I'm currently in a testing game, and I've found that the AI is fond of using a few Medium ship designs which are notably lacking in the move-speed stat.
Though the Yor faction I've found making this mistake have stronger fleets than the oposing force, they are being outmaneuvered, with starbases, planetary guardian ships, and troop transports being picked off by their faster enemies.
Please not it is turn 352. The Yor in question do have Ion drives available, but are building these ship designs which don't incorporate them.
I took a look through the blueprints, and the issue is caused by the CorvetteL blueprint (see bottom left of screenshot) having its InterStellarDrive component too late in the blueprint, given how little priority the AI gives to miniaturization. It basically starts with a beam RoF component and then loads up on 6+ beams. This gives the design a very high threat/cost and threat/mass ratio, which I believe is why the AI favours it.
Another design they favour is the Paladin, which also will quite simply not ever get an InterStellarDrive to raise it from its base speed with how its blueprint is configured.
Meta problem: Most people will not be experiencing this issue, or at least not as severely, because currently the stock AI cannot build -L variant ships due to a typo/error in ComponentClassDefs rendering them un-accessible in blueprints. I mod-fixed that issue myself, and the result is the AI favouring these ships. The Paladins though are available to both players and AI just fine.
If the ShipClass, Blueprint, and ComponentType issues are fixed, this bug will appear
A save of the above game is here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45479330/GC3/Soak-test%20AI%20at%20war2.GC3Sav
Please do forgive my constant hammering on Blueprint issues, problems in how the AI designs ships just cause all kind of headaches in all facets of the game.
Keep it up. Surely this can be acknowledged, right SD?
I haven't modded anything, and they love move 3 ships. Especially their carriers. All the races seem to use them.
Late game in my most recent game, on an insane-sized map, and their ships generally were move 3, with a few that were move 10-11. Makes them easy to pick off, as you said.
I've also noticed that they seem to attack once, then stop, even if they have move left over.
Wow ... so you found a bug that will need to be fixed after a current bug is fixed? Great work TurielD! I hope the devs will pay close attention to the work you are doing for patches.
Yup, that looks about right. Carrier are currently set to get 2 carrier modules and some defenses before they get a drive component. As even Large ships only start with 100 capacity and carrier modules take up 70 (except for players who take the -30% supportmodule mass tech, which the AI rarely does), the AI is very unlikely to have enough space left over for an engine.
Should be resolved when AI get Huge ships, but unless you're playing against Genius AI or better that's unlikely to happen below T400 or so.
As for the only-attacking-once issue, that's outside of my expertise, but doesn't surprise me
I will agree that the Ai are not taking advantage of engines on LARGER+ maps. I am in a game right, as usual Insane and I am at war with a powerful custom ai. He out powers me by 300 points but his fleets are moving 4. I checked his fleet composition and all his ships move at 7 or 9 except ONE ship, which moves at 4. So he has made faster ships but handicaps himself by including a slower one.
As a suggestion, on maps larger than HUGE I would have the AI prioritize Engines first then other components. Personally I was only putting in one engine on my ship designs until a poster mentioned that he has more fun and is more effective with at least two engines. So now on big maps I always put in two engines at the expense of anything else.
IMHO, when they fix this, people will be clamoring to have sensor boats back.
My reasoning:
1. Assume that the AI finally learns to start putting large movement points on their ships.
2. Assume that sensor ships have been nerfed such that we can no longer see very far into the FOW.
When that happens, the AI will finally be able to do to us, what we do, to it. Attack from the FOW before they can react. The human reaction will be to build a bunch of senor boats(buoys, stations, ships) and then have to manage them all so that we can have coverage and see that the AI is up to. We will have to even position them IN the AI territory to see what is going on in the AI ZoI. Further angering them.
I'm not looking forward to having to micro-manage an integrated web of sensor stations to get my G2 (or S2 or whatever we want to call it)
That being said, they DO need to fix the slow ships problem for the AI.
So nerf both sensors and engines so they don't stack. The goal should be a scaleable-by-map-size sensor and move speed to keep sensors generally about twice the max move speed of ships at the same tech level. Problem solved.
I will disagree on limiting the movement in any way unless it scales UP with map size. Currently if you have MAX engine tech a medium warship with only two engines will take 30 turns or more to get 3/4 of the way across an Insane map. Crazy unfun.
Personally I am happy with stacking modules and the linear effects it brings.
Slightly easier said than done, unfortunately. This would require the AI to have a whole separate blueprint list for each ship for larger maps... that's quite a lot of work. As it is, the current blueprints have needed some love since 1.0 (probably earlier, but noone noticed).
If we get a Dev Steam this week, lets ask Paul if he is going to give the Blue prints a balance pass/review. I assume that is VERY tedious work and since release I doubt he would want to tackle it. Maybe we can get Adam to do it!
Uhh, noone noticed?
I reported bugs on the ship classes and blue prints in early Januari (at that was version 0.61). I even made replies to a thread (Designing the Initial Starting Ships) explaining how to make custom ship classes with custom blue prints, and why i did it (because the standard blueprints were bad). And the problems with it.
So my name must be noone. But noone is perfect and since i am not perfect, i can't be noone.
Uhh, noone noticed?I reported bugs on the ship classes and blue prints in early Januari (at that was version 0.61). I even made replies to a thread (Designing the Initial Starting Ships) explaining how to make custom ship classes with custom blue prints, and why i did it (because the standard blueprints were bad). And the problems with it.So my name must be noone. But noone is perfect and since i am not perfect, i can't be noone.
Well aren't you melodramatic/poetic? By 'noone' I'm kinda meant 'noone on the dev team' hehe
That's a good thread. I wasn't in the beta, looks like you guys did some nice work!
As it stands I'm still getting game hangs when using custom starting ships, which are defined in ShipStaticBlueprintDefs.xml. Recently discovered there are two different debug.err versions, so maybe I'll be able to figure out why that was going wrong...
Poetic of course
I have no problems whatsoever with custom starting ships. Do you have a link to the xml files you modded for this (or a forum link)?
If I try to reference this one, which is a direct copy of a normal starting survey ship except for the '2' at the end of the name, the game won't get past 'creating galaxy' for me.
Though, last time I tried was 1.01 I think.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes" ?><StaticShipBlueprintListxmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="../Schema/StaticShipBlueprintDefs.xsd"><!-- Created with the Gal Civ 3 Editor --><!-- StaticShipBlueprintDefs.xml -->
<StaticShipBlueprint> <InternalName>SurveyStaticBlueprint2</InternalName> <ShipHullType>Medium</ShipHullType> <Role>Support</Role> <CanBeBuilt>false</CanBeBuilt> <ShipComponents>HyperDrive</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>HyperDrive</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>BasicLifeSupport</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>BasicLifeSupport</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>BasicLifeSupport</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>SurveyModule</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>Lasers</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>Stinger</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>Railgun</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>HullPlating</ShipComponents> </StaticShipBlueprint> </StaticShipBlueprintList>
It this all you modded? Because if it is, then you are missing a few things.
1. It must have a valid blueprint. Your is ok, but for my test i have renamed your ship to TurielDSurveyStatic for clarity. And stashed it in its own xml file.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes" ?><StaticShipBlueprintListxmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="../Schema/StaticShipBlueprintDefs.xsd"><!-- Created with the Gal Civ 3 Editor --><!-- TurielDStaticShipBlueprintDefs.xml -->
<StaticShipBlueprint> <InternalName>TurielDSurveyStaticBlueprint</InternalName> <ShipHullType>Medium</ShipHullType> <Role>Support</Role> <CanBeBuilt>false</CanBeBuilt> <ShipComponents>HyperDrive</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>HyperDrive</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>BasicLifeSupport</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>BasicLifeSupport</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>BasicLifeSupport</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>SurveyModule</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>Lasers</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>Stinger</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>Railgun</ShipComponents> <ShipComponents>HullPlating</ShipComponents> </StaticShipBlueprint>
</StaticShipBlueprintList>
2. For a starting ship to appear the blueprint must be must be referenced in the FactionDefs.xml as a <StartingShips> element.
<StartingShips>TurielDSurveyStaticBlueprint</StartingShips>
3. It must have a ship class that references this blue print. I copied the TerranStartingSurvey class. I did not bother to define custom name and description strings for the test. I assume you know how to make those.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes" ?><ShipClassListxmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="../Schema/ShipClassDefs.xsd"><!-- Created with the Gal Civ 3 Editor --><!-- TurielDShipClassDefs.xml -->
<!-- Begin Ship --> <ShipClass> <InternalName>TurielDStartingSurvey</InternalName> <DisplayName>TerranStartingSurvey_Class_Name</DisplayName> <Description>TerranStartingSurvey_Dec</Description> <ThumbnailOverride>Terran_Survey_01T.png</ThumbnailOverride> <ShipDesign>Terran_Survey_01T</ShipDesign> <AIShipClass>Survey</AIShipClass> <StrategicIcon>SurveyShip</StrategicIcon> <StaticBlueprintDef>TurielDSurveyStaticBlueprint</StaticBlueprintDef> </ShipClass>
</ShipClassList>
4. The ship class must be attached to the faction ship style (FactionShipStyleSetDefs.xml)
<ShipClass>TurielDStartingSurvey</ShipClass>
5. Start a new game and watch your extra survey ship appear.
Huh, I had the ship class, why on earth does it have to be in the Factiondefs? I'd changed the reference in FactionShipStyleDefs and ShipClassDefs. Just like every other ship...
That makes no sense, you can't even change the factiondefs for custom factions, unless you manually mod one (which I have, incidentally, but most won't). I get that static blueprints are a little different, and that starting ships could be called differently - but then why even have the starting ships in the shipstyle list a blueprint?
Hmm.
If I don't change the Factiondefs, I get an endless repeat of this:
Debug Message: WARNING: SpawnStarterShipsCallback couldn't find a ship design of blueprint SurveyStaticBlueprint for player index 0Debug Message: WARNING: SpawnStarterShipsCallback couldn't find a ship design of blueprint SurveyStaticBlueprint for player index 0Debug Message: WARNING: SpawnStarterShipsCallback couldn't find a ship design of blueprint SurveyStaticBlueprint for player index 0Debug Message: WARNING: SpawnStarterShipsCallback couldn't find a ship design of blueprint SurveyStaticBlueprint for player index 0Debug Message: WARNING: SpawnStarterShipsCallback couldn't find a ship design of blueprint SurveyStaticBlueprint for player index 0Debug Message: WARNING: SpawnStarterShipsCallback couldn't find a ship design of blueprint SurveyStaticBlueprint for player index 0Debug Message: WARNING: SpawnStarterShipsCallback couldn't find a ship design of blueprint SurveyStaticBlueprint for player index 0Debug Message: WARNING: SpawnStarterShipsCallback couldn't find a ship design of blueprint SurveyStaticBlueprint for player index 0
And if I change the factiondefs, it works...
Goodbye icky kinetic weapon, hello deflector!
Learn something new every day. Thanks for your help!
TBH, if I hadn't manually created a faction XML rather than use a custom faction, I don't think there's any way I ever could have found this out on my own. As it stands, I probably wouldn't have found it anyway...
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