AI Details Please

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by trilioth, February 9, 2015.

  1. trilioth

    trilioth Member

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    I have searched the forums for detailed information on the AI. I was told (and I don't believe everything I hear, see or read) that absurd AI has a economy boost. Given that there are 4 AI levels (normal, hard, relentless and absurd) AND that there exists a economy handy cap for any group, I feel like there should not be any economy boosts to the AI, NOR should there be any difference in the AI's units stats. AI levels should represent their strategic and/or tactical abilities. I understand the difficulty in programming (or cooking--via neural networks, genetic algorithms etc.) AI, though I admit that I am not on that level of programming (being an amateur programmer with an understanding garnered from friends who have doctorates in computer science).

    Ignoring my point-of-view, I would like the details on the differences in the AI.

    At the same time, I would appreciate some feedback from actual Uberent employees on this matter. I know, I am just some scrub forum user, but the community needs the answer to this question.
    Last edited: February 9, 2015
  2. Sleeser

    Sleeser Active Member

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    well uber always changes and polishes ai behavior so right no i don't think that they are going to answer this.
    then again im in no position of telling you this im just guessing :)
  3. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    That is *very* out of date information.

    The AI back in Alpha / Beta was scaled using eco like this:

    Easy: 0.5 eco modifier
    Normal: 1.0 eco modifier
    Hard: 1.5 eco modifier.

    However that has since been changed such that all variants of the AI have 1.0 eco (unless you manually change it in lobby), and that includes the Uber and Absurd AI (@sorian is the guy who makes the AI and can confirm this).

    The top level AI is actually the AI running *as intended* :) Lower levels are given restrictions to make them use less resources, build less efficiently and be less aggressive with units. There are no changes made to the AI units (at least in Skirmish, due to the card system things may be a bit different in Galactic War).

    Also the PA AI is pretty advanced- it uses Neural networks as you mention. Sorian is a well know AI programmer who made AI's for SupCom FA and SupCom 2 before PA.

    Also there are lots of tools for modding the AI, @Quitch has been doing lots of this work so can probably point you in the direction of info you might need :)

    Edit: The old AI development thread by Sorian from the backers lounge (now locked). It's a long read but there are tonnes of interesting things about how the AI works and how it progressed in there :)
    https://forums.uberent.com/threads/for-backers-only-ai-building-stuff.49742/

    Edit Edit: After the backers lounge thread got closed, a new one was started in General discussion:
    https://forums.uberent.com/threads/the-sorian-pa-ai-thread.66705/
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  4. trilioth

    trilioth Member

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    Thanks. That is all very useful.
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  5. zweistein000

    zweistein000 Post Master General

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    Nope. None of the AI has an eco advantage/disadvantage. The way AI difficulty works is this: AI has several boundaries and parameters that it is given to operate with. These influence scouting, enemy priority, micro, unit composition, economic choices and neural net threat assestment.
    AI at easier levels tends to scout randomly making it difficult to find your base and thus difficult to form effective attack platoons, while at harder settings AI scouts by metal pots greatly increasing the chance that it will find your base.
    The AI at harder levels will actually asses the strength of different neighbours (in FFA) and will attack the weakest one. At easier levels it will attack at random.
    AI at easiest levels will not micromanage, at harder levels it will micromanage at platoon level and at the hardest levels it will micromanage at unit per unit basis.
    Depending on the setting the AI will go Air/Bot/Tank/Naval factory first and will build a set amount of unit types (The default is 45% Vehicle, 25% Bot, 20% air, 5% Naval and 5% Orbital, which means the AI will likely go Vehicle first). This setting is the same of all difficulties.
    The AI also has economic drain and demand checks defined which present an economic efficiency boundry the AI will not go under (It will build Mex/Pgens first and then factories). In other words the AI will not build any more resource consuming units and will stop existing ones if it drops below this ratio. Additionally the AI has another modifier for advanced economy that (probably) controls at what economic efficiency the AI will attempt to tech up to tech 2. The result is that AI at lower difficulty will tend to waste a lot of resources while at higher difficulty the AI will be very efficient. (It is also possible to mod these boundaries so low the AI will stall itself to death - personal experience :p ).
    The last setting is neural net threat assessment modifier. This means that lower difficulty AI will tend to overestimate the strength of it's own units and thus attempt unwinnable battles.

    Hopefully this sheds some light. Also my English derped out bad at economic drain/demand checks. Hopefully that part is comprehensible.
    Last edited: February 9, 2015
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  6. Tripod27

    Tripod27 Active Member

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    yeah every once in a while I forget to set the AI to absurd and when I watch the replay I just see it not using it's commander to build anything for minutes at a time and can't help yelling "USE YOUR COMM YOU GODDAMN NOOB" at a bot -_-

    Although I think the AI is currently out of date, even on maps like Pacific where they spawn on an island, they never seem to build naval, like they think it's still useless like it was a few patches ago or something :p
  7. nixtempestas

    nixtempestas Post Master General

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    Ya, AI still doesn't use naval very well yet.
  8. websterx01

    websterx01 Post Master General

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    This is sort of the case, actually. Sorian has been busy on other things and hasn't been able to dedicate himself to his AI. He still puts out fixes, but I don't think it's seen a balance pass in a while.
  9. stonewood1612

    stonewood1612 Well-Known Member

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    Doesn't the AI cheat on absurd (eco multiplier)? I know that it doesn't cheat on any other level, but I'm pretty sure I heard on a dev livestream that it cheats on absurd. Probably is outdated info. I thought it was called absurd for a reason...
  10. nixtempestas

    nixtempestas Post Master General

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    In galactic war, the absurd AI cheated at one point, not sure if it still does.

    In skirmish it definitely does not.
  11. theseeker2

    theseeker2 Well-Known Member

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    don't be silly, we'd know if the AI cheated, Sorian AIx in supcom was borderline invincible
  12. wondible

    wondible Post Master General

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    Eco multipliers are part of Galactic War. It varies as you get farther from the starting point, and each difficulty level has a different range.

    Skirmish doesn't use multipliers - just try spectating an AI game and see where they start.
  13. Sorian

    Sorian Official PA

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    The AI in Skirmish does not cheat, at all. No eco boosts. No cheating vision or radar. No rubber banding (I really hate rubber banding in games). Nothing.

    The AI in GW is another beast that is not controlled by me.
  14. theseeker2

    theseeker2 Well-Known Member

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    1. What do you mean by "rubberbanding"?
    2. What do you mean the AI in GW is not controlled by you?
  15. Sorian

    Sorian Official PA

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    The AI settings in GW are controlled by the designers, not me. I can make suggestions, but ultimately it is their call.

    Rubber banding is the potential fallout from using a too heavy handed approach to dynamic difficulty balancing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_game_difficulty_balancing) by adjusting AI parameters to make the game easier or harder.

    From the linked wikipedia page: "One example of this effect in a racing game would involve the AI driver's vehicles becoming significantly faster when behind the player's vehicle, and significantly slower while in front, as if the two vehicles were connected by a large rubber band."
  16. theseeker2

    theseeker2 Well-Known Member

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    Interesting, I'd like to think that you should be in charge of ALL AIs, GW or otherwise, but that's not my call either :<
  17. Sorian

    Sorian Official PA

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    Just to be clear, it is the same AI code and everything, it is just that the values being passed in to initialize the AI are different for GW than they are for skirmish and the GW values are not under my purview.
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  18. nixtempestas

    nixtempestas Post Master General

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    Oh I'm sure he's really in charge, I'm sure the AI has dominated the poor minds of the designers long ago. This way @sorian is free of blame when it takes over the world.

    That is of course assuming sorian hasn't already been deposed by his creation and we are already talking to his computer...

    *gets out tinfoil*
  19. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    In other news, shares in 'Bakofoil' went up this morning...
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  20. trilioth

    trilioth Member

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    Thanks for info.

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