AI construction queue problems (ship construction) - Page 2

HreDaak · #11 February 2nd, 2001, 12:13 PM

quote:
Originally posted by [K126]Mephisto:
I can think of 2 possible reasons for this:

1.) You need to have some storage facilities. Even if you have plenty of resources left and the ship/unit to build is no problem at all the AI will still stop building anything until you give them some storage facilities.

Yes, this can cause AI building problems, but AI usually had enough storages... (500k,250k,250k)

quote:

2.) You describe the problem as partial using of the queues. The AI will only process 1 line at a time no matter how much resources are left for building the second or later lines.

Hummh.. do you mean that AI will process only 1 entry from the construction.txt file each turn? I made a testconstuction.txt file that contained 30 emptry entries, all the stellar manipulation entries from the infrastructure state and at the end was a call to build 5 colonizers. AI had NO problems building those colonizers each and every turn. So i dont think this could be the reason. There seemed to be no limit how many lines it could process each turn.

quote:

A good example are colonizers:
If you make the AI build a large number of colonizers the Ai is nearly stuck in this build line as colonizers are often destroyed or reach their target. The AI will then try to reach the specified number of colonizers again so it is stuck at this build line. A solution is to build only a few colonizers in the first line (to make sure their are always some colonizers), add a second line for some warships and make a third line for some more colonizers.
This concept is true for warships, too. If you tell the Ai to build 1 ship per planet the AI is virtually stuck at this line as it is very hard to reach that many ships (to many are lost for some reason or another to .

Yes, i was very careful to avoid this problem in my testgames. The only entry that was impossible for the AI to build was the LAST entry at each AI state. While being in the exploration state (AI seems to always be on exploration state untill it makes first contact) AI's were building just fine. Then after they made contact, some of the AI's stopped building. Then the AI's that did not stop building started to whack those that did stop building. Even though the ones that stopped all building were losing huge amounts of ships they were not trying to replace their losses. They had enough resource production (maintenance was 0%), enough storage facilities and every AI state in the construction.txt file should have been screaming for them to build more ships.
But they didn't... this is the problem that has been bothering me.

Spoo · #12 February 2nd, 2001, 07:03 PM

quote:
every AI state in the construction.txt file should have been screaming for them to build more ships.
But they didn't...

Suicidal AI?

------------------
Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.

Tomgs · #13 February 2nd, 2001, 08:43 PM

quote:
Originally posted by [K126]Mephisto:
Line 3 and all following are ignored now no matter how much more resources or space yards you have left! We already build something and that is enough for the AI.

So you are saying if 100 spaceyards are empty and it decides based on this to build 1 colonizer this turn then it will leave all the other spaceyards empty? It seems that we should severly limit the number of spaceyards that the AI builds then because after the first few they will always have many empty ones. No wonder I almost always see 80 to 90% empty build queues on the AI in the mid to late game. This is just wrong. If the AI could be made to use its existing resources, even though it doesn't seem to follow up enough, it would have then have enough ships to pose a threat and have some defence. I would hope that this changes soon and allows the AI to build ships with the amount of maintaince and building queues in mind instead of the number of lines it can read.

The other problem the AI has with scrapping ships and bases is probably related to this also. If it hits a line that causes it to build many ships all at once and it has the capability to do that it will probably overbuild its maintaince capabilities and then have to scrap ships to survive.

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 02 February 2001).]

HreDaak · #14 February 2nd, 2001, 09:15 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Tomgs:

So you are saying if 100 spaceyards are empty and it decides based on this to build 1 colonizer this turn then it will leave all the other spaceyards empty? It seems that we should severly limit the number of spaceyards that the AI builds then because after the first few they will always have many empty ones. No wonder I almost always see 80 to 90% empty build queues on the AI in the mid to late game. This is just wrong. If the AI could be made to use its existing resources, even though it doesn't seem to follow up enough, it would have then have enough ships to pose a threat and have some defence. I would hope that this changes soon and allows the AI to build ships with the amount of maintaince and building queues in mind instead of the number of lines it can read.

I have tested this and can assure you now that the AI does build from more than one line per turn. Infact it assigns them atleast from 10 different lines. You can test this by your selves by starting a game with modified construction file. Modify the exploration state and put on each line different item with 1 Must Have At Least.
Start a new game with 10 planets at start option turned on (each planet does have 1 space yard so you have 10 space yards). Let the computer make 1 turn then check its build queue and you will notice that each space yard is building different item and all the 10 space yards are in use. So this clearly is not the limiting factor...

Tomgs · #15 February 3rd, 2001, 01:51 AM

quote:
Originally posted by HreDaak:
I have tested this and can assure you now that the AI does build from more than one line per turn. Infact it assigns them atleast from 10 different lines. You can test this by your selves by starting a game with modified construction file. Modify the exploration state and put on each line different item with 1 Must Have At Least.
Start a new game with 10 planets at start option turned on (each planet does have 1 space yard so you have 10 space yards). Let the computer make 1 turn then check its build queue and you will notice that each space yard is building different item and all the 10 space yards are in use. So this clearly is not the limiting factor...

But have you tested this a bit later in the game? The initial build queue could easily be different than the ongoing behavior of the AI. Empty all the build queues 10 turns into the game scrap all the ships that would prevent the build from happening and look again will it still build them then? I will have to try this because something is limiting the AI from building and this seems to fit the reality that I usually see.

HreDaak · #16 February 3rd, 2001, 02:32 AM

quote:

But have you tested this a bit later in the game? The initial build queue could easily be different than the ongoing behavior of the AI. Empty all the build queues 10 turns into the game scrap all the ships that would prevent the build from happening and look again will it still build them then? I will have to try this because something is limiting the AI from building and this seems to fit the reality that I usually see.

Yep.. just finished testing this and the AI did build items from more than one line...
Just found out something interesting in one other game. I modified the construction.txt file so that all the AI states use same construction list, the exploration list (note that this does not prevent the AI from changing state). It's now turn 50 in the test game and so far none of the AI players are experiencing troubles in their building. All the space yards are full every turn. Almost all of them have made contact to several other races and wars are raging. So far so good...

Mephisto · #17 February 3rd, 2001, 12:14 PM

Ok people,
your are absolutly right. I have just tested it again. I will delete my previous crap so noone is confused by it.

HreDaak · #18 February 3rd, 2001, 03:31 PM

quote:
Originally posted by [K126]Mephisto:
Ok people,
your are absolutly right. I have just tested it again. I will delete my previous crap so noone is confused by it.

No no, all were valid points that had to be checked...

I think i now have another theory of what causes that elusive building problem. It must have something to do with different AI states. I think that the AI somehow fails to initialize it's build list when it changes it's AI state. The reason why i think that this might be the cause of the problem is that the AI is ALWAYS on exploration state until it makes contact to other races. This is the moment usually that these building problems start. I am now on turn 100 in my testgame (was on turn 50 in my previous post) and NONE of the AI players have experienced ANY shipbuilding problems. Changes in this games settings are:

1. Set the minimum empire storage capacity to 1000000
2. Set Empire Starting Percent Maint Cost to 0

Now with these settings there should be no limit on the number of ships the AI can build (except at game settings per player limit 2000).

Now, if you use the 'normal' construction.txt that has different lists for almost every AI state the building problems usually start when the AI makes contact to other AI empires (this usually causes the change in AI state). But if you modify this so that every AI state uses the same building list no problems appear... although this could use some more testing until one can be absolutely certain of this.

If someone else wants to test this please post your conclusions in this thread...

Mephisto · #19 February 3rd, 2001, 05:32 PM

My observations are that the AI is most of the time in "defense" so this should be the queue you should look for.
Can you attach a save game with the AI not building? This would make the whole process much easier.

Emperor Zodd · #20 February 3rd, 2001, 09:07 PM

I would advise you guys to e-mail Aaron whatever you discover immediately.

The patch will be ready soon, and I would like to see your discoveries added to it.