AI intel

[mindloss]

So I remember reading that the AI is expressly limited to the exact same information a human player in its position would have, thus no magic omniscience as in other games. My question here is how the AI knows when I leave a planet undefended... I move my ships out, and it will often immediately move in an attacking force to the vacated planet. When this happens, does that mean the AI has a scout in my system?

And on a related note, when I check the planet summary on a system I sometimes get a reading for 'cloaked' ships, which I have a few questions about:

1) How do you know how many cloaked ships there are?
2) Are all cloaked ships detected on the summary if you have a scout in system?
3) What's the most efficient way of dealing with cloaked ships if you have them in system? (The decloaker is a pain, and I don't really like the idea of teching military command to full.)

Thanks for any tips!

[x4000]

In terms of what the AI is limited to, it's not exactly what you're limited to.  In a lot of respects, the AI is more limited than you in terms of what it is allowed to know, and in a very few respects it's allowed to know slightly more.

Examples:
1. AI guards on adjacent planets aren't allowed to know when you're attacking a planet; they just sit idly by, doing their jobs.
2. The AI has a rough idea of the count and firepower of ships on planets that border its own ships, rather like if they had a basic scout there (which is what you're mentioning).
3. That said, the AI is NOT allowed to know specifically what targets of value are on the planets it is not on, and it has to find out fresh each time it gets more ships sent there.  Very much unlike you.

Those are just a few examples, but hopefully that makes sense.  That's why I say that what the AI knows is pretty much equivalent to what you know, but it's definitely not the same type of data or the same mechanisms for gathering them.  All in all, though, the AI is a collection of entities, and each one is vastly more limited in what it knows, with the overall AI controllers knowing a bit more but still not as much as a human player would.  Hence the flocking and emergent behavior is able to come out, etc.

In terms of cloaked ships:
1. You can see how many there are on the planetary summary sidebar if you have a scout there.
2. Yes.
3. Decloaker works pretty well, or you can do a tachyon warhead if you're really impatient.  Or just don't worry about it, if there's only a few of them.  However, if it's a planet that was previously held by the AI, then be sure and send your decloaker around to each of the metal/crystal deposits, since the AI is probably at one of those.  If not one of those, then they're almost certainly at the wormholes.  It's pretty rare that the AI cloaked ships are just out in the middle of nowhere (though it does happen), which is what makes the decloaker easy to use in the majority of cases; just set up a winding path across all the m/c deposits and wormholes and see when something starts shooting at you.

[Philo]

Actually I have a question. The AI still seems to know my composition of in what planets I have Zenith Generators or other valuables since they lots of times beeline straight 3 planets into there.

Does the AI know the whereabouts of my factories etc. if it doesn't have a planet bordering them? And if it does have a planet bordering them, does it then now there's valuable stuff there?

[x4000]

Actually I have a question. The AI still seems to know my composition of in what planets I have Zenith Generators or other valuables since they lots of times beeline straight 3 planets into there.

Does the AI know the whereabouts of my factories etc. if it doesn't have a planet bordering them? And if it does have a planet bordering them, does it then now there's valuable stuff there?

It's a coincidence every time, I promise you.  The AI doesn't know where any of that stuff is.  It DOES know where your home planet is, though, so it might be going straight to the other planet if it's on the way to your home planet.  But very few AI ships go straight for your home planet in general, either.

[zebramatt]

Most likely some other decision making process is producing similar results many times to encourage ships to move from planet to planet and then, upon reaching one with a worthy target like the jenny, deciding that's worth a crack.

The nature of emergent behaviour is that low-level intelligence often looks like high-level intelligence in large enough groups.

[x4000]

Exactly so -- well put!

[Philo]

Damn it, I think I actually know why they went there. Since the planet they come into is heavily fortified, and the way to my base is heavily fortified. BUT, the way to my valuables is not that heavily guarded on the way there (since it's like 4 hops away and nothing to protect in between there). The last two planets in line to the zenith generator and the extra income producing whatchamjingy are quite heavily defended though.

So basically they just went for the not so protected planets there I guess. Next time I gotta lure them in with fewer defenses.

[x4000]

That would do it!