Getting th AI to build orbital stations on Armada 2 Fleetops

posted on October 21st, 2010, 4:47 pm

I cannot get the AI to nothing when it comes to building orbital mining stations. Could someone give some suggestions as to why.

posted on October 21st, 2010, 4:52 pm

Have you set planets back to how they were in A2?

posted on October 21st, 2010, 4:54 pm

Not sure? Where do I look?

posted on October 21st, 2010, 4:59 pm

Go into the planet odfs' (eg map_planet_classM01).

The classlabel needs to be changed from "background_obj" to "planet". Adding planet = 1 would also be a possibility.

[grassman]

posted on October 21st, 2010, 5:22 pm

Last edited by grassman on October 21st, 2010, 5:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Trying that now. I have put in planets from A2 with the "planet" class label but still will not build. I am checking all planet odf's and still have not found nothing out of place. I would really like to have this option back in game. I just worked around it with mining stations and frieghters.  I am trying to cut down on the number of stations around planets and also get the AI to build at resource locations. I am having success but two stations are built at each dilithium moon. Orbitals would correct this.

posted on October 21st, 2010, 6:07 pm

Thanks for the suggestions but still will not build!

posted on October 21st, 2010, 6:10 pm

What class label does the Orbital station have? It should be "p_mining".

And does the Planet-specific resource file have canHaveOrbitalStation = 1 in it?

posted on October 21st, 2010, 6:49 pm

Yes all these are in there.??

[Tyler]

posted on October 21st, 2010, 6:55 pm

Last edited by Tyler on October 21st, 2010, 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Then I can't think of anything else except "The AI is crap with Orbitals". Can you build them over planets?

As a final attempt, what is the second number after the odf name in the AI file? Stock starts that at 1 instead of 0 like the other beginning stations.

posted on October 21st, 2010, 7:02 pm

I have used both 1, 0 and 1, 1,. I cannot figure this out!!!! In standard A2 it was real picky when it built one it would only build after colonization of first planet or something like that. Something must be different in planets or something every thing from A2 has worked with a label changes but this has me stumped.

posted on October 21st, 2010, 7:10 pm

The orbital station MUST mine metal.  Absolutely no other resource is accepted by the orbital station.  Also, make sure that there is a resource to mine.

posted on October 21st, 2010, 7:35 pm

There is a resource to mine. I have been using frieghters for this like the borg.  THis is what I have. I can build the orbital but the AI will not.

//AI Type DO NOT CHANGE
aiName = "StarbaseProcess"

// How long to complete one orbit
orbitTime = 120

//Runtime class label for instantiation of object.
classLabel = "p_mining"

// Speed multiplier for mining
miningMultiplier = 0.5

posted on October 21st, 2010, 7:42 pm

Then I'd just put it down to the AI being an ass. Whenever I added a Orbital miner to the stock AI, it would never build. Probably best to compromise and let the AI keep using moons.

The orbital station MUST mine metal.  Absolutely no other resource is accepted by the orbital station.  Also, make sure that there is a resource to mine.

If you could get the Orbital station to use the same mining weapon odf's as the freighters, you could easily make it mine any resource. Planets can use any resource (I just made one planet in stock give dilithium), but only that one orbital mining weapon is accepted for mining. Finding a way to make it use other mining beams would solve the problem.

Weirdly enough, any conventional weapon put in its place works fine while the orbital mining weapon is identical in every way except resources gained and sod used to the ship-based one.

posted on October 21st, 2010, 7:45 pm

It's a problem with the AIP file.

Does the mining station actually mine any resources other than Metal from a planet?  Or does it still only mine metal?  I tried it once, I don't remember it working.

posted on October 21st, 2010, 7:50 pm

Giving it the mining beam of a freight will just make it sit in orbit and do nothing, even if it's the Borg metal mining weapon. Give it a Phaser and it'll shoot the planet constantly, though.