Needlejet bombers and the AI

[Basil]

I was wondering if anyone had thought of a way to make the AI use its needlejets more effectively (less ineffectively).

I find that it only uses needlejets to attack units with a defence of one... mostly formers and crawlers but the odd rover or damaged unit. This is fine when all it has is 3 missile needlejets or so, but later on, when it often has 30 fusion or shard needlejets (at the expense of building ground troops) this means that I can basically ignore what should be powerful AI factions and just build, or invade them with 1/10th my economy because most of their war effort is going into building jets they don't use.

Does anyone have ideas for getting around this? I'm about at the point where I'll just not allow needlejets in my next SP game.

[swisscheese4]

I know exactly how you feel. In my last big game the hive built over 100 needlejets! And what did he do with them, nothing! It was a huge map with tech stag and he had yet to discover fusion power, so he didn't make any interceptors, and would send groups of up to 60 jets out to do nothing. Al you had to do was surround them with your own planes so his couldn't get back to base and refuel. The only problem with that was that I had to wait 20mins till all the needlejets went round in circles till they blew up. Which was annoying to say the lest.

I then came to the conclusion that the AI can't use needlejets and that coppers are just to powerful in the hands of a decent player. So from that day on, I removed airpower and MMI from the game to make it more challenging.

[Jasonian]

Hmm...

Well, the AI uses interceptors a bit better, so MAYBE giving all factions SAM when they research the tech would help them out.

[Basil]

Thanks for the responses... I was beginning to wonder if I was imagining things.

The default is that you get SAM at the same time as needlejets - both Doctrine: Air Power. I don't know why the AI wouldn't build SAM needlejets before fusion. Offhand, I can't remember seeing any, but it wasn't anything I've looked for.

[AlexanderIII]

One reason it may not be too smart at using them is that Needlejets get a negative when attacking ground units.

I can think of one solution to this: Create a basic unit in the #UNITS section, a needlejet with Missile Launcher, and assign it the "plan" rating of 0 for Offensive, or 1 for Combat. It could be that the AI is not that smart at using needlejets is that the default for that unit is internally set to 4-Air Superiority. Like this:

Missile Needlejet, Needlejet, Missile, Scout, 0,0,0, DocAir, -1, 000000000000000000000000(+000 for SMACX)
[This message has been edited by AlexanderIII (edited May 10, 2000).]