Strange Behavior

from Sins Forums

I’m seeing some behavior that I don’t understand.

For example, a colonizing ship leaving a system uses AM, if there isn’t sufficient AM then the ship must wait to colonize the planet. However if the AM pool for the ship is near zero (such as after colonizing the planet) it will still jump to the next system. Sort of works like AM is used and is optional for jumping, however it’s required to colonize. Is this what was intended? It seems if AM is used to make the jump then it shouldn’t make the jump unless sufficient AM is present. If this were enforced then obviously ships might find themselves stuck and unable to escape when outnumbered.

Next issue is with what appears to be really dumb AI. I have on more than one occasion moved into an AI owned system (non-home world) that has one cap-ship with roughly a dozen frigates defending it and I have that force seriously outgunned (the one I remember is I had 4 capital ships). The AI stayed to defend the system and lost the capital ship. Once that ship was destroyed the frigates exited the system. So the question is why did the AI choose to sacrifice the capital ship? As a live player I would have run immediately.

Many upgrades occur in 5% increments. The info-readout on the affected ships doesn’t change, implying that the combat value didn’t change and is an integral value. Does the game use fractional values in resolving combat?

10,520 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Is this what was intended?
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Yep, that's what was intended. They didn't want to hold ships from jumping if there isn't enough antimatter (especially given the number of antimatter-draining abilities), but they wanted quick repeated jumps to affect ships nonetheless. So now if you don't have "enough" for a jump it just takes whatever you have.

Next issue is with what appears to be really dumb AI. I have on more than one occasion moved into an AI owned system (non-home world) that has one cap-ship with roughly a dozen frigates defending it and I have that force seriously outgunned (the one I remember is I had 4 capital ships). The AI stayed to defend the system and lost the capital ship. Once that ship was destroyed the frigates exited the system. So the question is why did the AI choose to sacrifice the capital ship? As a live player I would have run immediately.
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There are people that would hang you for this because they want the AI to stay and fight no matter what :P The way it works is the AI analyzes your fleet vs their fleet + modifiers (defenses, how important to them the planet is, etc) as a behind-the-scenes gauge on their chances. If the difference grows large enough, they retreat. Because so many people were complaining that they AI retreats too much, IC has been bumping up the allowable difference a bit in a few patches already. But ultimately it's a numbers game. It's possible that before you destroyed the capital, the AI was barely into the allowable margin ;)

Many upgrades occur in 5% increments. The info-readout on the affected ships doesn’t change, implying that the combat value didn’t change and is an integral value. Does the game use fractional values in resolving combat?
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The infocards do update after research modifiers.. do you have a specific example? For display they are rounded, however, to the nearest whole so even though your 5% bonus on 10 points of damage will be calculated and do 10.5, the infocard might still show 10 since it rounds.

Edit: Not sure what's wrong with the formatting/font.. can't seem to change/fix it on edit :(

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 1

There are people that would hang you for this because they want the AI to stay and fight no matter what The way it works is the AI analyzes your fleet vs their fleet + modifiers (defenses, how important to them the planet is, etc) as a behind-the-scenes gauge on their chances. If the difference grows large enough, they retreat. Because so many people were complaining that they AI retreats too much, IC has been bumping up the allowable difference a bit in a few patches already. But ultimately it's a numbers game. It's possible that before you destroyed the capital, the AI was barely into the allowable margin
End of Annatar11's quote

Forcing the AI to arbitrarily stay and fight is unfortunate...there are many examples in history where a mobile retreating force ultimately resulted in the defeat of the attacker. If the AI were allowed more freedom to withdraw in order to assemble more forces the resulting AI would be a more effective opponent. This is especially true if the AI stays long enough to cause some losses and then retreats to a system that it owns which also has static defenses and repair platforms.


Quoting Annatar11, reply 1

The infocards do update after research modifiers.. do you have a specific example? For display they are rounded, however, to the nearest whole so even though your 5% bonus on 10 points of damage will be calculated and do 10.5, the infocard might still show 10 since it rounds.
End of Annatar11's quote

For example (from memory), a cobalt I believe starts out with an offensive value of 9.5 (from spreadsheet). The info card shows 10. The first weapon upgrade of 5% should result in 9.975 and still shows as 10 on the info card. So what value is used in both situations in resolving combat? If 10 is used to resolve combat then the first upgrade didn't buy me anything.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

The actual value is used. The infocard information is just rounded to the nearest whole for easy display. ;)