AI

[Cruis.In]

anyway to get a hard non cheating AI? Kinda mastered stuff on max difficulty with very aggressive.

The AI problem in most my games is there ships suck. There attacks are sound, their ;thinkinhg; but they lack the hard ware. I think a fundamental flaw to the AI is the ship design. The various ship classes have pre determined hab/life support. it seems once the hab/life support limit is reached on a ship the AI won't add anymore in order to be able to put more stuff on. For example in mid game I'll have escorts/frigates and destroyers with 2000-2500 shields, 4-550 firepower and about 5-6 speed. Nothing the AI has can beat even a modest fleet of that. I do not stop at the default space given, when I am designing my ship and I see it needs more hab/life support, I put it on and keep going until I am comfortable with the shields/weapons.

It means the ship cost a helluva lot more than a normal frigate etc, but it gets the job done. And if it came down to numbers, the AI still doesn't produce 4-5 ships to my 1. Never seen an AI fleet bigger than about 50 ships, even from the most powerful empire at the time in the game.

AI needs to build beyond the default, or all ships need to have a cap on life/hab modules. You are given a certain limit of space to work in, and I think that this should apply to a certain limit of hab/life modules per ship hull size.

There's no way I should be able to create a destroyer as powerful as a capital ship. Yet I can do this. If based on your hull size that you are working with you could not put on more than a certain number of hab/life modules, it would come down once again to the strategy of your design. Do you use long range/short range, do you load up on armor if the enemy is using missiles? (50% bonus to damage reduction on armor vs missles). Do you go with fast speed? Heavy shielding? But there's no real either or, there's I want all, give me all.

So instead of having to work within a limit, you are unlimited, except only by size of the ship. Perhaps, each ship tier, destroyer/cruiser etc etc, should have a specific ship size, and ship size research should not apply across the board to any ship you build.

I.e destroyers should be and remain at 250 - 350 - 450 as you go up, and cruisers are 550-650-750. Cap ships 750-850-950.

Right now the fact that you can just make any ship hull as big as the current space limit, again just leaves it without strategy. I have so much money always in every game, that making a 20k destroyer or frigate is nothing, so you can't even say that cost to build/maintain is prohibitive.

Perhaps hab/life modules should increase in the amount of 'size' they add to the ship.

But regardless bottom line, as long as I can build a 1500 big destroyer, there is no difference between it and a 1500 cap ship. The size max should be based on the hull. Otherwise the AI can never win. Unless you train him to put on more hab/life support so he can fit more guns/shields/armor etc.

thoughts?

[Cruis.In]

once mid game comes around , its usually been peace for me. I keep a low military. this invites attack, people attack. I build my death squad of 50 ships, with the above mentioned characteristics. A frigate with 2500 shields and 450 firepower, compared to the AI frigates of 300 shields and 120 firepower. And I send the fleet and maraud through all his systems as fast as fuel will allow. I also put on about 1000 fuel, so that I can maraud for a while, a good 3-4 systems completely dead.

Not much challenge, with everything at its most difficult, I get rich soon enough, following my stategies. Suffer no real setbacks (yes I suffered alot in the first week of playing, but tby the second week I had learned from all my mistakes etc) and now there isn't much challenge.

I am going to try modifying the game files, so that you hab/life modules cost a lot or you can't put more than a certain amount on a ship depending on the hull type. Then play a game from there. Where my ships are equal to the AI in shields/weapons. THe only difference being what weapons I choose, speed, etc what strategies i employ for those weapons, and not the amount of weapons I load on.

So we'll be on even keel in terms of firepower and shields and stuff, or Ill have to sacrifice one for the other, lots of shields = less firepower, or lots of firepower = poor shields, instead of having impenetrable shields and firepower of a dreadnought on my frigates.

I can only imagine this will make it a challenge since now I won't be able to destroy an entire empire with a 50 man fleet.

Like I said, I think the AI attacks, plans etc, is sound having read all the changes to the AI in legends and seeing it in action, it keeps you on your toes if you aren't fully prepared or can't see the future. But it just can't kill your ships.

I did a game recently where I didn't build a fleet. Only had 10 ships, AI declared on me and proceeded to kill all my gas stations. Surgically denied me fuel. But by the time my 100 man fleet comes along, because my space sports have 30 construction yards each, so I cam build such a fleet within 5 minutes, his invasion is reversed, and his empire wasted.

The whole design thing seems to be the flaw. Being able to build a starport with that amount too, so you can build a fleet so quickly.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Cruis.In
A frigate with 2500 shields and 450 firepower...

You must get some amazing pirates!

[Cruis.In]

eh? That's my ships. Not pirate ships.

[Bingeling]

The pirates use the escort-frigates-destroyer (and cruiser?) designs of the empires.

If you make an amazingly fast and powerful frigate, you will find the pirate version sooner or later (since the AI will fail to kill it

[feelotraveller]

Talking about amazingly fast, there must be problems when 5-6 speed ships run out of fuel.  How in hell do they catch up to their fueling sources?  Seems to me it takes them an age even when they have fuel... heavens forbid should they try to do so in a nebulae...  [:D]

[Cruis.In]

scrap them and build a new one

[vonHart]

Ain't this an economic problem rather than an AI one?
I mean, if you can afford to build a complete new fleet once the old one runs out of fuel to steam roll other empires, I don't think that the problem lies in the inability of the AI to do the same. Rather in the possibility to do so in the first place. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to increase resource consumption or decrease resource production?

[Bingeling]

Playing my AAR, I notice quite large build suggestions from the AI once in a while. This is builds to make use of money stored which did not happen in the past (900k on hand, -3k cashflow - no building).

I have had 700k, suggested build 150k. If I actually built the 30 or whatever destroyer that equals, I am sure the rest of the money pile would shrink quite a bit.

I get suggestions to buy tech for cash. I wonder if this is from AI that is cash strapped, or if it just happens. I think the accumulation of wealth is a clear weakness, but it does not prevent the game from being fun.

[jpwrunyan]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

The pirates use the escort-frigates-destroyer (and cruiser?) designs of the empires.

If you make an amazingly fast and powerful frigate, you will find the pirate version sooner or later (since the AI will fail to kill it

So make one super strong frigate and then ally with the pirates and let them attack the AI for you.

[ASHBERY76]

The A.I just follows its own agenda with the policy files and does not react to anything happening in the actual game.This is why with the bloated economy you can easilly outbuild your enemies and win the war before you go bust.Look at the A.I economy in the editor and they are usually swimming in cash but are happily in their own little world ignoring the 100 ships you built that month.

The A.I also struggles with fuel logistics meaning fleets are stretched out because they have no strategic fuel bases postioned on borders, like a good player does.

[Cruis.In]

well the AI has lots of money on the higher difficulty settings as well.

[Cruis.In]

i dont out build him. I have as many ships as him. Just that one of my ships can beat 10 of his