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--- en:games:star_trek_armada_1:obscure_game_mechanics [2022-06-27-15-41] – [Cloaked But not Invisible] 7saturn
+++ en:games:star_trek_armada_1:obscure_game_mechanics [2024-12-02-17-21] (current) – [The AI Cheats] 7saturn
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   * When playing against a medium or hard AI, you can notice that the build time and resources are considerably lower. For the hard AI it's only 40%, for the medium AI 80% of the normal cost of time and materials.
   * All AIs cheat in the way that they disregard the tech tree altogether. That's advantageous and disadvantageous at the same time. While it allows the AI to build [[freighter|mining freighters]] before even having a [[mining_stations|mining station]], it also makes it waste resources on not required buildings, such as research stations and [[special weapons|special weapon]] research, when playing with //Free Tech// techtree.
-  * Also the AI //always// knows where your ships are, even when they are cloaked (similar how using no fog of war and no shroud works for humans). So when placing a sensor station remotely, where the AI cannot have seen it, it will still head straight for that spot and attack it. You can see that particularly well in the Mission [[single-player_campaign#tasks4|To the Gates of Sto'vo'Kor]].
+  * Also the AI //always// knows where your ships are, even when they are cloaked (similar how using no fog of war and no shroud works for humans). The AI system creates a threat map for the entire map, regardless of visible or visited at all. And the AI uses this threat map to evaluate what to target. That also includes the targets not even seen yet. So when placing a sensor station remotely, where the AI cannot have seen it, it will still head straight for that spot and attack it. You can see that particularly well in the Mission [[single-player_campaign#tasks4|To the Gates of Sto'vo'Kor]].
 What the AI will //not// do however, is cheating itself more resources. So it is possible to starve the AI out. As the AI never deconstructs ships or stations, it has no way of recovering, once it has no freighters and less than 160 Dilithium left (to build a new freighter).
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 ===== Phoenix Bug =====
 The [[Rift Creator]] of the [[Phoenix]] has a control key definition bug. By default, all normal [[cloak|cloaks]] are used with the ''F5'' key. This also goes for the Phoenix, which actually has a cloak. But as its special weapons F-key slot is also activated by ''F5'', the cloak is not usable for human players. It is neither visible as a button nor can it be used with the F-key. Instead, the [[super_weapons|super weapon]] is triggered. The AI on the other hand can use both functions independently, which leaves the AI with the advantage of being able to send the Phoenix into battle cloaked.
+===== Firing on Ones Self Bug =====
+The game does allow for stations and ships to fire on one's own units. When you order a unit that is capable of firing conventional weapons to fire, you can direct that fire explicitly (attack command) onto one of your friendlies. That may be an intended design aspect of the game. (Yet a strange one. If you want to get rid of one of your own units, you simply deconstruct it.) What's very likely not intended, is the ability of ships to actually fire on themselves (not: another friendly ship of sorts).
+When having selected more than one ship at the same time, making the group attack a friendly of the group makes //all// ships attack the target, including the ship being targeted. Even when ceasing fire with the other ships, the ship firing on itself will not stop, until given another order (or weapons fail). So basically you can order a ship to fire on itself. This is not very well visible for Phase fire. But torpedoes make it very well visible, that a ship can in fact fire on itself. This does not work with stations, as you cannot select multiple stations at the same time.
 ===== Increased Mining Rate by Death Chant =====
 The increased firing rate caused by a [[Death Chant]] also affects the [[Mining Beam]], increasing the output rate by 50%. When having less than 3 [[Freighter|freighters]] at a [[map objects#Dilithium Moon]], this may boost income rate. If you already have 3 or more freighters at one moon, there is little point in using this method, as the processing speed of [[mining stations]] is not increased, making them the bottle neck.