My AI Design Q&A

[cybersol]

I am in the process of developing my first AI for the unmodded game. My first attempt is a normal (no special racial trait) race. Starting with nothing between the *Begin* and *End* lines of the AI files to make the race from scratch. To learn, I am mining the top 14 AI�s from death match 2 for ideas and insights. I have searched through the forum for many topics related to AI design and read a lot of information, but I still have some questions.

If you design AI�s, then maybe you can help. Reading through AI Text Files Tips & Hints I noticed many of the bugs mentioned there that seem to have been fixed, but I still wonder about some of them. Things that seem to be fixed, please tell me if I am wrong: boarding, kamikaze, and troop transports now work as expected; recon satellite no longer produces forever. Things that still don�t work, again tell me if I am wrong: AI still doesn�t use recyclers or resource converters; still not a good idea to use mine sweepers and cloaks together (though it works for already marked mine fields on the mine sweeper type) ; planet based fleet training still not effective.

1) Can the AI now effectively use cloaking abilities on Space Yard Ships? MB uses cloak, Mephisto still does not, and Rollo doesn�t even use Space Yard Ships.
2) If I use the same ship name (and type) but different weapons for a light cruiser than a destroyer for instance, then I notice the AI often thinks the destroyer is newer and the light cruiser is obsolete. I thought this only happened after the dreadnaught class was reached?
3) Is there anyway to stop the AI from trying to retrofit to a �newer� Version of a ship that is in fact the same as the old Version? This results in ships being wasted just sitting there and trying to be retrofitted but failing because the ships are identical.
4) I don�t suppose anyone knows a trick (without modding) to have the AI specifically call for normal armor without any special abilities?
5) AI_CONSTRUCTION_VEHICLES.TXT. It seems in my experience that you get a more even distribution of ships if you add multiple copies of the exact same entry (colony ships in exploration for example). For example, build some colony ships, build some attack ships, build colony ships again to replace, build support ships, build colony ships again to replace, etc. My guess is that if the hardcode is at entry 12 in this file, then it goes to 13 when it finishes 12 without looking at 1-11 again until the next time it arrives at them by going around one at a time through the loop. How do you think it works?

I�m sure I will have more questions later. Any assistance you can provide will be much appreciated.

[ July 18, 2003, 19:39: Message edited by: cybersol ]