For Backers Only: AI building stuff

Sorians AIs did make things interesting that is for sure.

Though its streaming of experiementals was sort of annoying. It would have been neater if they complimented advanced formations.

It was more the "unbeatable" part I was referencing, but I am expecting the PA AI to be at least as awesome as the mod AI. No pressure :mrgreen:

Please be careful to allow AI modding. i.e. will the AI be scriptable/moddable?

Also I’m sure you know this, but... keep it simple. The more complex the code the more bugs.

One idea; Maybe just have simple strategy scripts that just try to build/rebuild things in a certain order based on some simple checks like is there water, is there enemy planes etc. They can be the obvious ones like Naval, Air, Turtle etc, but also RushNuke or Swarm etc. If these are easy to follow it would be easy for modders/players to add more.

Anyway Im sure you will do your usual excellent job ;-)

Hey Grandma, this is how you suck eggs.
:lol:

As long as it doesnt act like the early TA AI and find a skirmish map with a very small pool of water which doesnt lead anywhere, and then build shipyeards in it etc!

Touche

;-)

Visuel stuff is cool.

I think links of power, beams like thats the way it tranfers stuff.

Shouldn dumb down game to much. It better new players step up and learn stuff.

It's kinda funny because I don't even try and tell Sorian how to make the AI work. He tells me how it's going to work

Kinda the way the world ought to work. Hire an expert, and leave him to it.
This no doubt (AI implementation) will be one of the many things PA will become
a yardstick, by which future games will be measured.

Or a water map where it builds a land factory on a tiny island

I assume that won't happen unless it especially requires a unit from on of these tech trees for defensive purpose.

Otherwise I would expect the AI to evaluate the value of a certain tech on a global base. That means, "how fast can I get there/how fast can i deploy the factory", "how much damage can I cause, given the number of targets and allied units" (would any targets remain when I get there?), "how much enemy damage can be prevented" (by intercepting the enemy), "how efficient am I in that location" and "how's the conomy", aggregated over all areas on the planet.

So chances should be rather low that the AI would stick with land tech on a sea planet or vice versa, unless you went the same way first and going the apparently counterintuitive path would hurt you the most.

This should be basic stuff for Sorian though, it's as simple as trying various options (each factory X each unit type or each builder X each building, eventually simplified to area instead of individual facories / builders), feeding them into an rating algorithm which makes use of the attributes from above (sounds like another job for a neural network, doesn't it?) et voilà you got the "perfect" option where to spend your wealth next to achieve the biggest advantage in the current skirmish. If the decision was made on area level, use another algorithm to distribute the command in the area, mostly to establish certain formations, a map of influence could be of use to make best use of the environment.

What I'm really curious about, are the plans for the strategic AI. Right now, I'm completely clueless how that could be done in any smart way, except for rigging the build priorities in a static way in order to push the AI towards a certain scenario, but that would be far from optimum.
Question is, how to determine what the optimum strategy would be in the first place? That's where the lack of perfect information kicks in, you don't know what the enemy is going to do, and even a real player could just try to guess. The option to go interplanetary makes it even worse at it is a huge step with outcomes which could barely be calculated.

[vent]I love the human wave approach the AI takes with bombers for the entire game[/vent]

glad that's off my chest

When will it be able to take first blood using nothing but Fabbers, Capture and Reclaim orders?

So when does the engineer spam start? :mrgreen:

Sorian I look forward to the finished product at which point I'm expecting to be swearing at you for making an AI, a damn too good opponent. I've got no requests to ask you but a salute to your efforts

This is so very cool

Those power generators in the crater