AI ship design not working properly?

[Kylan]

So I have the retrofit prompt in the empire policy screen enabled, but the AI ignores my "decline" when I don't want a particular item on a ship. I'm tired of my ships having assault pods installed because the game doesn't recognize that you are trying to board a ship and will keep shooting it until it explodes anyway. And if I try to manually design ships by deselecting military vessels, then the AI just decides that the design is obsolete because it doesn't have assault pods.

Can we please get a check box for installable tech? This doesn't seem like it should be that difficult to add to the game and would let people cater AI ship design more to their own style without the needing to micromanage each design.

Hopefully this makes enough sense to folks around here [:)]

[hammer58]

Most of your problems stem from not using the game mechanics that already exist properly.
 
Example to board a ship use the capture command instead of the attack command.
 
I think it is hold down the shift key while right clicking on the target.
But look it up in the help menu (?) top left corner of the screen.
Then once the shield is down they will stop attacking and wait for the boarding team to take the ship.
It works if you use the proper commands that being the capture instead of attack command.
 
There are ways to manage the AI as well but I am not good enough at the game yet to be able to explain them all to you.

[Kylan]

I do use shift-right click to bring up the menu and then tell them to capture the target. And even after the shields are down and they've launched pods, sword crossed boarding icon and all that, they still blast it to pieces.

My main complaint though is that the AI installs that tech when I tell it not to from the prompt. And it even likes to mark my personal designs as obsolete just because I don't use them. I try not to research the tech but the game always finds a way to sneak it to me somehow.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: Kylan

I do use shift-right click to bring up the menu and then tell them to capture the target. And even after the shields are down and they've launched pods, sword crossed boarding icon and all that, they still blast it to pieces.

I had the same problems with capturing ships.

[invaderzim]

It seems the AI is a bit overaggressive when it comes to knocking down shields for boarding. There's more discussion here: tm.asp?m=3341820

But back to the OP's original point, it is possible to modify the files that control AI ship design. The files look fairly simple to edit. They are stored in C:\Matrix Games\Distant Worlds\designTemplates\ I'm still figuring out better designs, but here's a sample from an Ackdarian cap ship:

Code: Select all

Shields				;13
 StealthCloak				;1
 TraceScanner				;1
 TroopCompartment			;0
 VectoringEngine				;4
 WeaponArea				;0
 WeaponBeam				;9
 WeaponBombard				;1
 WeaponMissile				;0
 WeaponPhaser				;0
 WeaponRailGun				;0
 WeaponsManufacturingPlant	        ;0
 WeaponsResearchLab			;0
 WeaponSuperBeam				;1
 WeaponTorpedo				;14
 WeaponTractorBeam			;2
 WeaponGravitonBeam			;0
 WeaponAreaGravity			;0

[Plant]

ORIGINAL: Kylan

So I have the retrofit prompt in the empire policy screen enabled, but the AI ignores my "decline" when I don't want a particular item on a ship. I'm tired of my ships having assault pods installed because the game doesn't recognize that you are trying to board a ship and will keep shooting it until it explodes anyway. And if I try to manually design ships by deselecting military vessels, then the AI just decides that the design is obsolete because it doesn't have assault pods.

Can we please get a check box for installable tech? This doesn't seem like it should be that difficult to add to the game and would let people cater AI ship design more to their own style without the needing to micromanage each design.

Hopefully this makes enough sense to folks around here [:)]

That shouldn't happen. I unticked the prompt for retrofit in my case, in case I accidently click yes. It sounds like you have ship design automated. I left it automated for everything but the military ships I design.

How do you design by deselecting btw? I click on manually upgrade ship, or copy as new or create new.

Invadezim, that is interesting, I wonder what influence the race policy have on ship design. Seems like none at all.

...
Edit: I see, they must have changed the Policy options from Legends. Before, there weas ship design policy settings for weapons and armour and defence.

[Bingeling]

The design files decides what components the AI will use. That was what Invadezim showed on example of. The racial policy focuses are used for automated research.

[henri51]

I am not sure it is this, but I noticed that if you open a ship design and change it or not, that design is marked as obsolete unless you "save" it.So every time Iopen a ship design, I save it whether I have modified it or not.

Henri

[invaderzim]

The design files decides what components the AI will use. That was what Invadezim showed on example of. The racial policy focuses are used for automated research.

AFAIK, you don't have a lot of control over what the AI researches unless you pick it yourself. You can tell the AI to go for raw power and you will probably get weapons like Impact Blasters and higher damage torpedoes instead of the long range branch. But you could probably also do weird things like not emphasizing Beams and tell the AI to beam ships which would probably result in things like big capital ships with low end Maxos Blasters.

Also, I don't think you can get the AI to completely fill out a hull. It will just try to put the number of items on the hull that you specify and build the design if it can.



Henri, as for ship design, the button to manually upgrade a ship design will make a copy and mark the old version as obsolete. The edit button should just edit the ship design without obsoleting anything.

[Plant]

When I click on Manually Upgrade Design, then cancel, it will obsolete the original ship, leaving me with no "latest design" of that type.

[paShadoWn]

Well dw ai design was fubar, is fubar and will be forever. Dev perk. Manual design and manual retrofit from ship list are the ways to go, as always. Leaving design automated is pointless because my ships 1v3 ai designed of equal tech level. Scripted ships never have enough shields, specialized roles and alphastrike.

[Numdydar]

But I actually like this feature [:)]. The reason is becuase this way my ships and the AI ships are designed along the same logic. So the only major difference is where I send the ships. I know I can design my own ships and make them much better than the AI. But I figure the AI can use a more level playing field to make my games better 'balanced'. Allowing AI designs to fight other AI designs just seems to make the game a lot better. At least for me [:)]. I do manually control of research though [:)]. No sense give everything over to the AI lol.

[paShadoWn]

Hmm know what? You can give control of fleet movements to ai as well. To level field even more. And enjoy the show. Thats what i did with Sorian bots in SupCom after reading accolades about them being uber, using neuronets and all that. Took me about twenty games to make a conclusion: Sorian bots are fubar. They do a template and random stuff around it. Thats all. The only way to play DW for me is how fast and efficient i clean scripted chaff from galaxy. It is the same as practicing cs in LoL. On hardest difficulty it is akin to tower defence: script spawned waves of creeps that suicide on my defences. On hard it is like jungling: finding creeps and farming them. If you aggro too many creeps at once you may actually go down. Same logic? you mean "random fubar" right?

What DW really needs is multiplayer. So it ceases to be grindfest.

[Falokis]

ORIGINAL: invaderzim

It seems the AI is a bit overaggressive when it comes to knocking down shields for boarding. There's more discussion here: tm.asp?m=3341820

But back to the OP's original point, it is possible to modify the files that control AI ship design. The files look fairly simple to edit. They are stored in C:\Matrix Games\Distant Worlds\designTemplates\ I'm still figuring out better designs, but here's a sample from an Ackdarian cap ship:

Code: Select all

Shields				;13
 StealthCloak				;1
 TraceScanner				;1
 TroopCompartment			;0
 VectoringEngine				;4
 WeaponArea				;0
 WeaponBeam				;9
 WeaponBombard				;1
 WeaponMissile				;0
 WeaponPhaser				;0
 WeaponRailGun				;0
 WeaponsManufacturingPlant	        ;0
 WeaponsResearchLab			;0
 WeaponSuperBeam				;1
 WeaponTorpedo				;14
 WeaponTractorBeam			;2
 WeaponGravitonBeam			;0
 WeaponAreaGravity			;0

This is the answer to your problem, OP. I've played with this new feature quite a bit and it works really well. It will add each component, in the numbers specified, as it becomes possible. It automatically adds all the required components (life support, command center, etc). The only problem is you need to watch how big your ships are designed.

If you don't want a ship to have pods, remove them from this list. If you want them to have a weapon, add it. It will automatically upgrade your designs as your tech improves.