Bomber Blitz!

[Shrugging Khan]

So I was just minding my own business, watching my two newly cleaned-up systems growing their resource harvesters and energy reactors. AIP had just gone from 25 to 55 on account of the two Command Stations, but so far no enemy wave had ever been much of a threat - their numbers, even when combined, rarely exceeded 200.

But then, out of the blue, comes a wave of 450 ships towards one of my new systems. I sigh, am mildly surprised by how many ships are announced, but just move my fleet over like it's all business as usual.

But then, oh wow! Apart from the usuals (I play with Schizophrenic waves), the wave consists of a solid 300 bombers. Which spawn all over the system.

This is worrying me on two counts.

1.: The 300 block is a very clean number, and far too high for my shizo waves.
2.: THEY SPAWN ALL OVER THE DAMNED PLACE WHAT IS THIS THIS IS NOT A NORMAL WAVE

Seriously, WTF? Explain to me!

Edit: After blowing my CS in the system to bits, exactly 200 bombers went straight for my homeworld. Uh-oh.

[x4000]

Careful with the language, if you don't mind.

In terms of the 300 count, that could easily be a coincidence.  Actually, it's really almost impossible it's anything but, as there are no "spawn 300 ships" logic anywhere in the code.  With a schizophrenic wave, that's still possible to get a big clump of ships of one sort.  Schizo waves are random, which is different from evenly distributed.

That said, it was probably a "bomber wave," rather than just statistical clumping in this case.  The AI actually has internal logic for doing those every so often, and always has, on schizo and homogeneous waves.  The logic being that a big pile of bombers on occasion can really stir up some trouble.  The logic has been in there since before AI War 1.0, but I don't know if I've ever discussed it publicly before.  Waves were always small enough in the past that it just never came up.

In terms of them spawning all over the place, I'm not sure what exactly is causing that, but I have to ask: do you have a military orbital command station on that planet?  If so, then they aren't spawning everywhere, your command station is translocating them as it shoots them.  If that's not it, I'm not sure what it is, I'd need a save from preferably while the wave is incoming but not yet spawned.

[Shrugging Khan]

Military Command Station it is.

The numbers do seem awfully weird though - exactly 300 spawning, then 200 heading for my homeworld. Is the RNG acting up again?

[TechSY730]

300 and 200 are just as rare numbers as 342 and 157. Sure, those exact numbers are both multiples of 100, and getting two multiples of 100 in a row is somewhat rare, but alone is not a sign of RNG oddness.

EDIT: Don't you love the counter-intuitive nature of probability sometimes.

[Shrugging Khan]

Not even when combined with a shizo wave consisting of two-thirds bombers?

Edit: Anyways, before I forget...what is this Military Command Stations Displacement business? I think I want to know, since I use MCSs pretty much exclusively.

[TechSY730]

Nope. Sure nice "simple" proportions are rare, but not impossible. Unless the chance is stupidly low (like 1/(10^10) or something), then someone is bound to see it. If you got "nice" proportions frequently, then that would be more of a case.

EDIT: Basically, the set of trials need to be quite large (much greater than 3) before you can make a convincing case that a RNG is biased.

[Shrugging Khan]

Alright, written of as a fluke. Still, WHY DOES IT KEEP HAPPENING OH GOD NO

I'm referring to ships being spawned...or displaced, or teleported, or translocated, or intermigrated, whatever! All over the place! Why! An oddity of minor electric ammunition?

[TechSY730]

Not even when combined with a shizo wave consisting of two-thirds bombers?

Edit: Anyways, before I forget...what is this Military Command Stations Displacement business? I think I want to know, since I use MCSs pretty much exclusively.

Displacement (or translocation, whatever it is called) moves its target to some random place on that planet. Very nifty for keeping stuff away from important units.

What is probably happening is your military station is hitting nearby bombers, "poofing" them to some other place on the planet. The bombers do the natural thing, try to approach the station again.

A displacement shot is a property of the unit, not the ammo type. Many other units with minor-electric do not displace units.

[Shrugging Khan]

Interesting...but utterly weird. I never heard of it before, neither ingame nor in the wiki 

[x4000]

See my notes about "bomber waves."  That explains why there were so many bombers, I'm quite sure.  

That said, techsy730 is exactly right on the counter-intuitive nature of probability.  It's something that the human brain is evidently hard-wired to misunderstand, because we look for patterns as one of our natural and most core mental abilities.  So when we see big round numbers, or an event that happens multiple times in succession, we assign it significance beyond statistical clustering.

But in this case: it was a bomber wave.  As far as 200 of them heading for your homeworld, that's more a matter of all the AI ships decide to retreat at once, but apparently the remainder of them were busy or dead.  So that wasn't even something determined by RNG, it was just... well, just chance of how your defenses dealt with the AI ships, and so forth.  That was just chaos theory at work, not even a statistics question, there.

It's really natural to assign significance to what the AI does, and this is something I actually rely on heavily for creating a "realistic" AI simulation.  Anyway, that's getting off topic, but I think it is interesting.  I find even myself anthropomorphizing the AI, and I coded it and know the rules of it.  It's just so hardwired into our brains.


EDIT: Ninja'd.  In terms of the bombers being translocated, that happens every time they get hit by the military command station's shot.  It's a feature, not a bug!  Players specifically asked for it.  It lets you fling the enemy all over the place so they don't have time to take out your command station, and meanwhile you keep shooting the heck out of them as they try to get back at it (hopefully).

[TechSY730]

Shrugging Khan's point about documentation I think is valid though. It needs to be explained better on the wiki, and the very few units with that ability need a description of what translocation does in their unit description.

[x4000]

Well, we only have limited resources, what can I say.  Eventually we will get around to it, but largely we're relying on player volunteers who update a lot of that at the moment.  Anyone interested in having an account on the official wiki can always PM me, and I'm happy to grant access (we keep it closed because of spambots and other vandalism).

[keith.lamothe]

Well, sure, but it's only had translocating ammo for relatively few releases; documentation of recent stuff is basically what the release notes are for.  If a change actually doesn't get reverted/replaced/etc, the wiki will eventually be changed to reflect it.

Ninja'd

[BobTheJanitor]

I was thrown off by the translocation attack as well when I first saw it. It's interesting, although it almost seems like something that would fit better on the logistical command station. I'd expect the military command station to just blow things up. Of course that would mean giving the log comm station an attack, but you could drop the damage to minimal to make it not a real attack. Anyway, it's obviously not the time for new feature requests, but I might toss it up on mantis later if I remember.

[TechSY730]

I find even myself anthropomorphizing the AI, and I coded it and know the rules of it.

I can think of two reasons for that.

One, the AI is pretty smart, and uses many behaviors we would expect to see from only human players. "Smartness" and "cleverness" are two attributes we tend to associate with humans, so we naturally try to see if other human attributes can fit too.

Two, those "taunts" the AI throws out after certain events also help, even though I know the AI doesn't really care. I even find myself responding to their "questions" sometimes, or even just going "Oh shut up". Yea, I do fall right for their trap when I do that by letting my anger seep up some, but that just shows how easily we humans can get emotionally involved.

EDIT: Yea this is way off topic, but I just felt that point was worth elaborating on.