Re: Two more AI bugs

[Hans Ronne <hronne at pp dot sbbs dot se>]

>I set up a two-player game, and put my side under mplayer control
>(Side->AI->Mplayer; at least under tcltk).  I then watched my 1st
>spaceport under survey mode, and saw that its task occasionally read
>"Build infantry" or "Build armor", but only when it had a task such as
>"Build mothership" did anything happen.

This I cannot reproduce. After the patch, my spaceports build motherships,
saucers and fighters. They never try to build anything else. What you
describe (failed attempts to start building ground units) is exactly what I
saw before the patch, but no longer. Are you sure you recompiled xconq
after applying the patch?

>The only problem with the AI using motherships that way is that they
>take a long time to build.  Fighters are more useful for defense because
>they move faster, and can destroy almost anything.  Of course, you need
>lots of fighters if you want to attack a mothership or a city.

Yes, the code does not at present factor in build time. This means that
games where all units cost approximately the same to build work best. See
the discussion Jim and I had a few months ago about this.

>Yes.  I saw one city with 8 dromunds, and the closest that the city came
>to a water tile was an adjacent swamp.  Does the AI even understand that
>dromunds are ships?

Yes. This is clear from the fact that dromunds, when they move, only move
on water. Never on land. But something is still wrong with the build code.
I'll look into this as well.

Hans

Hans Ronne

hronne@pp.sbbs.se