untested? I am flattered

btw: I would also appreciate to hear if it did (not) wipe the galaxy with someone.

In case someone at SD is reading this, here's what I would appreciate at this point:

- Faction specific planet governors. The Snathi for (an extreme) example have completely different needs from the Terrans.
- specifiying the AIs preference between making research/manufacturing/economic worlds (Faction level). The Iconians for example could use a strategy that relies on reaching the age of ascension without building a single econ world and then profitting from 0 maintainence ships.
- replace syntax for AI governors, i.e. when Full replace ManufacturingHub with ManufacturingUnique
- interrupt of improvement upgrades, i.e. AI doesn't upgrade improvements if it can terraform or build another improvement. I have seen the AI trying to build another 4 mega factories instead of a gaia vortex one too many times.
- conditional improvement building and TechPrefernce (TechGovernor); something like:

<Improvement>
   <Type>Manufacturing</Type>
   <Condition> Code specifying that population < Food-1 has to be true </Condition>
</Improvement>

Well I am mid game, and I trust you have played with it a bit regardless, so its tested

Yes.

Okay, hardly any of the AI Ship Classes marry up with the actual Ship roles! That would explain why I do not see a verity of ships in most AI Fleets! I am going to fix that for Medium, Large & Huge hulls. I do not see the point for small or tiny hulls, if someone can give a valid reason to do them, I will.

EDIT:

Typical example:

Altarian large ships, ALL classed as Assault by the AI. Yet have defined Roles in the BluePrints of Assault, Guardian, Escort and Capital.

Altarian medium ships, ALL classed as Capital's by the AI! Grr.

I can. I was not going to since 1.1 was only release today...but, I will

Updated Nexus, it should be available shortly. If you cant wait... Ooo Ooo Ooo (Pop Quiz! - What game is that a reference too?)

EDIT:

I redefined the Huge Ship Blueprints, so they have specific roles rather than been ALL Capital ships. This is to try and limit what size ships the AI Places in its late game fleets.

Yes the original is bigger because it has 400 odd lines commented out, <!-- --> x400 = 3kb.

ESL uncomments said lines, to apply the Leveling up modules to AI ships.

I'll fix that.

What Ships?

EDIT - Never mind I found the culprits. For future reference, Each ship should have 1-3(Depending on hull size) of each def type, then the AI will select the "Best Defense" option there after, this way should limit mixed fleets to some degree and also allow the AI to build ships to counter what ever you throw at it.

I have been studying the battle behaviour changes a bit, here are my thoughts (basicly theory crafting so far):

What I think is the intention behind the ship roles:

Capital Ships:
- achieve strategic objectives, e.g. destroy starbases to deny movement range, destroy capitals to keep starbases alive, destroy supports to do maximum damage to enemy fleet combat capabilities (e.g. no carriers which have replenishing fighters)
-> implications: good balance between fire power and defense needed (life just long enough to fullfill strategic objective)
-> targets have high hp; therefore lower importance of attack speed and combination of multiple weapons
-> large or huge hulls

Escort Ships:
- protect capital ships by shielding them against everything but other capitals, guardians and starbases
- shield assaults against capitals, assaults and escorts
- can stay with supports but not shield them effectively
-> more focus on defene than on offence
-> focus on attack speed and different weapons in order to minimize overkill against small targets

Assault Ships:
- go after sqishy targets, i.e. support ships and starbases before fighting the capital/escort group
- I am not entirely sure about this, the target priorities are odd to me (see later)
- shields interceptors against everything but supports

Guardian Ships:
- artillery ships/ capital ship hunters. Prevent enemy from fullfilling strategic objective
-> low defense, high offense
-> balance between high attack speed and high first strike damage depending on enemy composition and role (huge capital ships -> high first strike damage; medium assault ships -> reduce overkill)

Interceptor Ships:
- they have movement type attacker, will have to test if they actually do escort assaults
- escort assault ships or protect starbase/ support ship
- do not shield assault ships but assaults shield them
-> preference for offense over defense

Discussion:

Capital Ships:
- I love the concept of capital ships essentially being a strategic weapon.
- I was wondering about why they shouldn't beeline for supports after starbase and other capitals, but this is reasonable due to guardians role as capital hunters

Guardian Ships:
- again, I like the concept of them being capship hunters and them focussing on removing the enemy high damage ships
- I would consider changing the starbase upgrades to contain guardians instead of interceptors and possibly assaults too

Escort Ships:
- basicly fine in its role I think

Assault Ships:
- I like the idea of having some ships going after the soft targets and therefore being different from capitals
- they would be the best candidate for plantary defenses due to attacking transports first and possibly preventing an invasion that way
- I am wondering why the attack order is not: Starbase, Support, Guardian, Escort, Capships, Assault, Interceptor, Upgrading
-> Guardians as artillery ships would make sense as higher priority target; also the Assault/Interceptor squadron would stay near the Support/Guardian group until it is cleared out that way except if there is a starbase (maybe even reduce starbase priority behind escorts or even capitals, since you would use capitals, if removing a starbase was a priority)

Interceptor Ships:
- the main problem I see here is the lack of specialization. They are a little bit of escorts to Assaults but don't shield them, they are a little bit of Assault/Interceptor hunters, but will follow their own asaults while available...
- I don't think they have to escort Supports, since you can use Guardians for exactly the same purpose
- if the starbases use guardians instead of interceptors, they don't have to escort those either
- what I would consider is making them escorts to Assaults, meaning they will shield assaults and prioritize the Assaults objectives if those are destroyed, I am nt entirely sure how though
- the alternative would be dissolving the Assault/Interceptor group and have Interceptors hunt assaults all over the battle :/ not sure about this yet... maybe try to add another ship role...

Spacing:
- I dont like the spacing so much, it means you divide your fleet. Letting the enemy fight 3 small instead of one big fleet is just never a good idea.
- would put the Capital/Escort fleet in front of the Assault/Interceptor squad in order to to have the latter bypass the enemy fleet when it is allready occupied with the other Capital/Escort fleet
- I like the starbases being in the thick of battle

--------------

Will leave it at that for now, I am sure I forgot something^^

I am not concerned about blance so much, since most of winning doesn't happen in tactics, but in strategy (being able to build bigger ships). I was just intrigued, how the BattleBehaviour is very differen from vanilla and thought about removing it, but to be honest, I am kinda intrigued now.

You might want to drop a line about this in the OP though

I could take a look to see where in the tech plan invaders have to be to be built on turn 30 for godlike. Probably also needs an entry int the AIStrategyDefs :/.

Well I think I can help with that invasion thing. I read about it in other posts. Ai wise decides what to invade had d on seize of map this scales in a text file. I don't know the name of it, but the range for immense is 16. You should make these bigger.

I have changed this since.

The AI does use them, its just not very often . Unfortunately I do not see any way to give them higher weights to encourage the AI to use them more.

I did however reduce them quite a bit. 125  Production for 1 IP to a cap of 5. Default is 100 for 1 IP with a cap of 10.

Thanks

That could also be down to my Strategy changes (I dont think Wartime kicks in till 60 ish), I will tweak them.

Edit:

Nope its set to 30, might still be a tad high though.