First of all, great interview with techZing. I now know how to properly pronounce the name of your company (Did anyone else assume it was Ar-Sen?).
Thanks.
I found the discussion of Neural Networks enjoyable, as that's an area I'm interested in. Have you by chance heard of Galactic Arms Race? They use a type of Neural Network called a Compositional Pattern Producing Network and an Evolutionary Algorithm to automatically evolve new in game weapons based on player preference - the fitness function is a measure of how of much the weapon is used. Unfortunately, the game is poor, but the concept is highly innovative. There's a good explanation of how it all comes together on the site.
Very cool, I had not heard of the game, but that's very interesting.
As ever, I'm very impressed by how quickly you were able to develop the game's AI, and hope to continue to see it become increasingly powerful as time goes on.
Thanks -- that was a huge surprise to me, honestly. I didn't think there was any way this game would be done so quickly, but then a lot of elements including the AI just came together pretty quickly earlier this year and it was ready. I've never had that before with any other game I've worked on, or any other software product. I definitely think the AI is something that will continue to evolve as we all find patterns or exploits and I add in more counters or other various logic. Plus just having more and more new ship types and things to deal with in the galaxy should help on that front, too.
"So, when do you think AI will become sentient?" - At the current rate of development probably about version 1.2000 
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I'm currently playing a game against two moderate level 8 AIs - it's going well so far (*knocks on wood*).
Ahaha... well, it does a good job of simulating sentience, at any rate. Good stuff with the level 8s! I hope that the "un-massing" logic doesn't cause too much trouble with that.
Area Attack Orders
Please see this topic:
http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,370.0.htmlI'd like to have any further discussion on this there, just to group it all together. There was some other discussion in another forum post, but I've lost it.
Free-roaming Grouped Defenders
Added to the maybe list here:
http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/board,8.0.htmlMissiles
A method of ordering a lightning missile to detonate immediately upon exiting from a wormhole would be appreciated - when they emerge they usually scatter and are destroyed at the side of the AI's forces, causing minimum damage.
Somewhere else (maybe in this thread, I have not gone through it yet, people mentioned wanting the ability to go look at a planet that they can't see (and then they just see nothingness. I think that's a cool thing to do, if they've ever scouted the planet. Hopefully that will solve the problem, but if not then we can see what you prefer.
Missiles should not regenerate health, instead it should be possible to repair them - I'm not sure what the justification is for not being able to do so with missiles.
With all of the high-health ships, the regeneration is to keep them from attracting engineers and space tugs, etc. It's mostly a balance thing with those items, especially since the regen rate works at a regular pace whereas the engineer repairs take tens of minutes to do on these because they are so much slower.
Missiles, especially the armored kind, should not provide scout intel, it is possible to scout out the entire map at the beginning of the game (resources permitting) using the indestructible armored missile.
Wow, whoops. Added to my short-term list.
Missiles should be able to have their engines damaged.
You're thinking here of armored missiles, I take it. The main thing is, I really wanted these all to be able to penetrate as far as the player needs them to, and having them be so easily stopped doesn't seem like a good thing to me. Hmm.
Most missiles should require Knowledge points to unlock them - only the standard lightning missile should be available initially.
I feel like that's too much of a disincentive to use them. The idea with missiles is that their unique costs are always AI Progress, rather than knowledge. That makes them kind of a "brute force" option that you can use when all other options have failed, but you might make the situation even worse via AI Progress.
The AI is too reckless with its starships, it sends them into battle without support from smaller ships and does not attempt to retreat and repair them when they are in danger.
Very good point. Added to my short-term list, I think that will make them a lot more dangerous with starships.
The AI does not react appropriately to missiles - AI ships only fire upon missiles when they come into range and do not pursue them. Missile detonations in an AI system do not alert the AI to the player's presence and hence it does not reinforce in anticipation of an attack.
Hmm. This could be another cost of missiles -- basically, that AI ships will abandon guard posts and just attack missiles that are in their range. Then if the missile is destroyed, or detonates without killing the pursuers, then the pursuers will attack the player. As far as the alert level goes, I'm not sure I would want that to be affected by missile detonations.
You may recall that I promised to never discuss forcefield mechanics again, but I assure you that this idea is a figment of your imagination. Any post you may find to the contrary is similarly a sinister illusion.
No worries.
The protection radius of the Forcefield Generators should be proportional to the amount of health that the forcefield has remaining, encouraging players to place the most valuable structures closest to the centre of the field. This is in response to the tactic of filling forcefields to the brim with turrets to blockade wormholes which I feel is slightly too effective. This would also allow a dual forcefield configuration in which the more damaged field would eventually shrink inside second field, allowing the two fields to effectively share the damage, instead of one being destroyed before the other has even taken a hit.
When constructed, forcefields should come online with only 70% of their maximum health, to reward players that can effectively anticipate attacks.
Very interesting! I think this is quite cool, and I'll implement it, but I'm also going to up the base forcefield radius to compensate.
A, 'Force Field Regeneration Augmenter', should be available. This device would be attached to forcefields, increasing their maximum health (10%) and regeneration rate (50%) in exchange for an ongoing resource cost.
Added to the future DLC list.
Advanced Warp Sensor
I recall reading that there is an upgraded version of the Warp Sensor in the works that allows free roaming defender mode ships to swarm wormholes that are about to spew forth a wave of AI ships. While I think the swarming feature is an excellent idea, I think that the option to enable this behaviour this should be available with the current Advanced Warp Sensor, as I feel at this point it doesn't quite justify its 500 Knowledge point price tag.
Well, the current one is really meant to be a "candy" tech. It's useful mostly for new players, and in a few specific situations, but otherwise not as much. Later, it will also be useful as part of a tech tree that lets you get the mark II version (another 500 K, maybe), which has all of the features.
