Community Request - Customized Designs

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: Sithuk

ORIGINAL: onomastikon

Are we supposed to make "blueprints" for each and every possible ship design based on each and every tech advancement during the course of the game

Yes.

and then save each of these discretly

No. Set the filter to show all designs. Then select all the designs. Then click "save selected designs" to save all ship designs to a single ship design file.

so that we (and the AI) fall back on them when the time comes in future games? Is this to help the AI opponent races get better ships, save us time in future games at the sake of an enormous time investment now, or help the AI automatically upgrade our ships when automatic upgrading is set to "on"?

Yes to each of the questions in the preceding quote.

the exact steps I need to do in order to implement its functionality.

Create a complete set of ships for a race of your choice with zero tech researched. Pursue research as you normal would with the game on fast forward and then update the designs to create new ship versions for each of the techs as they are researched. Save the entire set of ships and bases into a single ship design set as noted above.

Thanks for that explanation above Sithuk.

I'll also add that in the current version (.12) the optimized designs are given absolute preference - i.e. if an optimized design exists for a subrole (e.g. destroyer) and you have the tech and construction size to build it, then that optimized design will be used - even if your tech has progressed further, and a new AI-generated design would now actually be more effective (i.e. with new tech). The assumption is that the optimized designs will be better than AI-generated ones. When there are multiple buildable optimized designs for a subrole, then the most advanced one will be selected.

Thus you currently (1.7.0.12) need a reasonable number of optimized designs for each subrole at various tech levels so that you keep pace with your tech. At the very least you would always need to have a super-advanced optimized design that uses the highest-level techs. Note that the components in the optimized designs also guide AI research project choices - i.e. the AI gives preference to research projects that will unlock the components in the optimized designs.

HOWEVER in the next version (1.7.0.13) this is changed: while optimized designs are still given preference, this is no longer absolute. So when your tech advances sufficiently, the AI will begin to once again design new ships/bases that may replace the optimized designs (if there are no buildable optimized designs at your tech level). In other words, when your tech is significantly more advanced than the the tech in the best buildable optimized design, then the AI will revert to generating a new design using the new tech, replacing the now-outdated optimized design.

This should make generating optimized design sets less of a chore, because the AI will now fill the gaps between designs better. Optimized designs are still preferred, but will eventually be discarded in favor of new AI designs (as new tech becomes available), if no better optimized designs are currently buildable.

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: Falokis

Here are some designs for humans. I'm not sure what the problem is, but they don't upgrade anymore. At first, they did. They don't seem to the last couple games. It just stays on the base version even when the build list shows newer ships available. I'm not sure if it is due to a naming problem or something. Either way, I'll get feed back from Erik or you guys.

If anyone wants to test them out, I'll upload them below. I did make it so humans have the Novacore as a racial feature, so you will have to edit that in your race file or just edit the power plant to what you would prefer.

Edit- NTF stands for Neo-Terran Front from Freespace2. They were basically xenophobic human military dictatorship in that game. I added them into my game as another human empire that basically doesn't like anyone and is super aggressive.

Edit2- Must be name sensitive. I went back and renamed them all to clean it up and now it seems to be working. If this keeps up, I'll repost for those that want to test.

Hi Falokis

Thanks for you work generating those designs [:)]

In the next version (1.7.0.13) there are fixes that correct some problems with optimized designs sometimes not progressing properly. So that might be what you were seeing too.

Thanks
Elliot

[Falokis]

ORIGINAL: Sithuk

Falo: ship sets for a mod are interesting, thank you for sharing it. Would you be able to do the edit to make it compatible for non-modded players and upload the ship design file, i.e. replace the reactors?

Don't ask me why, but this edit version of the ships is working fine for me. Go figure. The reactors are edited as requested, so anyone should be able to drop these in the human design folder and go.

Either way, this should make the humans a little harder to beat. I would delete the resupply ship since there is only 1 version so far. Everything else should be good to go.

Edit- get the version in the post below

[Falokis]

ORIGINAL: elliotg

ORIGINAL: Falokis

Here are some designs for humans. I'm not sure what the problem is, but they don't upgrade anymore. At first, they did. They don't seem to the last couple games. It just stays on the base version even when the build list shows newer ships available. I'm not sure if it is due to a naming problem or something. Either way, I'll get feed back from Erik or you guys.

If anyone wants to test them out, I'll upload them below. I did make it so humans have the Novacore as a racial feature, so you will have to edit that in your race file or just edit the power plant to what you would prefer.

Edit- NTF stands for Neo-Terran Front from Freespace2. They were basically xenophobic human military dictatorship in that game. I added them into my game as another human empire that basically doesn't like anyone and is super aggressive.

Edit2- Must be name sensitive. I went back and renamed them all to clean it up and now it seems to be working. If this keeps up, I'll repost for those that want to test.

Hi Falokis

Thanks for you work generating those designs [:)]

In the next version (1.7.0.13) there are fixes that correct some problems with optimized designs sometimes not progressing properly. So that might be what you were seeing too.

Thanks
Elliot

Awesome. Thanks.

[jlevans]

Thanks for the wonderful support Elliot! I've never encountered a strategy game with this much long term potential. [&o]

[Falokis]

Okay.

For the community: Final version for humans. Should be compatible with any standard game. It includes all military ships and leaves private ships to the AI. Naming and builds are cleaned up. Good for anyone to use now. Have fun and give any feed back you like.


For the Devs: Please have a look for your own testing. I figured out if I load the designs (like previous versions of the game) after the game starts, it will start using them. The only problem I see that I cannot get around is the AI isn't building ships in the right amounts. The last couple of games has been almost 100% escorts and frigates with almost no other ships being made. This is even when these ships are available.

Edit - Devs: I've noticed the ship designs have no effect on the research decisions by the AI. I may have misunderstood, but I thought the ship models were supposed to influence research. If this is what is supposed to be happening, it's not currently in my games. It appears to me the AI is simply researching everything in order of tiers with no adjustments based on ship design.

[onomastikon]

Thank you very much for these excellent replies. I am not a master at this, so may I pose a follow-up question here?

- I don't understand how to take into account every possibility. I mean, in some games, I will first research "advanced missiles" with my race, but in another game the same race might first research "advanced rail guns". There are so many contingencies. What I mean is: For "tech level 2" (which to me seems to be an ellipsis for a general level of advancement), there are hundreds of valid possibilities, am I supposed to build and save them all?!? That seems nigh on impossible. Sorry I really don't get it.
- I am not sure the automatic control still actually understands "automatically upgrade" and "retrofit" correctly: Sometimes I do not see the ships retrofitting, sometimes I get the popup to suggest retrofitting but I am not told what will be retrofitted how, and I am still not sure how to implement subroles (e.g. one cruiser with stronger defense and more shields and scanning, one cruiser with anti-planet abilities, one cruiser with anti-fighter, one cruiser with strong beams, and one cruiser with long-range missiles). Am I missing something?
- A really simple work-around still seems to me to be a checkbox in the design screen "make this component obsolete for this subrole". This would not help foreign AI races make better ship designs, but it would help my OWN race automatically upgrade its own designs: It would then stop using a certain engine or reactor type for those ships in the future. Would this be possible (and as easy to implement as I imagine)?

Thank you very, very much

[jlevans]

Hi Falokis,

Thanks for the human OD file. I took a brief look at a a few designs and they look pretty good. The naming by itself must have taken quite a while.
[:)]
A suggestion - You may want to revisit the power levels of some of your designs. Reactors need to generate enough power to cover static, max weapons use per second, shield recharge and sprint usage combined. Otherwise, one or more of those doesn't get what it needs when it is important. [X(]

[Sithuk]

Falokis: You have prepared an excellent set of ship designs. Thank you for taking the time. I'm going to have to re-do mine, you've up'd the standard.

Your mining stations are heavily armed and shielded. That'll mean high maintenance costs that could hurt the AI.

ORIGINAL: Falokis

Okay.

For the community: Final version for humans. Should be compatible with any standard game. It includes all military ships and leaves private ships to the AI. Naming and builds are cleaned up. Good for anyone to use now. Have fun and give any feed back you like.


For the Devs: Please have a look for your own testing. I figured out if I load the designs (like previous versions of the game) after the game starts, it will start using them. The only problem I see that I cannot get around is the AI isn't building ships in the right amounts. The last couple of games has been almost 100% escorts and frigates with almost no other ships being made. This is even when these ships are available.

Edit - Devs: I've noticed the ship designs have no effect on the research decisions by the AI. I may have misunderstood, but I thought the ship models were supposed to influence research. If this is what is supposed to be happening, it's not currently in my games. It appears to me the AI is simply researching everything in order of tiers with no adjustments based on ship design.

[Sithuk]

Jlevans: Remember that the power levels will depend on the tech level researched at the time. Part of the trouble with optimising is that the ship design must be optimised for the current tech level. When the tech level of the components increases then the attributes change.

ORIGINAL: jlevans

Hi Falokis,

Thanks for the human OD file. I took a brief look at a a few designs and they look pretty good. The naming by itself must have taken quite a while.
[:)]
A suggestion - You may want to revisit the power levels of some of your designs. Reactors need to generate enough power to cover static, max weapons use per second, shield recharge and sprint usage combined. Otherwise, one or more of those doesn't get what it needs when it is important. [X(]

[jlevans]

I understand. It takes a lot of tweaking to get it right. I've had to do my fair share of it. [:(]

What I was referring to were designs with 1 Fusion Reactor and 8 Assault Blasters along with engines, shields, etc.. I looked at the designs with all technology researched which should maximize the output of the reactor.

[Falokis]

I understand that strong mining stations hurt a bit, but all my test runs have been with full AI and me not doing anything. Money is tight, but never a problem. I think keeping vital resources flowing works out better.

As far as the reactor power, I agree on the earlier frigates. They are meant to swarm enemies and prevent them from getting away. They often have hiccups in the power which causes their hyperblock to go down and thus giving the enemy a chance to get away. This is only a problem on one design and it is corrected in later designs. I was focusing on getting everything I wanted into a certain size due to it being a ship I expected out early in the game.

To the Devs: I uploaded a picture to give you an idea of what my problem is currently. It's a picture of the build rates and ratios done by the AI. It's 50% escorts and 50% frigates with nothing else being built. Anything else on the list were ships the AI found and not built. This is with my destroyer ratio supposed to be 35%

[Falokis]

ORIGINAL: jlevans

I understand. It takes a lot of tweaking to get it right. I've had to do my fair share of it. [:(]

What I was referring to were designs with 1 Fusion Reactor and 8 Assault Blasters along with engines, shields, etc.. I looked at the designs with all technology researched which should maximize the output of the reactor.

Oh. I see what you are talking about. You mean the destroyers. I don't know how I missed that. I must not have paid attention when I edited from my modded version to general use. Going from Novacore to regular reactors leaves a lot to be desired. I'll re-up once I edit that.

[jlevans]

As far as the reactor power, I agree on the earlier frigates. They are meant to swarm enemies and prevent them from getting away. They often have hiccups in the power which causes their hyperblock to go down and thus giving the enemy a chance to get away. This is only a problem on one design and it is corrected in later designs. I was focusing on getting everything I wanted into a certain size due to it being a ship I expected out early in the game.

Interesting strategy. I must admit I've never underpowered a ship and then tested how much that hurt vs. the advantage of all that extra reactor space for weapons! [:D]

[Falokis]

ORIGINAL: jlevans

As far as the reactor power, I agree on the earlier frigates. They are meant to swarm enemies and prevent them from getting away. They often have hiccups in the power which causes their hyperblock to go down and thus giving the enemy a chance to get away. This is only a problem on one design and it is corrected in later designs. I was focusing on getting everything I wanted into a certain size due to it being a ship I expected out early in the game.

Interesting strategy. I must admit I've never underpowered a ship and then tested how much that hurt vs. the advantage of all that extra reactor space for weapons! [:D]

Okay. Here is the final, final version. I added some power to the destroyers due to them probably running short in early stages. Frigates, I left alone. They didn't seem to be hurt as far as I could tell. I'm done with humans unless I get anymore good feedback.

By the way, has anyone had the same problem I have above with heavy ships not being made or am I just special?

[tjhkkr]

ORIGINAL: Sithuk

Erik: Dhayut ship designs attached. I've only created ships up to around T4 ot T5 as the game I have sourced my designs from was won by that point.

Erik: it would be useful when we sort by sub-role in the ship design screen to secondary sort by the last selected sort. For example, if I sort by name then sort by sub-role, it would be good if the designs were sorted by name within each sub-role.

WARNING TO ALL: Remember to select ALL of your designs before clicking "Save selected designs" at the top. Otherwise you'll only save the last selected ship design.

ehsumrell / tjhkkr / data: which race ship designs are you preparing and when will you have them uploaded?

Yes, I am: Imperial/Republic/Rebellion/Corellian/CIS

[jlevans]

Here's my Boskara design file, v3.

This one was developed by doing an entire tech tree play through to get the 'Date Created' property in the proper sequence. While the AI still doesn't really accurately determine which buildable designs are the most advanced, I'm hoping the next patch will fix that problem, along with the Pirates being OP when using OD files.

[Falokis]

Ok. I have a few requested adjustments for the humans, so I did it. I basically cleaned up designs and made the ship size more in line with the tech age. I also added all the civilian ships. After doing that, I got pretty good at working threw ship building in a logical order. That lead me to go ahead and design Gizurean and Sluken ships.

The zip file contains human, Gizurean, and Sluken ships. I hope you enjoy. If there is anymore feedback; post here or PM me.

[Sithuk]

jlevans/Falokis: thank you guys, excellent work. I've looked through all your shipsets and feel I have learnt quite a bit already. I'll have to go through my Dhayuts designs and revise them again. Those starbases are looking intimidating, it'll be interesting to see how the AI copes with the extra maintenance costs. Taking down AI bases is going to be harder.

I think as long as the maintenance costs on the hardened mining stations aren't execessive it should ease some of the irritation from the single ship raids on remote mining stations. These new hardened stations which you've given destroyer class weapons and shielding should be able to fight them off.

Giving the AI much larger capacity passenger ships is what I do in my ship designs too. I find emmigration starts to become relevant and new worlds get up to pop sooner. (Now if only the AI would set tax to zero until they reached a given threshold I'd be a happy player. I'm currently manually setting all tax to zero to bolster growth but I know the AI players aren't so it seems an exploit of sorts - one for Erik to optimise?).

I play with max research costs so I am curious to find out how your mixed weapons designs will fare. I tend to have to specialist on one weapon type because the research costs are simply too great to do otherwise. I'm not sure how the AI will perform with your mixed weapons designs in a max tech cost game in comparison to a race who selects one weapon type and focusses.

Another four or five race design sets and we should have enough for a game.

Erik: How close is the next Beta? I wish to hold off running a playtest until the new code to have the AI design the ships which are missing from the custom sets, e.g. if a higher tech component is researched I'd want that in play right away rather than have to wait for all 5 or 6 techs to be researched to allow the next custom design to become available.

[Falokis]

I play with max research costs so I am curious to find out how your mixed weapons designs will fare. I tend to have to specialist on one weapon type because the research costs are simply too great to do otherwise. I'm not sure how the AI will perform with your mixed weapons designs in a max tech cost game in comparison to a race who selects one weapon type and focusses.

On each of my ship and base sets, the races only use one shield, engine, hyperdrive, beam/phaser, and missle/torpedo. I even avoided things that required multiple research paths to obtain. I tried to simplify the designs because I thought the AI was supposed to research only what it needed to research to build these ships. If that was the idea, it's not working. Hopefully they will fix that next beta patch.

I would also be happy with pre-made templates for research order to help the AI. I already queue up all my research when I play, so the mechanic is there. I'm sure the Devs could do this easy if the AI is too difficult to fix.