Here are the Weapon AI rules I am implementing. I believe the default values will mimic all existing empires. So you will have to mod your empire to take advantage of the new features.
There are three new attributes which can be set for each of the two weapons (so that's 6 new things to tweak overall)
When picking targets, the closer target is always preferred to the more distant one, all else being equal, so I won't mention distance below.
So here are the NEW attributes, and these are each independent of the others.
1.) targetFriends
if this is turned on, the weapon will only target you and your allied units. This does NOT mean it is a healing weapon. So you can make hurtful weapons which only hurt friends. THAT's flexibility!
2.) targetBestEffect
This is a percent value. If it is non-zero, then the weapon will consider how effective it is on this sort of target. If you set a value of 25, then it means it will NOT target a unit against which it is less than 25% effective.
Hopefully I published that table of weapon effectiveness values.
3.) strategy
This has several legal values:
0 - closest (default). Like today 1 - strongest (qualifying unit with highest energy) 2 - weakest (qualifying unit with lowest energy)
And by energy, I mean percent of full life.
Thus it is written, thus shall it be coded. Except for the inevitable bugs, of course.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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Morph works as before in existing empires, but the following new options are available:
1.) MorphCost
This can charge or credit the player when they click on a unit and morph it into something else.
2.) MorphDecaySeconds
This specifies a lifetime for a unit (actually whether it was morphed or not. For example, a freshly built factory unit could decay after a few minutes, if you liked.
The minimum lifetime of a unit is 5 seconds.
3.) MorphDecayUnit
The morph decay seconds are ignored unless you also specify a non-zero (sorry!) unit ID that it decays into. So if you provide both a decay Unit and a decay seconds, then the unit will automatically decay into the new unit.
Please don't overuse morph decay (and by overuse, I guess I mean use short decay periods. A packet is sent on each decay.)
And just because I use the word 'decay' doesn't mean the unit has to get wimpier. It could get better. Or it coulr oscillate between several states (turning into the wimpy unit at an embarassing time)
----
NOT DONE AT THIS TIME:
Morphs based on other events (like getting shot.. getting knocked to 50% health, etc.)
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
OK, I am finallly giving you a little control over the explosions. Though not much yet
Each weapon now has two optional settings:
1.) Explosion Filmstrip
This is somethign which must be in the format of of what you find in weapons\explode.bmp
It is a filmstrip of 16 frames of animation which is played on top of the victim when the little weapon dot (which is still always a little dot) gets there.
If you don't provide this, I will use the default.
2.) Explosion sound effect.
If you provide a file name (should be in the sfx folder, I guess) I will use that. Otherwise I will use one of my many defaults.
3.) Special case for healing
I now have a special new default sfx and 'explosion' for weapons with negative damage (i.e. healing). PLus the little weapon dot is green instead of yellow.
Don't hold your breath, I am counting on people making this better for me.
Hmm... I wonder... I guess I probably have to do something to make sure these new files get auto-shared with the empires...
Other than that, I think I am done for the evening, so I will start wrapping up and push this on out.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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Old Geezers should behave just like old geezers, but Smart Geezers takes advantage of the new features.
1.) All weapon users use some level of strategy. Presumably all better than before.
2.) Several buildings are set to heal various nearby units. Like powerstations heal buildings. Genome labs heal humans, airstrips heal planes, etc.
3.) Power Stations and Ore Miners work faster and better, so you need fewer of them. So more of your 250 units can be mobile dudes. (Again, just the Smart Geezer power stations, not ALL power stations in all empires)
4.) various other tweaks.
Probably Smart Geezers games will take even longer to complete, what with all the healing going on, and the predatory weapons strategy.
Several units got their secondary weapons enabled as well.
Oh yeah, Now I remember, I was going to add a new weapon class to have something which was 100% effective against buildings, and nothing else, so as to make the power-station building repairers only repair buildings
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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* NEW EMPIRE - "Smart Geezers" which takes advantage of the new features.
- better power and oil buildings, so you need fewer, and most buildings are more rugged, and some shoot back.
- several buildings repair nearby units of the proper type.
- All shooting units use the new strategies and such, and are probably 'smarter' than old geezers.
(note: old geezers should behave as before)
* EMPIRE EDITOR DIALOG IS RESIZABLE, and maximizable, so you can see all the properties without scrolling, and lots more units at a time.
* MORPH CAN NOW COST/EARN MONEY
New property: MorphCost can be positive or negative.
* AUTO-MORPH ON TIMEOUT OPTION
Units can 'decay' after some number of seconds, which causes them to 'auto-morph' into another unit (at no cost). You specify the timeout and the target unit.
* MORPHED UNITS PRESERVE PERCENTAGE OF HP. So if unit was at 50% health before morph, it is still at 50% health after morph, even if maxHP has changed.
* NEW WEAPON OPTION: Targets Allies
You can specify for each weapon, whether it shoots enemies (default) or friends
* NEW WEAPON OPTION: Most Effective
You can specify a percentage value such that the weapon will not bother to attack any unit against which its attack would be less than that % effective (check out the table on the website for percentage effectiveness of weapon types against unit types.)
* NEW WEAPON TYPE: Industrial
Not documented on website, type "I" is 100% effective against buildings, and 0% against everything else. Good for building repair units
* NEW WEAPON OPTION: Strategy
Weapons may now be set to pick closest (default, same as before), weakest, or strongest target in range which meets criteria above.
* NEW WEAPON OPTION: Healing
This is actually old news (negative damage makes it a healing weapon), but I now show a different stock animation and sound effect for a healing attack.
* NEW WEAPON OPTION: Sound Effect and Explosion Image
You may now optionally specify an explosion filmstrip and/or a 'shoot' WAV file for each Weapon (note: you don't set this for weapon class, you have to manually set it for every weapon if you don't want the defaults.)
Your WAV files MUST be in the SFX folder, or in a subdirectory of the SFX folder (I think subdirs work, but I didn't test it).
Your explosion Bitmaps should be in the WEAPONS folder and match the format of the explode.bmp file in there right now.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
Dan, I must say that you are, undeniably, the man. Just wait until you see what has been done with these new things Now, I'm sure that this update has left you thinking that you will have to preform the onerous task of creating water or some other such time consuming thing for the next empyrion version, but fear not! I already have far simpler and much less procrastination-encouraging ideas would be, nonetheless, really cool if implemented.
[Now I feel you truly know me -s]
Here we go: -Anti-requirements: This unit cannot be built or morphed into as long as you control a certian unit -Regeneration load/amount: this unit regains health on its own over time -Triggered morphing: Unit A becomes unit B if it dies, gets hit, fires, unit C is created, unit D dies, controller's money is above/below some amount. Any of the previously mentioned would be just swell ^^ -Customized weapon and armor types: This weapon does 90% to units with defense A, 30% to those with defense B, 13% to those with defense C, and -200% to those with defense D -Empire specified starting cash: Those playing this empire start with 2 cash! They have to shine shoes to pay their guerrillas! -Empire specified max unit count: The units in this empire are so overweight that if more than three are on the map at the same time, it will collapse -Creates units upon morphing (and/or decay): This unit click morphs into itself for a price of 100 credits, but it creates 5 paratroopers
I remember there was more, but I dont remember what it was. Dont worry, though, because I will provide more when I remember it
-------------------- "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." Posts: 152 | From: yesterday | Registered: Nov 2003
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Basically, the max build radius is an option that would only allow you to build the building with an option so many pixels away from a central base that produces it. This way you can, if you wanted, effectivly limit base sizes, or limit the area you could build super weapons (like the Intruders Hardened Missiles...)
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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I haven't been able to test this yet, but the master can now start a game, as long as it has at least one player in it, even if the master is not in the game themselves.
Of course, unlike 'solo' mode, the master cannot start a game with only one player in it and expect it to not immediately declare game over.
* INFO BUTTON
I just added an 'info' feature (a new button up next to the R and X buttons, the "i" button.. lowercase i being the universal symbol for "info" right?)
This changes your cursor to the 'i' cursor and then you click on some unit (yours or someone elses... but unfortunately does not/cannot work for spectators... though it might be worth doing the extra work to make that possible)
ANYWAY, this opens a smallish window (dynamically re-sizes as needed to fit the info content... a first for me ) which summarizes the unit in question. It doesn't show ALL the properties, just the ones having to do with weapons, sensitivities and construction. It shows what makes it, what it requires, and what units it makes and which require it.. plus its morph from and to info.
And any place it shows the name of another unit, you can click to see the info for that unit.
plus there is a BACK button to walk back through the pages you just saw, and a NEXT button to cycle through all units of that empire.
Anyway, I spent a long time on it, so you have to say it's perfect. It also gives you access to seeing stuff like:
CANNON
This weapon is effective on:
Soldier %10 Building %20 ...
and
SOLDIER
This unit is sensitive to:
GUN 100% LASER 100%
etc.
Anyway, it is a grab-bag wonder of your in-game unit-browsing desires.
======= THINGS I AM THINKING OF DOING BUT HAVE NOT DONE YET:
* RESALE VALUE
Lets you specify which units can be sold, and what price they pay (positive or negative, which should allow some interesting Aby perversions... this unit is an albatross, but it will cost me $1000 to get rid of it if I can't get someone to blow it up! Like a nuke powerplant that breaks down and becomes something sucking energy until you get rid of it... or spitting out damge to nearby friendly/enemy units.) The actual resale value would be multiplied by the percent-of-max-health, I think.
* REPAIR COST
I don't know why, but I almost feel up to implementing repair. It would not be fully synced up, so when I am repairing a unit, I would see the life go up 'smoothly' but you would not. You would see it snap back to 100% health at some point. Or maybe at 25% intervals or something. Might only work on buildings. We don't really NEEEEEEEED this
* RESOURCE EXPIRATION
This would be something along the lines of: 1.) resources are depleted for everyone after N minutes into game. or 2.) You can only harvest up to N units of ore over the course of the game.
This would be an option, of course, but the idea is to force games to come to an end eventually by making it impossible to make new units. This would probably have to be merged with the concept of "a tie" (there are still opposing units left, but none are mobile, nobody has any money, and no shooting has happened for over N minutes) or something
* STARTING MONEY
Let the master pick how much cash everyone starts with (0 - 100000)
And, then, the one that I am finally interesting in doing (the unit browser gave me some tools to re-use for this)... Bots.
========= BOT PLAN
Now, this could be a really bad idea, and change the social dynamic... but.. not so bad as PKers in WoS I don't think. Though might have to suppress rating changes in Bot games or something. And my bots will probably be stupid cheaters at the end of the day.
But having said that, here is how it would work.
1.) Master populates bot players by right-clicking on the flag list in an empty slot and selecting ADD BOT from the menu. This sends an immediate packet so people know a bot is taking that slot, then opens a dialog box which lets the master name and tweak the bot's AI. I see the panel as having a few drop down combo boxes which specify the bots priorities, with the panel initially coming up random, and having a button to generate a new random combo on demand.
Oh, and shows a list of empires... defaulting to the empire the master selected for themselves, if any.
2.) Master OKs or CANCELs and the bot's name appears (or the slot is cleared) just like any other user)
3.) Master can re-open the bot's panel and re-tune/pick different empire, etc. Anytime before game start.
4.) Other players see just what they would normally see when a game is being set up. Some glyph will indicate the player is a bot.. maybe.
5.) The AI will be executed by the Master's PC, for all bot players in the game. If mastery changes in mid-game, then so does the bot-hosting with as little interruption as possible.
6.) The bots will try to be bandwidth and cpu-friendly, though bots will tend to consume the same resources as a human player.
I will try to provide a large variety of bot strategies in different dimensions, and probably add more over time.
Obviously, it will be challenging to have bots play an Aby empire intelligently.
My goal is to have the bots constrained to use the same user interface, so to speak, as human players, so they send exactly the same packets and the players see nothing special (and, except for the master), need no special code, so I should (I hope) be able to develop AI on my own copy and play-test with you guys pre-shipping, as it were.
Which means I should push one more bot-less version first, so I need to go through this topic and remind myself what else you guys have asked for recently :-)
I am pushing this version since I am eager to start work on Bots while I still feel enthusiastic about it.
-----
* MASTERLESS GAMES
I haven't been able to test this yet, but the master can now start a game, as long as it has at least one player in it, even if the master is not in the game themselves.
Of course, unlike 'solo' mode, the master cannot start a game with only one player in it and expect it to not immediately declare game over.
But this will be nice for tournaments and bot vs bot empire testing, I imagine.
* INFO BUTTON
I just added an 'info' feature (a new button up next to the R and X buttons, the "i" button.. lowercase i being the universal symbol for "info" right?)
This changes your cursor to the 'i' cursor and then you click on some unit (yours or someone elses... but unfortunately does not/cannot work for spectators... though it might be worth doing the extra work to make that possible)
ANYWAY, this opens a smallish window (dynamically re-sizes as needed to fit the info content... a first for me ) which summarizes the unit in question. It doesn't show ALL the properties, just the ones having to do with weapons, sensitivities and construction. It shows what makes it, what it requires, and what units it makes and which require it.. plus its morph from and to info.
And any place it shows the name of another unit, you can click to see the info for that unit.
plus there is a BACK button to walk back through the pages you just saw, and a NEXT button to cycle through all units of that empire.
Anyway, I spent a long time on it, so you have to say it's perfect. It also gives you access to seeing stuff like:
CANNON
This weapon is effective on:
Soldier %10 Building %20 ...
and
SOLDIER
This unit is sensitive to:
GUN 100% LASER 100%
etc.
Anyway, it is a grab-bag wonder of your in-game unit-browsing desires.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
On the subject of bots: How much control will we have over the bot AI? Will we be able to specify bot behaviors in the empire ini file? Say 'bot hints' for specific units. Like flagging certian units as high priority targets and such. PS: I will refuse to use cheaterbots
On the subject of lag and large ini files: The empire "upgrade" should illustrate unit-creation lag. This empire has 101 units in it. [[This empire no longer has significant unit creation lag. Pretend it was never mentioned...]]
On the subject of the shiny new info feature: For the unit image, the turret image is not displayed at the same height as in the game.
[I seem to have done something goofy for putting turrets on top of buildings and have yet to figure out where I put the hack, and a hack it certainly was.
But I found why the info browser was only working for your own units, so that will be fixed in next release.
-s]
On the subject of starting money: I would prefer having the empire pick the starting money rather than the master ^^
[Hmm, you just post-poned that feature! But the original C&C let the per-instance pick the money. -s]
On the subject of hesa's ideas: I like the idea that power consumtion be related to max hp as well as output. An inverse relationship would be interesting as well.. a damaged building consumes more power. A building starts with 50% hp and 200% power consumption (or 150%, depending on how you want to run it..) and you have to heal it to make it more power efficient.
-------------------- "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." Posts: 152 | From: yesterday | Registered: Nov 2003
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Well... some good progress made. The master can now put bots in any player slot and configure their empire and one token tuning parameter. The game can be launched and the bots get their starting pieces at the proper starting locations. You can engage in fireplay with bot pieces and both sides will die as appropriate. If all the bot pieces die, the game ends.
However, the bots just sit there for now, so it's not very interesting yet. Still, lots of good plumbing changes.
UNfortunately there were quite a few plumbing changes to routines which had a bias for "this is the master's piece" as opposed to "this is a piece the master is responsible for" and there is a very very high probability that I have broken lots of features here and there.
That's kind of depressing since it will probably take 10 releases to root them all out and fix them.
But the MOST distressing thing is that I had to change the packets :-( Which means my version is not compatible with your version, so I can't do bot experiments with you.
I have to get my head into work mode again, so I probably will go ages without working on this again, which is dangerous.
What I *hope* I will do is this:
1.) try to test carefully to see if I really did break old functionality in a bot-free game.
2.) push a new version with this basic plumbing but no actual AI yet, just so we are all using compatible packets again
3.) react to bug reports in bot-less games to make sure features still work.
4.) start running bot-games where I play the role of master, and add AI.
All in all, though, I am pretty pleased that the original game design was clean enough to support this as easily as it has. I mean, I *did* expect to do it someday.
---
As to what the AI tweaks are, here is an example.. the first tweak is the AI money policy and your choices are:
0 - Honest (gets money just like you) 1 - Boost (gets money more easily than you) 2 - Infinite (always has 100K) 3 - None (I needed a fourth value, not sure how useful a broke bot is)
---
Oh, and the way names are handled, bots cannot actually be given names. So they are named "Bot 12345678" where 12345678 is some goofy serial number which is unique to each bot in the game.
Oh, and all my testing so far has been in solo mode. I expect lots of surprises once I try it on a server.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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So, geezers, as you know, starts out with a truck which must be click-morphed into the all important factory.
My bot just clicked his truck to make a factory! but nowhere in the AI does it ever say "click on truck to make MCV"
Instead, the AI picks the unit it wants most in the world right now (in this case, it wanted a bomber because its goal was to destroy the opponent's buildings.)
Then it worked the development tree backwards to see what all needed to be built before it could build a bomber.
bomber .. aircraft fact .. construction yard
Then it worked that list to check the most-base thing it would need, that it didn't already have
(construction yard)
Then it asked itself if it already had a unit which could click morph into this unit.
(MCV)
Then it noticed it had one (the truck), and clicked it.
If it had not found a clickable unit, it would have scheduled the construction of the most-base thing it needed, which it was not already building (I haven't done that part yet).
The next pass it noticed it had the yard already, so it needed an aircraft factory, and that it had no units which could morph into an aircraft factory, so it's stuck with nothing else, but that's what I wanted for this stage of the evolution.
I want to have a smart build engine, given a desirable product, take the fewest and best actions possible to get that product (the bomber)
Once that is solid, then I improve the selection of 'most desirable unit' based on defending critical assets and attacking the enemie's defenses and assets.
I am thinking of gridding up the map and sort of tracking threat/target densities, plus some sort of distance/speed modification to threat priority (for example, a high speed bomber some distance away is a high threat for my critical construction yard (at least until after I build a second one), so making anti-air defense and keeping them between the asset and the threat becomes a high defense priority, and if this particular bot is a strong defensive bot, then that is what he wants to do, until he is so protected from that, that some other threat appears more important.
likewise, an aggressive bot is thinking of the best way to destroy the highest value close target.
And then the Bot is doing the same thing for potentially several different 'battle groups' so as to wage war simultaneously on several fronts.
Something like that at least, but for now I am ecstatic that it managed to figure out to click on the truck without my just telling it to do that.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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This is two geezer bots duking it out with no other players.
NOTE: This is still just the build engine development. They are just building units at random, and placing them at random, ergo the overlapping buildings and duplicates.
But they are buildig at random by PICKING a random unit, and then building the next thing they need in order to build that unit.. OR the unit itself if they already have everything it needs.
posted
OK, I have the buildings dropping more or less legally now.. not on top of each other.. not on top of blocked terrain.. only close to other buildings of the same player..
Not quite as legal as a normal player, in that I allow a terrain wall between buildings.. but hey, the bots need a little handicap, you being a super smart human and all.
They don't pack the buildings like I do... they use a sort of pretty fractal pattern (sort of, though that probably over-sells it). Anyway, its fun to watch them already.
and in an 8-way 8-empire botfest, it's amazing how some empires manage to lose anyway (even though no units are mobile yet. The 'building creep' results in some factory inside the other guy's base and its stationary unit output manages to kill off the base :-)
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
This came to me while using the bathroom (no kidding). Recoil damage. A unit fires on an enemy, and does a set amount of recoil damage to itself. If the unit has 1000 hp, and does 1000 recoil damage, it could effectivly limit the number of shots to 1, if it did 500 recoil damage, to 2, ect.
Aby would have so much fun with this, too.
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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I am going to push a new version tonight, with the base AI architecture in it, but with only very stupid bots that never actually move their units. This release isn't really about the bots, as much as it is about getting everyone using a common packet structure again.
If you DO try out the bots, note that you should have the bots avoid empires like.. um.. balance.. where there are lots of units which can toggle in a circle between various states. The bot is too dumb to take advantage of that and will waste bandwidth toggling them randomly (and rapidly).
AND, I am sad to report that the max HP limit is now being enforced. I was tearing my hair out wondering why the siege castle was not appearing in spectator mode... and it is because it is seriously in violation of the max HP limit.
my first order fix is to not allow the setting at load time, but that is going to seriously weaken that castle. And probably distort the point of the empire.
So, I guess I will have to boost the max allowed HP per unit, though that will probably cause some designers to ratchet everything up and then beg for stronger weapons... the infinite cycle of want-more, instead of 'balance your units within the dynamic range available'
but in this case, the dynamic range is not really all that huge. So I either have to improve the range, or do something like add a per-unit "armor-scalar" which cuts all damage in half or something like that.
---
Oh, almost forgot to mention, the next release has 'eventual HP synchronization' so that in the case that YOU think my unit is DEAD but i thin kit is half full, you will eventually agree with me that it is half full.
This actually became critical when I added the shoot strategies, since have a huge difference leads to 'pick weakest/pick strongest' differences which can lead to catch-22 states.
But it has the side effect that now I *could* implement 'repair' someday. Though for bandiwdth reasons these syncs are slow, and probably too slow for 'repairs' needs.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
I boosted the legal range for ore and energy so you should be OK
----
Also, I found an OLD bug.. In theory, for the last 10 releases or so, if you had some units selected and then click on an enemy unit, they would both GO there AND preferentially shoot THAT unit.
But it turns out that never actually worked, but now it does.
This might be a pretty major change in gameplay, but I think it is what people would normally EXPECT to happen.
I'm still having trouble getting siege-playing bot to appear properly to spectators though.. I'm sure there is some interesting bug there, but if I don't find it soon ... oh.. I bet I know what it is...
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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This release introduce "Bots" (AI Players). The actual AI is not done yet, but I wanted everyone to be packet-compatible before I started doing more AI stuff.
How To Add A Bot
When people are joining up, the MASTER can right-click on an empty flag slot and select 'Add Bot'
This opens a Bot definition screen where basically you select its empire. You can see where I plan to have lots of tweakable bot settings, but I don't really have anything yet. In this release, bots will just build stuff at random and place it in legal places. Other than that they aren't particularly honest (all builds take 4 seconds, for example) yet. But they won't move any units either.
I suggest you let them play INTRUDER and then your challenge is just to wipe them out.
---
OTHER CHANGES:
* Fixes bug that prevented units from attacking the unit you targeted manually.
* Increases the max values for several properties
* Has HP synchronization (no more *permanent* disagreents over how much life is left in a unit.)
* Enforces max HP even if you edit empire file manually to make it bigger than legal value (otherwise it gets corrupted inside packets.)
* MODERATOR (not master) now has option to terminate a game in progress (right click in player list.. not flag list). Otherwise you would have to wait for the bots to finish, which right now they never will.
* Fixed Miscellaneous Spectator bugs
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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Dan, if you were to make the damage reduction for stationary units round UP instead of DOWN I could scale down the health and damage of all units in Siege by a factor of 10. They were originally intended to be 1/10th of the current values, but I was forced to scale them up beceuase I had units that did 0 damage to stationary units -.-;
If you could make that minor adjustment, Siege will be just peachy ^^ [[Oh, I could actually scale them all down by 3/10 without that adjustment, but... things will be heavily distorted by the moving units vs stationary unit dillemma]] [[Another thing- bots refuse to build units in the empire Upgrade. They only make buildings]]
-------------------- "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." Posts: 152 | From: yesterday | Registered: Nov 2003
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1.) No longer send wacky ally messages 2.) No longer afraid to build units 3.) Honesty works for StartMoney, Power, Ore, and BuildSpeed (ai tuner variables) 4.) Has first cut of strategy (ability to sense that power or money is a critical priority), so now it tends to build a bunch of power and refineries first, just like a real player. 5.) Has a Bot Brain Dump dialog so you can see what it's doing and why. At least, if you're me 6.) Bot Brain exposed a lot of little fiddly problems (like why it wasn't building (very many) mobile units).
I have the ground work for the attack/defense build strategy module, so that will be cool. And then the actual mobility module (grouping units into battle groups, sending them to staging locations at critical points, waiting for all the units to aggregate outside range of defensive fire, and then make attack on key targets)
And then the response module which detects incoming attacks and adds them to the priority queue.
And then I think it will be an actual force to be reckoned with.
Though right now, it is much wimpier than what you have, since it is building at honest speeds and only using money it really has, so it can't make intruder missile towers right away. In general it is much slower now... given that it builds at (supposedly) the same rate as a human. (it's not exactly 1:1, but it's close.)
Of course, if you turn on the cheats, you can have the missile towers right away again :-)
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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This release fixes a few bugs in AI packet distribution (like only being able to see the bots when the master is in the game), but mainly it is an AI release.
* Bots will now build units, pick targets, form battle groups, aggregate units (better on maps without terrain), attack, pull back if they are being damaged heavily, reform new groups, dynamically pick new targets, and follow targets that run.
* Bot setup dialog has a large number of personality and honesty controls. When you add a bot, it is given a random personality, and pure honesty (wrt money, power, and building speeds). You can then tweak to taste.
* There is a long delay at game startup for each bot in the game. While it pre-digests its empire and makes some helper tables.
* Right-Click on any player name after game start and (the master) will see the bot brain dialog on the menu. This lets you investigate what they are thinking about.
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KNown Issues:
On maps with barriers, the bots will pick stupid aggregation points (like inside of someone's base that happens to be between them and their target) and the brilliance of aggregation will look like newb stupidity of streaming units in a line.
They don't really prioritize defense of their own bases, and will rush to attack a target on the far side of your base without considering all the defensive units you have along the way.
But they excel at mopping up a series of easy targets.. ( place a bunch of mini-clusters of units a short distance apart and watch them efficiently mop them up :-)
See if you can work out what difference the three personality sliders make
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
You managed to break Zone Control - Advanced again when you limited legal shot range to 1000. The erosions -will- fire, but only at targets 1000 pixles a way, which rather defeats the purpose. (Especially when it's 2 players against a killer bot that uses geezers)
[Would you boost range to 32767 like other values to fix the problem?]
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
No, Samsyn, it actually wasn't a joke. I played a game the other day against a bot on multiplayer, which he got his observation from, and I have since repeated the experiment on multiple maps.
Bots are afraid of fog. They will not leave the area of exploration that their buildings give them.
Anyway, changing the subject, I have been test all the old empires I have to see which ones cause various crashes and infinite lockups when bots use them.
The most interesting one so far is "newers" which has a single unit (id=0) which claims to be manufactured by unit 9999
It appears I have never 'declared' what the legal range for unit IDs is, and there is one. (0-255).
If you use the empire editor, this will be enforced for you automatically, but if you manually edit the ini file you can fall outside this range.
This leads to memory fetches outside of legal ranges, etc, and a crash for bots.
I'm not sure how many empires this affects. So far I have only seen 'newers' do it, but putting this together with a vague memory of something I think I heard Hesacon say, I think maybe some other empires are using this to achieve some odd 'trick'
Anyway, those empires might be broken in next release... I guess that's my warning.
and no empire can have more than 256 unique unit types. Hopefully that is considered plenty.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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Found the crash on enter, so hopefully the crashing is old news now.
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Made some tweaks to the bots, specifically to not get hung up when they can't build anything. This makes empires like Commandoes a lot more interesting. Plus I added more logging for the battle group AI so it is easier to work out what the battle groups are thinking.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10610 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
First off, bot 'issues': -They can click morph the same unit more than once in order to recieve multiple copies of the next unit. -They are able to build units that are not buildable
Next, things that would be really nifty if implemented: -Antirequirements: Hesa and I have asked for these often, but maybe we failed to explain how useful they are. --They can be used to create 'split tech' empires, where people have a choice in the direction they take --They can create an ascending tech tree without cluttering the build menu --They can restrict a unit so that you can only own one --They can create an illusion of upgrades, where units in part of the build menu are removed and replaced by an improved equivalent -Canopy tiles that appear above units -Allow units to be produced by things other than factories
-------------------- "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." Posts: 152 | From: yesterday | Registered: Nov 2003
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Morph Destroyed could be useful, unit A is destroyed and morphs into unit B (now with full HP again). This could be useful for leaving cluttered reckage across the battle field for when a tank or plane gets destroyed. Since it could be set the new reckage unit doesn't do any good, but might not be a building, it could make units that attack your own units have a functional purpose.
Also, could we make some units not able to be passed by other units? I.E. we have a barricade that can't be crossed without first destroying the barricade itself! Naturally allied units also couldn't cross such an obsticle. (Except perhaps planes can fly over a barricade)
If we could have a unit self-destruct now (click morph would work fine), we could have a tank explode leaving a crater that the enemy would have to "fill in" before crossing!
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This might be a lot of work, but weather conditions could also be cool. Rain makes it so vision is impared in fog and cuts down on range units can fire. Snow slows units from moving. Ect.
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: -Allow units to be produced by things other than factories
I created an empire to have soldiers "reproduce". It didn't work as they weren't factories - I just lost money. However, when I played against a bot who I had set to have that empire, they bred like wildfire and pwned me within 2 minutes!!! What Gives???!!! Bots can build stuff that humans can't!!!
-------------------- "Carpé Agnus" {GS} Pwnz I like reviving old topics, it makes me feel needed...
{GS} is dead, sorry.
I've finally changed my av! Posts: 2885 | From: Great Britain | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Would you fix the maxrange for empyrion units to go above 1000? A number like 10,000 is much more useful, since it spans the entire map. I just want to have fun with ZCA again!
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Would you fix the maxrange for empyrion units to go above 1000? A number like 10,000 is much more useful, since it spans the entire map. I just want to have fun with ZCA again!
!! It's been months since I have been able to play my favorite empire!
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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I disagree. A weapon that can 100% damage any types of unit would be too cheap.
Anyways, my opinion is save-able custom bot theme that will only work in solo mode. This would save a lot of time customizing the bots every time you open a test session. Why only solo mode? To prevent idiots occasionally adding "uberbots" that will give everyone a huge lag.
Also, I found a minor bug: In solo mode, it is possible to begin a no-player game by immediately pressing the "Start Game" (most commonly by Space Key) when the scenario setup window opens. Although the game ends shortly, it can be annoying when it happens. Solution: um... simply don't start a game immediately!
-------------------- This signature contains a lot of foul languages. Also racism. Posts: 2227 | From: Yokohama, Japan | Registered: Oct 2002
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posted
For empire developers with a clue, weapons that do 100 damage to all would be a nice addition. Idiot developers can already make terrible empires.
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Anti-air and bomb inflict 100% damage to air and non-air respectively. Plus missile weapon is capable of damaging any unit. In my opinion, these are enough.
I do agree that developers with actual brains can give full advantage of such weapon, though. But it is already possible to create a decent empire with existing weapons.
On the other notice, I'm more interested in Stick Man's remark:
quote:When will you add in electricity? You have it on the Toy's page but not in Empyrion!
-------------------- This signature contains a lot of foul languages. Also racism. Posts: 2227 | From: Yokohama, Japan | Registered: Oct 2002
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posted
i have a question. i made a medic, but it only repairs buildings.
Here are the values i inputted:
Unit Name: Medic Unit Type: S=Soldier Max Hit Points: 100 Speed: 75 Weapon Type: Industrial (i think this is what the toy page calls "electricity". might answer stick man's question.) Weapon Power: -50 Weapon Range: 150 Weapon Regharge: 2 Weapon Targets Friendlies: 1=Targets Friendlies Weapon Chooses Best Effect: 100 (i read about this and if i understand correctly, it should only target unit types that have at least 100% effectiveness) Weapon Strategy: 2=Targets Weakest Vision Distance: 250
i want to make it target only soldiers, but it only repairs buildings.
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