Exobots, outposts and nearly defeated empires

[MatGB]

If an empire only has Outposts left then shields, defense and troops are reduced to zero. If an empire only has Exobots left then all exobot colonies and outposts have zero troops but still have other defences.

I can understand why outposts only has that effect, but is it intended Exobots behave that way? If so, why/how does it work? The only thing I can see in the scripts for them (and I may be missing something) is that they don't have a Troops characteristic at all, AFAICS everything else has Good/Bad/Average troops.

But I really don't get why outposts revert to zero troops but keep other defences if only exobots are left.

[Geoff the Medio]

For reasons I don't know, planetary shield, defense, and troop effects are written into species definitions. The effects are scripted so they will act on any empire-owned planet, as long as a species with the effect is on a planet the empire owns. Duplicate effects are avoided by using stacking groups.

The exobot species definition has the standard defense and shield macros in it, so exobot populated planets can provide shield and defense effects for any empire owned planets (including colonies). Exobots don't have a troops effect, so having only exobot populated planets is the same as having only outposts for the troop numbers.

Presumably it was intended that exobot planets not have ground troops. It probably wasn't considered that colonies can have ground troops as well, even with no species present. A plausible explanation could probably be made about why it could work as it does, but it's a bit odd.

[Dilvish]

For reasons I don't know, planetary shield, defense, and troop effects are written into species definitions.

I expect it's the same reason as all the growth tech effects getting coded into species definitions also. Because species effects are processed first, if a species is going to have an effect on something it minimizes risk of unintended interference to deal with all effects for that something altogether in the species file.

I'm hoping cami will have time to come back and help sort through the prioritization/ordering scheme he proposed so that we could have more flexibility with this.

[MatGB]

That would make sense, and yeah, if the prioritisation thing can be done it'd solve a whole chunk of other issues as well.

For Exobots and that swamp species with zero ground troops (Setinon?), would it be worth rescripting things a bit to see if no ground troops can work a bit better and as intended? I think I grasp what'd need doing, and can always put up works in progress if I get stuck—wouldn't be an immediate project but it's something I think I can do, unlike the bigger issues I sometimes find.

[Geoff the Medio]

If the goal is to just make it so empires with only Exobots have the (normal) presence of ground troops on outposts, an effectsgroup to do just that could probably be added to them fairly easily.