80 replies to this topic

[LarkinVB]

You guys know that the AI targetting can not be changed with the standard AI code ?

Edited by LarkinVB, 08 February 2006 - 10:44 AM.

[ThetaOrion]

It's hard to know what we are talking about and what's possible.

But, I have noticed that the AI doesn't seem to have a priority list. It attacks the thing it comes to first, which is why I try to put a turret between my Stronghold and the incoming rush, and why I try to put my Stronghold between the incoming rush and my barracks when I build.

The AI doesn't seem to have a priority list. It hits what it runs into first, so I don't know if you can change their targets when they are coming in, or even if we are talking about the same thing.

But, the AI does seem to have exceptions to 'attacking what it runs into first'. If there is a worker in the attack radius, the AI quits what it is doing and goes after the worker. Soon you have different squads attacking different things after they each kill a worker and then re-engage the buildings.

Also, there is exception code going on when the squad is being shot at by something that is doing real damage, then the AI retreats instead of staying and finishing the job of destroying a building.

If it's not possible to program the Orks to target listening posts and power generators, then some other thing needs to be thought of to make them a bit better, though it's still a good idea.

But, whatever is going on, the Beta 7 Orks don't seem to be doing anything much in Tier 4 besides turtling up and hiding. They do acceptably well at the start of the game, except they don't contest resource points or recap or decap them either.

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Of greater importance to me is "I would love to see better AI code to fight for initial points." And of course, I would like to see them defend their resources, especially the Orks.

--

Of course, we might just have to settle for Thudo making the Orks more aggressive overall, if there isn't the specific code there that will allow him to get into the details.

If they can just get rid of the really stupid stuff that the Orks are or aren't doing, just like they have gotten rid of most of the stupid stuff that the IG were doing, that's a step in the right direction, imho.

Edited by ThetaOrion, 08 February 2006 - 12:00 PM.

[ThetaOrion]

Thudo to Malkor: What you ask is for the ELITE of the ELITE players: those who like their wips and leather and hot irons always up their arses.

--

Well, you definitely don't want to turn HARD setting into an Insane Setting just to please Malkor.

But, I have always thought in the back of my head that the AI should have different priorities and maybe different build orders and possibly complete elimination of the early rush tactic on the Largest Maps. In other words, maybe the AI should act differently and maybe even be different on the 6 Player and 8 Player maps.

Also, along the same lines, many of us kind of sense that the AI Skirmish Mod was made for Team Play, 2vs2, 3vs3, 4vs4. So, along the same line running around in the back of my head, I have kind of thought that maybe some future project for the Dawn Of Skirmish would be or should be to create a separate AI designed specifically for Free-For-All games. If you can detect that the Skirmish being played is a FFA, then you implement or use the new AI code and the Build Programs specifically intended for the FFA type of game. It's true though, that most of us don't play FFA, so it isn't as high a priority. Although I was one who played exclusively FFA for the first year that I owned DoW. I didn't know what Team Play was or how to do it for the longest time, until Aralez sold me on Team Play and the AI Skirmish Mod.

Anyway, I trust that you all will think of the right course to take as we go along -- all things in their proper time and place.

[thudo]

Larkin..

1) If true then why was the commissar squad name incorrect there for so long? Odd. Further.. if the tactic file is correct and never been touched in ages then if the testers are right: why are commissar NOT attaching? I wonder if its Tier-related - do they attach at the beginning of the game but then stop after a while?

2) True. I think thats an overall objective for all of the game too. Baby steps.

[Finaldeath]

As far as I'm aware, the AI does simply to a move attack command, so the games engine for determining targets - ie: the best to worst in the Attribute File in basis of armor class - is chosen to attack. Buildings are usually not the first, units are, so units (and builders) get attacked before any buildings.

[Malkor]

You wanted my opinion on orks... here we are...



Honestly, I think orks are doing fine. I'd say they're right up there in the top competition. When those looted tanks and nobs start coming out, my IG is powerless, no matter what I get. I haven't tried vs them as my SM or Chaos yet, but the enemy comps seem to have a hard time dealing with late-game orks. The problem is, though, late-game orks are uncommon.

I think the reason the orks die early-mid game is because killa kans are so damn slow moving and rarely get into melee range. The AI gets a fair number of trakks to compensate for this, so I can't really specificially say what might be making them different. I've seen them win more than die in an FFA, though.

edit: The targeting thing is also a huge problem in starcraft. That big pack of 20 carriers may seem lethal, but considering you can train them indefinately around the map using a dropship, and they suddenly become oh so harmless.

Edited by Malkor, 08 February 2006 - 07:32 PM.

[ThetaOrion]

When those looted tanks and nobs start coming out, my IG is powerless, no matter what I get.

1) My theory has been that the Orks were made for killing the IG, so Orks don't look bad unless you are playing as something besides the IG. In my Beta 6 and Beta 7 tests, the Orks walk right through SM territory to get to the Imperial Guard, and they only start attacking when they get to the Imperial Guard. The Orks in Beta 7 'know' they can take the Imperial Guard but that they can't touch the Space Marines.

2) The more politically correct or accepted answer is that the Orks were made for killing buildings, melee, which works rather well against IG and Eldar buildings in particular.

3) I imagine in your open maps and FFA, the Orks to make a presence. But, the Orks are noticeably worse when it comes to defending a castle against a siege. Again, back to Thudo's claim that the map (and the layout or scenario) makes all the difference. Different games and different appraisal of the Orks.

4) "I haven't tried vs them as my SM or Chaos yet." Kind of says it all. Hopefully, Thudo and Arkhan will look at the Orks and find ways to improve the AI so that the Orks can stand longer against the SM and even the Eldar and Chaos. I think the IG are 'meant' to be vulnerable to the Orks, just like I think the Chaos are 'meant' to be vulnerable to the Eldar, though people often refuse to agree with that assessment, I know.

I think the reason the orks die early-mid game is because killa kans.

1) Not only are Orks known to be powerless in Tier 4 against Tier 4 SM and Tier 4 Eldar, but Thudo and the people on Relic Forums are assigning a Tier 2 weakness to the Orks.

2) This is mostly a balance issue that most of us are hoping, or praying, that Relic will fix in 1.50 of their game.

[Malkor]

I find that ork bases are very, VERY easy to destroy because banners have very low health, and they pretty much count as the ork's turrets and "defense" line. Once these get plowed not only is their defense gone but so is their tech.

[ThetaOrion]

A fine point or subtle distinction that I overlooked and want to emphasize:

Most of us don't really care if the Ork AI Enemies are pushovers, certainly not Malkor playing as the IG against the Orks AI Enemies, and certainly not me wanting to get an easy win or a quick game against the Ork AI Enemies. Everything is pretty much balanced out on average anyway. On the larger maps, the Ork AI enemies tend to make a showing.

Where the Beta 7 (and Beta6) Orks are disappointing me is as AI Allies. The Orks make for worthless AI allies on these smaller maps, especially against the Space Marines -- and to think that the Orks were walking all over the Space Marines in Beta Four. The Orks were back in Beta 4, remember? Now they are gone again in Beta 7. Amazing what simple changes in the AI can do.

[Zenoth]

Yes Malkor indeed.

Orks have the weakest defense in the game, in my opinion.

Well, it's not like other races have more "turrets choices" than the Orks though.

But the Orks should have one or two research to make it so their other structures' guns could be more efficient. On their Settlement, for example, there's those grunts mounting guns. Well, I think they should be upgraded over time via a few research.

But that's a subject that only the developers themselves would have to look at, and perhaps it wouldn't really fit the Warhammer universe ... well ... as if WA did fit anywhere near it anyway, at least in terms of balance ...

[Finaldeath]

Winter Assault went for less guns. In the vanilla version, upgrades at the Pile o' Gunz did upgrade some ork building shootas.

Upgrades to the gunz also increase the health a bit, but Ork buildings are easy to destroy - most are building_low armor.

And, coupled with the fact they are an agressive army (unlike the IG, which have units specifically made to stay still and pound stuff coming towards them).

I need to test the latest versions, need to make an appraisal, but can't before friday. The thing is, Orks may need to be forced to attack a bit more, or at least group a bit then attack (sometimes they send one unit after one unit, letting them fall back to having no orks == no tech == no big base).

Ork AI is tough, probably the hardest to code without being able to specifically target things (the AI at least can know to HTH with them though). They do have some early game bonuses, but weak later game, which we all know.

Looted tanks do rock, and kill Space Marines/Chaos/Eldar quite fast in groups with the cannon being dead accurate and having heavy bolters. This is a late game powerhouse en masse, if rather expensive. Good range support for melee troops.

[thudo]

Yep! Orks got dar shaft in WA.. They were damn fine pre-WA though. Ah those were the days,

[ThetaOrion]

Beta 7 Test:

I tried Beta 7 on the Castle Assault map with 3 Space Marine and 2 Chaos attackers outside. The Raptors flew and the Assault Space Marines flew over the gates -- unlike Beta 4.

Everything is back to normal in terms of flying or jumppacks on the Castle Assault Map in Beta 7. That's good news.

[Zenoth]

Damn ...

Just had a crash to Desktop ...

I recently downloaded a bunch of new (new to me) 8-players maps.

One of them is Space Marines Coliseum.

I was just taking a new look at the map, and at the same time, I focused on testing the Orks (enemies) and IG (allies) behavior (as in the Orks "turtling" around Tier 4).

Well ... I had some rare game-play "hick-ups", as I call em' (simply the game-play freezes for two or three seconds while the hard disk drive works like no tomorrow, with its red light indicator constantly flashing, all that lasts no more than three seconds or so, and happened quite rarely, perhaps two times in a long two hours game).

Then one of those hick-ups (technically the third or fourth one, can't remember exactly) ended in a Desktop crash, with the usual report message (send or not send).

I am aware that it's a custom, user-made map.

But remember that the crashes I had before during my previous Beta reports were also experienced in such custom maps, but wasn't caused by the maps themselves. The cause(s) was/were within the coding, as Arkhan reported and even fixed.

Well, I personally thought the problem was gone forever, until now.

This time indeed it could be caused by the map, who really knows. But if it wasn't ... then ... Arkhan may have something to look at.

And I believe it'd be important to note that before testing Space Marines Coliseum I did a few tests in some of the other maps I downloaded, such as And If They Lay Us Down to Rest and Convergance, where it never crashed nor even slowed down.

Edit: Sorry, forgot to mention something important.

When it crashed, it was my second try in that map. My first try did not crash. I simply lost during the first game, which I think had a short duration (around 30 minutes). The second game is the one where it crashed, but I played for a good two hours before it did.

Edited by Zenoth, 09 February 2006 - 06:07 AM.

[ThetaOrion]

Well, that sounds more like the 'hick-up' I had with Cliffs of Carcythe in 1.51 of the AI Mod, and the Castle Assault Eldar thing with 1.65 Beta 2 or thereabouts -- I played for a good long time, like about an hour or more, and then it was like I was scrolling, selecting, and getting voice acting or teleporting all at the same time, and the screen just froze, the sound stuttered, and the whole thing dropped into that send or don't send message.

I almost wondered in my case if it was an overheating issue and had nothing to do with the AI Mod. I even had Arkhan tell me at one point that it had nothing to do with his mod, after one of the crashes.

But, I haven't had a crash since Beta 3. I'm glad Zenoth took them all away from me. <grin> Thank you Zenoth!!

I guess I need to try some more maps like Cliffs of Carcythe, or some of these that Zenoth is trying that I haven't even heard about. Gotta make sure that Space Marine Coliseum is the most recent version, and also gotta check if you can to see if other people are reporting crashes with that map.

Edited by ThetaOrion, 09 February 2006 - 06:16 AM.

[Zenoth]

I feel cursed with all those crashes ...

I downloaded 20+ maps actually, quite a bunch.

I haven't tested them all of course. I had the time so far to test five of them, including the three I mentioned (which includes Space Marines Coliseum).

They're all 8-players maps. I could list them all if necessary.

But so far, within all the five maps (which means a total of around six or seven tests, because I played some of them two times), only Space Marines Coliseum hicked-up and crashed on me, and it was during the second try. I'm not exactly sure what it means technically ... but it does look like a coding error to me.

As for over-heating with my computer components, it shouldn't be. Nothing is over-clocked, to start with, and none of my other games present any sort of in-game problems or hick-ups or crashes. Games like Battlefield 2, Half-Life 2, Doom 3, AoE III, Star Wars: EaW Demo, etc. Really only Dawn Of Skirmish seems unstable to some extent (it really doesn't happen often).

I could well let it go ... because we might not be ready for a near release if the coding has some unstability somewhere that Arkhan may still have to find out and figure out the new cause(s).

I think the general community is really being patient enough for its release, but now that Beta 8 will officially be the last one ... we can't really afford to delay it just because a single tester had some of its game crash on him. Well ... Arkhan also experienced a crash with a very stable system, as he claimed.

[ThetaOrion]

I finally played the Beta 7 on Black Fortress .9 that Zenoth sent me to, with HARD setting 4vs4. I played as SM with a random selection of enemies and allies.

I managed to wipe out one of the Orks, but the remain 3 AI factions wiped out my 3 AI allies. I held the central Fortress and probably could have fought on longer for another hour, but with no AI allies, I figured I would be fighting that proverbial uphill battle.

Anyway, no crashes, and the all-present AI beat me. Looking good.

[Zenoth]

The Emperor is definitely not with me ...

Just had another crash, that time in a map named Concrete Defence.

It might be something to do with the A.I coding ... but the more it happens and the more I'm starting to wonder if there's simply something wrong with my system in the first place. If that's the case though, then I really don't know what it could be.

[ThetaOrion]

Again, it may have nothing to do with your machine!!!

But, after extensive talk in the previous Betas and seeing your list of equipment, my money or bet was on the ATI thing, if it really is your machine. There are other people out there who claim that they are having periodic problems with Winter Assault in relation to their newest generation ATI card, and it sounded like you had a new modern one. All of your equipment sounded two or three years newer than mine.

You can never really completely rule out the machine.

With AI Mod 1.60, NFIH was reporting lag problems on Aralez's Winter Castle Map that Aralez and I aren't experiencing, and NFIH had newer faster equipment as well. I sometimes get the feeling that Winter Assault doesn't do as well with the newer equipment as it does with the older stuff.

Mine is Athlon XP, Nforce2 Motherboard, and Geforce 5900 -- it's like they are finally getting the bugs worked out of the older stuff. Knock on wood!!

But, give it another 20 degrees in this room, and my machine will be hanging off and on as well when the graphics card is under load, if history is any indication. I always back off computer games during the summer, just because the machine tends to overheat and/or I spend a lot of time replacing and adding case fans. It's like I just can't get enough cooling on my graphics card to keep it from glitching, while playing games. And, if it gets too hot, it crashes. I can do business stuff, Word, and non-game without the graphics card overheating and crashing. Not overclocking the graphics card -- going with defaults. But, the games can bring on the heat and the crashes during the summer. Of course, I'm hoping I fixed all of that with new quieter case fans and a new power supply that has built in fans. Next summer, it will be interesting to see if the machine can take the heat, after my upgrades. I probably ought to look up a heatsink for the SouthBridge chip. That might help. But, I only seem to have annoying problems when the graphics card is under load, during the summer.

I don't think you are having heat problems or overloaded graphics card problems, that's my problem.

But, the reports of glitches or incompatibilities with Winter Assault and the newest ATI cards sounded like it was right up your alley.

Edited by ThetaOrion, 09 February 2006 - 11:14 AM.

[ArkhanTheBlack]

Okay, I downloaded and tried the Space Marine Coliseum map two times. I didn't get a crash, BUT I won't be surprised about any crashes on this map, AI related or not. The map designer didn't designate invalid areas on the map. I'm pretty sure that I saw a Falcon jumping into a wall. I also had a SM building chapel barracks in the wall with the consequence that the builders were not able to get there and finish it. It also sounded like the AI got into a building loop and building one building after another in the wall. Actually I was surprised that I DIDN'T get a crash.
I'd suggest everyone to avoid this map until the map designer fixes those issues. I guess that even if the AI caused the crash, the buggy layout of the map led the AI to an invalid situation, which would never occur under normal circumstances.

I'll have a look at the other map soon.