Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Lihnit23

ORIGINAL: Icemania
Note to self: Try using DisallowedResearchArea tomorrow ... might be another way to improve AI Weapon Research focus.

A much better way to improve AI research is to use DisallowedComponentIDs. For example, I modded the Boskaras to only use rail guns and their race specific torps. They completely ignore all of the beams past maxos blasters (I need the maxos blasters to get to ion defenses), ion pulse, gravity stuff, fighters, non-race torps, assault pods, and assault missiles (I need earlier missiles to get point defense).

I put the line in as follows: DisallowedComponentIds ;1,3,2,106,110,115,116,118,119,113,117,114,108,5,6,7,8,16,105,11,12

ORIGINAL: Tcby
Just got around to reading all this. Good work Ice for doing these tests and reporting the effects of minor changes. Big thanks to to Erik and Elliot for being open to suggestions and active in this area. The biggest problem I'm having at the moment is that I often lose incentive to finish my games after a somewhat early point. This is because I prefer to start in prewarp for thematic reasons, but the ability of the AI to keep pace in terms of research and colony growth is very limited. Because of this I tend to have more challenging (but less immersive) games from a classic start.

I do believe that the AI is fundamentally good; small changes to exploration priority, spaceport design, and taxation policy will surely make a great difference. As Ice has demonstrated.

As a side note, I got a very vivid image from Ice here:
"[puts head under the water and screams]"
...I laughed out loud.

ORIGINAL: Tom_Holsinger
DW2 letting players similarly mod the AI would add enormous amount to the game's legs.

ORIGINAL: Spidey
@ Ice
How about using player stunts? If players can have fun with labs on mines then why can't the AI? If we're cutting costs by throwing scanners on mines instead of state bases then why can't the AI? And wouldn't this also serve to ensure research capacity without resulting in the AI going bankrupt?

ORIGINAL: Icemania

ORIGINAL: Lihnit23

ORIGINAL: Icemania
Note to self: Try using DisallowedResearchArea tomorrow ... might be another way to improve AI Weapon Research focus.

A much better way to improve AI research is to use DisallowedComponentIDs. For example, I modded the Boskaras to only use rail guns and their race specific torps. They completely ignore all of the beams past maxos blasters (I need the maxos blasters to get to ion defenses), ion pulse, gravity stuff, fighters, non-race torps, assault pods, and assault missiles (I need earlier missiles to get point defense).

I put the line in as follows: DisallowedComponentIds ;1,3,2,106,110,115,116,118,119,113,117,114,108,5,6,7,8,16,105,11,12

Sounds great but I cannot get it to work.

I tried to do the opposite ... disallow a bunch of components so the AI would focus more on beams ... and ended up with a bunch of technologies on the disallowed list like Advanced Area Weapons.


'Disallowed ComponentIds: comma-separated list of component Id values that cannot be researched by this race
DisallowedComponentIds ;4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,19,21,24,26,27,106,107,108,110,111,112,113,114,115,116,117,118,119,126,127,128


I also set the following:

'Disallowed Research Areas 1,2,3: areas that this race cannot research: 0=None, 1=Torpedoes, 2=Missiles, 3=Area Weapons, 4=Ion Weapons, 5=Fighters, 6=Armor, 7=Hyper Disruption, 8=Sensors
DisallowedResearchArea1 ;2
DisallowedResearchArea2 ;3
DisallowedResearchArea3 ;5

ORIGINAL: Tcby

4 years in, and all the races have performed more or less the same research:
pulse/maxos/improved maxos,
assault tactics + basic armour -> armoured ground assault->either battlefield sabotage or 2nd tier armour.
fighters->light interceptors->tactical interceptors

No research in disallowed fields yet.

edit: This is without specifying tech focus or disallowed research in the race.txt

6 years in, all AI continue to drill down into troop tech. No interest in rail guns or missiles (the only available weapon tech, except for the last improvement to the maxos) yet.