Does the AI use boarding parties??

SunDevil · #1 January 10th, 2001, 07:52 PM

Just wanted to know.

Puke · #2 January 10th, 2001, 08:57 PM

negative

Puke · #3 January 10th, 2001, 08:57 PM

sorry, double post.

[This message has been edited by Puke (edited 10 January 2001).]

Baron Munchausen · #4 January 10th, 2001, 09:00 PM

It WOULD use them if it had instructions in its research file to research Ship Capture. There is a Boarding Ship design in every one of the AI_Design_Creation files. You just need to tell the race that you want to use boarding attacks to research ship capture. I've done this in my custom ship set with the Terrans and the Jraenar. Since the Terran are also setup to research shield damaging weapons (And I edit their Boarding Ship design to use them) they can have some really effective boarding ships. I haven't actually had a game against them yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

Tampa_Gamer · #5 January 10th, 2001, 09:10 PM

The Darloks should being using them as well. . .

Daynarr · #6 January 10th, 2001, 10:14 PM

So should the Sergetti. But I didn't tell you that (they will waste me if they find out that I am giving away classified information)

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Jubala · #7 January 11th, 2001, 02:31 AM

Sorry to spoil your hopes guys, but even if the AI will build boarding ships it will never be able to actually steal a ship. How do I know this? Because I have tried to get a good design of a boarding ship to use in sim turn pbem games and it just can't be done the way ship with boarding orders act in strategic combat. There's no use putting shielddamaging weapons on them since they will not close with enemy until the shields are down on at least one ship. But they keep so long back that that ship will be destroyed by your regular warships before they get there to take it at which point they will move away again. So the only way to be 100% sure you'll be able to catch a ship in strategic combat is to have one ship design with shielddamaging weapons and one with the boarding parties. But they better be able to take a serious pounding from the normally armed enemy ships. If you get the AI to do that I'll eat something distasteful.

The basic problem is in how boarding ships operate when under AI control. If they where muche closer to the action it might work. Or if you could somehow tell your regular warships to pound down the shields on a juicy target and then stop firing to let the boarders do their dirty work. As of now I don't think you can.

Eisenhans · #8 January 11th, 2001, 03:16 AM

I know the problem all too well(sigh). I think it could be fixed quite easy if there was a "don't fire upon type: has no shields" and if you would build strong warships with one or two boarding parties(what I do anyway) and if you would then give it the movement strategies "optimal weapons range/capture ship".

Well...maybe it's not so easy. The don't fire on type should only work as long as there's really a chance of getting to board a ship.

Tomgs · #9 January 11th, 2001, 03:58 AM

It may work but not as well as I would like for strategic if you use least damaged instead of most damaged as a targeting option. The AI would be very weakened by this change but for a human if you set it just before a combat you wanted to capture ships in and then set it back after it might have a chance to work. Of course you might take a lot of damage with these settings but it might just give your ships a chance to capture a few of the enemy. Of course this only works if there is more than one enemy ship.