Optmiized Design Beta feedback

[jlevans]

Elliot/Erik,

You have asked for feedback on the .12 beta and Optimized Designs, so I've attempted to provide some here with my experiences so far. I'm posting this in the Tech Support forum as this is where I see Elliot post when he checks in.


Making an OD file is not easy, nor do I think it needs to be to be a valuable game feature for the user community as we can share the file developed for each race. With that said, here are some observations and suggestions.

1. Starting at Level VII tech to make your first cut designs is required with the current approach if you want to field designs that represent a mix of technology levels. Clearly, as most components change their operating efficiency as a function of each component's current tech level, it also requires taking an optimization pass at each tech level to finalize a design. In most cases, one must manually calculate the number of hab/life support (H/LS) modules required if you don't want to have to count on the most advanced H/LS technology level having been researched yet. This also applies to reactor output and a few others. While time consuming for the developer of the OD file, this OD feature development approach did avoid the need to develop a whole new OD design mode where each technology could be individually selected to allow a design to be instantiated. It is clear to me at least that the development of a custom OD Development Mode in the game would have taken MUCH longer to field to the user community. Because of this, I'm not going to suggest a better UI for creating ODs. The number of us doing this is pretty limited and we can share the results.

What I do suggest is making testing the file easier. Testing your OD file through simulation is key to developing it. Accordingly, I automate everything and let the game run so I can see what is built and when as the game progresses. My objective is to let the AI completely run the game with me as an inside observer. It is my observation when this is done that diplomacy interaction may still be required - i.e. there are diplomatic prompts. Is not manually responding to them the same as answering NO? What I would expect to have happen of course is for the AI to respond to them just like any other AI-operated race does - i.e. use the functionality that already exists in the game. It is unclear whether this is happening. Retrofitting is the other area where prompts appear. While this can be turned off by Policy, it is again my observation that doing so may eliminate any retrofitting of ships using older designs - i.e. it is like you are responding NO to retrofit prompts. Again, it is unclear.


2. Intuitively, I would have thought that the AI would make its own designs to fill in gaps as technology progresses when there isn't an Optimized design for the current tech combos available. What I have observed instead is the AI creating a design to start the game if there isn't an Optimized design available, but once it encounters and uses the first OD in a ship class (e.g. Destroyer), it doesn't create any more designs even if that OD is subsequently using ancient technology. As a result, if you are using an OD file and you want your ships to use advanced tech, you'll need to create ODs at all the levels where you desire a new ship version. That means that the OD files must contain a huge number of designs rather than just a design here and there. Having the AI create intermediate designs would reduce the number of designs required in a viable OD file.


3. A related observation - I've never seen the AI obsolete an Optimized Design. As a result, all buildable optimized designs always appear in the list of available designs a space port can build. As technology progresses, this list gets pretty cluttered. Clearly the human player can manually obsolete an OD to keep their list uncluttered. The AI's list however always has all buidable ODs to pick from. Does this contribute to another, more serious observation - the AI continuing to build ancient ODs even when more advanced ODs are available? To be specific, the AI will continue to build ancient Level I ODs even when Levels II, III, IV and V Optimized Designs are all available at the space port to build. This is probably the second most important issue to address as it makes for uncompetitive AI opponents when ODs are meant to make AI opponents more competitive.

Edit: I've now developed a partial OD file by playing a game from the start through Level IV and making sure all the 'Date Created' dates are in sequence per feelotraveler's observation in case this date (the sequence created) somehow plays a role for the AI in determining which design is more advanced. In testing this, it HAS helped the AI pick the most advanced design in most, but not all cases. I'd say there is still a bug in the 'most advanced' selection algorithm.


4. Related to the above, when beginning a game at an advanced Level of technology (Level V for instance), the game has a tendency to instantiate your starting ships and bases with the most basic (Level I) designs, even though there are optimized designs available at Level V. There are exceptions but this occurs more often than not. See edit under 3 above.


5. The most important issue to address is the use of these advanced ODs by Pirates early in the game. Starting a game at Level I, I've found very advanced Pirate ships show up using my optimized designs right from the start. Try taking down a Pirate's Level VI Optimized Design Destroyer when all you have are Level I Frigates! Makes for a short game as your mines don't survive and your economy collapses.

I'm guessing the original game design acquired Pirate ship designs from the current design list of the player and AI competitors. Previous to Optimized Designs, only designs that were buildable would appear in the list of available designs. This makes game design sense to me as it would keep pirate designs competitive with the player but not OP. However, now that we have Optimized Designs, the designs contained in the list include designs that are not yet buildable. I suspect the pirate ship design selection algorithm is picking from that all inclusive list, buildable or not. I've also observed an AI opponent show up with one of my advanced OD designs (Level VI Cruiser) in the first few minutes of a game. I suspect it was an abandoned ship found by my opponent, but it proceeded to wipe out my only Space Port and end the game pretty quick.


Open Questions:

6. If one develops an Optimized Design to handle a Silvermist, will the AI know to use it?

Hope this is useful. Correcting these issues (assuming my observations are accurate of course) would go along way to enabling the OD feature to make a significant contribution to AI Opponent competitiveness.

[feelotraveller]

An impressive and constructive piece of feedback. 
 
Just a query on point 3 - the building of lower tech level OD's by the CPU when more advanced tech level OD's are available.  Did you design the lower tech level OD's later?  In my experience (not from this beta, though) the computer does not pay attention to tech level but to when the ship was designed.  It regards a later design as the one to build since it is the most recent.  Would still be a headache for OD sets, though.

[Shadow Tiger]

Awesome work!

I think feelotraveler may have a point with the order things were designed in. Unfortunately there's no way to tell which designs were made first. I always see the most recent design show up as the 'newest' on menus to build, or be the one to be updated when designs are automated. If that is what's happening it means you really do have to be meticulous and make each design in the proper order.

Doable with the level 7 tech, but a huge pain. There was an idea to start a game with each tech level and build with what's available, which is tedious. Seems the only way to be sure though.

Another open question:
7. If the design is set to manual upgrade and there are no later designs, will the AI be stuck with that design for the whole game? I've played a few races and made starting designs, then set them to manual design/retrofit. When I play against them will they be stuck with fusion reactors and maxxo blasters?

[jlevans]

Thanks for the observation feelotraveller. I've corrected the 'Date Created' sequence in the OD file and it has improved (although not solved) the AI's ability to select the designs in 'most advanced' sequence.