You don't need to use mingw with cmake. It can generate VS project files.

If you see emerging patterns all the time based on just one or two misinterpreted posts, that's called "jumping to conclusions" or even "paranoia", so be careful.

slogic: will do, thanks!

I dont base it on just one or two forum posts, Ive been encountering it everywhere on lobby msn forums for a while now, its a general development meme here.

KAIK should now build it too. I will see about creating a backport for 78.2.* so y'all can test the recent changes.

Done, here's the new release: http://www.darkstars.co.uk/downloads/vi ... ckport.zip

Tested a bit on Speed_Ball_10x10. AI is using TLLMEDFUSION now. But it does not consider weapon desctruction damage & AoE when placing buildings. Look at TLLMEDFUSION:


So if building explosion damage is higher than some predefined value (500?) it should be considered as dangerous & area around it should be marked as not suited for settlement.

Kloot do you have the source code for the backport? It doesn't seem to want to place nice with my Gentoo compiled version.

EDIT: Don't worry, just needed to symlink some boost libraries.

i played some games with a friend agaisnt the backported KAIK yesterday (BA and Supreme Legacy), and it seems to be quite some better now! it uses air better now, is a real pain with mobile artillery and uses L2 sooner and more!
good job!

this version will use t2 in EE?

Play it and find out?

(If you're asking because you already did so without seeing any: T2 won't appear before the ten-minute mark 99% of the time, but it's much more likely to show after that point than in the previous version.)

yeah it appears! I dont know what decides when it choses to tech, but on comet 1v1 it leaks metal for a long time. it also E-stalls in its URC build order and when it goes t2 makes about 5 t2 cons for every combat unit.
but yay, it plays EE better

I wanted to do some testing with KAIK and give some feedback on its behaviour in XTA, but it seems the replay functionality is broken for botgames. I assume it has to do with the new lua AI interface, because i get all kinds of illegal commands from the playet teams to the bot teams.

Is there still a way to see replays of bot games?

This is by far the most effective AI I have tried overall.

I ran a series of duels between different AIs, both 1v1 and 2v2, and KAIK completely brutalizes every other AI.

The main weaknesses I'd like to see fixed are:

Doesn't know how to build defenses, at all. It's a bit too easy to kill it just running around with a team of scout\raider units killing everything. I don't know if it's possible for it to detect choke points, but at least some defenses at factories\mohos\fusions would be sweet.

Water units, of course.

Makes too many tier 1 units when the game has progressed long past that point. A huge bogged down swarm of t1 units is going to do nothing against a handful of goliaths.

It tends to suicide it's commander every single game. I can't remember the last time I didn't see the commander wander into my defensive line at one point or another.

Keep up the good work.

Actually, KAIK does know how to build defenses (the "where" part less so, but it has a chokepoint-finder), although my last round of commits seems to have disabled them. On the upside, that does tend to promote faster early expansion, but I agree it's much too vulnerable to rushes now. I also know of at least one under-development (C++) AI that already exploits this weakness exactly like you do and can easily beat KAIK in ~10 minutes or so.

Looks like the T1 factory spam-filter is also kaputt again (or it just never worked well itfp), thanks for pointing that out. However, the gypsying commander is news to me, that Just Shouldn't Happen unless the plant it's initially set to assist gets destroyed at some point. Could you spec some KAIK-KAIK games and confirm if that's the only reason?

I tried out a KAIK vs KAIK script (6 bot FFA). I should try a different map next time. I used Sunken Output and due to the narrow passage the T1 spam was especially a hindrance, instead of a boon early on. KAIK now tends to build a ton (~20 ) of T1 construction units to assist the initial factory. Whichever bot finds an enemy base first fires a few Thud shots and chain explodes a series of construction Kbots. Unfortunately, instead of replacing them with offensive units more construction units are built to replace the dead ones. Soon there is a mess of wreckage around the base that hinders pathfinding out from the factory and it becomes a shooting gallery for the eventual victor.

First, from a group of peeps who quite like to spar with kaik a lot, thanks! :)

Someone always gets upset if we play eachother, and kaik gives a decent challenge ^_^

I do wonder how coming improvements are going ? :)
Mentioned naval support and some more defense building sounds like it'd really up the toughness, we're getting a bit too good at taking out resources early XD

Is the latest version still always bundled with spring, or is this thread on about a different version, I get confused sometimes :)

Keep up the good work! Hope hollidays will allow for some more coding time :D

For my part I've noticed the AI doesn't seem to expand. It builds a few level 1 factories and stuff, fills the metal points etc but doesn't go for second level stuff, or even keep expanding its first-level holdings after a while, though it keeps producing attack units.

Sure it attacks early and I like the way it groups units before attacking, but if you survive the first few attacks you can easily out-tech and out-produce it with no further challenge.

(using the version that comes with spring 79.1.2 - playing using the XTA mod)

If you let it run long enough eventually you'll see large waves of T2 (expect good amounts of Fatboy/Goliath) but by then a staggered (accordion shaped) line of vipers/pit bulls with plasma deflectors and some heavy plasma cannons behind that will stop everything in it's tracks.

Hmm, out of curiosity, is KAIK currently being developed, the git seems rather silent? I guess you may be working locally tho :)

I'm kinda working on a attempt of sorts to a Java port for the fun of it. (Performance will probably be, erm, less? Yes I'm crazy :) ).

I'm seeing all kinds of issues tho :) verify order doesn't understand reclaim orders for upgrading mexes, idleUnitUpdate looks at units that are still being built, which triggers them getting orders before being built, which triggers warnings in other places, and there's other stuff that I forgot by now XD

Now if you're working on those things locally, which I can image, it'd be kinda interesting to see, if you don't hate me for the whole port thing :D

And if not, mayby I should actually keep a list of things I find so I can let you know ;)

P.S. It's not really verify order not understanding reclaim orders from updates, it's reclaim orders for units not setting a custom order id on the builder (while reclaim for area does do that).

You'll encounter quite a few more WTFs while porting it. Some are more deeply rooted than others though, and I haven't yet had the motivation to fix them all. Also, I usually work on KAIK in batches, so if things seem dead you've just caught me during a dry spell, like now (ie. periods where I do only as-needed maintenance updates in the absence of any major bugs). But any issues you find I'm always happy to hear about, even if I won't deal with them for weeks.

About your earlier questions:



(Proper) naval support would take a rather large refactor, so I'm reserving that for my own AI project.



Yes, it is at this time of writing.