Author Topic: This AI is awesome.  (Read 247604 times)

Offline TechSY730

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #150 on: January 23, 2011, 08:38:47 pm »
The latest one scaled it down a bit I think? They havent been as bad recently.

7 was about right before, so it is about the same now. >7, however, now goes up at a much more reasonable pace. Before, there was a HUGE difference between 7.6 and 8, much more than extrapolating the rest of the increases for previous difficulties would leave you to believe. Now 7 to 10 goes up at a much more "smooth" rate. (2-5 or so is a little harder now, be careful ;))

Offline Entrenched Homperson

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #151 on: January 24, 2011, 11:49:41 am »
Yeah, a lot of rebalancing. I was playing at 8. Now I'm having good games at 6. -_-

I'll work my way back up. :D :D :D :D :D
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Offline Red Spot

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #152 on: January 24, 2011, 12:31:44 pm »
8 is nice, above worries me though ... starting with mark2 ships as your foe and going to mark3 before you comfortably get there yourself ..  :-\
Now you can usually own a planet cause you can out-blob it (in class and/or size), above 8 it becomes wee(read: a lot) harder :)

Offline danando

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #153 on: February 21, 2011, 10:43:02 am »
I'm the one that pushed the 14000 views to 14001 POINTLESS to say  ??? ;D
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Offline Malibu Stacey

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #154 on: February 21, 2011, 11:06:19 am »
This thread could do with being unstickied IMO. Far too much sticky spam on this forum makes people less likely to read the topics.

Offline Entrenched Homperson

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #155 on: February 21, 2011, 11:47:38 am »
IDK, I love this thread  ;D ;D

<3 THE AI
Options are deadly.... :O :O :O

Offline TechSY730

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #156 on: February 21, 2011, 11:57:05 am »
This thread could do with being unstickied IMO. Far too much sticky spam on this forum makes people less likely to read the topics.

Agreed. This thread has become so long, it would probably be better to unsticking it and have all gushing about how the AI manages to be brilliant go in individual threads.

Offline x4000

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #157 on: February 21, 2011, 12:00:14 pm »
I think this thread is enormously useful for potential new customers, which is why it isn't going anywhere.
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Offline Entrenched Homperson

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #158 on: February 21, 2011, 12:16:19 pm »
It's like the Fruit Roll Up of word of mouth :P
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Offline x4000

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #159 on: February 21, 2011, 12:18:21 pm »
Precisely. ;)
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Offline TechSY730

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #160 on: February 21, 2011, 12:22:33 pm »
Well, since this is going to remain the go-to place to gush about the AI, I guess I'll get in the act.

How did you get the AI to abuse special abilities so well? I've seen some really nasty stuff from them by using abilities in very smart and clever ways. This is something that when you see from AIs in other RTSs, they typically don't use special unit abilities all that well and/or very cleverly.

Offline x4000

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #161 on: February 21, 2011, 12:46:55 pm »
It depends on the special ability you mean, but a lot of it comes about emergently.  In the case of Etherjets and similar dragging off ships, that was coded in specially, and is one of my favorite tweaks.
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Offline TechSY730

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #162 on: February 21, 2011, 03:33:50 pm »
It depends on the special ability you mean, but a lot of it comes about emergently.  In the case of Etherjets and similar dragging off ships, that was coded in specially, and is one of my favorite tweaks.

The "fun" the AI has with mobile tractor units is a great example, but there are many others.

  • Cloaked ships stay in low power mode (and thus remain cloaked) until they can attack their target or if they are revealed
  • Cloaked ships that make it past your front line, but the main attack failed, and their target is still too well defended, and it is not safe to retreat, will just hang around until either they can retreat safely or their target's defenders go down for some reason. (The havok this "lurking" can cause to auto-building is still something that needs to be addressed)
  • Units with force-field immunity will (correctly) not consider force-fields part of the defenses of their target, and thus the AI is far more likely to "bum-rush" their target even it is well defended.

And many others. And these only deal with ships that have special abilities. The AI has really smart behaviors for ships in general.

Offline x4000

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #163 on: February 21, 2011, 03:47:02 pm »
Ah, yeah -- most of those are what I refer to as "behaviorlets" in my blog posts about AIs.  Various behaviors that are taught to the AI to make sure they act smartly.  And those tend to combine for secondary effects.  The second item on your list, with the cloaked ships hanging out, is an example of an emergent secondary effect.  The first and third were explicitly programmed-in behaviorlets.
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Offline Panopticon

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Re: This AI is awesome.
« Reply #164 on: February 24, 2011, 02:35:43 pm »
Speaking of Etherjets, in my latest game one of the AI has them and Teleport Raiders. It really was something else watching the Etherjets haul off my reaction fleet while the TP Raiders bypassed my carefully laid defenses and went straight for the throat. Once I rebuilt the command station after I dealt with the wave the first thing I did was unlock MK II Lightning Turrets.

It really was awesome seeing the AI use those units like a crafty player would.