AI War Beta 4.048 Released!

[keith.lamothe]

Better idea - ships rally on fleet command ships in their control group (ie, flagship line) and as a toggled behavior flagships group together when  not in combat regardless of control group.

Please define:

"rally" - do you mean the when ships are just built or come through a wormhole onto the planet (which is the only time they rally now, iirc), or when they no longer have a target, or both, or what?

"flagships" - do you mean absolutely all of your flagship-line ships on the planet?

"group together" - do you mean move towards their averaged center?

"when  not in combat" - do you mean when they don't have something in their target list, or when there are no dangerous AI units on the planet, or what?

Thanks

Ok, I guess I walked into that one

I wasn't making fun, I'm seriously asking

Ships not presently engaged in combat will attempt to regroup at the nearest rally point. Not sure how difficult it would be to add that option, but since something similar was done with riot ships I'm guessing it's possible.

"not presently engaged in combat"?  As in found no legal targets last time it looked, and not currently being shot at?  And how does the Riot do anything like that?

[ShadowOTE]

Not sure what the best definition of "not engaged in combat" would be off the top of my head. I'll leave that one up to people with more in-depth knowledge of how engagement mechanics work.

As far as the riots go, I was refering to the build menu on warships. Between that and mobile builders, it seems like the basis for this type of code is there - and if it's not, well that's just a small matter of programming, right?

Well, except when it's more 

[Sizzle]

I like ShadowOTE's concept of tying this ability to the flagship line -- actually I like the idea of tying more "advanced" tactical behaviors on the part of ships to the presence of some sort of "leader" craft;  this introduces more of an emphasis on combined arms that is not insurmountable,  with a little extra effort (read micro) you can get the same behavior.

I know we don't want unnecessary micro in the game, and there is a certain argument to give all AI behaviors out of the box, but I think this makes the flagship line be more than just a "big starship" that goes pew pew in a certain way.  It already provides ammunition boosting which is a certain abstraction of "improved command and control" of the local fleet, and I see provision of certain advanced behaviors as a good extension of that.

My personal definition/suggestion  (please note this is a very rough outline, if people like the concept it certainly could do with fleshing out!!!):

An auto "fleet" maintenance system that simplifies fleet movement, and makes it simpler to split your fleet up for flanking etc. 

"ships rally on fleet command ships in their control group (ie, flagship line) and as a toggled behavior flagships group together when  not in combat regardless of control group." -- ShadowOTE

is modified to

"flagships within a control group act as a "magnet" (up to X*Mark) for un-engaged fleetships in the immediate vicinity"
- flagships without a control group do not exhibit this behavior

Please define:

"rally" - do you mean the when ships are just built or come through a wormhole onto the planet (which is the only time they rally now, iirc), or when they no longer have a target, or both, or what?

- The flagship will fill it's "CnC pool" from any ships within a system.  Any fleet ship that does not currently have a target and is not part of another "CnC pool" will get a move order to go "near" the flagship using the same move algorithm that you currently use for fleet "blobs" (however that works).   Fleet ships that are explicitly assigned to a control group will take precedence over ungrouped ships when determining "CnC pool membership", so you can make sure that the "magnet effect" makes fleets that have the makeup you desire.

"flagships" - do you mean absolutely all of your flagship-line ships on the planet?

- each ship in the flagship line that is part of a control group contributes to the total "CnC" size for that control group.  Larger groups are possible without sufficient "CnC" size, but they will tend to be "messier" and require more "hand holding" as the auto-regrouping or "magnet" behavior will not occur for all nearby ships.  Really large control groups require more "flagships" or higher tier flagships within the flagship line, or both.

"group together" - do you mean move towards their averaged center?

Group together in my concept means: as is used currently when you have a large banding box and are moving a 'blob'.  A question I have NOT yet *fully* answered in my head is:  What if you have 3 light starhips in control group 1, and you separate the light starships in 3 different directions?  My current thought is that each ship within that control group will "attract" it's share of the total "CnC pool" for that control group.

"when  not in combat" - do you mean when they don't have something in their target list, or when there are no dangerous AI units on the planet, or what?

When they don't have a current target.


The upshot of this should be:

* Flagships make their own "escort group" automatically.
* To split a fleet, you just split the command ships, and the fleet auto splits and follows, or you assign some of the command ships to a different group, and the fleet will split accordingly.
* Move the flagship, and you move the fleet. -- In other words you're abstracting the fleet to just needing to manage the flag ships, the fleet ships will more often take care of themselves.
* If you want specialist groups, assign all fleet ships of type X to group Y and move one or more flagships into group Y.   They will "make a fleet".
* Ships that auto kite once they don't have a target will tend to gather themselves back to their fleet flagship (less manual "herding" of ships).
* Contributes to MACRO control of fleets, and provides a tool to minimize micro control.

Provides a "bolt on" place to incorporate further advanced AI and micro control reducing functionality.   These advanced tactics require the officers / support facilities available on a flagship.

Feel free to adapt / criticize / applaud / what have you.

[ShadowOTE]

Could you post that to mantis?

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1966

[Sizzle]

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1978

Created and made "related" to yours.

[Wingflier]

If you ever do decide to add something like sizzle is suggesting, please make it optional. Micromanagement reduction is nice but it gets to a point where it just becomes insane, and I personally don't want the game playing itself for me 

[x4000]

Escort ability is something I'm personally not for at all, so it would be a matter of if Keith is interested enough in it and there's enough public support for it.  I don't even really think I'll use the auto-kiting (which is optional) very much.  For the most part, I like the feeling of solidity when my ships go where I tell them and nowhere else (attack-move/FRD aside).

That said, I think there's room for multiple styles, so as an optional side piece that some folks are interested in, I don't see any harm in it if we have someone who can stomach programming it (Keith), and enough community support on the vote tallies list in mantis.  So it's not out of the question, it's just very low on the priority list unless there's a lot of support for it or Keith goes into a flurry of interest over it or something.

[keith.lamothe]

@Wingflier: right.  There's a danger there; a fine line between "a game that gives you cool power-tools" and "a set of power tools".

I say this as a person who absolutely loves coding complex power tools to do things for the player that... well, really weren't very necessary  Like that "split selection across specified control groups" context  menu I worked in between 3.120 and 4.0.  I've gotten several requests to re-add the Give Resources context menu, and one or two requests for some of the other functions (notably draggable galaxy map planets), but not a single one for the split-selection thing  I'll probably re-do it anyway since _I_ miss it when I play, but that's just on my own time.

Anyway, back to the point: I'd love to have meaningful tactical macro controls, and it's the sort of thing I can code for fun, but in order for it to be at all likely or even acceptable:
1) The requested function needs to be very, very specific and concrete.  A good way of getting towards this is analyzing the micro you use to accomplish the same effect.  More generally: in order to automate something, you must have done it manually a lot and have analyzed that manual process in great detail.
2) It needs to not involve insane CPU/memory cost or large alterations to how the game handles stuff, etc.
3) There needs to be a significant number of players actively wanting to use it in a game, rather than just a cool thing to have laying around
4) If/when something is actually implemented along these lines, it is almost certainly not going to be totally complete, and if requests jump straight from "please add pieces a, b, and c" into "you did a, but it's useless without b and c", the likely result is the removal of "a"

All that said, I am generally in favor of those sorts of tools for players who want them, whenever I have the time/inclination to implement one or two of them.

[Wingflier]

Like Chris said, I'm just the kind of person that likes to have my units go where I tell them. However, like Chris, I'm much more used to a traditional style RTS game where in most cases, the units will hardly do ANYTHING unless you tell them to. I can certainly understand the perspectives of those however, who haven't been "conditioned" by the popular RTS market their whole lives and who could actually enjoy being able to, for the most part, sit back, relax, and watch the fireworks show. Unfortunately for some of us, this would feel too disconnecting to be as enjoyable as it probably should be  

[Lancefighter]

the idea for fleet ships reminds me of warzone 2100 - you could build a command turret (tanks were designed, not pre-set.. great game) that you could assign factories to. When you did this, the factory would build units in its queue to replace tanks lost during combat, and automatically assign them to guard/assist the command tank.

Something like that would REALLY make me use fleet ships more tbh. Their current state of microing reinforcements just does not appeal to me

[keith.lamothe]

the idea for fleet ships reminds me of warzone 2100 - you could build a command turret (tanks were designed, not pre-set.. great game) that you could assign factories to. When you did this, the factory would build units in its queue to replace tanks lost during combat, and automatically assign them to guard/assist the command tank.

Something like that would REALLY make me use fleet ships more tbh. Their current state of microing reinforcements just does not appeal to me

Over the past month I've thought quite a bit about something very similar to that.  It's a bit tricky, though, with how build queues work in AI War.

[x4000]

the idea for fleet ships reminds me of warzone 2100 - you could build a command turret (tanks were designed, not pre-set.. great game) that you could assign factories to. When you did this, the factory would build units in its queue to replace tanks lost during combat, and automatically assign them to guard/assist the command tank.

Something like that would REALLY make me use fleet ships more tbh. Their current state of microing reinforcements just does not appeal to me

Over the past month I've thought quite a bit about something very similar to that.  It's a bit tricky, though, with how build queues work in AI War.

That part is one where automation would be pretty awesome, but it's always been too tricky for me to attempt yet; I've never thought up a good model for it, and I've only thought about it intermittently anyhow.

[Lancefighter]

warzone 2100 was pretty much built around the command-turret mechanic >.>

[keith.lamothe]

My guess is this:
1) Add a per-ship "int IsReplacingShipsForControlGroup" flag that would be used by space docks and starship constructors (and I guess enclave starships, etc).
2) Add some keybinds (exposed through context menu too) for setting a constructor to replacement-mode, by setting IsReplacingShipsForControlGroup to the corresponding int.
3) Add a per-player "List<ForegroundObjectType>[] ReplacementListByControlGroup" array.
4) Add 10 global per-player control toggles for enabling replacement for each control group (these would go on a separate tab, not enough room in the existing one.
5) When a ship dies, if it is in a control group (which is thankfully tracked as part of the simulation, it's not just a interface thing), and that control group's replacement toggle is on, add the ship's type to the player's replacement list for that control group.
6) When a constructor has IsReplacingShipsForControlGroup set, it refuses to take normal build orders and can't be looped, etc.  When it is not building anything, it checks its player's corresponding replacement list; if the list is empty do nothing, otherwise remove the first element and start constructing one ship of that type.

And that would handle the actual automated re-production of the lost units.  The other part is having the constructor pass on a "go to the control group's fleet command ship" order to all units it builds, which in turn requires some way of being able to determine which ship is the fleet command ship   Still thinking about that one.

[Lancefighter]

add a starship 'command ship' <.<