In multiple 1v1 games, the AI consistently builds only two basic factories and then commits its fabricators to churning out basic units to attack me. In 1 out of 3 cases, the AI finally gets around to building something else (an orbital launcher). In my opinion, the AI before the patch was much more aggressive in building up its base and expanding all over the map. Prior to the update, I was defeated in a 1v1 against the AI because I neglected to build Avengers. After the update, the AI barely enters the orbital layer.
Yeah I remember a couple of patches back it was almost impossible to beat the extreme expansion and endless stream of units. Now it sort of sends out a few lone raiding parties at best.
it seems to me it expands less but uses orbital more. It always gets other planets first. I believe it in fact can build halleys.
I think it depends on how "good" you are. More importantly, it depends on how "good" you think the AI is. I've uploaded a video. Just me playing for fun vs the AI. Ignoring the fact that there is some serious sucking by me involved in this game, watch what the AI does. All of the white wireframe structures south of the ice crack are the AI's. I basically use PIP to focus on stuff in the replay. I use the main view to provide overview. I know that's backwards, but it makes more sense because of levels of detail. Sorry if that's confusing. So. Stuff to note: 1) The AI often doesn't use multiple fabbers on the same project. 2) The AI doesn't prioritise expansion, but prioritises base building. (I don't show it well, but there's no action out the back of the AI's base. I sent a group of three fabbers building up the rest of the planet around the 7 minute mark) 3) The AI doesn't protect it's units very well. My turrets north and west of the ice crack get a ridiculous number of kills. 4) The AI doesn't place buildings very well. It's ignoring the fact that the mexes are in the line of fire - they're closer to its base, so it keeps building on them. Likewise with the Advanced Vehicle factory. You'll notice at the end of the video it's finally planning to build advanced air on the lake. It's also finished it's orbital launcher. I think we end up teching up at the same time - I tech up to advanced vehicles, but never produce any, it techs up to orbital, but never produces anything. The threat map has the AI ignoring a lot of stuff at the moment, apparently, if I understand sorian correctly. Hence stupid placement of mexes, factories and gratuitous loss of fabbers. Probable reason so many units attack my turrets when they could have been attacking my relatively undefended front lines. That's a possible reason why the AI never expands. It's prioritising building frontline mexes, not sending units out the back. Anyway, those are just my thoughts. Damn it! I meant to save that map seed. Bugger. It was a pretty sweet ice planet. Ah well.
I've seen it build halleys a lot, it's always too late though as it only ever seems to send one fabber to do the job.
There is a bug in the live version that limits the AIs ability to see threats and to gather intel on nearby units. This will cause the AI to send units at your defenses, skip past units units like they are not even there, fail to react to scouting, etc.
AFAIK that relates to collision detection... so does/did it effect other things like path-finding, weapon hits, etc?
We have an AABB tree that lets us quickly find things like units in an area. The AI also has one for threat. Relevent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounding_volume_hierarchy So, to find nearby units or the threat in an area and be able to include units in space I needed to use a capsule vs AABB test against the appropriate AABB tree. With this test broken the returned results are inaccurate. I really should do a blog post on some of the AI systems.
Yeah, your poor blog is looking all neglected! I assume this will be resolved in the Gamma build? The threat thing, not the blog
