Nicolas Bossy Nicolas Bossy

The AI is cheating on its ship range...

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The AI is cheating on its ship range...

from Stardock Forums
I've seen this in three games in the last two days. The AI seems able to send Colony Ships to good planets outside their range.

One time this happened, the Altarian empire that was supposed to be in an isolated corner managed to colonize a planet on the other side of the galaxy. This wasn't a UP event because I saw the ship colonize it. Later, this empire declaired war on all of the other empires except my own, and since I was between this planet and the rest of the empire, it sent lots of Battle Hammers through my space. I wouldn't have minded this if the Hammers didn't suddeny stop and litter my sectors, making it hard to get around. >:(

Other times, the colony ships go from sectors in their range to stars in the center of sectors just outside their range. I'm really annoyed, because sometimes it ruins my strategy to isolate the near by empires before I pick them off.
1,522 views 31 replies
Reply #26 from Stardock Forums Top
"One thing the AI DOES do, though, is colonize the wrong planet in a system. I played a game last night in which a system had a class-26 planet and a class-18. The first colony the AI established was on the class-18. Not a bug, just a stupid decision."

I've been experimenting with the +15% planet quality advantage (powerful, it is) and discovered that population grows so fast that it's generally best to colonize the smallest planet first so that colonizing the rest of the system won't overload the other planets.

~SDC~
Reply #27 from Stardock Forums Top
Out of curiosity, anyone ever tried moving from planet A's range to to planet B's range where that would take you over a bunch of out-of-range space? I know someone filed a bug sometime back saying that their ships ignored range in waypointing, but it was for stuff like cutting corners across OOR sectors. I'm curious what would happen if you had a planet in the middle of some far-off star system (i.e. you got it in a trade or something), since the range check seems to be when you click on the destination.

Easiest way to test would be to string starbases across the galaxy, then delete all the ones but the end, then use some short-range ship like a transport.

~SDC~
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Reply #28 from Stardock Forums Top
Bossy, I've been seeing the same behavior as you. Occassionally it will be close enough rangewise to the AI empire that you can rationalize it away with a starting racial pick or early tech bonus. But I've seen the exact same situation: AI colony 4-5 sectors away from thier next closest world in the early game... explored all the sectors surrounding and found no SBs or colonies of any kind.

In particular there was an occassion where the AI empire to my east attempted to beat me to a planet on the *west* side of my empire! And my space was at least three sectors wide by that point.
Reply #29 from Stardock Forums Top
You do know that controlled gravity and gravity mastering each give +1 to range right?



~SDC~
Reply #30 from Stardock Forums Top
Sorry if I din't read the entire thread.

I too have experienced this.

I saved the beginning of a map and replayed it several times so I know where everyone starts at. An AI opponent way, WAY, out of range on a gigantic map always trys to colonize a planet right next to me. This is always WAY early in the game. In diplomacy the AI doesn't have any of the range extending tech's (they didn't even have medical or propulsion theory).

This appears to rarely happen, as the AI must start off in really crummy teritory for it to reach out so far that early. To reach him I need either a starbase or 2 range improvement techs. I'll have to try the game again and use spies to see if he starts with a range bonus.... but its the race with yellow ships and a default neutral alignment.

~SDC~
Reply #31 from Stardock Forums Top
We're looking into this. The AI is doing things the the human could do.

But we are thinking there may be a bug where when you load a saved game that the range for the sectors isn't calculated and the AI is, ironically, exploiting it.

I don't know what's worse, dealing with humans exploiting loopholes or dealing with the AI exploiting loopholes. But right now we're working on a theory, we haven't reproduced it here.

In the beta, someone would email us a saved game and we'd always find a starbase or an ability point that allowed them to do it, so we have tended to be skeptical on the range issue. But if we find that the sector range values aren't being initialized correctly, that'll be a trivial bug to fix.

But just to stress: The AI isn't doing anything the human couldn't do. It just may be exploiting a bug that humans aren't.

~SDC~