Ai’s use of cap ships bugged?

from Sins Forums

Ai’s use of cap ships bugged?

 

As the topic suggests this is about the AI’s use of cap ships, specifically

(Points refer to 1.12 and entrenchment beta, and all types of unfair ai, with no mods loaded apart from when referenced)

 

 1. Not building sufficient numbers late game

 In real games and simulation (ai only) it is rare for a hard or even unfair ai to build more than 4 caps, even in long games (5 hours) the ai simply will not build cap ships but (overly) favour non cap ships.

We have tried tweaking the ai’s build priorities to get them to build more caps but to no success, and have concluded that it is hard coded

 

 2. Not putting sufficient resources into research that affects cap ships

 The unfair ai’s may sometime have a technological edge early game but will soon lose it, same race, same level (they lose the level advantage later, see next issue) the caps  will simply be weaker in all aspects, due to the ai not spending enough resource on research, this also has a knock on effect on all ai ships and structures

 

 3. Not buying cap ship levels

 After a large battle with an ai, and having killed the flag ship and any other cap ships in the engaging fleet, the replacement cap ships will always be level 1 and will only ever level from combat

 

 

None of these issues are caused by lack of resources, as we have finished games with the unfair ai having a huge number of credits

2,604 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

while I agree with point 3, I'm currently playing a game on a huge random map with 6 hard AIs, and one of the 2 remaining AIs built all 16 capital ships (which got their ass kicked to 7 after one of my incursion in their territory). That same AI is in second place in terms of research (just after me) but he's tailing me very closely.

I think that what affects the number of cap ships built is the kind of AI the enemy is. I realized that an aggressor AI will build a lot of low level ships w/o any kind of research so it can take as many planets as possible in no time. A researcher AI might not build many capital ships, for example.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

I also think the capabilites of the AI is limited to the planets they own or the map size.

I played against 4 unfair AI on a selfmade map giving each player 3 planets in the same configuration earth (home), desert and asteroid.

it was a total joke, even after 2 hours of playtime the AI didn't build more than 1 or 2 capital ships and very small fleets as if it has stopped playing after colonizing the 2 planets.

after deleting out 2 players and giving them the remaining 6 planets to colonize they were a constant pain in the ass.

builing 6 or more capital ships and sending a constant stream of ships attacking my homeworld.

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

There is an additional issue I've seen, which is that even when out numbered (e.g. 4 Sova vs 1 Kortul) the ai will not run with his capital ship, instead he stays and fights until the ship is los and then the surviving frigates run.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Vaihlor, reply 1
while I agree with point 3, I'm currently playing a game on a huge random map with 6 hard AIs, and one of the 2 remaining AIs built all 16 capital ships (which got their ass kicked to 7 after one of my incursion in their territory). That same AI is in second place in terms of research (just after me) but he's tailing me very closely.

I think that what affects the number of cap ships built is the kind of AI the enemy is. I realized that an aggressor AI will build a lot of low level ships w/o any kind of research so it can take as many planets as possible in no time. A researcher AI might not build many capital ships, for example.
End of Vaihlor's quote

 

Ahhhh.... That is Very Interesting!!   :)  I often wondered why the aggressor, research or economy, fortifier(?) or random. I normally play also the hard or unfair, but have seldom play the others, if i did, i might have found myself on the receiving end of an more interesting game, or shall we say a game where i would be suprised by the ai.  Thank you for the interesting info.

-Teal

 

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

sirphoenix also brings an interesting point. That AI I was talking about in my first post had the most planets (33 vs 20 for me and 10 for the other AI), which would perhaps explain why it decided to build 16 capital ships. Give that AI less planets and we could have an entirely different story.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

most of the real games I’ve been playing have been 3 human vs 3-4 ai on a 70-80 planet map so number of planet could be an artificial limit, but if they have the resources to build more they should build more, as if memory serves one of the things that was meant to make the unfair ai stand out was that is had a boost to it's incoming resources (someone correct me if I’m wrong might have been thinking of another game, tooooooo early in the morning)

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

x1.5 extra resources i'm pretty sure

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Tom, reply 3
There is an additional issue I've seen, which is that even when out numbered (e.g. 4 Sova vs 1 Kortul) the ai will not run with his capital ship, instead he stays and fights until the ship is los and then the surviving frigates run.
End of Tom's quote

I haven't played in a bit, but I remember in earlier versions (pre-1.1) this was very exploitable.  Almost regardless of any other considerations, if you focus-fired all your ships on the enemy's capitals, as soon as they were destroyed the fleet would retreat.  Even in a situation where I was obviously losing.