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[SotF] Improving the AI

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[SotF] Improving the AI

from Sins Forums

So I've finally tackled what I think is a good foundation for modding pacts, while maybe not ideal support the goals of my mod they are within the limitations of the game's moddability.

Another goal of mine has been to improve the AI as much as possible. 

What we know is the AI is not very moddable, so we have to look at this from the constraints that are available.

So what areas do I see as potentially AI improving options...

 

Gameplay.constants:

DamagePercentBonus - Actually works pretty well currently with getting the AI to attack the right targets. Might be be some opportunities though. I've considered removing the advantage the Human player has of targetting enemy capital ships by modifying these abilities changing what is anti-capitalship.

playerAISharedDef - Something I haven't really invested any actual time in. I'm hopeful some tweaks here might prove fruitful.

playerAISharedDef

  • table-Aggressive - Focuses on ships(10)->bounty(5)->tactical(3)->research(2)-others(1)->mines(0)
  • table-Defensive - Focuses on tactical(6)->ships(5)->bounty(5)->starbase(3)->planet(3)->research(2)->mines(2)
  • table-Research - Focuses on bounty(10)->ship(5)->research(5)->tactical(3)->others(2)->mines(1)
  • table-Economic - Focuses on bounty(15*)->ship(5)->civilian(5)->population(5)->research,planet(2)->others(1)
* is 15 the highest value?
 
options available
  • BuildShip
  • BuildModuleTactical
  • BuildModuleResearch
  • UpgradeResearch
  • UpgradePlanetArtifactLevel
  • UpgardPlanetPopulation
  • UpgradePlanetInfrastructure
  • MaxBountyBidCount
  • UpgradeStarBase
  • BuildMines

I'm wonder if these can be turned into Difficulty levels as one option. Another option may be to slide these values up or down to adjust how the AI behaves. 

It would be curious to see how the AI behaved if all the values excluding mines and bounty were set to 15.

I may also try some variations that slide values up or down based on AI behavior. For example, I dislike seeing un-upgraded starbases.

aiRetreatThreshold - from what I've gathered reading other posts this is a strength test with lower values resulting in longer battles and higher values resulting in a quicker retreat. 

 

Abilities

There are lots of possibilities to improve the AI here in my opinion. Here's a few of the issues that can potentially be resolved with rebalancing or coding changes.

  • Synchronized targeting, specifically single target synchronized abilities like Suppression
  • Default aiUseTimes not taking advantage of new better conditions
  • Default aiUseTargetCondition not taking advantage of new or better conditions
  • Antimatter costs canceling out 2nd or 3rd abilities from being cast
  • Ultimates never executed by the AI (Example Resurrection)
  • Abilities never executed by the AI (Example Resource Focus)

Single Target Synchronized abilities

I actually have a fix for this that's already in SotF. To make the AI and by extension the player more effective with this ability I changed it from ApplyTargettedBuffToSelf to ApplyBuffToTarget. The synchronizing still occurs but is cast via a callback from the affected target. I still have some more to change for the custom races in my mod.

So far I've changed Suppression, DisableImmune, TransferAntiMatter, DesignateTarget

Default aiUseTimes

A lot of abilities could be improved for ai casts by tweaking the aiUseTime on abilities. 

Here's a link to the valid list of aiUseTime's. 

Default aiUseTargetCondition

While not as many options as aiUseTime there are some useful aiUseTargetCondition's that might be put on abilities with the goal of improving the AI. 

One condition that pops out is the isCapitalShipOrStarbase condition. This might be extremely useful for the AI on abilities like DetonateAntimatter or NanoDissasembler. This condition won't stop a player from manually targetting a frigate, but it will cause the AI to choose to target capitals or starbases.

Another possibility for DetonateAntimatter is the AntimatterExceedsAmount condition as this ability only causes damage when there is decent amount of antimatter reserve.

The main point will be review each Ability's aiUseTime and aiUseTargetCondition especially for those that are the Any types and see if any potential improvement can be made.

Antimatter costs canceling out 2nd or 3rd abilities from being cast

This one bugs me a bit with the AI as typically AM reserves and cooldowns work out to the same ability being cast over and over when the better ability remains unused.

A couple of options present them self to help resolve this.

  • Rebalance AM, ai use/target conditions and cooldowns to ensure both abilities have a change to fire if appropriate. For example the Guass Blast and Flak Burst end up with Flak Burst rarely being cast during extended battles as the AM is chewed up by Guass Blast. In this scenario FlakBurst could be rebalanced to have a lower AM cost than GuassBlast but an aiUseTime of OnlyWhenManyTargetsInRange. This may require some rebalance to effect of the ability but will create a more dynamic AI.
  • Convert an AM using ability to a Passive. Again picking on the Kol..., The AdaptiveShield is a good opportunity for this type of conversion.
  • The onlyAutoCastWhenDamageTakenExceedsPerc could also be coupled with the rebalanced AM ai use/target conditions in the first bullet... For example AdaptiveShield could have a higher priority to fire based on AM, but only when it's exceeded a certain damage threshold.

Ultimates never executed by the AI (Example Resurrection)

While resurrection is the biggest example I'd like the AI to have more opportunity to execute Ultimate abilities.

  • For resurrection I intend to change this into an ability the AI will use. Basically any capital ship will have Resurrection applied to it once. It won't recast on a ship that's already been resurrected so only newly built ships will get the affect. Human players can still control this BAU.
  • For other ultimate abilities I'm thinking about dramatically reducing their AM costs and increasing cooldowns as I want the AI to prioritize using them. As it currently stands the AI will never disable it's other abilities like Radiation Bomb to store AM for Missile Barrage. By decreasing AM below normal abilities all level 6 capitals become dangerous even in extended battles.
  • I'll still look at the previous changes to help the AI make better decisions about when to cast ultimate abilities.

Abilities never executed by the AI (Example Resource Focus)

This bugs me too and considering resource focus isn't that big of an impact I'm considering making it a passive ability and possibly reblancing it some to compensate.

I guess I should add one more thing to the mix... Abilities that activate too much. Sorry, but the phase out hull on Vasari structures is going to get changed to an AM based ability. This one just bugs the shit out me trying to take down Vasari structures :P

 

Star Bases

The AI never does anything cool with these!

Why? Because it put's all it's upgrade points into Weapons/Toughness/Strikecraft before it even thinks about a different upgrade type.

This results in fairly boring usage of Star bases by the AI...

Solutions?

  1. Decrease the amount of upgrades available for Weapons/Toughness/Strikecraft
  2. Increase the amount of upgrades allowed for a Star Base from 8 to ?
  3. Add instant low level access for all star base upgrades
 

Decrease the amount of upgrades available for Weapons/Toughness/Strikecraft

In essence this would simply make additional upgrades available for Trade, Block Colonize or other special abilities

Increase the amount of upgrades allowed for a Star Base from 8 to ?

Simple enough increase from 8 to whatever. Downside is a lot more resources are needed to upgrade the starbase.

Add instant low level access for all star base upgrades

This one is intriguing. Essentially you could make up for the lack of dynamic behavior on the AI by forcing it to have upgrades that a human would most likely get anyway. Downside is the human gets these as well.

 

Generic Stuff

Spamming of mines by Advent drone hosts

Ok, I actually fixed this in my mod by removing mines from the carrier and creating a separate mine host similar to the Vasari mine layer.

m_weaponIndexForRange

I can't recall on this one but if I change the m_weaponIndexForRange to 1 for the Vasari Starbase will that prevent the other weapons from firing until it's in range of the antimodule weapons. I want the Vasari starbase to engage all it's weapons instead of staying out of range with it's anti-module. If this does cause issues I'm going to rework weapon ranges to ships and star bases with multiple weapons to be more effective.

 

maybe some other stuff I haven't considered yet...

modding
117,368 views 134 replies
Reply #51 from Sins Forums Top

We call it "borrowing".

Reply #52 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Sinperium, reply 49
Seriously though, if you can make a basic vanilla mod of this it would be really great for most players--assuming you can refine it and get it going.

I have that... it's called Sins of the Fallen Core with Tech, Advent and Vasari.

Wait!... you want me to build a different special mod for you because you won't download the one I have  :rolleyes:

Quoting SemazRalan, reply 48
btw, giving a research item a priority of 5 didn't crash the game, but didn't seem to do anything at all. 

-1 didn't seem to break anything either...

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 50
If he won't, I'm sure some modder around here will steal the idea, and all the karma it will generate.

Maybe someone will make Sinperium's basic vanilla mod then...

 

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Reply #53 from Sins Forums Top

This might produce nicer games overall and even allow people with expanded trees to get the AI moving as they should. I wonder how much of this would apply to DS, since I know we managed to get the AI to do a bit more tech than it originally would.

Reply #54 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Draakjacht, reply 53
I know we managed to get the AI to do a bit more tech than it originally would.

 

Do you know what the major changes were that were made with the DS mod?

Reply #55 from Sins Forums Top

To the AI? No, sadly I'm not in on all that. I think Stant, Nacey or Carbon would have that down. I know that they were stumped for a while on getting them to do more than 2 levels of low end tech. Might have been a simple matter of shifting research priorities up, such as Zombie did from the get go.

Reply #56 from Sins Forums Top

I've done a lot of testing now and can definitely confirm that this strategy does help the AI research techs it wouldn't normally prioritize.

I think it would be possible to change the likely hood of a tech being researched by tweaking the role of the frigate being used. For example, using a starbase constructor role appears to get the AI to research the tech much quicker than say using a Siege role.

Reply #57 from Sins Forums Top

 

Star Bases

The AI never does anything cool with these!

Why? Because it put's all it's upgrade points into Weapons/Toughness/Strikecraft before it even thinks about a different upgrade type.

This results in fairly boring usage of Star bases by the AI...

Solutions?

  1. Decrease the amount of upgrades available for Weapons/Toughness/Strikecraft
  2. Increase the amount of upgrades allowed for a Star Base from 8 to ?
  3. Add instant low level access for all star base upgrades
 

Decrease the amount of upgrades available for Weapons/Toughness/Strikecraft

In essence this would simply make additional upgrades available for Trade, Block Colonize or other special abilities

Increase the amount of upgrades allowed for a Star Base from 8 to ?

Simple enough increase from 8 to whatever. Downside is a lot more resources are needed to upgrade the starbase.

Add instant low level access for all star base upgrades

This one is intriguing. Essentially you could make up for the lack of dynamic behavior on the AI by forcing it to have upgrades that a human would most likely get anyway. Downside is the human gets these as well.

Reply #58 from Sins Forums Top

That's the catch with this form of AI control too. How dramatic are the changes to the tech tree? Are we talking full on restructuring?

Reply #59 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Draakjacht, reply 58
That's the catch with this form of AI control too. How dramatic are the changes to the tech tree? Are we talking full on restructuring?

For the research trees it doesn't require any modification to the existing tree with how I'm implementing it.

 

Here's the pattern

NotOnPage -> ResearchFrigate

ResearchFrigate.entity pre-reqs -> ResearchSubjectUnlockWhatever

ResearchSubjectUnlockWhatever pre-reqs -> Real research tree entity like last Envoy ability, etc

 

I have ResearchSubjectUnlockWhatever in the Fleet tree on tier 5 and row 17 (hidden).

 

Lavo's also done the ResearchFrigate in the actual build menus with special text which would work too. 

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Reply #60 from Sins Forums Top

In an ultimate scenario, you could create three new player types which would be the AI variants--allowing humans to play the standard and the AI to have their changes.

Unfortunately, with three races and six additional factions coming in Rebellion I'm not sure how practical this might be.

Make a wormhole using pirate mod in this and you will then have it all.

Reply #61 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 59
For the research trees it doesn't require any modification to the existing tree with how I'm implementing it.

...Lavo's also done the ResearchFrigate in the actual build menus with special text which would work too. 

Confirming both of these. I'm testing using the actual frigate menu vs. notonpage. I will report back with my findings after a few tests.

Reply #62 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Lavo_2, reply 61
Confirming both of these. I'm testing using the actual frigate menu vs. notonpage. I will report back with my findings after a few tests.

I've been using this one for a while now to create a dedicated starbase constructor for Vasari as felt it's colonizer didn't behave the same as Tech and Advent when it came to constructing starbases.

 

Reply #63 from Sins Forums Top

Been watching several AI versus AI games. I'm REALLY tempted to add a self destruct to Envoys that loiter too long in their own gravity well!

Reply #64 from Sins Forums Top

wow... AI versions... NICE IDEA!

could put in quick and simple R&D trees then.

Reply #65 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 52


I have that... it's called Sins of the Fallen Core with Tech, Advent and Vasari. Wait!... you want me to build a different special mod for you because you won't download the one I have.

Well...I am special. :)

I have downloaded your mod(s) and even played with them and spent some time picking through abilities and the like for knowledge (I like the Plague for example) and the mod-stacking concept is awesome (if you have the flow chart) ;)

My deal though is everyone wants you to use their mod.  I like a lot of them but I actually like core Sins as well.  Most mods tend to branch into a whole new area of play not in the core game.  I love additions to the core game but am less enchanted by radical remakes of it--even though I love Stars, Maelstrom, Distant Stars and the like. My own modding tends towards tweaks and additions that are options and not so much "new games".  Pretty much like TSOP...I don't want to radically change the core game. 

So my suggestion is essentially, don't develop this great add on and then make it mod-specific to custom mods only.  This is something a lot of solo players would love and it really leaves original play intact--it isn't changing the game--and I find that very appealing and praiseworthy.

So educate me here.  What are the differences in what I was requesting and the SotF core?  Are these changes in that or is it along with other changes? (which is what I thought).

I'd love a mod where I could select an enhanced AI for non-human player slots and otherwise play with all standard Sins elements.  I think a lot of people would want this.

It of course is your (all of yours) work and I understand you adding it to your mods as a preference.  I just see it like TSOP--an actual improvement to the game itself, not just a mod and I'd like everyone to have that.

...and thanks SemazRalan.

Reply #66 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Sinperium, reply 65
Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 52


I have that... it's called Sins of the Fallen Core with Tech, Advent and Vasari. Wait!... you want me to build a different special mod for you because you won't download the one I have.
Well...I am special.

hehe ;)

Quoting Sinperium, reply 65
My deal though is everyone wants you to use their mod.  I like a lot of them but I actually like core Sins as well.  Most mods tend to branch into a whole new area of play not in the core game.  I love additions to the core game but am less enchanted by radical remakes of it--even though I love Stars, Maelstrom, Distant Stars and the like. My own modding tends towards tweaks and additions that are options and not so much "new games".  Pretty much like TSOP...I don't want to radically change the core game. 

I actually agree here, which is why my mod hasn't changed the original races much. 

The only extensions to the original races I have made is the additional capital ship which can be easily modded out. All other changes to the original races have been to fix what I feel are broken or issues like Drone Hosts and Mines or abilities like Suppression or to support the various optional addons like the flagship mode or moon bases.

Quoting Sinperium, reply 65
So educate me here.  What are the differences in what I was requesting and the SotF core?  Are these changes in that or is it along with other changes? (which is what I thought).

SotF Core is essentially the one ring that unites them all. The only gameplay changes in SotF core are additional PlanetBonuses in the released version. This is basically the base I build all my mods with now and don't see any reason to do differently.

All the AI enhancements such as Research Tree boosters or ability changes would be in SotF Race [Name].

In fact if someone liked my mod and didn't like the multiple stacking options and tended to play it one way... They could combine all the directories together into a single mod in the same order they would stack them in.

Quoting Sinperium, reply 65
I'd love a mod where I could select an enhanced AI for non-human player slots and otherwise play with all standard Sins elements.  I think a lot of people would want this.

What additional things would you give to an enhanced AI? I'm not being funny here either as I think I could make this addon for SotF.

I can think of a few things enhanced AI's might like:

  • Autoleveling capital ships
  • Extended levels on starbases
  • Cheaper research

Quoting Sinperium, reply 65
It of course is your (all of yours) work and I understand you adding it to your mods as a preference.  I just see it like TSOP--an actual improvement to the game itself, not just a mod and I'd like everyone to have that.

The reason I don't want to build a TSOP like mod is because mods like that eventually stagnate overtime. Conversely my mod will stay updated. Has TSOP been updated with the recent patches? 

At this point SotF just means it was made and supported by me. Maybe a bit odd but I don't feel a need to change the name. Like the Blood and Chrome mod is really SotF Race Colonial, SotF Race Cylon, SotF Core activated.

SotF Addon Artifacts
SotF Addon Bonus Density
SotF  Addon Flagship
SotF Addon Graphics
SotF Addon Moons
SotF Addon Research+
SotF Militia Advent
SotF Militia Colonial
SotF Militia Cylon
SotF Militia Hypercorp
SotF Militia Nephilim
SotF Militia Plague
SotF Militia Rogue
SotF Militia Vasari
SotF Planets Rigel
SotF Planets SinsPlus
SotF Planets Sol
SotF Planets Tenorias
SotF Race Advent
SotF Race Alliance
SotF Race Archailect
SotF Race Colonial
SotF Race Council
SotF Race Cylon
SotF Race Hypercorp
SotF Race Nephilim
SotF Race Plague
SotF Race Rogue
SotF Race SST Fed
SotF Race Tech
SotF Race Vasari
SotF (Core)

* note some of the stack options above aren't released.

I also plan to have a Fallen Addon DistantStars that allows my races to be played with DS which I'll look at after they release their new version. 

Reply #67 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 66
Autoleveling capital ships

Not to derail, but how do you go about implementing this? I ask mainly as I've tried doing a similar thing for the AI before, making the first two level upgrades cost nothing, but if you could make a process automatic it would work far better.

Quoting Sinperium, reply 60
In an ultimate scenario, you could create three new player types which would be the AI variants--allowing humans to play the standard and the AI to have their changes.

That's a wonderful idea. I'm going to mark this down for future reference... For some reason I could have sworn there was some sort of AI constraint for research or something, but it seems I'm either blind or it doesn't exist.

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 66
What additional things would you give to an enhanced AI? I'm not being funny here either as I think I could make this addon for SotF.

Personally I've added in, as a tier 0 costless research item:

+1 Capital ship crews
+2 Max trainable capital ship levels (Trying to get in an equivalent of auto leveling capitals; as these trainee levels cost nothing)
+100 Supply
+15% Research speed
-25% Research costs
-5% Black market costs
+1% Cargo ship hold
1% Sale to credit conversion
+4 Logistic slots

This is mainly as the AI doesn't handle SoGE as well as stock Sins, and as even with the research tree modifications, it cannot keep up with a decent human player in research.

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Reply #68 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Lavo_2, reply 67
Not to derail, but how do you go about implementing this? I ask mainly as I've tried doing a similar thing for the AI before, making the first two level upgrades cost nothing, but if you could make a process automatic it would work far better.

There are two modifiers that explicitly control this.

modifierType "ExperienceConstantGainRate"
modifierType "ExperienceConstantGainLevelCap"

These modifiers are part of the core game in the RESEARCHSUBJECT_CONSTANTEXPERIENCE.entity file.

You need both as one defines the continuous increase and the other defines the cap at which it stops.

Quoting Lavo_2, reply 67
That's a wonderful idea. I'm going to mark this down for future reference... For some reason I could have sworn there was some sort of AI constraint for research or something, but it seems I'm either blind or it doesn't exist.

I'm not really into this idea personally as I can't do a Random player game for myself, plus I wouldn't know what level of difficulty the AI came in on. I like the idea of adding more stuff that's only accessible to the AI though.

It would also double the number of selectable races which I have 13 now so not going to happen here.

Quoting Lavo_2, reply 67
Personally I've added in, as a tier 0 costless research item:

Great ideas. Making those a pre-req of a hidden Starbase constructor will almost assuredly mean they are researched by the AI.

I wonder if I can trick the AI into only building special star bases only available to the AI... Hmm, I think so and already have an idea to easily accomplish this.

Reply #69 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 68
There are two modifiers that explicitly control this.

modifierType "ExperienceConstantGainRate"
modifierType "ExperienceConstantGainLevelCap"

These modifiers are part of the core game in the RESEARCHSUBJECT_CONSTANTEXPERIENCE.entity file.

You need both as one defines the continuous increase and the other defines the cap at which it stops.

Thanks, will look into this.

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 68
I'm not really into this idea personally as I can't do a Random player game for myself, plus I wouldn't know what level of difficulty the AI came in on. I like the idea of adding more stuff that's only accessible to the AI though.

It would also double the number of selectable races which I have 13 now so not going to happen here.

Yeah I know that feel. Personally if I was to ever do this, it would be once I'm satisfied with all the techs and ship stats of the 6 races that are in SoGE, which would be 3-4 months at best.


Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 68
Great ideas. Making those a pre-req of a hidden Starbase constructor will almost assuredly mean they are researched by the AI.

Indeed. If you put in supply and capital ship crews, putting in:

modifierType "ShipMaxSlotLevel"
modifierType "CapitalShipMaxSlotLevel"

Tends to help the "likelihood" of an AI researching it. As is, most of the AIs (this number is higher with research AIs) tend to have it researched within the first 10 minutes, and this is without using the Starbase constructor as the frigate type

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 68
I wonder if I can trick the AI into only building special star bases only available to the AI... Hmm, I think so and already have an idea to easily accomplish this.

Do tell! While I won't use this personally, I'm interested in seeing what you come up with.

I've also done the previously mentioned test, on a map where both factions have virtually equal footing and the only colonizable planet is NU's Savannah, roughly equivalent to a weakened vanilla Terran, and 95% confidence. There doesn't appear to be any major different between having ships on page or not, the actual results can be seen here, and downloaded here if I used the wrong test type, or you want to just screw around with them.

Edit: In addition, I noticed that the NotOnPage faction had also researched techs that it would not otherwise research, namely advanced fighters (see red), which further cements that this was not a fluke.

Edit 2: Just realized if one is using NotOnPage, then a filler tech is entirely unnecessary, unless of course you are using it as the end of a chain to force the AI to build multiple things.

Reply #70 from Sins Forums Top

@Zombie, All the things suggested have been great--the auto-leveling etc. No reason why they can't be given an Advent like ability to constantly level their ships to some degree.  The research improvements sound awesome.

I just want an AI that plays more like a smart player than a dumb one--I don't care if it takes a cheat or tweak (for the AI) to make that happen.  just don't want the AI changes to spill over to players.  I want to play regular Sins vs a smarter, stronger, more capable AI is all.

I've spent the past year studying how the AI moves through my maps and it's a mystery--every update or two produces changes.  I had elegantly balanced maps that died when an upgrade was made.  It will be nice to see Diplomacy 'fully mature" as I am sure mods for it will remain in demand for a long while.   Rebellion will be modding deja vu all over again...ouch.

I like the way you work your mods--it's consistent and makes it easy to use them. 

Some of the things I scratch my head at are the map where I set up a base with stagnate economies but lots of starting cash and resources and modules--but the AI sat like a brick.  I changed dead asteroid HWs to Piratebase HW's and the AI took off.

Reply #71 from Sins Forums Top

A little update... For whatever reason I haven't been able to put all my filler ships as NotOnPage ones without causing an MD. Though I've been able to limit the actual frigate pages to two ships, the fillers for AntiModule and Siege. The capital ship auto-leveling has also been implemented and is functioning as intended.

 

Reply #72 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Lavo_2, reply 71
A little update... For whatever reason I haven't been able to put all my filler ships as NotOnPage ones without causing an MD. Though I've been able to limit the actual frigate pages to two ships, the fillers for AntiModule and Siege. The capital ship auto-leveling has also been implemented and is functioning as intended.

Right, NotOnPage has the same rules as the pages. It's limited to frigates only and has a max count of 9 even though there is not an actual build menu.

 

Quoting Lavo_2, reply 69
Edit 2: Just realized if one is using NotOnPage, then a filler tech is entirely unnecessary, unless of course you are using it as the end of a chain to force the AI to build multiple things.

Correct, the nice thing with the filler tech is the "unlocks X" doesn't show on the standard tech trees for the filler frigate. Not a big deal really, just depends on what you are wanting to accomplish. Of course using all available slots provides much more latitude for research prompting.

Reply #73 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Sinperium, reply 70
@Zombie, All the things suggested have been great--the auto-leveling etc. No reason why they can't be given an Advent like ability to constantly level their ships to some degree.  The research improvements sound awesome.

I've decided to set these up as an addon to the mod so I can keep the core mod still pure to original Sins as much as possible.

Quoting Sinperium, reply 70
I just want an AI that plays more like a smart player than a dumb one--I don't care if it takes a cheat or tweak (for the AI) to make that happen.  just don't want the AI changes to spill over to players.  I want to play regular Sins vs a smarter, stronger, more capable AI is all.

It's one reason I'm trying really hard to keep the "improvements" hidden from the player. I think the only one I can't really get away with is tweaking abilities so they are used more regularly by the AI.

Quoting Sinperium, reply 70
I've spent the past year studying how the AI moves through my maps and it's a mystery

sums it up.

Quoting Sinperium, reply 70
I like the way you work your mods--it's consistent and makes it easy to use them. 

Thanks, I just like plug-n-play concepts I guess. This manifests itself much more in my software development especially in regards to usage of various design patterns.

Reply #74 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Lavo_2, reply 69
Do tell! While I won't use this personally, I'm interested in seeing what you come up with.

I'm positive I can get a percentage of AI starbases to be enhanced. I'm almost positive I could get the AI to build the enhanced starbases all the time. The latter depends on how far I want to go with the AI and how it builds starbases.

I want to do some testing of course before I lay out an implementation. Wouldn't want anyone to waste their time copying based on a concept until an actual implementation is ready.

 

Reply #75 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 72
Right, NotOnPage has the same rules as the pages. It's limited to frigates only and has a max count of 9 even though there is not an actual build menu.

I am well aware of this. I was using 9 of those slots at first, it was only once I moved two of the ships to the regular frigate menu that the MDs stopped occuring. As I said, it utterly puzzles me, but it works.

Quoting ZombiesRus5, reply 73
I think the only one I can't really get away with is tweaking abilities so they are used more regularly by the AI.

I can think of a way. With abilities, you can set them up so they are leveled up by research. The level up in this case can be due to one of the filler techs, if not the first one, which can reduce AM costs, cooldown time, or other tweaks. This would ensure that the AI would use abilities more, albeit in a somewhat cheap manner.