how does the AI choose which avatar?

posted on January 25th, 2017, 5:29 pm

just as stated in the title, because I want to understand the mechanics of it.

posted on January 25th, 2017, 5:46 pm

The AI doesn't choose an avatar per say. The build list determines what the AI builds. if you wanted the AI to build different ships/stations of another avatar you'd have to change its build list to those ships/stations

posted on January 25th, 2017, 6:05 pm

Ok, then I am confused about something.

Then how does the pushbutton items work?? I thought it only worked after choosing an avatar.

I made a sixth race, the Breen. I tried to put pushbuttons in the list for the Starbase. However it only works after the starbase has been built. So for example, you start out with the Breen starbase, and the push buttons don't work. If the construction ship then builds the starbase, the pushbuttons work and the units I selected to come out, come out.

What am I doing wrong??

posted on January 25th, 2017, 10:18 pm

Okay, here is how it works.

Each race has a starting building, for the Borg it's bor _assi_matrixS. That starting building has two weapons, avatar_bor_assimilate and avatar_bor_optimize. These weapons show up as the big buttons, and pressing one will replaceweapon the starting building into one of the two Avatar's starbases.

If you look at the avatar weapons though, avatar_bor_assimilate has one extra line in it, "replacementinstantai = 1" that means that if the weapon belongs to an AI, it will fire instantly, automatically. This causes the AI to always choose Assimilate immediately.

Now, look at rom_staryardY and rom_staryardZ. The Romulan AI is always Mijurial (Z), however Mijurial's staryard has a special build option called "rom_griffinA". This ship is a perfect copy of the griffin, and ranks up into rom_griffinr2 just like the regular griffin, but it is not listed in the techtree file. That means that a human player will never see the button and will never be able to build it, but since the AI ignores the techtree, the AI will be able to build it.

So for each race, one of the Avatars has been given some "cheaty" build options that allow the AI to build ships from both Avatars, but they're invisible to the players.

posted on January 25th, 2017, 10:55 pm

Is there a way I can make my sixth race build the pushbutton ships without using an Avatar??

posted on January 25th, 2017, 11:50 pm

If the faction doesn't have an avatar to begin with, then you can have a starting unit be a dummy station that is instantly replaced via replacementinstantai and replacementinstantplayer into the proper station which then pushbuilds the items you want.

posted on January 26th, 2017, 12:25 am

I'm trying to picture how to do this.... I understand what you are saying, but I'm trying think how to put this into practice....

So my original station is nbre_starbase.odf

make a dummy odf, nbre_starbaseS.odf

and within that have those commands you said and make it turn into nbre_starbase.odf?


Would this work for the human player as well?

posted on January 26th, 2017, 1:17 am

Yes, that's right. You need nbre_starbaseS.odf that will use the same SOD, but doesn't need anything else. You give it a single weapon, I would call it avatar_<something> in case you decide to add another avatar later. The avatar weapon is a replaceweapon with "replacementinstantai = 1" and "replacementinstantplayer =1" that replaces into their actual starbase.

Pretty much everything you need can be copied from the existing starbaseS, stabase, and avatar odfs.

posted on January 26th, 2017, 1:30 am

thanks for the help guys!