Ambrosia Software Web Board: Messed-up Build Items - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Often when I create or modify a scenario, the build items for the planets/stations get messed up. For example, my planet A has the following text in the build field: 100, 200, 300, 800, which should result in Fighters, Cruisers, Gunships, and Transports. Instead, in-game it comes out with:

Fighter
Cruiser
Gunship
Transport
<blank line>
Transport

The transport is there TWICE, and there is a blank line in between. Is there any way to fix/prevent this?

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To quote a pillar of American society: D'OH!

I've noticed that Hera doesn't overwrite items in the build list after you change it. That is if you origanlly had 6 ships in the list and then slimed it down to 4 the last two ships aren't cleared from the data file. The way I have fixed it is to but in a few 0's after the last ship in the build list like this: 100, 200 , 800, 0, 0, 0
That will overwrite what Hera should have overwritten itself and you'll only have the ships in the list that you want.

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What secret? I don't know what you are talking about...

Ah. I'll try that. I am also having another problem: the AI almost never sends transports to attack my planet. I'm not entirely sure why. Even when it does send transports, they usually turn around after a minute or so. I've tried removing all of my ships except for one cruiser and moving the cruiser as far from the line between the planets as it is possible to go. The AI builds transports, but it still doesn't send them.

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To quote a pillar of American society: D'OH!

Quote

The Ares AI is just like that, I bet if you let your level run long enough they will finally get a transport all the way there. My thoughts on why it does that silly send and return transport business is that it does the exact same thing with every ship, but because all the other ships in Ares have FTL drives they actually get to where they are going before they are recalled.

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What secret? I don't know what you are talking about...

I taped down the F6 button, which controls fast mode, and moved my ship far away from the two planets. An hour later (at superfast speed), they had a lot of cruisers and gunships and at least 10 transports, NONE of which were heading for my planet.

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To quote a pillar of American society: D'OH!

That happens to me sometimes. What you can do to make the AI more active is put a level flag on your planet and the same on all transports with the 'Only Engage' set.

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Vast__

I have a similar problem. However, instead of a blank line, i get a weapon's ammunition or the launcher itself. Granted, this is kinda cool (for example: you're overwhelmed and cant make enough ships so you just build the ammo and kill them all), but i dont want that. I'll give the zeros a shot and come back if it doesnt work.

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Insanity has its advantages

The AI has a few flags which control its behaviour with respect to unit destinations. I believe that the Transport should have a kHardTargetHasOrderFlags (or something to this extent) set, as well as a few of the order flags. These should match up with the Build Flags of the planet object (I think).

If you created a Transport or a planet from scratch, this is probably your problem.

[edit]It's "HardMatchingFoe", which requires the Order Key flags of the transport to be equal to the Level Key flags of the planet object[/edit]

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[~%] ssh localhost
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RSA key fingerprint is 93:33:b4:fc:b8:03:b4:45:15:31:99:1a:a3:1f:a5:ac.
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[This message has been edited by Pallas Athene (edited 12-22-2003).]

I had this problem early on with ships not doing what they were supposed to.
My solution was to always start by duplicating an existing ship, asteroid etc of similar class to what you want the new ship to be and then tweak the settings.

The build thingy can be annoying, but it's minor.
If I remember correctly a blank field in the build list corresponds to a ship that doesn't exist for a particular race. For example, Gaitori don't have heavy cruisers (Class 240), therefore they cannot be built.
A solution to this in an Ishman-Gaitori game would be for example to let the Gaitori build Gunships instead by duplicating the Gaitori Gunship and changing the Gunship duplicate class to 240.
This would then give you two Gunships in the build list instead of a Gunship and a blank (assuming they can build Gunships to start with). Whereas when the planet is under Ishman control it would have a Gunship and a Heavy Cruiser in the build list.
In the build list for a planet selecting all items and deleting them should clear the list so you can type in new values, but it doesn't always!

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Oh, so it is another bug hunt then...

Its a standard Gaitori transport. Nothing unusual about it. The planet is the same one used for Mission 17 (Lalande Alpha).

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To quote a pillar of American society: D'OH!

Hmm... clearly, given that much time, sufficient escort would exist, and I don't know of any other conditions that would stop the AI from sending a transport.

Maybe you should try recopying the transport/planet objects, just in case.

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[~%] ssh localhost
The authenticity of host 'localhost (127.0.0.1)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 93:33:b4:fc:b8:03:b4:45:15:31:99:1a:a3:1f:a5:ac.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?