbase-sized base space yard, using the new TSY (and LOTS of shields, armor and PDC - kinda scary, really). Now, calling out names in the Construction file won't help because the design doesn't even exist... or will that force the AI to design the ship? Hmmmm... I'll have to test that...