Can the ai handle area weapons?

[fruitgnome]

My points are:
1. friendly fire?
2. right choice or would non-area weapons better
3. effectivness

I ask because I don't know if I should disable area weapons or not in my mod. If I disable area weapons than also the ancient area weapons.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I have not studiet this too well yet, but in general it seem to be fine. Occasional friendly fire will happen and fighters can be among them. Not sure if the AI are intentionally trying to avoid friendly casualties but it seem at least work ok. But I need more experience with them to say for sure.

[Nightskies]

I did a play with Area weapons as a focus, with Teekan. They were effective in mostly automated hands, and ultimately performed similarly to torpedo weapons. Enough so that you could more-or-less classify them as the Large variant to torpedoes. Overall, Torpedoes are more reliable. Some races would do well to prefer Area over Torpedoes though, especially the Zenox. Regardless, if you get your hands on a more advanced Area weapon, use it.

Friendly fighters get destroyed. I tried giving fighters long-range weapons, which helps them survive longer, but they still get wiped out by friendly fire. So don't use Area with a lot of Fighters- but don't forgo them entirely, at least for the interceptors.

Using a cautious stance proved fruitful. It made it more likely to get hits on multiple ships as they chased targets, and less likely for friendly fire. It doesn't eliminate it, but minimizes it.

[fruitgnome]

Good 2 know. Thx. So I will not disable area weapons.

[fruitgnome]

I think area weapons would be good to use if friendly fire would be off.

Edit: With ai I also mean the ships and bases of your own empire.