FellDian

Join Date 06/2008

Mod Request (First Timer)

No Surrender mod for the AI

Hey, first time post so I'm still not sure about the entire set up going on, my apologies if this is in the wrong section.

I have been playing Sins of a Solar Empire for a week or so now and have thoroughly enjoyed it so far, I'm running 1.05 and have barely dabbled into the modding region yet (Seven Deadly Sins being the only mod I've found that worked with my version, ) but I keep coming across the same annoyance when playing online with friends.

Firstly, the AI seems to never take into account it's own strength when with other AI allies. The best example I can give is when I phased four Kol battleships into an asteroid belt to take on a small fleet of AI allies comprised of one fleet with a single capital ship, three or four cruisers and a varied amount of different frigates, needless to say, they fought me, but there was another AI fleet there comprised of a single capital ship that was the highest level in the battle, and it fled instantly. Quite annoying that it never seemed to take into account that combined with the other AI fleet it was in a better position, which is strange. (And I doubled checked the settings afterwards, they were team allied at the start with locked teams on.)

The second annoyance is the chicken tactics that the AI aggressors employ, myself and my friends built up four massive fleets and took them to war with three Hard aggressor AI's, who had spammed so many ships that the game started lagging here and there, they outnumbered us roughly 6 to 1, and they were in their own territory, yet they fled after taking two losses, then proceeded to phase in and out over and over again until we were able to take the planet, use a deliverance engine on it to get rid of the culture, colonise and put a phase jump inhibitor, four to be exact, yet even then they would phase in, and instantly try to phase out. At best we were able to wipe out half of one of the fleets as they left, then the other fleet would warp in on the other side of the planet and instantly flee, while not even coming under fire.

Now that I have finished rambling my request is, if it's possible, to make a mod that would alter the AI's tactics in a "no surrender" style, where in they commit all their resources (I.E. fleets) into a battle, win or lose. Sure, if a capital ship's hull drops to dangerous levels, I'll accept that kind of retreat, but when a massive, hulking battlecruiser turns tail and runs home crying because someone else looked at them, it's kinda disappointing.

I look forward to all responses, even if they aren't as good as I would hope.

Thanks for reading.

modding

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Not possible at all.

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Any chance that you could elaborate? Can you not edit the AI with the current tools? (Although a recent patch, not sure which one 1.03 or 1.04 edited the AI scripting) Or is it hard coded that they need to retreat?

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you can't even change the max amount of capital ships what makes you think you can change stuff like AI

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you can't even change the max amount of capital ships

actualy there are several mods which increase the amount of capital ships, and also increase max fleet size aswell...

as for the ai...i do not beleive it is possible (if it was someone would have done it by now)

...

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actualy there are several mods which increase the amount of capital ships

no, there aren't, because it's hardcoded

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Carbon, there are a few mods that are attempting to raise it, and to quote from the 1.04 change logs.

"-Fix bug where AI would retreat from his homeworld or last planet."

So it is possibly at least for the Dev's to edit the AI scripting, yet maybe in the future they will release tools that will allow the players to edit the scripts, but they themselves have edited features which are related to what I would want.

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no, there aren't, because it's hardcoded

yes...here is one

captial war-increases number of caps buildable
there are more(ive played them) but my memory is currently betraying me

also i may be wrong about not being able to change the ai..

heavynova-caims to 'tune up' the ai
also..thelaststand mod claims to be making changes also

"2.1 Tactical Modes
A new set of abilities available to all ships, aiming at providing more interactive experience for those armchair admirals who like to get their hands dirty. The basic idea is to provide every combat-capable ship with a set of three "performance modes":

-aggressive mode where weapon damage is increased but defenses and speed are decreased
-defensive mode where shields and armor get a boost but weapons and engines suffer for it
-maneuvering mode where ship speed and handling is increased at the expense of defense and offense
All modes would be toggleable, and if none are selected the ships reverts to its default characteristics.

While adding these abilities would be relatively easy, making the AI use them properly is another matter, which will have to wait until more is known about the modability of the AI; if possible, for example, one use AI would have for these modes is to go on the defensive if at a slight disadvantage, instead of running."

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Derek, that would be a good subsitute for retreating, less speed and possibly an armour disadvantage. It's just annoying that you can only get the epic cinematic fleet battles with other players and the AI acts like a four year old child running from a wasp, humourous but annoying.

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"2.1 Tactical Modes
A new set of abilities available to all ships, aiming at providing more interactive experience for those armchair admirals who like to get their hands dirty. The basic idea is to provide every combat-capable ship with a set of three "performance modes":

-aggressive mode where weapon damage is increased but defenses and speed are decreased
-defensive mode where shields and armor get a boost but weapons and engines suffer for it
-maneuvering mode where ship speed and handling is increased at the expense of defense and offense
All modes would be toggleable, and if none are selected the ships reverts to its default characteristics.

While adding these abilities would be relatively easy, making the AI use them properly is another matter, which will have to wait until more is known about the modability of the AI; if possible, for example, one use AI would have for these modes is to go on the defensive if at a slight disadvantage, instead of running."

-that is a quote i took directly from the mod 'TheLastStand's furom

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Nice one Derek, just got to wait for that I guess.

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Changing the perLevelValue in the RESEARCHSUBJECT_MAXCAPITALSHIPSTECH0.entity file changes the maximum capitals so who says its hardcoded?

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DANMAN3712

Join Date 02/2008

+101

FellDian:
It IS possible to mod the AI, it is just a pain to implement it. I have not done this yet for 7 DEADLY SINS, but I may work on it in the future if enough requests roll in. Also, I'm glad the mod works for you, and that you enjoyed it (except the annoying AI of course).
And changing CAP limits...that's easy. The AI WILL untilize that, but they still play chicken.

DANMAN

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Thanks for that reply Danman, I did actually look into your mod because I briefly read that you were trying to change the AI, but it looks like I need to wait a bit longer.

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If you want the AI to STAY in the gravity well and FIGHT, you have to attack their home planet, they never run from their home planet...

Although last night I played a game where I destroyed their home planet, they moved their home planet to the Ice planet next door, so I sent my ships there, and they immediately MOVED their home planet designation to a far-away asteroid and left!!!

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Changing the perLevelValue in the RESEARCHSUBJECT_MAXCAPITALSHIPSTECH0.entity file changes the maximum capitals so who says its hardcoded?

nobody did

the _amount of capital ships that can be built from a station without using abilities_ is hardcoded. a insignificant, minor change in a research subject is the exact opposite of what I meant.

Carbon, there are a few mods that are attempting to raise it

You can attempt all you want but it's like "attempting" to put UT3 Havok into Sins too. It's not possible until Ironclad makes it so.

So it is possibly at least for the Dev's to edit the AI scripting, yet maybe in the future they will release tools that will allow the players to edit the scripts, but they themselves have edited features which are related to what I would want.

Of course it is, they can edit whatever they want. They have all the libraries. If the AI was controlled via LUA scripting (similar to EaW), don't you think they would have released those scripts in the forge pack(s)?

FellDian:
It IS possible to mod the AI, it is just a pain to implement it.

All that can be changed in the AI is tweaks like behavior when using abilities. That's all. You can't "mod" the AI or change the actual logic of the conditions, both of us know that.

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Alright, let's clear up the whole max amount of capital ships question. The only thing that is hardcoded is capital ship levels. You can change the amount of capital ships you can build in the game. However, I have conducted tests on the limit to how many caps you can build. If you go higher than 49, the game usually gets a minidump. And no, there is currently no way to mod the AI, that is completely hardcoded for the time being. (Carbon, go look at the X10 mod under the downloads section of this site. It multiplied everything in the game by 10, including amount of cap ships.)

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Alright, let's clear up the whole max amount of capital ships question.

You're still not getting what I said. Let me rephrase it:

The number of capital ships that can be built in the UI under the "Capital Ship Factory" cannot be greater than 5.

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ok, this would have been simpler if you had said that in the first place. Originally, you made it sound like you were talking about cap ship count, but yeah, now i understand. Yeah, the only way to change that is to give another module the build cap ship ability and redescribe what caps will be built.

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Yeah, the only way to change that is to give another module the build cap ship ability and redescribe what caps will be built.

Actually, you can't do that either because the build menu is not shipyard-specific. Unless you mean the "SpawnFrigate" ability which is a poor replacement. :/

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No offence meant, but you've kinda derailed the point of this topic, though your discussion is valid, it's not really on what this is meant to be about.

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No offence meant, but you've kinda derailed the point of this topic, though your discussion is valid, it's not really on what this is meant to be about.

The topic was as following: Can you mod the AI's surrender conditions?
The answer was as follows: No

If you have some clandestine alternate topic hidden in ROT-13 and encoded into the very fabric of your original post now would be the time to reveal it.

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I was referring to the max capital ship discussion, thanks.

Anyways, back to the main point of this topic (The AI retreating, in case you are not sure Carbon.), I recently discovered in the tactical management menu there is a "retreat" command which completely matches the actions of the AI, and I already know that it is possible to edit these abilities, but is it possible to remove them from every unit? This of course is the assumption that the AI uses this command, which is a small possibility as they use capital ship abilities normally and they do create fleets.

So can someone either show me how to edit these abilities on my own, or volunteer to look into it for me, either way I will be very grateful and fully cooperative.

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As far as I'm aware, you can't mod the tactical management menu. At least, I haven't seen anything in my work so far that gives a hint in how to do it.

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That's strange, ah well. At least that's probably as close to a solution as I've got so far,

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