Skirmish AI: E323AI 3.22.4

[Achilla]

Map - Tournament Desert.

1v1, top vs bottom, Core vs Arm.

I noticed something extremely weird at a later stage of the game, when both sides got one t2 factory (kbot) and Core started to build Mohos and Plants. What was weird is that both AIs started spamming metal makers, but didn't have enough free energy to use even one.

Also, this metal maker spam combined with lots of construction units near factories blocked units which tried to go outside the base and fight. It's especially a nuisance now, when the AI seems to be much more defensive. What's even more funny, at some stage their construction bots completely stopped building any metal extractors on mohos, even if scout units from both sides successfully wiped out all of them outside main bases. Not to mention after t2 AI seems to be less aggressive overall and spend a lot of time manoeuvring it's units back and forth, a bit undecided whether to attack or not - perhaps it's more of an issue with the fact that I put your AI vs your AI and versus real human it would be something else.

There is also a problem with lack of almost any placement of defensive buildings outside first L.L.T./H.L.L.T. in the main base ... they build them too late (once many of their extraction spots got destroyed more than 5 times already) and don't invest in any variety of defenses. Often, AI doesn't care about enemy scouts plundering it's metal spots at all, while single L.L.T. on the spot would solve the problem by big part.

So:

- AI doesn't build mohos and metal extractors in some state after first t2 lab at all
- AI is too defensive with it's offensive mobile units while it should push with them for the enemy
- AI is blocking it's units in the base with hordes of con units
- AI builds way too many structures close to it's factories (only exceptions should be single 'guardian' L.L.T. and mexes/mohos)
- AI still builds way too many con units
- AI could put their con units to better use outside assisting factories (tip: nano towers), e.g. building fortifications near metal spots and on hills, building up the economy
- AI is mindlessly spamming metal makers, while it would do much better to ignore them (unless map has no metal spots) and just push for moho metal makers (tip: first AI should make sure it has enough energy and then build metal makers, it should also ignore building them while it can still freely expand and fortify it's mexes ... it shouldn't build metal makers either while it can upgrade metal extractors with mohos)
- AI doesn't put much notice to enemy units raiding it's mexes, lack of fast and smart basic fortifications placement
- lack of placement of advanced defensive structures like Guardians in a stalemate
- bugged commander assisting factory, he will nanolathe for a second then stop and repeat again

That game also crashed for me later, for no apparent reason.

Replay - http://www.mediafire.com/?yyrjjzhna0k

PS. Don't give up, it's absolutely normal to feel hopeless sometimes. 'Ground-breaking' new features tend to be put off on to a shelf in most cases anyway. I would say refinement of what we currently have is much more important, as there is much potential left to discover, not to mention air, naval and defense placement aspects (berthas, nukes, anti-nukes, long-range jammers ... there is much room left, the problem is not only in what is build, but mainly where and how).

[slogic]

Finally i'm in debug mode :) Spent "only" about 22 hours to make a buildable VS2008 project.

In CLogger::getFileName() you declare buf[255], but ai->cb->GetValue(AIVAL_LOCATE_FILE_W, buf) returns up to 2048 bytes. Actually there is architectural problem cause caller does not provide buffer length (in CAIAICallback::GetValue()).

[slogic]

Another bug, but not critical:
http://github.com/Error323/E323AI/blob/ ... my.cpp#L45

[slogic]

One more bug. Index error accessing std::vector item in CPathfinder::updateFollowers().

[slogic]

Another rather often crash. Access violation in ATask::remove(). "this" pointer is invalid.

[Error323]

Hey Slogic and Achilla,

Thanks alot for your feedback, I'll promise to look into it asap. I just don't have a whole lot of time right now, but I haven't quit or something!

[Achilla]

Hey Slogic and Achilla,

Thanks alot for your feedback, I'll promise to look into it asap. I just don't have a whole lot of time right now, but I haven't quit or something!

Thumbs up, we are all busy sometimes (lol, some of us a lot more than we wished for, haha ).

[1v0ry_k1ng]

Its difficult to make this work with other (non-ta mods)

with EE 0.163, it refuses to build a factory even though the factory has the exact same tags as the ba/xta kbot lab, and all the units inside it have the same tags as the units within the BA bot lab.

if you /cheat onto its team, and make it build a factory, the AI continues working normally, building cons and expanding and attacking (although it builds too much artillery, some ability to config the mix of attacker/artillery/anti ir/sniper it builds per mod would be handy). It just wont build the factory by itself.

with SWTA 1.0, more puzzlingly, even with every unit type given the equiavlent tags as their BA equivalents and the config being exactly as the BA one, all it does is spam Emakers

[hoijui]

maybe give the config files (and mod DL links) to Error, so he can test when he has time.

[slogic]

with EE 0.163, it refuses to build a factory even though the factory has the exact same tags as the ba/xta kbot lab, and all the units inside it have the same tags as the units within the BA bot lab.

What map was it? In the log you can find string like this:

Code: Select all

[00:00] (II): Heightmap specs: avg(92.7273) sum(2.53227e+007) min(0.329407) max(308.753) variance(16831.6) sqrt(var) = 129.737

If sqrt(var) < 43.97 then commander will be forced to build VEHICLE factory first.

[slogic]

Error323, can you fix an error with ATask::remove() at least? You understand your code design much much better. I fixed all other errors locally & even made so AI won't try to make Metal Extractors underwater (next step is to make them use underwater ME, but imo it requires changes in group handling). But error i described above makes AI still unstable. I could even make a release later, but for Windows users only.

[Idleking]

E323 v3.14.3 causes incredible performanceloss - fps going down periodically to 3-10 for about 30 seconds.
Between those drops fps are about ~100-130 for a few seconds each.

v2.13.5 (comes with installer) runs smooth - no problems there.

Does anyone have the same problem?

[bartvbl]

crash in version 3.13.5.
Give me 5 minutes to translate it :)
edit: translated stacktrace (hope it helps :/)
http://buildbot.eat-peet.net/spring/sta ... 91906.html
I was attacking the bot. Perhaps that made that it crashed somehow.

[BETEPUHAP]

hi there!

iv experiencing crashes when AI units start shooting enemy commander.
we are trying to play 3v3 (players vs AI v3.14.3).
It is strange that when AI shoots my or my buddy (KENI) commander - its ok, no crashes.
but when AI trying to shoot my other buddy (madvad) comm - it is always crash.

it is always madvad's comm who crashes the game, when E323 shoots him.

i dunno why ). infolog.txt is attached.

[JohannesH]

Maybe if he changed nick to MADVAD it would help?

[hoijui]

i tried com-sharing with E323AI (set both allyTeam and team to the same values), but it does not work well. the trick there would be, that if the user gives a command to a unit of the team, the AI should not use this unit anymore, until it gets idle again. this is done most easily with the playerCommand event. this would make it fun to be used against other players, as one oculd benefit from E323AIs superior-then-any-human guerilla tactics, and not suffer from its deficits compared ot human players.

[JohannesH]

E323AIs superior-then-any-human guerilla tactics

No such thing yet though

[hoijui]

it may not be superior in manuevering a single unit, but it can do this quite good, and as it can do this with multiple units at the same time, its overall guerillia warfare is better then any single human can do.
eg, give it 5 fleas... it sure can do better with them then a human could.

[pingved]

In the new version would be glad to see how the AI builds various buildings t2 and t3 including protection against rockets, etc.
+bugfixes (for example crash then commander under atack)
Thx.

[JohannesH]

eg, give it 5 fleas... it sure can do better with them then a human could.

Nah it cant