15 replies to this topic

[RICON]

Ok instead of just reporting this bug i decided to figure out what causes it

I Think that the new way the build menu is set up is causing the empire to invest its credits in upgrading but not actualy building any ships. This would cause any setting less than hard to just upgrade because the lesser AI would not build ships.

I could reverse engineer the the AI if I had the right Data This would allow us to change the mod to fit the hard coded rules we have to follow - The Following is a list of what i need

I need lists of Emperial fleets - I need lists of Attacking fleets and Defending fleets - feel free to post lists just use the following formats

Rules - Must come from EAW FOC without any mods - Must use the following Format in your posts just copy the Questions and answer them

--------------------------------------------------------------

Was it an Attacking or Deffending fleet? -

List all of the ships in the fleet(include numbers and types) -

What was the Dificulty level? -

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Thanks for the help and keep the posts honest - this is for the benefit of the mod

**TIP: capture bothawi then you can see the fleets over emperial planets without having to attack this lets you see the fleets at all times just record the normal fleets not when ships stop there temporaraly in other words just use the average**

Edited by RICON, 03 June 2007 - 02:37 AM.

[Phoenix Rising]

The AI generally decides what to build based on the category mask of an item (in specific cases, the item name). This is mostly controlled by BuildSpaceForcesPlan.lua, which lists things like Fighters, Corvettes, Capitals, etc. Now, I have every research and upgrade item listed in the Upgrade category, so with FoC's default AI, none of these items will be built, especially since they don't have an entry for auto-resolve health or damage (which, with cost, it uses to determine which object in the category is a better choice). If you want to go ahead and delete the Scripts and XML/AI folders, it will revert to using the vanilla AI and you can see for yourself.

So because these items have no apparent value to the AI (the benefits are in fact triggered by story tags, but it would have no way of knowing this), I had to borrow something from the Imperial AI. In order to tech up in EaW, the Empire has a major item fund that it shifts a percentage of its income into; basically like a virtual bank account. Once this fund reaches a certain threshold (and galactic conditions are favorable), a major item will be purchased. Well, instead of buying a tech level, I had it buy anything in the Upgrade category and that's finally when upgraded ships started showing up in the game. I think part of the problem is that there's simply too much of the income going into research and not enough into building, but it should be able to "flush" those funds into its unit budget if necessary, so that can't be all of it.

So, yeah, if you can find anything out about what's causing it, that would be great. I've already made some improvements, so it's not as bad as it was, but anything helps. If you want to try the improvements out yourself, I think the main ones were just increasing the numbers in BuildSpaceForcesPlan.lua and adding more starting ships for the AI in the campaigns. Right now, the Imperial AI is very aggressive and the Alliance is kind of stagnant, even though they basically use the same equations. I may just wipe out the Rebel AI and put both on Imperial players and see what happens.

Edited by Phoenix Rising, 03 June 2007 - 03:04 AM.

[RICON]

Right now, the Imperial AI is very aggressive and the Alliance is kind of stagnant, even though they basically use the same equations. I may just wipe out the Rebel AI and put both on Imperial players and see what happens.

see ive had just the opposite happen every time the Empire does nothing and the rebbles attack with large fleets, build up their planets, and upgrade their ships - thats whats got me confused

Edited by RICON, 03 June 2007 - 12:30 PM.

[Phoenix Rising]

Yeah, but you don't have the same version I do anymore .

[RICON]

OK the AI bug doesnt exist in hard mode

[RICON]

All right time to post my findings and give my suggestions

Empire AI

Easy - does nothing
Medium - does somethings (needs more study)
Hard - builds up its economy, fleets, etc (provides a good chalenge)

Rebelion AI

Easy - builds up its economy, fleets, etc
Medium - builds up its economy, fleets, etc
Hard - builds up its economy, fleets, etc

Suggestions

Base prices on Dificulty

Easy - .5 x current prices
Medium - .75 x current prices
Hard - 1 x current prices

Stories from testing

I was playing Equal Footing as the Rebbels in hard mode. I was not trying to defeat the empire mearly probe it to get an idea of what it was doing. I was in control of the outer rim when the empire built the death star proving the AI was working. I proceeded to destroy the death star. Up next the empre started attacking me with two fleets on opposite sides of the outter rim. Each fleet was quite large and both contained an eclipse. The AI would conquer a planet, replace lost units from the fleets and move on to the next planet.

In conclusion the AI released on this mod works perfectly and if you feel there is not enough of a chalenge in one mode just move to the nest dificulty. I am here by closing my studies on the AI. I hope this helps all of the great supporters of this mod.

[Phoenix Rising]

Yeah, I only really tested it (and thus tuned it) for Hard. I'm not sure there's a way to affect player price costs based on difficulty settings; I think you can only really affect the AI itself with difficulty. Thanks for the research though.

[Phoenix Rising]

Just to give you an idea of the AI improvements thusfar, I just had the Empire take 10 pirate worlds (both space and land) in the first 3 days.

[RICON]

ok thats cool

[Timius]

Did you have to attack the Empire to "kick start" them into taking the planets as it were, i remember reading somewhere in this forum about a waiting period, or they will only attack once attacked or something similar ?

The most recent game i had playing as the rebels, the first fleet he attacked me with was the Death star and a few assorted starting units, of course Luke was recovering at the time after thinking it was a good idea to charge into a bunch of turrets while i was looking at the other half of the map So i couldn't destroy the Death Star. I left the Death Star alone for a long, long time after this as it kept circling quite deep in his territory, it never came to attack me, and i was busy researching up. But he didn't really seem to build anything after the Death Star was built, except to upgrade his planets with Hypervelocity cannons, no units or anything to be seen anywhere really

But if you had him take 10 planets in 3 days, that sounds like a mrked improvement - in my first game he didn't take a single planet, but i also didn't attack him. /shrug

[Phoenix Rising]

I didn't have to attack him for him to start going after the pirates in my build, not sure about RICON though.

Actually, I gave Wedge and Han and Chewie superweapon killer status too, just because I hate how that works . So, yeah, they can take out the Death Star as well.

[Rob]

Sorry, forgot to log in. The last couple of posts are me. :-P

[Phoenix Rising]

If they're still alive after you destroy all of the escorting fleet, yeah. It's not tactical or anything though, which is why I hate it. Just if the Death Star is by itself and you have one of them, it blows up .

[RoguePhoenix]

Hi sorry if this is real old or if you all figured this out ages ago.

For all those like me or just a remider should i forget, i finally managed to get ai to work (makes such a more interesting experience now PR lol), . I deleted all mods form the folder, Re Pathced the game to version 1.01 the latst patch and added the FOC XML files in that petrograph made downloadable, i think thats why it didnt work it was missing some of the data from PR and neeeded the ai in xml format (im just guessing i do Ex & Health science so this is way out of my expertise lol).

Tried exact same on my friends comp and it worked on his too first time, maybe becuase most of you are editors already so naturally you would already have those files present in the folder already.

Hope this helps pr at the very least entertains you all....sorry for the long ass delay

p.s. Just saw that orbital defense post and is awesome that you bringing more strategy into the game, after all its what its meant to be.

[Phoenix Rising]

Yeah, that's interesting, thanks for posting.