1.7.0.14 Autodesigner gives capital ships 1 armor

[dejakritz]

Just what the title says. I noticed it mid-late game. Every capital ship I have, from oldest to newest, has been given 1 lousy armor plate by the autodesigner at all tech levels. I suppose this explains why I got spammed pretty regularly with admiral death reports.

I am playing as Ikkuro. In the empire policy for autodesign fine-tuning I have armor level for all ships set to "heavy". I have not looked to see if the autodesign AI does this on other settings.

The other ships I've looked at seem to be armored appropriately.

Not sure if this is relevant or not, but of the several capship designs I perused, they all seemed to be within 10 points of the maximum size allowed by their tech level. Maybe this causes the poor plating?

Advice on a quick-fix for this would be appreciated!

EDIT:

Late game, a new capital ship appeared, calling itself Istanbul. I don't know why this one is appropriately armored (60 components' worth). I tried moving the armor priority in the empire policy from "heavy" to "very heavy" and the autodesign created 7 successive capital ship versions of 2 different names all with 1 armor component. But suddenly, this one is appropriately armored.

Maybe the lack of armor occurs because the autodesigner keeps hitting the size ceiling for my capships? Hoping this is relevant: I also have railguns and missile launchers set as favored in the empire policy screen. Are these settings making the auto designer confused?

[onomastikon]

I've also noticed bizarre implementation of defense features apparently prioritized in design setup. Would like to hear something from other people and a word from Elliot.

[MartialDoctor]

I've also seen a couple of 1 armor designs in 1.7.0.15. So, it's still out there.

[Fishman]

I think the AI designers have always been terrible anyway. More importantly, I'm curious as to how you have so many admirals that you can just casually overlook their deaths to the point where you call it "spam"...or why you would assign, or allow to be assigned, an admiral to some deathtrap passing itself off as a ship. Or waste your resources building them, seeing as they do nothing but explode. If you're just going to build a ship that exists only to explode, you may as well shortcut the entire "building" and "existing" phase and skip straight to the "not existing" part.

And honestly, how much armor does your ship really need, anyway? If it has run out of shields, it is going to explode. Armor doesn't give that much HP buffer. Railguns cannot penetrate heavy armor through shields on top of their penalty, so one plate is sufficient to stop railgun rounds. I don't bother equipping mine with more than about 1 plate of armor anyway.

[onomastikon]

ORIGINAL: Fishman

IAnd honestly, how much armor does your ship really need, anyway? If it has run out of shields, it is going to explode. Armor doesn't give that much HP buffer. Railguns cannot penetrate heavy armor through shields on top of their penalty, so one plate is sufficient to stop railgun rounds. I don't bother equipping mine with more than about 1 plate of armor anyway.

Seems like your auto-design policy for armor, if it would work correctly, would be a perfect candidate for "light" or even "none". For those of us who would like to believe we should have, rightly or wrongly, a few seconds of existing before the non-existing phase begins, I would like the armor slot, when set to "heavy", actually utilize values >1.

[dejakritz]

ORIGINAL: Fishman

I think the AI designers have always been terrible anyway. More importantly, I'm curious as to how you have so many admirals that you can just casually overlook their deaths to the point where you call it "spam"...or why you would assign, or allow to be assigned, an admiral to some deathtrap passing itself off as a ship. Or waste your resources building them, seeing as they do nothing but explode. If you're just going to build a ship that exists only to explode, you may as well shortcut the entire "building" and "existing" phase and skip straight to the "not existing" part.

And honestly, how much armor does your ship really need, anyway? If it has run out of shields, it is going to explode. Armor doesn't give that much HP buffer. Railguns cannot penetrate heavy armor through shields on top of their penalty, so one plate is sufficient to stop railgun rounds. I don't bother equipping mine with more than about 1 plate of armor anyway.

It was a joke, chill!

Also, playing as Ikkuro, researching armor and repairs early and switching off escape AI works pretty well. Your armor basically become shields themselves, regenerating AND deflecting, combined with the regen of the shields, giving a lot of staying power. The disadvantage of course being your ships might behave suicidally when they think you're not watching.

[Fishman]

On the other hand, that early in the game, you probably have better things to be doing with your time and money than "building useless ships". Honestly, in every game of DW I've ever played, I don't build a single serious military warship until I finish all the research needed to build my Flagship of Doom. Until then the closest thing I build to a warship tends to be my "Independent Planet Invasion Dropship/Pirate Buttorper". Every other warship, I just scavenge for. Anything you simply FIND is going to blow away anything you can BUILD for a fair while.

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: dejakritz
Just what the title says. I noticed it mid-late game. Every capital ship I have, from oldest to newest, has been given 1 lousy armor plate by the autodesigner at all tech levels. I suppose this explains why I got spammed pretty regularly with admiral death reports.

I am playing as Ikkuro. In the empire policy for autodesign fine-tuning I have armor level for all ships set to "heavy". I have not looked to see if the autodesign AI does this on other settings.

The other ships I've looked at seem to be armored appropriately.

Not sure if this is relevant or not, but of the several capship designs I perused, they all seemed to be within 10 points of the maximum size allowed by their tech level. Maybe this causes the poor plating?

Advice on a quick-fix for this would be appreciated!

EDIT:

Late game, a new capital ship appeared, calling itself Istanbul. I don't know why this one is appropriately armored (60 components' worth). I tried moving the armor priority in the empire policy from "heavy" to "very heavy" and the autodesign created 7 successive capital ship versions of 2 different names all with 1 armor component. But suddenly, this one is appropriately armored.

Maybe the lack of armor occurs because the autodesigner keeps hitting the size ceiling for my capships? Hoping this is relevant: I also have railguns and missile launchers set as favored in the empire policy screen. Are these settings making the auto designer confused?

This is because the AI ship designer is trying to fit the Capital Ship within your maximum construction size, so it drops off armor to fit it within size limits.

I guess for military ships it would probably be better to drop off something else; maybe an engine or two, etc.

I'll alter this in the next patch