Alien crew composition problem

[EricLarsen]

One thing I've noticed that the program doesn't do well is set crew composition. After losing a few ships I finally discovered that my ship's crew compositions picked by the program varied wildly for the same ship class. If I let the program set the crew sometimes a ship would get lots of engineers but mostly they would have none aboard. Then I started watching the alien ships and checking their crew compositions and I invariably found they consistently lack engineers. I usually see them with dysfunctional equipment aboard just before they go into battle, and then the whole ship ebcomes dysfunctional as I easily blow it away with my perfectly functioning ship. I'm not talking about ships with an untrained crew, I'm talking ships with 100% trained crews that are 100% navy personnel.

Ships with 100% navy personnel just don't last long. While it helps them to get the first shot, the first shot is meaningless if the guns don't work. I think that the program should have some template for each ship class and should use this template for each ship of that class. The template should allow for enough engineers to keep the ship's systems running well, maybe a security guy or two, and then the rest navy. I'm not sure of exactly how many enginers it takes to screw in a light bulb in SUDG, but I'm sure Andrew knows and could come up with some decent crew composition templates for the AI to use.:rolleyes:
Eric Larsen

[dragoniv]

hey, at least you SEE aliens on their ships!

I've gone into battles against ships having 1 of a possible 25 crewmembers...they make inviting targets for takeovers! Aliens are almost constants undermanned, whilst I tend to refill my crews after each and every battle.

[Andrew Ewanchyna]

Dragoniv, sounds like your talking about an earlier version. Fixed the undermanned AI crews in v2.0, could you check your version (top-right of the intro screen).

[dragoniv]

you're right--I had been playing with v1.0 until just last night. I guess my new game will end up being a little different, eh?

[EricLarsen]

Originally posted by Andrew Ewanchyna
Dragoniv, sounds like your talking about an earlier version. Fixed the undermanned AI crews in v2.0, could you check your version (top-right of the intro screen).

Andrew,
You are correct in that I don't see undermanned crews, but what I do see are crews that vary wildly. On the same class of ship like a frigate sometimes I'll see no engineers and sometimes I'll see as many as 9! That's a rather wide variance and either way I win because no engineers means stuff won't be working right when I fight them and 9 engineers means I'll get in the first shot and their engineers won't be able to fix the damage I cause.

Currently I'm using the following crew composition logic:
scout - 1 eng 1 sec rest navy
gunboat - 2 eng 1 sec rest navy
corvette - 3 eng 1 sec rest navy
frigate - 4 eng 1 sec rest navy
destroyer - 5 eng 2 sec rest navy
cruiser - 6 eng 2 sec rest navy

So far this has been very effective for me as my ship systems are always online and I always get the first shot with standoffs. It sure would be nice to see better alien ship crews that will give a better account of themselves in battle. Please tweak the AI alien crew compositions so that they are consistently better than they currently aren't.
Eric Larsen