AIP's and you.

[starfox1701]

It may be a week or two before I can crack this baby open but on the note of a tutorial I'd say take lots of notes. When your done we can try sorting it all out into something user friendly.

[Terra_Inc]

Wow, impressive AI. I'm not used to playing against Hard AIs, but I'd say it's really good.

[FallenGraces]

Hate you lol


Man this thing was BEAST. Loss 5 times before i was able to scrape a win... i mean scrape like i lost both my outposts and had to rely on the main base to crank out my fleets. I ca hands down say that this was an amazing AI. I didnt run into issues though so idk if there are any. After the Win it was bak and forth between the Ai and me. I never lose to the AI in A2 so this was worth it.


Great Job

[rifraf]

I'm kind of curious about something. I took a look at your files and the AI files have only the build lists for each race. The tinkering with how it plays for the most part is in the hard/aggressive files where you've changed all the min/max values there. I've seen some people put those hard/aggressive attributes at the beginning of each races 5 AIP files. I guess this accomplishes the same thing but limiting it to the hard file setting I guess would just eliminate all the copying and pasting so that's why you've only changed it there?

[Freyr]

Originally Posted by Terra_Inc

Wow, impressive AI. I'm not used to playing against Hard AIs, but I'd say it's really good.

I got totally annihilated by a team of five of them, I usually win 7v1's against the A2 hard AI without a problem so that tells me it's considerably better than the stock ones.

Originally Posted by FallenGraces

Hate you lol

Music to my ears.

My AI's aren't released you see. Like Klingon software, they escape after killing the beta testers. This one looks like it's got two scalps already.

Originally Posted by FallenGraces

Man this thing was BEAST. Loss 5 times before i was able to scrape a win... i mean scrape like i lost both my outposts and had to rely on the main base to crank out my fleets. I ca hands down say that this was an amazing AI. I didnt run into issues though so idk if there are any. After the Win it was bak and forth between the Ai and me. I never lose to the AI in A2 so this was worth it.


Great Job

Now that's really useful to hear, thanks. That sort of information really helps me tell how well the AI's doing.

It shouldn't have any issues, I worked around any common error I could foresee like it hanging on building it's advanced research structures for lack of latinum. That one was really simple to fix. It doesn't attempt to build them.

Originally Posted by starfox1701

It may be a week or two before I can crack this baby open but on the note of a tutorial I'd say take lots of notes. When your done we can try sorting it all out into something user friendly.

Well, everything I know about AI's is posted publicly in random threads. I just think that some of this could do with being compiled into one place in such a way as it actually makes sense for people trying to learn it. Like the Kid's tutorials, his actually make sense. My best approximation of a tutorial is simply a random bunch of my thoughts on best practice that might be helpful to someone.

Originally Posted by rifraf

I'm kind of curious about something. I took a look at your files and the AI files have only the build lists for each race. The tinkering with how it plays for the most part is in the hard/aggressive files where you've changed all the min/max values there. I've seen some people put those hard/aggressive attributes at the beginning of each races 5 AIP files. I guess this accomplishes the same thing but limiting it to the hard file setting I guess would just eliminate all the copying and pasting so that's why you've only changed it there?

The copying and pasting aspect of it is only the tip of the iceburg. I'm guilty of having put what i'm now calling the personality parameters in the build list myself in the past. However, doing this is wrong from a coding point of view.

An AI is built from two files, the personality and the build list. The AI can use one of four personalities listed in the first post of this thread to adjust to a situation. (basicially, initial scouting, normal play, final base assualt and last mans stand)

Since the personality parameters work when they are used in the build list I would make an educated guess that when listed in the build list they override the actual personality files. (they must do, otherwise generations of armada modders wouldn't have done it; I discovered this myself and i'm betting everybody else did because it's not in any AI tutorial)

As you noticed, I have lots of different personality parameters in each file. What that means is when you play a hard AI then it can use one of those four files depending on it's situation. If you don't, it's stuck using one personality for everything, even if it's making completely stupid uses of it's resources.

For instance, when your scouting by definition you haven't encountered an enemy so there is no need for deploying your scouts as base defences, or escorting ships with your scouts. If your doing a last man stand you want to build ships and keep them at home for defense, not scouting or attacking etc.

My AI should (imperfectly) act in a somewhat humanlike manner now. That's not possible if your stick the AI with one personality for everything.

[rifraf]

So if I use my buildlists that I've set up in my mod, and plug in your personality files that you have so far, the hard/aggressive files, theoretically my game would play at least better than it is now when using the hard AI setting? And all races would take better advantage of it? I realize I'd have to tweak my buildlists further to better match the personality to take it further in step.

[starfox1701]

Ok now for another question I know that durring the SP campain map work that we found the AI very vunerable to resource problems and space limitations. Is this new AI any more adaptible to these constraints or do the maps still have to be built from the known minimums the AI could stand and still fight?

[Freyr]

Originally Posted by rifraf

So if I use my buildlists that I've set up in my mod, and plug in your personality files that you have so far, the hard/aggressive files, theoretically my game would play at least better than it is now when using the hard AI setting? And all races would take better advantage of it? I realize I'd have to tweak my buildlists further to better match the personality to take it further in step.

Yes, if you removed any personality parameters from the build list then it would play better. Exactly how much better is open to conjuncture at the moment as this is completely uncharted territory as far as modding goes.

I'd try it, simply by changing the figures in rts_cfg.h for medium and hard to be the same and then putting a medium and hard AI against each other. As they will be building exactly the same the best personality will win.

Obviously, while the AI has insufficient forces then it can't do much at all. When the AI has a large fleet then it starts doing interesting things. From that point of view the build list has considerable importance. You don't need to match the build lists, but you do need to make sure your build lists produce a reasonable number of ships for the AI to use at the earliest possible opportunity. Preferably capital ships.

If your creating a mod, I would also recommend adjusting two things.

Firstly, the AI insists on recrewing it's starbase to it's minimum repair standard located in it's race ODF immediately on starting the game. This is a severe handicap which significantly slows the AI down when building. I would suggest having a seperate starbase ODF for the starting units with at least 750 crew. I'd leave the main starbase ODF as is, because only requiring 150 crew is quite usefull when your short of crew.

Secondly, the AI does not use it's colony ships correctly. The AI is only capable of colonising a planet once with a colony ship, after which time it will overlook the planet. This is a severe handicap, as almost all planets are capable of being colonised more than once. Obviously, when all the AI has is a single M class planet this is a significant handicap. I would suggest working around this by giving the AI a "super" colony ship which is able to colonise up to 5k civilians in one shot. I think correcting for the AI's shortcomings in this way is fairer than any other workarounds so that the AI is playing on an even playing ground with the human players.

I would also recommend that if you make a super colony ship for the AI you double the strength of the shields, toggle shieldprotection to on and give it only one hitpoint for the hull. This will make capturing it somewhat harder and make it less likely the human will realise what's going on. In case your not familier with the technique for getting the AI to build ships the human can't, you add the ship to the shipyard and then forbid it from being built in the techtree and then put this in the header of the build list.

// This aip needs to play by the rules
int checkTechnologyAvailable = 0;

Originally Posted by starfox1701

Ok now for another question I know that durring the SP campain map work that we found the AI very vunerable to resource problems and space limitations. Is this new AI any more adaptible to these constraints or do the maps still have to be built from the known minimums the AI could stand and still fight?

Unfortunatly, the AI does not have the ability to vary it's build lists depending on the amount of resources or space available. Thus, the person writing it is forced to make a judgement of what is likely to be available.

I have attempted to write the build list to use the resources available on most of the user created maps, which is usually at least one M class planet, one D class planet and two dilithium moons. The AI is written to use this level of resources, however obviously it will slowly continue to build with less resources. Given that the human will also be slower at a low level of resources it probably won't be noticibly awful at even a pair of K planetoids. Given a single M class though like on Achron and it's dead.

However, I think maps with that sparse resources are VERY rare, and it's more constructive to aim for higher resource levels. Conversely, If the map is an extremely high resource map then obviously the AI won't make any use of extra resources that are available. However, I think my assumptions on resources will cover the majority of maps.

I am not attempting to do research or build up the tech tree because you can never be certain of the presence of latinum. I might tell the AI to build a trading station and then leave it 20 minutes and tell it to build the next level in the hope it will have picked up sufficient latinum without needing to mine, but that creates the danger of the AI getting "stuck" while waiting for latinum on some maps and makes the AI less resiliant because it has to spend 750 metal in the earlier stages of the game. That's enough for 11 'Rals and could create problems on maps with sparse resources.

It's all about trade offs. It might be possible to do something about this with tech levels such as using things with a high metal cost (like the advanced yard) as barriers to the next tech level to keep the AI on lower tech levels where insufficant metal is available, but that runs the risk of putting the AI into a loop building destroyers and cruisers if the human blows them up to quickly. It's something i'm considering but i'll only do it if I can figure out a way to make it work under all reasonable circumstances.

[starfox1701]

Ok so the AI doesn't have a "resorces are low use this build list" setting. That actuall too bad as that would have allowed for some intersting building alternitives. You know the build handicaps could be of some use here as well in finding a blance I think. Can thoughs be coded in the files?

[rifraf]

[QUOTE=Freyr;5060929]Yes, if you removed any personality parameters from the build list then it would play better. Exactly how much better is open to conjuncture at the moment as this is completely uncharted territory as far as modding goes.

I'd try it, simply by changing the figures in rts_cfg.h for medium and hard to be the same and then putting a medium and hard AI against each other. As they will be building exactly the same the best personality will win.

Obviously, while the AI has insufficient forces then it can't do much at all. When the AI has a large fleet then it starts doing interesting things. From that point of view the build list has considerable importance. You don't need to match the build lists, but you do need to make sure your build lists produce a reasonable number of ships for the AI to use at the earliest possible opportunity. Preferably capital ships.

If your creating a mod, I would also recommend adjusting two things.

Firstly, the AI insists on recrewing it's starbase to it's minimum repair standard located in it's race ODF immediately on starting the game. This is a severe handicap which significantly slows the AI down when building. I would suggest having a seperate starbase ODF for the starting units with at least 750 crew. I'd leave the main starbase ODF as is, because only requiring 150 crew is quite usefull when your short of crew.

Secondly, the AI does not use it's colony ships correctly. The AI is only capable of colonising a planet once with a colony ship, after which time it will overlook the planet. This is a severe handicap, as almost all planets are capable of being colonised more than once. Obviously, when all the AI has is a single M class planet this is a significant handicap. I would suggest working around this by giving the AI a "super" colony ship which is able to colonise up to 5k civilians in one shot. I think correcting for the AI's shortcomings in this way is fairer than any other workarounds so that the AI is playing on an even playing ground with the human players.

I would also recommend that if you make a super colony ship for the AI you double the strength of the shields, toggle shieldprotection to on and give it only one hitpoint for the hull. This will make capturing it somewhat harder and make it less likely the human will realise what's going on. In case your not familier with the technique for getting the AI to build ships the human can't, you add the ship to the shipyard and then forbid it from being built in the techtree and then put this in the header of the build list.

// This aip needs to play by the rules
int checkTechnologyAvailable = 0;QUOTE]

I'm not sure if MAP changed any of the personality stuff in his mod but he did put some stuff in the header of each races AIP files like the min_attackforce and min_explorationforce and all that. I've got my game set up to have each race use about 15 ships, the feds a few more. I've set it up to build 1 of each ship and used the -1 so they always rebuild it. I also have them all build trading stations. So far in all my games the AI builds all the way through the build list from destroyer to capital ships and it does replace them all when destroyed and they can start building right away since there is no research to do.

With me not being aggressive it's sending multiple capital ships with a mix of lower class ships at me and other AI's many times so it's building good. Even on Acheron with 1 M class and 2 dilithium moons it's building all the way up to capital ships. Now having it set to build only 1 of each ship class it's not too terribly hard to play against but it's a start to see how it does. MAP also set it up to have bases start with max crew so they don't have to worry about recrewing right away. I also have them build and keep a colony ship on hand for when other plantets lose their population. And you're right, I've never seen then re-colonize their own planet. Just other races that lose theirs.

As for having the AI build ships that I can't I'm not sure what you mean by that? The int_checkTechnologyAvailable line isn't even in my mod since there's no research for the AI to do. Only the human player has to do research. If I capture an enemy construction ship, I would have to build it's research stations and do the research with them before I could even build their ships.