AI Using The Same 3 Ships

[22SAS_Wimp]

HI all,

I hope someone can help with this problem. On my server, I have created several ships for the Pirates and Trading Guild to use, but we only ever see them in the same 3 ships over and over again.

Using the Isanth-VI, I've "downgraded" it to make I through V, and upgraded it for VII and VIII. I've also created 4 more ships that are called (although the names are irrelevant) the Bident, the Oscus, the Musca and the Scarab. Under the Admin tab of the Catalogue, the "EnemyUsable" checkbox is selected as the permissions for all these ships so that the Pirates use them.
Then, I created a freighter with 7 different varriations (mostly different cargo) for the Trading Guild to use. The permissions for these freighters is set to "Other", which I'm told will allow the Trading Guild to use them - proven by the fact that in SP I've seen the Trading Guild floating around in turrets because the permissions for those turrets haven't been changed from the default setting of "Other".

However, no matter how many AI we come across, and regardless of faction, the only ships we see them in are the Isanth-I and II, and the Musca, never anything else. Even the Trading Guild use those 3 ships despite them only being "EnemyUsable".

Could someone please explain why this is? Is there simply a limit to 3 ships that the AI can use, and it was those 3 ships that were chosen at random by the game?

Cheers in advance for any help you might be able to give.

 

[Archer6621]

Try to spawn them manually to see if the blueprints aren\'t broken. If that\'s not it, then I don\'t know.

 

[22SAS_Wimp]

With the spawn_entity command, or the spawn_mobs command?

I have spawned Pirates and Trading Guild in some of their respective ships with the spawn_mobs command, which worked fine. I\'ve not tried spawn_entity.

 

[Captain Fortius]

those checker boxes are completely bollocks.

Like, they\'ve been drawn there for show\'s sake. Whatever is allowed for one, will also be allowed for the other. There\'s no way to separate pirate from merchant.

One time in sp, I\'ve also seen the pirates spawn a ship that\'s blueprints only exist on a pal\'s home server. I checked it several times, both on the in-game list and among the files, but I really didn\'t have them.

 

[Qweesdy]

Hi,

It may just be bad \"luck\". The chance of a pirate/merchant buying a ship depends on the ship\'s price. If the ship\'s price is 18 K credits then the chance is high; and the further the ship\'s price is from 18 K the lower the chance gets.

This means that if your catalogue has got 3 ships with costs ranging from 17 K to 19 K, plus 2 more ships that are 2000 K each and another 2 that are 3 K each; then you\'ll probably only ever see the first 3 ships - even though the others are theoretically possible the chance of them spawning and then you seeing them is almost zero.

 

[22SAS_Wimp]

Ah right, the AI will use ships that cost about the same as the value they\'ve been programmed to use? Damn.

Does anyone know if there is any way around this?
If not, I can work around it by removing cheaper ships from the catalogue as players on the server get better armed and more advanced - but that\'s not ideal.

Also, does the Trading Guild use the same ships that are set to \"EnemyUsable\", even though they\'re technically not \"enemy\"?



Cheers for the feedback thus far.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Is there any way to have AI spawn bigger ships? Like, modify the \"favored cost\" for TG and pirate ships, or somehow enable level 2-5 pirates to spawn? Only level 1 waves spawn naturally in the current state of the game.

 

[22SAS_Wimp]

I\'ve just checked in the catalogue and Qweesdy is right, the 3 ships (Isanth-I, Isanth-II and Musca) the AI are constantly using are indeed the 3 cheapest ships there (costing 52000, 57575 and 66600 respectively). All the rest are more expensive.

Well that\'s a bummer. :\'( I doubt that\'s the long-term intention, so maybe it\'ll get addressed at some point.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Odd, my pirates are set up to use four ships types, Pirate_Interceptor (62,625), Pirate_Rocketeer (73,125) Isanth-VII(277,874) and Pirate_Gunship(1,920,773)

The pirates send waves of ships at my base usually containing interceptors, rocketeers, occasionally Isanths-VII, and every so often I\'ll get a gunship sent my way.

When traveling around the pirates will spawn in packs just chilling in sectors and will more often not contain more gunships than interceptors. I would have added larger ships to the catalog by now if not for the pirates spawning so bloody many gunships already and I don\'t want to run into three or four pirate corvettes when looking for a fight in a smaller ship. These gunships spawn in packs of 3-5 with usually only a single interceptor and Isanth-VII escorting them.

It seems when \"Hostile forces detected\" happens the game sends cheap ships your way but when the ships spawn in mobs they have a higher probability of spawning in more expensive ships, all things that should be fully customizable by server operators for every faction including custom ones.