The sorian PA AI thread

A couple of further screenshots of the AI metal expansion "bug". It seems if there's a big gap between the main base and the nearest metal then the AI won't go and get it, rather it will simply get stuck in assist mode. Eventually it will find the metal and expand again, but you're talking upwards of ten minutes sometimes for that to happen.

In these screenshots the yellow AI is Queller and blue is vanilla. On maps like Berg they work as normal. This map was a random, large, symmetrical. Air fabbers are much better than land or naval fabbers at breaking out of this cycle. the air fabber in the yellow screenshot is after one of the naval fabbers finally went and grabbed a remote metal spot (which was promptly bombed).

It's a deadly cycle for the AI as well because it means it can mean the CanAffordPotentialDrain check for both fabbers and factories can get stuck in false very early on, leading to it doing nothing but sitting there with a couple of fabbers assisting factories.

According to the server AI logs, the condition NeedAdvancedNavalFabber isn't recognised.

This piece of CSG causes problems for the AI, causing them to move the unit in tiny circles. I've seen this behaviour in scouting Dox and in Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds finally break out if they see something they can attack. I've seen it with this CSG on this random map as well as another community map.

@sorian

As you said on PA Chat yesterday you were going to get an opportunity to work on the AI again, I just wanted to redraw your attention to this topic

Also, for those who weren't in PA Chat yesterday, the AllMetalSpotsFull bug will hopefully be fixed in the next patch, and Sorian confirmed that PlanetHasUseablePlanetWeapon is bugged and will also be fixed.

I've been wondering if there are any plans for specialized AIs? One of my favorite parts of sorian AIs from previous games was being able to say, I want this AI to focus on turtling, this one to focus air, etc.

I know its a little different in PA, but I'd like to have the ability to influence the AI's goals, not just its capabilities.

Grab the AI Personalities mod by wondible from PAMM.

Oooh...

Now how about allowing the game to load multiple unitlist.json files?

Orrrrrrrrrr

Have the unitlist.json be unitlist.js instead. So we can add new units in a local scope. I think.

Love the name... 'punslinger' in honor of @scathis?

Don't get it , what is still a work in progress?

AI building and using the unit cannon I think

Something that would be handy which I haven't been able to figure out a hack for is better handling of FFAs.

Currently the AI seems to go a bit all over the place, rather than clearly focusing on any one player even though I know it's supposed to. From my perspective though I'd like a means to detect that it's in a FFA so I can change its behaviour, and I don't think there's any way to do that with current tests.

Things I'd find really useful:

1. Number of enemy teams
2. Planet threat is based on the strongest enemy team rather than a total of all teams, or the ability to check this separately
3. Distance between my base and enemy structures in the same way DistFromMainBase is

Now you can make decisions about fast teching and orbital. Some of that would carry into versus play too.

Also, helpful in multi-planet games would be:

1. Number of spawnable planets
2. Ability to measure UnitCount___ and UnitRatio___ checks against enemies
3. Planet completely scouted

Then you could check the number of planets against the number of commanders found and make decisions regarding orbital in a more sensible fashion. Item three would be the ability to know when the AI has scouted every metal spot at least once, then you know you have complete information about who started on your planet.

Frankly, being able to pull enemy composition ratios would be really useful. Are they heavy Orca? Then let's go heavy sub.

Thanks To confirm then, this is the correct formatting:

Code:

               {
                  "test_type":"FocusTargetThreat ",
                  "string0":"STRING",
                  "string1":"STRING",
                  "compare0":"COMPARE",
                  "value0":VALUE
               }

EDIT: Oh, right, this is used in Platoon checks.

Code:

               {
                  "test_type":"FocusTargetThreat",
                  "string0":"AntiAir",
                  "compare0":"<",
                  "value0":420
               },

But they're absolute values. Is this the only format it supports? Is there any means to figure out (other than trial and error) what a value equates to in real terms, or how much threat each unit counts as? Isn't this for a small area though, so FocusTargetThreat might be low (because it found an isolated fabber) even if a large army is coming towards its base?