AI only researches one weapon tech line?

My last game was on "Bright" AI (Oblivion and school have kept me away until 1.1 is released) and the AI's seem to have no problem diversifying their weapons research.

My big war ended up against the Terrans, who had been beating on two of the evil races the whole game. As I was finishing off the Yor, it was obvious that my next war was going to be with the Humans (their relations with me started to drop, their military spending was way up. I had been watching their ships throughout the early game, and they were using Mass drivers and Point defense.

I had been pursuing Mass Drivers and Armor since the start. I suddenly noticed that their new Warships were carrying Lasers and Armor, so I switched my production to Lasers and Shields (some hasty trading and research) When the war started they had massive numbers on me, and some capital ships with ungodly numbers of HP (they had two ships at level 40) but I more or less smoked them fast. By the end of the war, after their fleet was in ruins and I had captured two of their main production worlds, the last ships to roll off the assembly lines were carrying Mass Drivers and Shields.

So yes, it will adapt.

I think what the original poster was talking about was that all the AI players research the same weapon tech, rather than different ones. I have seen this as well. I think it might be related to tech trading, but I'm not sure.

I've also seen it. Before 1.1B, there were various techs. After the patch, with tech trading on or off, everyone chooses a single offense and a single defense. Last game (trading on) it was lasers/armor. Before that, TT off, it was mass drivers/?. I don't know what the defense was since they never used it.

This was on Painful and Tough.

In my experience they will research only one weapon and one defence tech. That is until they start getting smoked at which point they will try to switch to different ones. Usually the time it takes them to make the switch it more than enough to anihilate their fleet. Perhaps future patches will see the AI anticipating it's weapon defence needs a little better, or at least just generally diversifying a little more.

I don't see why that is a problem. That's what I do as well, persue a single line of weapon tech so I can get the lightest and most damaging weapon of that type. The only reason I would change is when I'm planning to attack a race, or a race that have declared war on me, and they have a defence of that type.

I would of course tech trade for the other weapon line though.

The AI does adapt even if it is late. It be interesting to see how this plays out with human players when multiplayer is enabled.

I've also seen it. Before 1.1B, there were various techs. After the patch, with tech trading on or off, everyone chooses a single offense and a single defense. Last game (trading on) it was lasers/armor. Before that, TT off, it was mass drivers/?. I don't know what the defense was since they never used it. This was on Painful and Tough.

It's the same in my current beta game. All the nine AI:s filled their ships with harpoons (damage 3 or 6 per ship) and shields. Then suddenly, every single race designed their M3-7 ship-designs and all nine of them switched to massdrivers (1-3 damage per ship) and shields. All the races use identical ships.
I reported it in the glitch thread. Hopefully it will be noticed and fixed in the final 1.1

Usually the good AIs will trade weaposn but they won't trade em to evilr aces. But sometimes the evilr aces stillg et them via neutrals or something.

OK, what i meant was, all the ai players would choose teh same kind of weapons. EG Everyone uses lasers, or everyone uses Mass drivers, etc.) I was also playign with tech trade on.

What weapon tech a given AI will choose to initially focus on is = rand()%3.

0 = beam

1 = mass driver

2 = missile

 

What weapon tech a given AI will choose to initially focus on is = rand()%3. 0 = beam 1 = mass driver 2 = missile

Yes, so it clearly is a bug.

Otherwise, what would be the chance that all 9 races focused on beam, and then at the exact same time (let's say their M3-7-designs) all of them switched to missile. There is no way it should happen. And I have seen examples of it happening in most of my beta1.1-games.
Kinda takes the fun out of the game, making it so easy to counter all the nine AI-races at the same time.

It's easy to find the bug too. Just start the game with cheats, remove fog of war and press the turn button. Check out all new AI designs in the trade screen.

Your grasp of probability is weak. How many people have bought this game? So I'd say the chances of that situation happening to someone, somewhere, is pretty high.

However, you should investigate that further and see if it continues to occur.

Your grasp of probability is weak.

No, it's not. It's you that are having some reading problems.

I did write that this has happened to me multiple times. If you knew anything at all about probabilities you would understand that it happening (all races focusing on same weapons at start, then switching to the exact same weapon and defense at the exact same time) to me in at least five different games since this beta is not that big.

I can add that I'm not the only one who has noticed it, go read some of the above posts.

Perhaps future patches will see the AI anticipating it's weapon defence needs a little better, or at least just generally diversifying a little more.

I've had the AI adapt their defenses to my fleet before I ever attacked them. But generally if you go right after them by the time they change they're done for.

I'm seeing this effect as well. The different AIs all choose the same weapon. In my current game, we started with 9 opponents. I've seen ships from 7 of them, and they all chose beams. I've seen it a couple of times.

It certainly makes MY choices easier...

Edit: This was a no-tech trade game.

hmm do you think a debug.err is needed? to see if it actually is a bug or i'm just really lucky?