fighter supremacy in solo play

[Pocus]

It starts to be boring... I find the fighters so efficient in early game against the IA that I research always the same things when I start the game.
What do you research early to beat the AI, aside mines? fighters are so good compared to the cost of an early DD fleet.

[Fyron]

Play the TDM modpack. The AIs there use many more Point Defense Cannons, which slaughter fighters wholesale.

[Pocus]

I'm anyway under the impression that the TDM modpack is more up to date than the devnull one.

And also that external races can be included into it whereas you have to rework the AI to do the same under devnull. Am i right?

[oleg]

The single worst AI problem is its inflexibility. It is very easy to make AI that will be almost invulnerable to Fighters, but then human will use normal beam ships and walk over it. Most AIs are made to be (semi)efficient against average, generic opponent. My advice would be not to abuse it Find a good tactic against AI - try another one. Just for roleplaying reasons and simply having fun with SE multitude of approaches

[Q]

Originally posted by oleg:
The single worst AI problem is its inflexibility. It is very easy to make AI that will be almost invulnerable to Fighters, but then human will use normal beam ships and walk over it. Most AIs are made to be (semi)efficient against average, generic opponent.

That is indeed the most important weakness of the AI and I hope this will change in SE V. It should be not that difficult for the AI to analyse the enemy forces and make some very basic adaptations of its designs and constructions.
At the moment the best thing I found is to play a game against several AI empires with very differents ships designs and construction files: One AI will use a lot of fighters, an other ships with long range beams, another will use missiles and lots of PDC, again an other armor or shield skipping weapons ... and so on.
Then I can not use one single design/strategy against all my enemies.

[ April 26, 2003, 14:13: Message edited by: Q ]

[Gryphin]

One way to "self ballence" your play against the AI is to build your ships with PDC and mine sweepers even though you do not need them.

To make it harder. Don't research either till you run into a race that uses them. Sort as a race that never envsioned the existance of space mines, fighters, or Capital Ship Missels.

There are a quite a few other ways to "Fight With One Hand Begind Your Back" if you like we could start another thread.

[ April 26, 2003, 14:19: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

[Grand Lord Vito]

Originally posted by Pocus:
It starts to be boring... I find the fighters so efficient in early game against the IA that I research always the same things when I start the game.
What do you research early to beat the AI, aside mines? fighters are so good compared to the cost of an early DD fleet.

Try AI Campaign MOD by JLS it uses Tactical Fighters and the AI is Very Tough

AI Campaign

[ April 26, 2003, 18:17: Message edited by: Grand Lord Vito ]

[Pocus]

I DL the mod after your recommendation. I have yet to try it but from what I see it is heaviy inspired from Proportion.

Also it seems that the AI are not compatible with the standard or TDM games, so you are limited to an handful of races.

Aside that I will anyway try it, I'm sure there is interesting points in it.

[Grand Lord Vito]

Originally posted by Pocus:

Also it seems that the AI are not compatible with the standard or TDM games, so you are limited to an handful of races.

In regards to Compatible that is why it is a MOD, and TDM does not use Plate armor, combat bridges etc and use the standard fighters you where unhappy with?

JLS is adding all the Races from se4 although AI Campaign has most already and will be Porting Star Trek and Other races as well. But like I said, AIC has been out for a month.

I wanted to help but it tricky and it takes to much time designing an AI files. I tried

[ April 27, 2003, 13:11: Message edited by: Grand Lord Vito ]

[Master Belisarius]

Originally posted by oleg:
The single worst AI problem is its inflexibility. It is very easy to make AI that will be almost invulnerable to Fighters, but then human will use normal beam ships and walk over it. Most AIs are made to be (semi)efficient against average, generic opponent.

Mostly agree with you. Does exist a few near to inteligent reactions: lay mines inside the suns if the AI know the opponents is using sun destroyers, and research mines more fast (to get mine-sweepers), if the opponent was using mines (although I'm not sure if this Last feature was not removed).
As AI modder, always wanted to have a way to MOD some triggers (for example, if the opponent is using many fighters/seekers, include PDC ships in the fleets, if the opponent is using claked ships research sensors more fast), and for this, I suggested some kind of languague to "program" the AI behavior... My wihs/hope is that for SE5 (or SE6?) we could have something like this!