AIC Mod in finite vs. infinite resource settings

[Fyron]

You probably shouldnt mess with the settings file to much if you lower the maintenance settings below 90% you will probably break all the Crystalline Races and after you upgrade to the Last engineering section component or build the Systems Maintenance Facility for all players you will probably end up with negitive maintence numbers in a lot of of places and break the game whole game.

I don't think you can get negative maintenance values from combining just base maintenance rate setting and maintenance lowering abilities. Negative maintenance has to be acquired from having abilities on a ship that total more than 100% reduction. Maintenance value is not quite just gotten through pure addition. Look at the stock game, for an example. Base maintenance rate is 25%, bases have 50% maintenance reduction. This does not lead to -25% maintenance for bases, but 12.5%.

[ May 14, 2004, 21:00: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Yimboli]

wow, thanks for all the info. perhaps i'm selling the mod short. I think i found one of my problems: i checked the scores and saw that most races still only had 1 planet, while I had 16. This is partly due to the fact that the first planet i colonized had ruins that gave me ice colonization (!!!!), so i went on a colonizing crusade. My construction queues were being quite a nuisance. I think I need to slow down a bit and stick to my home system for a while. Any suggestions?

I turned computer control off for a turn to check out the other races, and they are having the exact same maintenance problems I am... which is very odd because i distinctly remember the computer's maintenance cost per ship being MUCH lower than my maintenance cost per ship in the infinite resources game. i guess i checked a computer's starliner and thought it was a frigate or something...

so I pose this question to AIC veterans: when should I colonize my first additional planet? also, in infinite resource games, what is the point of making a cities when a mineral extraction facility puts out so much more minerals?

one question directed to QBrigid:

Your AIC home world alone gives you about 15000 minerals and with mineral extraction right from the start and you should be able to get another destroyer or more then several smaller combat missile ships for every 2 or three Mining Facilities as long as you develope your Planets then your economy will develope and then you can aford a large fleet.

could you elaborate on that? 2 or three mining facilities will empty a planet in a few turns, hardly supporting maintenance for a 1000 min destroyer plus a few smaller combat ships. economy developing? I think that means building colonial settlements then towns then cities, etc. etc., is that what you mean?

thanks for all the info, I'm gonna give it another shot

-Tim

[ May 14, 2004, 23:46: Message edited by: Yimboli ]

[oleg]

Yimboli, do not play Temporal if you have this problem. Pick up MP* option for the empire. That will give you better mining facilities. And ship more people around to build cities faster !!!

I sometimes have the problem with maintenance but only if my home system is poor.

[QBrigid]

Originally posted by oleg:
Pick up MP* option for the empire. That will give you better mining facilities. And ship more people around to build cities faster !!!

I sometimes have the problem with maintenance but only if my home system is poor.

Great post Oleg, wish I thought of posting this.

[ May 14, 2004, 12:41: Message edited by: QBrigid ]

[oleg]

Originally posted by Grand Lord Vito:
...When playing against the AI at low AI bonus I can easily out research all of them (maybe not the eee but they tend to be freindly) even when i dont take any start options I usually win.

How do you fare in non-conected games ? i find it quite difficult sometimes. AI is much more focused, no more fleets sitting around ally planet half-way accross galaxy. With only few systems available, AI can send waves after waves...

in Last game Iwas foolish enough to open WP to cryslonites at about the same time terrans come aftr me. Two wars were totally unsustainable.

Also, how do you manage anti-fighter escorts in simultaneus turn battles ? It usully becomes so messy...

[oleg]

Originally posted by Yimboli:
... I think i found one of my problems: i checked the scores and saw that most races still only had 1 planet, while I had 16.
...
I turned computer control off for a turn to check out the other races, and they are having the exact same maintenance problems I am... which is very odd because i distinctly remember the computer's maintenance cost per ship being MUCH lower than my maintenance cost per ship in the infinite resources game. i guess i checked a computer's starliner and thought it was a frigate or something...

-Tim

Very odd. AI should be more robust. Are you sure AIs are "real" AI, not empires generated with HP* option under computer control ? Did you load them manually ?

[oleg]

Originally posted by Yimboli:
also, in infinite resource games, what is the point of making a cities when a mineral extraction facility puts out so much more minerals?

But only if are interested in mineral only and talking about planet with 100%

Cities produce other resurses too and give a lot of research/intelligence points. Also storage and cargo space.

Half of cities minerals comes from "solar wind" so in case of 50% planet city in fact operates like on 75% ! Of course opposite effect shows up on >100% planets which you should indeed strip mine. But given my rotten luck I normally must squeeze most from the typical 10/20/15 planet

[Yimboli]

yes, i loaded them manually... is that a bad idea? i wanted to control the number of players, so that is my only option. i didn't see anything in the readme about this so i didnt think twice about loading them manually. actually, when i said in the other post that the AI players had 1 planet, that was only true with a majority of them. i recall that one had 11 planets and a couple had 4 or 5. whats wrong with loading them manually?

-tim

[ May 15, 2004, 08:18: Message edited by: Yimboli ]

[oleg]

Originally posted by Yimboli:
yes, i loaded them manually... is that a bad idea? i wanted to control the number of players, so that is my only option. i didn't see anything in the readme about this so i didnt think twice about loading them manually. actually, when i said in the other post that the AI players had 1 planet, that was only true with a majority of them. i recall that one had 11 planets and a couple had 4 or 5. whats wrong with loading them manually?

-tim

Nothing wrong per se, but you should take cate to load empires generated for AI - with AI* option on. JLS included "human" empires files too, those with HP* trait. They will not work AT ALL under AI control !!! Just check carefully what are the race traits empires have. May be everythink is correct and I rised false alarm.

I usually do not load empires manually - nice to have more unknowns in the game ! To regulate how many players you want, edit settings.txt file. It has number of random empires generated for "low", "medium" and "high" numbers. You can not use the same number for min and max though but difference in 1 is OK. For example if you want 9 AIs, set numbers for "high" 9 and 10 and you will get 9 or 10 random AIs if chose "high" option.

[Yimboli]

you were right - i checked the empire traits and the AI had the *HP* option... probably not a good idea

thanks for that settings.txt bit, thats realy helpful!!

-Tim