AI construction queue problems (ship construction) - Page 3

Q · #21 February 4th, 2001, 08:35 AM

Here it the savegave file Mephisto. All AI build very little, only one or to items per turn. The only exeption are the Sergetti! The Earth Alliance and Borg were also building not much until I turned the AI completely off and then one turn later on again. I use Mod Pack 1.01 plus the Borg race. I made some changes in the vehicle.construction.txt files of the Earth Alliance and the Borg, but not the other races. The Earth Alliance has now one identical list for all AI states, so I could better monitor the effects. But all the other race files are not altered. Maximum number of systems is 250. I made a few changes in some components (fighter bay, mine layer, satellite bay) but I don't think this will be important. Futhermore I use modified weapon mounts for weapon platforms and satellites. If you need them I could post them as well. Hope this works for you!
Thank you for your help.

Mephisto · #22 February 4th, 2001, 12:41 PM

O-ho! That are MANY systems.

I "solved" the problem for the EA in the game by building just one more mineral storage facility. They immediately begun to build fighters again.
For the Darlok it was sufficient to cancel their treaty with a neutral race to have them build their ships again.
I will have a look into this (especially the Last thing) but your game is so big that it takes forever to make one turn. Furthermore the Darlok use more ship classes then a "normal" race and your game is so big that even this can result in errors (I had a fatal RCE in the ship design menu with your game for example). So I can't pinpoint it exactly but I will have a look into it.

Tenryu · #23 February 4th, 2001, 08:45 PM

quote:
Originally posted by HreDaak:
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.

HreDaak,

This sounds like a major problem with the AI opponent.

I haven't done anything myself with the AI files. So I really don't trust myself to modify mine correctly to fix this problem.

I would greatly appreciate some advice from you on how I can fix this in my game. what recomendations can you make on what AI state build list to use for every AI state and how do I modify this.

Thanks

Daynarr · #24 February 4th, 2001, 11:46 PM

Q, I have d/l your savegame too and took a peek at what is going there.

So far I have taken control of Sergetti to see how are they doing, and I must admit that I am kindda proud of them

. However, it took them forever to finish their movement (about 30 minutes at least), so I didn't get any further than that. I can make an assumption on why they don't show problems with building queues like the rest of the races. Assuming that Mephisto is right and AI mostly uses Defensive state, the important change is the Last line in the Sergetti_AI_Construction_Vehicles.txt file that makes them build large number of attack ships (the Last line in the Sergetti defensive state queue, of course). You could try putting these lines at the end of all AI states for all AI empires and see if that helps. I just can't find enough time to test this myself.

Q · #25 February 5th, 2001, 02:11 AM

Sorry for the many systems Mephisto, but when I started this game I never had in mind it may become something for others to examine!
It is very curious that you get RCE, because as you can see I played it for 200 turns (and continue to play it) without any error Messages. And I do definitely not have a super computer (Pentium II, 233MHz, 32MB RAM)!
But I am very happy that at least some points you could examine and fix. The most astonishing in this game for me is the Sergetti empire. They continue to grow and construct many ships, units and facilities and became number one with twice the score of number two. What do the Sergetti have, the others lack?? And did you realize, that the lack of construction is not confined to units and ships but also to facilities? Even if there is lot of empty space on the colonies left, no facilities (or very few) are built. These AI behaviour started about turn 150, but I don't have a savegame file from that time.
Thank you again for your work and help.

HreDaak · #26 February 5th, 2001, 08:42 PM

I think that atleast part of the building problems that the AI is experiencing are caused by this 'bug':

It involves Defense Bases and Colonizers. Here is an easy way to reproduce this 'bug'. Modify the construction queue:

AI State := Exploration
Num Queue Entries := 3
Entry 1 Type := Colonizer
Entry 1 Planet Per Item := 200
Entry 1 Must Have At Least := 1
Entry 2 Type := Defense Base
Entry 2 Planet Per Item := 150
Entry 2 Must Have At Least := 2
Entry 3 Type := Attack Ship
Entry 3 Planet Per Item := 50
Entry 3 Must Have At Least := 10

Now after you've done this load space empires again and start a new game. Take hotseat game, any two races of which one is AI controlled and the other player controlled. Run 20-25 turns, check what the AI player is doing. It's build queues should be empty and it should have 0 attack ships.

This indeed is a strange thing as i could not reproduce this bug with any other items.
As far as i know it only works with colonizers and defense bases. And even then you must put them in right order and so that the Colonizer Planet Per Item is higher than Defense Base Planet Per Item and the Colonizer Must Have At Least is lower than Defense Base Must Have At Least.

Oh.. and one other thing i noticed about colony ships is the fact that AI builds them ONLY if it has colonizable planets available. If it does not see any available planets then it skips all colony ship entries in construction queues.

[This message has been edited by HreDaak (edited 05 February 2001).]

HreDaak · #27 February 5th, 2001, 09:14 PM

Last Posts way caused the AI to limit it's expansion to it's starting system. Here is another way to produce the same effect but now AI is not limited to it's starting system... (AI uses only Attack ships/Carriers to explore new systems)

AI State := Exploration
Num Queue Entries := 4
Entry 1 Type := Colonizer
Entry 1 Planet Per Item := 200
Entry 1 Must Have At Least := 2
Entry 2 Type := Attack Ship
Entry 2 Planet Per Item := 0
Entry 2 Must Have At Least := 1
Entry 3 Type := Defense Base
Entry 3 Planet Per Item := 100
Entry 3 Must Have At Least := 3
Entry 4 Type := Attack Ship
Entry 4 Planet Per Item := 0
Entry 4 Must Have At Least := 10

This should have same effect, except in addition AI should have 1 attack ship.

Q · #28 February 5th, 2001, 10:34 PM

Daynarr you have every reason to be proud of your Sergetti empire. They are just doing great!
I tried your suggestion and I even copied the whole Sergetti_AI_Construction_Vehicles.txt file in other races with empty construction lines. No effect until now. I get more and more the feeling that the problem lies not only in the AI_Construction_Vehicles.txt file but somewhere else. But I have no idea where this might be.

HreDaak · #29 February 5th, 2001, 10:59 PM

Ok guys, just modify your vehicle construction files and watch the AI kick some major butt

.

1. Do not let the AI build defense bases!!! I think that there is some sort of conflict between defense bases and colonizers, this conflict (when it appears) can cause the AI to get stuck on its build queue.
2. Avoid filling planets with stuff. This concerns especially weapon platforms as they take HUGE amounts of planets cargo space. I suggest not to build more than 1 weapon platform per planet. If you let the AI build all/almost all of it planets full of stuff it causes AI to get stuck on its build queue when it is building things that use up planetary cargo space.

After these changes i am pretty sure that the AI will never experience building problems, unless ofcourse its running out of resources...

Some time ago i was talking about changing construction.txt file so that all the AI states would use the same build list. I was using the default (malfadors) construction file. In this construction file there are defense base calls only in infrastructure AI state. When the AI changed its state to infrastructure state it sooner or later caused that conflict between colonizers and defense bases. This in turn caused the AI to stop its building...

Baron Munchausen · #30 February 6th, 2001, 01:28 AM

quote:
Originally posted by HreDaak:
Ok guys, just modify your vehicle construction files and watch the AI kick some major butt .

1. Do not let the AI build defense bases!!! I think that there is some sort of conflict between defense bases and colonizers, this conflict (when it appears) can cause the AI to get stuck on its build queue.
2. Avoid filling planets with stuff. This concerns especially weapon platforms as they take HUGE amounts of planets cargo space. I suggest not to build more than 1 weapon platform per planet. If you let the AI build all/almost all of it planets full of stuff it causes AI to get stuck on its build queue when it is building things that use up planetary cargo space.

After these changes i am pretty sure that the AI will never experience building problems, unless ofcourse its running out of resources...

Some time ago i was talking about changing construction.txt file so that all the AI states would use the same build list. I was using the default (malfadors) construction file. In this construction file there are defense base calls only in infrastructure AI state. When the AI changed its state to infrastructure state it sooner or later caused that conflict between colonizers and defense bases. This in turn caused the AI to stop its building...

I've known for a long time that the AI doesn't check if a planet has cargo space for what it is building. This results in loads of satellites being built and then LOST with nothing to show for the allocated resources. I have asked MM to let satellites (at least) be automatically deployed when built if there's no cargo space. But the defense base thing is odd. I can't imagine what might be going on there. BTW, the AI _does_ build colonizers even if it doesn't know of any colonizable planets. The "must have" entry in the queue works for colonizers. I've seen every "Neutral" I ever invaded keeping a colonizer at its homeworld even though there are no planets left that it can colonize. Too bad. This is also a useless drain of resources.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 05 February 2001).]