quote:
Originally posted by Aussie Gamer:
My question is WHY????
If you have 24 item in a list waiting to be built then you would have to change it every few turns any way because of tech upgrades, bigger ships etc.
8 seems enough....
Aussie he's talking about the facility construction file not the vehicle one. The AI follows the order of the file, building each entry in sequence if it has the available tech level, room on the planet, and if system wide capabilities are not duplicated. I'm pretty sure this is somehow kept seperate from the vehicle construction queue in some way, but I'm not sure how the AI decides whether it should build a facility or a vehicle.
Having more entries allows the AI to be able to use the same colony type entry for large and small planets. That way you can make sure a given colony type will have certain types of facilities whether it's on a small planet or a large one. Also this hedges the AI's bet so to speak that certain key abilities ie space port, resupply depot, etc are present in every system, because there's no guarantee what type of colony an AI will make in a system and there are a limited number of different colony types hard coded into the game engine. With say 8 entries you'd be pretty limited because you need to account for at least a space port and a resupply depot for every system. And in the previous post a construction yard would need a space yard facility, otherwise it'd be a pretty poor construction yard. So each colony type essentially has at least two entries taken up already. Most of the user designed AI's like in the TDM modpack will also use a slot a for atmosphere converters and racial tech type facilities. This can get really complicated for the default construction file if you want to include every possible racial tech without resorting to making one construction file for each race. Also tech advances aren't so bad since you can either upgrade in midconstruction or upgrade existing facilities.
So for a mineral colony you might have entries like (this is from my modified default facility file)
Construction Queue Type := Mining Colony
Num Queue Entries := 22
Facility 1 Ability := Planet - Change Atmosphere
Facility 1 Amount := 1
Facility 2 Ability := Spaceport
Facility 2 Amount := 1
Facility 3 Ability := Supply Generation
Facility 3 Amount := 1
Facility 4 Ability := Resource Generation - Minerals
Facility 4 Amount := 4
Facility 5 Ability := Planet Value Change - System
Facility 5 Amount := 1
Facility 6 Ability := Resource Gen Modifier System - Minerals
Facility 6 Amount := 1
Facility 7 Ability := Resource Gen Modifier Planet - Minerals
Facility 7 Amount := 1
Facility 8 Ability := Resource Generation - Minerals
Facility 8 Amount := 4
Facility 9 Ability := Resource Storage - Mineral
Facility 9 Amount := 1
Facility 10 Ability := Planet Conditions Change - System
Facility 10 Amount := 1
Facility 11 Ability := Change Population Happiness - System
Facility 11 Amount := 1
Facility 12 Ability := Modify Reproduction - System
Facility 12 Amount := 1
Facility 13 Ability := Change Population - System
Facility 13 Amount := 1
Facility 14 Ability := Plague Prevention - System
Facility 14 Amount := 1
Facility 15 Ability := Shield Modifier - System
Facility 15 Amount := 1
Facility 16 Ability := Reduced Maintenance Cost - System
Facility 16 Amount := 1
Facility 17 Ability := Fleet Training - System
Facility 17 Amount := 1
Facility 18 Ability := Ship Training - System
Facility 18 Amount := 1
Facility 19 Ability := Combat Modifier - System
Facility 19 Amount := 1
Facility 20 Ability := Resource Generation - Minerals
Facility 20 Amount := 20
Facility 21 Ability := Space Yard
Facility 21 Amount := 1
Facility 22 Ability := Resource Generation - Minerals
Facility 22 Amount := 20
Anyhow with more entries I can hopefully ensure that mining colony can usually produce some minerals unless it's on a tiny planet with a non-breathable atmosphere that ends up with the resupply depot and spaceport. And I can try and cram on some bonus facilities on small and medium planets, but still ensure that large and huge planets will build more mining facilites after constructing other support type facilities. Some of the user AI's also spread out a few research and intel facilities as late entries in different colony types so that large planets can contribute a bit of intel and research. It's a little different for a simpler colony type such as construction yard, resupply base, research, or intel compounds. But the basic idea is the same. Try to retain some flexibility for the AI since you don't know what colony types it will build or where.
[This message has been edited by jc173 (edited 11 April 2001).]
More Construction_Facilities silliness
), I'll drop an email to MM requesting that this be changed in an upcoming patch.
Linear Mode
