Another fighter bug?

Phier · #1 May 20th, 2001, 03:12 AM

I'm in a big battle with the Cue Cappa's (with the improved AI from the forums) and my 10 or so dreadnaughts (with no point defence) and my 2 all point defense cruisers vrs about 15 battlecruisers and a few dreads, and to my surprise about 10 cloaked carriers, (opps). Ok so I figure I'm in deep doodoo, all the carriers are loaded with fighters. Well to my surprise the carriers all run to the corners of the map and when its over I have 10 carriers sitting in the corners, 1 point defense ship left and all but one dreadnaught (damn computer virus). My dreads just fly up to them and blow them away without so much as a peep.

The other time I ran into his carriers with a subverted ship they did launch fighters (no point defense).

The only difference I can get here is the point defense made them not launch. While my point defense would have nailed him there was no way it would stop all of them, and my dreadnaughts can't hit a fighter (esp with the bug) if their lives depended on it (which it would have).

Is this a bug in the mod race AI or the AI in general (this is my first game long enough to run into the big fleet stage)

Phier

#2 May 20th, 2001, 06:50 AM

I had a fight once when two of my dreadnoughts modified to be minesweepers broke through a maximum stack of mines warp point into Piundan space. It turns out that was his fleet staging system. I was jumped by 20 light cruisers and 15 light carriers carrying a total of 105 large fighters armed with rocket packs. I killed all but 7 light cruisers and 4 carriers without a scratch because my dreadnoughts each mount 7 PD V, and those two happened to be legendary +50. If you split your shield space 50/50 between shields and shield regenerators you can survive big fighter battles. Use just one regen V if you need to fill up, make the others IV, because the increase in size is not worth it. Typically I have four of IV and one of V.

I have also caught a fleet of a dozen light carriers who had NO fighters because they were on the way to pick them up. Maybe those carriers were empty too. Right click on any ship/planet/satellite in tactical combat to examine its cargo. I always do because I never blow up a transport if it is carrying population. I never approach a planet before I check its cargo bay to see what weapons platforms it has. Right click on the component to see what it does.

[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 20 May 2001).]

Phier · #3 May 20th, 2001, 06:56 AM

They were all full of fighters, they just didn't launch them (I checked).

Q · #4 May 20th, 2001, 07:11 AM

That's very strange. I have never seen anything like that and no idea what might be the cause. Do you have a savegame before that combat? If yes please post it here so I have a look at it. Do you use any modification besides TDM?

Krakenup · #5 May 21st, 2001, 03:13 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Phier:
. . . and to my surprise about 10 cloaked carriers . . .

Maybe that's the problem - they can't launch while cloaked. IIRC, there is a similar problem with mine layers - they can't lay mines while they're cloaked.

Q · #6 May 21st, 2001, 07:44 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Krakenup:
Maybe that's the problem - they can't launch while cloaked. IIRC, there is a similar problem with mine layers - they can't lay mines while they're cloaked.

I tested this in a game and cloaked carriers launched their fighters absolutely normal.

GruelThePurple · #7 May 21st, 2001, 07:58 PM

Too, Mine Layers can drop mines while cloaked. I use this tactic quite a bit myself.

Cloaking used to have a lot of drawbacks, but these were eased in order to fix some serious bugs with the AI's use of cloaking.

This same fix for the cloaking bug also was supposed to introduce a change in combat. Any time combat was joined, all cloaked vessels automatically uncloaked to fight. This alone would rule out any cloaking issues.

Did you look to see if the carriers had any damage that may have prevented fighter launch?

Outside that, did the fighters actually have weapons on them? I have seen cases where the AI did not put weapons on the fighters, and thus, they did not fight but ran away or were not launched from their carrier.

Otherwise, I don't have any ideas at this point.

[This message has been edited by GruelThePurple (edited 21 May 2001).]

Krakenup · #8 May 21st, 2001, 08:26 PM

quote:
Originally posted by GruelThePurple:
Too, Mine Layers can drop mines while cloaked. I use this tactic quite a bit myself.

Sorry, I didn't recall correctly. It was minesweeping that didn't work while cloaked - at least in Version 1.30.

GruelThePurple · #9 May 22nd, 2001, 01:54 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Krakenup:
Sorry, I didn't recall correctly. It was minesweeping that didn't work while cloaked - at least in Version 1.30.

No worries.

You can not build (as with a space yard ship) while cloaked either. Can't tell you how often I would forget to uncloak to build a station...

Q · #10 June 5th, 2001, 04:44 PM

To revive this older topic: Now I had the same problem with carriers loaded full of fighters and yet in combat they didn't launch them. In tactical combat you couldn't launch the fighters either.
The cause?
It seems that if your empires has reached the maximum number of units in space this will prevent the fighter launch! If I scrapped units below the maximum number all returned to normal.
IMO this is a bug not a feature. It is not reasonable that carriers cannot launch their fighters in a combat no matter the number of units already in space.