Corellon's Scripts, Suggestions and Bug Reports

Corellon · Space Emperor Joined: Jan 21, 2008

As you might have read on the website unnamed has graciously given to me the following races: Sergetti, Ukratal, Abbidon, Amon'krie, and the Norak for use with my scripts

Just a little introduction here for now, I'll update whenever I have more information to add.

The main focus of my scripts has always been to try and approach a more humanlike level of play, my scripts by nature are defensively orientated and perhaps might not pressure as much as a offensive race but hopefully will prove more of a challenge to conquer.

Just to note that for bug reports and suggestions I request that they only be from games that have started fresh from at least 1.08 and SE 1.66.

I'm aware that at the current the short game (early turns) is lacking a issue I'm currently focusing on addressing, my focus previously was too much on late game interactions and strategy I realize. For the most part the scripts (as of current) do better in a roomier universe with fewer races, it can provide a decent / interesting 1v1 or 3 player game, but lacks the support to adjust to 10+ player games (which I'm currently adjusting the code to as well).

Also hoping to adjust the racial setups for the next release to take better advantage of code changes and optimizations.

As I said my concept has been a "offence through defense" type of setup, so don't expect huge waves of frequent attacks, but rather and more progressive expansion where you'd have to fight back for every inch lost. At least that is my hope that I'll be able to accomplish some day, still a ways to go, expectially as I said in a larger more crowded universe (where it's currently hit or miss if it can manage to dig itself in intime)

Corellon

HenkBrouwer · Space Emperor Joined: Oct 24, 2005

Maybe you could let them research and develop mines as one of their first priorities, it does fit their defensive nature, and it would give them a way to properly defend their systems, at low cost. Their enemies won't be able to attack them untill they have minesweepers, wich effectivelly will keep them safe for most of the early game. You could even use the minesweepers more offensively, to claim uncolonized systems and planets further away.

HenkBrouwer · Space Emperor Joined: Oct 24, 2005

The amonkrie defend their colonies well in my current game, I'm taking heavy losses while trying to take out their defence space stations and weapon platforms
I just ran into a design that could use some improvement though.

I just ran into an amonkrie satellite carrier that launched satellites without ordnance, the carrier did not have ordnance storage components, and the launched satellites were useless as a result. (I guess the satellites themselves must have run out of supplies elsewhere, but I wouldn't know how)

Unnamed · Moderator Joined: Dec 30, 2007

Hey Corellon,

I noticed in one recent game some weapon platforms didnt have any point defense. Not sure if this always happens or simply a specific instance. They defended very well vs. ships but fighters went unchallenged.

-Unnamed

Corellon · Space Emperor Joined: Jan 21, 2008

Henk:
I'll look into satellite carriers and supply / ordanence, I haven't messed much with carriers yet leaving them "bonus" still for when units get moved around. Mines were supposed to have been researched earlier and used more often, however I've realized a issue in the old stock method which selects which ships / units are presented for constructions, I've always meant to rewrite that function but didn't want to undertake such a core change without fixing several other issues first. There were also several circumstances that could resualt in units not being designed without a full complement of weapons, engines or extras (depending on traded tech, ship size or avaiable items taking priority) which has been rectified (I think)

Unnamed:

The nature of PD changed a couple times in the revisions I sent you, I was in the process of rewritting it and it's possible weapon platforms got avoided being units rather then ships, in general though I have been tuning the effectiveness of PD and I don't believe it should no longer be a issue (I Laughed in once test game when a colony ship flew towards one of the colonies of your races, wiped out the satellites that were there for defence before running off)

I'm just finishing off alot of changes that have gone a long way towards improving survivability and increasing it's offensive capabilities (It will no longer sit "idle" and wait to be attacked). still doing some final tuning and balancing and awaiting a test in a larger universe with more opponents (which I have to run at home, my laptop can't run 8+ empires) to see the resualts. Defence has been further prioritized in ways that should improve survivibility at all stages, but more particually in the early game where my previous scripts tended to neglect "simple" defences in favor of a more complex (but longer to implement) plan.

Unnamed · Moderator Joined: Dec 30, 2007

Bumping a post under Mod Bugs from LordZsar1

Here I have got a Sergetti colony ship and I really cannot say if it's loadout is faulty or as desired:
1x cristalline armour (10)
10x contra - terrene engine (1)
1x rock colony (1)
1x shield generator (6)
28x supply storage (2)
1x energy refractor (6)
1x bridge
1x life support system (4)
1x crew quarters (1)
1x basis sensors (5)

Keep up the good work.

-Unnamed

LordZsar1 · Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 4:41 pm Post subject:

Only partly interesting, but not uninteresting at all.
Symptoms: Almost no activity and the same problem on my own side.

- colonisation in times of short ressources severely aggravates the situation
(the first things to be build on a new colony are satellites and weapon plattforms - these increase the maintenace cost and if that is near it's limit, AI will stop building before additional conveying machines are constructed; I tried to counter a shortness of ressources - minerals and radioactive materials - by manual colonisation but all I got was a big amount of empty planets on which nothing is built; this problem can solely be solved by the player's direct intervention, so any fully AI controlled empire is lost, should it arise;
this bug affects "aggressive" ministers and seems to affect Norak and Ukratal, but not in "high technology cost" games)

- although frequently demanding removal of colonies from systems, AI never does itself
(Situation: Ukra-Tal, Cue Cappa and my empire occupied a system, without anyone having a treaty with anyone else; Ukra-Tal got one colony, Cue Cappa got five, I got three; I wanted both to retreat, none did; Cue Cappa behaved right - possessing superior numbers, but Ukra-Tal had no chance to hold themselves and should have retreated; this bug may be related to bug nine; Corellon informed;
this bug seems to affect all pure AIs)

LordZsar1 · Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 7:45 am Post subject:

The Sergetti try to attack my planets within a contested system with this ship design:

Scout Ship
Frigate (250 kT)
- 4x "Armor" (4)
- 12x "Ion Engine" (1)
- 14x "Supply Storage" (1)
- 1x "Bridge" (1)
- 1x "Life Support" (1)
- 1x "Crew Quarters" (1)
- 1x "Basic Sensors" (1)

These unarmed entities should not attempt to attack anything.

Corellon · Space Emperor Joined: Jan 21, 2008

That was most likely a scout ship and either it had scouted everywhere, it was a obsolete design that it wanted to dispose of, or it's pathing was messed with by the game (I've seen the auto pathing move units though places it really shouldn't for some reason)

I don't think there is anything particually wrong with the design, it seems to me to be more of a issue with the pathing if it's happening repeatedly (and nothing I can do about the pathing a ship takes)

It's definitily a scout from the design specs, so it shouldn't be attacking at all unless as I said your planet "got in the way"

HenkBrouwer · Space Emperor Joined: Oct 24, 2005

A small bug report, I just ran into a Norak troop design without weapons, they were militia troops, defending a recently founded colony.
It carried these components:

4 small armor I
4 nuclear engines I
1 small combat sensor I
1 Troop cockpit I

Corellon · Space Emperor Joined: Jan 21, 2008

Henk,

I'll check that out, I haven't really played much with troops so I admit it might have excaped my notice.

In general, how are they faring against you and the other races? Would be nice if status updates from different games could be given to me, and I could identify weak points that need to be improved on.

Corellon

HenkBrouwer · Space Emperor Joined: Oct 24, 2005

It's quite early in the game in a crowded galaxy (2402.0 in a game with 20 players) and the Norak come 14th (I am at 13th position), this is mainly because they have little room for expansion, They are in a corner, and my two systems happen to block their passage into the rest of the galaxy.

I just declared war on them since they had started to colonize my homesystem (I colonize gas, they use rock), they had two new colonies there, which I captured. The colonies were still undefended. An unescorted Norak colonizer just colonized a third world which I'll likely capture next turn.

The Norak have reacted by bombing my worlds with small waves of anti planet drones, and just this turn a small fleet of attack ships broke through my warp point defences. I have not been able to build proper defences yet, so this could still get very scary.
Also I have not yet explored the Norak systems, so I don't fully know what I'm up against.

LordZsar1 · Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 4:47 am Post subject:

This is not exactly a bug, but still quite amusing:
No other AI player is able to face Norak in war. After incredibly short time they possess an unmatched amount of intelligence points which they use in a quite devastating way - and no matter how long the game goes, they will always dominate this area with approximately 20% more points than the next best AI player.
In short: Who battles the Norak is out of game (if it is an AI player) - at least in all my test games.

Unfortunately, the Norak seem to be fairly uninterested in actually conquering their crippled neightbour. In my current game, Amon'krie (the unlucky people who are at war with my aquatic friends) have got '0' research points, '0' intelligence points, '8' planets, '170' units and '1' ship or base. This is one ship/base more than ten turns before but the amount of planets and research/intelligence points is constant since roughly thirty turns. Their population is slowly dropping though - plague indicated, I suppose.

All my games were started with the following configuration.

Quadrant Size: "Large"
General Options: "All Warp Points Connected"

Technology Cost: "High"
Starting Ressources: "Low (5000)"
Home Planet Value: "Good"
Number of Starting Planets: '1'
Home Planet Size: "All player home planets the same size"
Empire Placement: "Evenly distributed through the quadrant"
Score Display: "Player can view scores of all players"
Technology Points For New Players: "Low (100000)"
Racial Points For New Players: "High (5000)"
Random Computer Players: "Generate random computer controlled Empires"
Number of Computer Players: "Medium"
Computer Player Difficulty: "High"
Computer Player Bonus: "None"

Sight Settings: "Players start with sight of their entire home solar system and require sensors to see at a distance"
Event Frequency: "None"
Maximum Units In Space Per Player: "20000"
Maximum Ships Allowed Per Player: "20000"
Player Restrictions:
- "Players can give gifts"
- "Players can give technology through gifts and trade"
- "Players can completely surrender"
- "Players can conduct intelligence projects"

Victory Conditions:
- "Peace Throughout The Quadrant"
- "Massive Expansion"

Corellon · Space Emperor Joined: Jan 21, 2008

Well I'm still tuning the agressivness of the races while trying to keep their own "flavor" to them, I'm glad I was able to get the intel to be competitive as that was a short coming of the previous release.

As for not conquering, I perfer to keep things played "safe" and make sure the AI has a good strong defence base before attempting conquest, however I'm still trying to create the right balance as sometimes it things "Can never be too safe" and rather just keeps making sure it has stronger and more current defences, not a bad thing since it can easily leave the weakened races to deal with themselves instead of wasting it's resources (Let your enemies kill each other sort of thing) while maintaining a higher position.

A nice update thanks, for the next release I plan to rework ship design and tweak empire settings a bit more, still looking to get ship designs to be more competitive to a human level of play. Building priorities will be tweaked somewhat too to correct a few short comings.

LordZsar1 · Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 6:18 pm Post subject:

Please, change drone design in such a way, that the warhead is placed into inner hull.
At the moment, one hit by a flak or bomblet missile destroys the warhead and the drone will break it's attack - as it will NOT retreat, but flee hunters, it forms a very troublesome annoyance that triggers combat every turn until finally hunted down. Due to it's superior speed, this hunting has to be done manually and requires at least two mobile hunters on top of that.

(alternative solution: make drones ram their targets whether they do possess an intact warhead or not, though I doubt that is possible yet)

By the way - do your races use the same ship/unit strategies for battle as Unnamed's ones do?

Corellon · Space Emperor Joined: Jan 21, 2008

LordZsar:

That's something I've already implemented in my updated scripts, it is a annoyance, I've been trying to locate a way to get the units to ram targets but combat control is rather limited and strategies are limited as well, one thing that's been taking a while is trying to find a way to work withen the limits of the strategies.