Colonization Fail, fail, fail, ...

[mordachai]

Again, this is totally inevitable until you write code that cares which races goes where, plus code that assigns ships to targets before they've loaded any population - so that targets match colonizer populations 1:1.

One world that went and loaded Teekans for a Zennox (or similar) habitat:

Cold desert bunnies 1.png (6.32 MiB) Viewed 456 times

Another (same game):

Cold desert bunnies 2.png (8.94 MiB) Viewed 456 times

Third (same game):

Cold desert bunnies 3.png (7.66 MiB) Viewed 456 times

I just noticed - because I had queued up 6 worlds - several of which were ice, another continental, and several deserts - but all 6 colonizers had loaded teekans and were blithely blundering forward to colonize all of those worlds with heat-loving teekans...

Because it doesn't look at how-many-orders-for-teekans before trying to fulfill them ALL with teekans (or whatever).

Seriously? Who thinks this is an adequate approach?

[Nightskies]

It seems as though the AI will grab several colony ships to load up for the first or highest priority colonization target, and when it then is loaded up and the target world already has one colony ship headed toward it, the game looks for a new automated target.

Its supposed to unload the inappropriate race and load up the right one, but ... it ... blunders here, just like this. I can't even tell what they're trying to achieve when this happens. Perhaps the issue could be resolved by a colony ship reserving the target world when it goes to load up, instead of when it is 'properly' loaded up?

[mordachai]

... Perhaps the issue could be resolved by a colony ship reserving the target world when it goes to load up, instead of when it is 'properly' loaded up?

This is the only thing that makes any sense to me. Otherwise this blunder is baked-in to the system.

I could see them having those colonizers with the wrong race being unloaded and loading the correct one... but it would repeat the same moronic approach the second time too - so they'd all load the #2 priority race - and again some would be sent, while others would have to unload a 3rd time, repeat ad nauseum.

Unless they "earmark" a world (or at least do a count of how many of each type is fulfilled), this blunder is simply going to repeat itself.

I mean - you CAN get away with not earmarking / not claiming a target first - IFF you do pay attention to "how many colonizers have X race vs. how many targets need X race, and automatically drop down the list to the next race, and so on, when deciding what race to load.

That's totally doable - but something has to happen to fix this, or it is simply going to remain super-fragile. Always make sure you only order one type of target world to be colonizer at any given time. And even then: the automation has lingering bugs where they'll pick up the wrong race even when they have access to the right one for reasons... so - one at a time - and monitor it to be sure it doesn't go sideways on you...

[Lunalis]

i wonder whats so different between colonizers+planets compared to constructors+bases, if its a problem with colonizers.

i mean:
lets say we got 6 colonizers and we assign 6 planets to colonize.
and we have 6 construction ships and we assign 6 bases to be build.

if all 6 construction ships manage to load up the right materials and pick a base to build, why would colonizers not manage to pickup the right peoples for their target?

maybe it needs something like:
if idle -> scan for a job to do
if found a job -> find out whats required for it
if you got a list of stuff you need -> check if what you have loaded is the best for the job
if yes -> do the job... if no -> unload what you have onboard and load the better items

(ofcoruse it needs a ton more checks... are enemies there? do i have enough fuel... etc etc etc etc)

so in both cases they make a list for what they need (items to build a station or colonists for a planet)
and then check if what they got loaded works already (incase they canceled a job earlier and still got items/people on board)
and they check if the teekans on board are the best to use for the job they picked... else they unload them and load the zenox instead.
or the constructor unloads its items and picksup a new batch of what is needed.
(not like i know how it actually already works *shrugs*)