Anyone try repair ships for the AI yet?

Sinapus · #1 July 10th, 2001, 07:34 PM

As in making an entry in design creation file for a 'space yard ship' that has repair bays instead of space yards. According to the help files in the manual, the 'Space Yard Ship' minister is supposed to dispatch SYS's to places where there are damaged ships, but I think they never can do that because the Ship Construction minister keeps using the spaceyard-equipped ship for construction.

May try to put an entry for that in all the AI design creation files and see what happens as time goes on.

------------------
--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

[This message has been edited by Sinapus (edited 10 July 2001).]

God Emperor · #2 July 11th, 2001, 01:19 AM

Sinapus,
That is my observation too, so I deleted SYS's from all of my AI's. Hadnt considered equipping them with Repair Units though instead.
As with all other aspects of the AI, I took a generalist approach and have set up the AI carriers to have one repair unit, so that its fleets always have a limited amount of repair capability....Was considering equipping Kamikaze ships out with repair capability too (and no ram weapons/orders) and having them as a second line warship for the AI.
What do you think?

PurpleRhino · #3 July 11th, 2001, 01:22 AM

Yeah I created them, but haven't had time to test if the AI uses them or not. I have them setup as attack ship, with the hope that they will team up with a fleet...

[This message has been edited by PurpleRhino (edited 11 July 2001).]

capnq · #4 July 11th, 2001, 04:09 PM

quote:
Yeah I created them, but haven't had time to test if the AI uses them or not. I have them setup as attack ship, with the hope that they will team up with a fleet...

I think if you make them an Attack Ship, they'll join fleets, but the Space Yard Ship Minister won't recognize that they're SYSs.

------------------
Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

Sinapus · #5 July 11th, 2001, 04:15 PM

quote:
Originally posted by capnq:

Quote:

Yeah I created them, but haven't had time to test if the AI uses them or not. I have them setup as attack ship, with the hope that they will team up with a fleet...
I think if you make them an Attack Ship, they'll join fleets, but the Space Yard Ship Minister won't recognize that they're SYSs.

Probably not, but if that ship survives any battles in that fleet it will repair any crippled ships so that fleet won't be stuck forever drifting...

Maybe I'll add both. One with a lot of repair bays and make it the SYS. Another with one repair bay, some weapons and shields and an attack ship designation.

------------------
--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Sinapus · #6 July 13th, 2001, 04:12 PM

Well, one obstacle cleared. Actually got the AI to -design- a repair ship. Now I'll see if they'll actually build one later tonight and use it.

Atraikius · #7 July 13th, 2001, 06:36 PM

Getting the AI to design a repair ship is not hard (have had one of mine designing a tender for a while), but so far I've only had the AI build them once - had 2 attack ships designs, both light cruisers, one had 3 DUC 3's and 2 plasma torp 1's, other had repair bay, and one CSM 3. The attack ship was listed first in the DesignCreation file, and had been designed more recently, yet the AI would only build the tender.

Sinapus · #8 July 16th, 2001, 06:28 AM

Well, I got the neutrals to build repair ships, though it looks like they are not building space yard ships now. Hm.

Q · #9 July 16th, 2001, 11:59 AM

To be really useful a repair ship must be included into the fleets. Until now only attack/defense ships and carriers are included into fleets by the AI. Not minesweepers, not boarding ships, not repair ships. At least that's what I've seen.
So the only possibility is to include repair bays either in attack/defense ships or IMO better into carriers. I tried to do that in my AI modififications of the CueCappa and Phong and in a different way with the Borg. Don't use space yard's because then the AI will start construct something with it and the ships cannot move!!

Alpha Kodiak · #10 July 17th, 2001, 12:37 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Tampa_Gamer:
Q nailed the issue. Until the design file contains a field to indicate whether a given design should be included in attack/defense fleets, you are forced to include it in one of the attack/defense ship designs.

Even better would be a fleet composition (perhaps in the fleet file) so that you could specify that an optimal fleet would contain a specific combination of support ships (repair, mine sweeping, stellar manipulation, troop transports, boarding ships, etc.) along with attack ships and carriers. Otherwise, you are likely to get a fleet full of repair ships only, or something equally undesirable.

Even cooler would be allowing multiple fleet types, and specify the general objectives each fleet type would be used for.

Obviously, that would be a major change, and there would have to be flexibility built in to not hold a fleet up if the only available mine sweeper was on the other side of the empire, but it would sure make it easier to get the AI to act more like a human player.