Ok we now have the ability to have brand new groupAI's that can help the player in several ways.
Scout:
Tells the unit to scout the map. It's doesn't attack but just wanders around the map.
Basebuilding:
Orders the con-unit to expand the base with factories, energy, metal and defences.
Unitbuilder:
Orders the factory to just build units of it's own choice.
Mexxing:
Orders a con-unit to start placing metal extractors where it sees fit.
Resourcebuilder:
Orders the con-unit to energy/metalmakers as it seams fit.
Auto Metalmaker:
All built Metalmakers auto-join the metalmaker groupAI. Not sure if it can be done.
Basedefence:
Orders the con-unit to just place defences where it seams fit.
Gatherer:
Orders a con-unit to wander the map and just extract/gather recourses it can find, like trees and rocks. May be usefull for homeworld type of games/mods.
Seek and destroy:
Tells the unit to seek out and attack the enemy(nearest/known enemy).(most controversial, but would you really trust the AI to handel your attacks? Will be most useful in mex raiding attacks.)
I also suggest giving the host the ability to enabel/disabel GroupAI's. So if somebody wants a GroupAI-free game then they can disabel it if they wish.
These are, IMHO, GroupAI's that can make games more fun for some people. Especially later in a game when people have to keep track of large bases.
I hope this can turn into a thread with a productive discussion. Without the "attacks" from the "nay-sayers" and name calling.
New GroupAI's
Moderator: Moderators
Scout:
NTAI Chaser AI, Veylons scouter GroupAI
Basebuilding:
NTAI factor class witht he untis taken out fo the build tree
Unitbuilder:
NTAI factor class with the buildings taken out of the build tree
Mexxing:
NTAI factor clas with only mexes in the build tree
Resourcebuilder:
Same as above but with onyl resources. KAI without the attack code.
Auto Metalmaker:
NTAI Factor class with only metal mexes, with the assigner class added in.
Basedefence:
See AAI.
Gatherer:
NTAI factor class with an empty build tree
Seek and destroy:
Any of the attack systems in the skirmish AI's, they dont seem itnegrated as much as the rest of the AI's systems.
If you want that, NTAI is going to be further itnegrated betwene agents so if you want them in GroupAI's you'll need to do it now while it's easy. Otherwise NTAI's systems will be as integrated as AAI's and JCAI's systems are.
However these are cotnroversial groupAI's and I wotn release them myself.
NTAI Chaser AI, Veylons scouter GroupAI
Basebuilding:
NTAI factor class witht he untis taken out fo the build tree
Unitbuilder:
NTAI factor class with the buildings taken out of the build tree
Mexxing:
NTAI factor clas with only mexes in the build tree
Resourcebuilder:
Same as above but with onyl resources. KAI without the attack code.
Auto Metalmaker:
NTAI Factor class with only metal mexes, with the assigner class added in.
Basedefence:
See AAI.
Gatherer:
NTAI factor class with an empty build tree
Seek and destroy:
Any of the attack systems in the skirmish AI's, they dont seem itnegrated as much as the rest of the AI's systems.
If you want that, NTAI is going to be further itnegrated betwene agents so if you want them in GroupAI's you'll need to do it now while it's easy. Otherwise NTAI's systems will be as integrated as AAI's and JCAI's systems are.
However these are cotnroversial groupAI's and I wotn release them myself.
Oh man, if storm see's this...
Edit: Oh reply with something usefull?
Meh, no real qwals agisn't it, but i think it could feel like the game played itself... I mean, your telling your units to do very advanced stuff here!
Suddenly i can in midgame micro my units to 100% and let my "resources" and "Epand/upgrade" and "build defence AI's handle my work in base. Witch theoreticly would mean that i would't do shit then tell how my attack units how to move and check so my AI's don't fuck up.
Spring is suposed to be hetic. There is skill of doing 6 diffrent tasks and once. To try to balance what units you need with how metal you have and then make choices. "build annilathor or speedbuild antoher fusion?" Offcourse, the AI's would probly suck, but they would remove a great deal of gameplay depending on how you use em. I would hate to se that some AI units just kill something without my orders... it's like watching replay that you can interact with, but still have no controll over. And i'm here to play.
Edit: Oh reply with something usefull?
Meh, no real qwals agisn't it, but i think it could feel like the game played itself... I mean, your telling your units to do very advanced stuff here!
Suddenly i can in midgame micro my units to 100% and let my "resources" and "Epand/upgrade" and "build defence AI's handle my work in base. Witch theoreticly would mean that i would't do shit then tell how my attack units how to move and check so my AI's don't fuck up.
Spring is suposed to be hetic. There is skill of doing 6 diffrent tasks and once. To try to balance what units you need with how metal you have and then make choices. "build annilathor or speedbuild antoher fusion?" Offcourse, the AI's would probly suck, but they would remove a great deal of gameplay depending on how you use em. I would hate to se that some AI units just kill something without my orders... it's like watching replay that you can interact with, but still have no controll over. And i'm here to play.
Last edited by Kixxe on 17 Dec 2005, 18:26, edited 1 time in total.
If Storm saw this, he'd laugh.
He *might* throw in a small rant about how utterly stupid it is to use any of these, because it just means that the computer is playing the game for you, making the game mildly pointless, but I think he'd recognize that these AIs are pretty sub-par, compared to human input.
None of these AIs can perform any of the tasks they mention even a quarter as well as a human who has played for 10 minutes. Really, its a neat idea, but it will be a very, very long time until any of these GroupAIs can approach the level of newb-human ability, let alone a competent player.
If anyone used a base building groupAI in a game against a human, they'd be destroyed. Predictable building placement just makes bombing and raiding that much easier. Likewise for attacking. An AI will always attack the same handful of ways. Once you have those figured out, you can defeat them easily. There is no surprise, no innovation, just the same attack, over and over.
It is a neat idea, but I side with the ghost of Storm on this one: what's the point of playing the game if you're letting the computer do half of it for you?
He *might* throw in a small rant about how utterly stupid it is to use any of these, because it just means that the computer is playing the game for you, making the game mildly pointless, but I think he'd recognize that these AIs are pretty sub-par, compared to human input.
None of these AIs can perform any of the tasks they mention even a quarter as well as a human who has played for 10 minutes. Really, its a neat idea, but it will be a very, very long time until any of these GroupAIs can approach the level of newb-human ability, let alone a competent player.
If anyone used a base building groupAI in a game against a human, they'd be destroyed. Predictable building placement just makes bombing and raiding that much easier. Likewise for attacking. An AI will always attack the same handful of ways. Once you have those figured out, you can defeat them easily. There is no surprise, no innovation, just the same attack, over and over.
It is a neat idea, but I side with the ghost of Storm on this one: what's the point of playing the game if you're letting the computer do half of it for you?
I think the arguements about this are fruitless, you're nto gonna get anywhere tryignt o flame or argue, you're better of developing ways to control this sort of thing, otherwise it's gonna grow uninhibited and it's going to change hwo you play even if you dotn want it to because you wotn fidn anyone who can play without it and get a game.
If there was a more viable way fo controlling what groupAI's could be executed then I'd have released a lot mor AI's so far than just the single one.
If there was a more viable way fo controlling what groupAI's could be executed then I'd have released a lot mor AI's so far than just the single one.
The above suggested AI's are enough to make a skirmish AI out of GroupAI's, albeit not that good a skirmish AI if they're all seperated like that but it could play the game for you.
Alone they're controversial but they dont play all of the game for you. Eitherway these are the sort of GroupAI's that caused flames 9 pages long in 2 threads,
Alone they're controversial but they dont play all of the game for you. Eitherway these are the sort of GroupAI's that caused flames 9 pages long in 2 threads,
I belive we already have several for/against threads about this subject so there is no point in discussing it any further. Not everybody want's to play Spring the same way as storm or nemo. Nor does everybody want to play Spring like I want it. That is why we have options. The option to chose mod, race and hopefully GroupAI's when hosting a game. And I'm gonna say this again: If you don't like it then please just don't host or join that type of a game. It is and should be as easy as that.
So please! No for or against discussions here. Just ideas on how to implement this.
So please! No for or against discussions here. Just ideas on how to implement this.
I dont think that there should be any sort of AI implemented like this that does your work for you. However, there is one thing that I would think could be implemented:
Specific AIs for construction units on patrol. One of the things that bothered me about TA was that the behavior of construction units was completely illogical when they were patrolling, espcially in regards to reclaiming. Even if there was a massive deficit of energy and they were in a forest full of trees, they would not spend all their teime rclaiming trees. They would sort of move back and fort in btween their patrol points and just reclaim trees every once in a while.
Same for maps that were urban and there was a massive metal deficit. They would just sort of wander aimlessly even if there was nothing else to do. I didnt mind clicking a bunch of times on rocks, but when they were on patrol, they would never behave logically.
Same with if there were units to be reclaimed. Set a con aircraft over a large group of damaged units, it would just sort of patrol around aimlessly and occasionally repair a unit or two.
So yeah. I would love an AI that popped up in those sorts of situations and made the AI's behavior logical.
Antoher suggestion: the AI list that would pop up would be context-sensitive, meaning, that if you didnt have any metal makers selected, the metal maker AI wouldnt pop up at all.
Maybe some kind of AI compatiblity code? it would especially be useful as people add more and more AIs to the game.
Specific AIs for construction units on patrol. One of the things that bothered me about TA was that the behavior of construction units was completely illogical when they were patrolling, espcially in regards to reclaiming. Even if there was a massive deficit of energy and they were in a forest full of trees, they would not spend all their teime rclaiming trees. They would sort of move back and fort in btween their patrol points and just reclaim trees every once in a while.
Same for maps that were urban and there was a massive metal deficit. They would just sort of wander aimlessly even if there was nothing else to do. I didnt mind clicking a bunch of times on rocks, but when they were on patrol, they would never behave logically.
Same with if there were units to be reclaimed. Set a con aircraft over a large group of damaged units, it would just sort of patrol around aimlessly and occasionally repair a unit or two.
So yeah. I would love an AI that popped up in those sorts of situations and made the AI's behavior logical.
Antoher suggestion: the AI list that would pop up would be context-sensitive, meaning, that if you didnt have any metal makers selected, the metal maker AI wouldnt pop up at all.
Maybe some kind of AI compatiblity code? it would especially be useful as people add more and more AIs to the game.
I know thatAlantai Firestar wrote:I've already said, the Agents in NTAI use classes that work off of the GroupAI system, or at least very closely, minimal work would need to be don to implement the above.
Only I dotn want to port them to GroupAI.
I ment more like what could be useful and how it could be added into the lobby client 
The purpose of the mentioned GroupAI's would be to make the game more fun to play and less burdensome. If I'm staging an assault and at the same time helping defend my ally then I wouldn't mind putting my base on autopilot for the time being.
The nearest I could think fo at th moment to a alf decent way fo verifying these sorts of thgins would be making the AI look for messages in the console, such as if everybody types .*name of groupAI* then it'd work otherwise it'd do nothing as one person hadnt spoken, implying that they dont want that groupAI running.
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Scout:
Tells the unit to scout the map. It's doesn't attack but just wanders around the map.
I reckon its useless, you can generally tell where your enemy is and just send your units around the general area to confirm. Still give it a go, time will tell how useful it is, and I doubt it could be considered unfair.
Basebuilding:
Orders the con-unit to expand the base with factories, energy, metal and defences.
NO NO NO! This will wreck the game! It is about microing your resources, you can't just let a CKBOT start building an adv. Kbot Lab when you really need to finish that fusion.
Unitbuilder:
Orders the factory to just build units of it's own choice.
...elaborate. How does it decide?
Mexxing:
Orders a con-unit to start placing metal extractors where it sees fit.
This is sorely needed. It would really improve the game, especially if I could order it to move somewhere, and it would build at the closest location it sees fit around where I moved it, then expand TOWARDS my base. If it runs out of space, it should then start expanding proper.
Resourcebuilder:
Orders the con-unit to energy/metalmakers as it seams fit.
NONONONOONO! You need to anticipate what your energy and metal will do. This is half of TA. The AI will be worse at it, and wreck the game, too. Another danger is that noobs will never really develop their skills, cause they'll leave all the details about their resources to the AI.
Auto Metalmaker:
All built Metalmakers auto-join the metalmaker groupAI. Not sure if it can be done.
I hope it can, I mean, it just makes sense!
Basedefence:
Orders the con-unit to just place defences where it seams fit.
I'm skeptical, but okay, well give it a run. Maybe a better alternative would be to skatter defenders around your base, for air cover. That's always a remedial and boring job, whereas the placement of a HLT or three involves careful thought.
Gatherer:
Orders a con-unit to wander the map and just extract/gather recourses it can find, like trees and rocks. May be usefull for homeworld type of games/mods.
Yep, I like.
Seek and destroy:
Tells the unit to seek out and attack the enemy(nearest/known enemy).(most controversial, but would you really trust the AI to handel your attacks? Will be most useful in mex raiding attacks.)
Just have a raid AI, no attack AI.
If it sees enemy combat units it just runs, if it sees undefended structures i.e. mexes it would kill them.
Tells the unit to scout the map. It's doesn't attack but just wanders around the map.
I reckon its useless, you can generally tell where your enemy is and just send your units around the general area to confirm. Still give it a go, time will tell how useful it is, and I doubt it could be considered unfair.
Basebuilding:
Orders the con-unit to expand the base with factories, energy, metal and defences.
NO NO NO! This will wreck the game! It is about microing your resources, you can't just let a CKBOT start building an adv. Kbot Lab when you really need to finish that fusion.
Unitbuilder:
Orders the factory to just build units of it's own choice.
...elaborate. How does it decide?
Mexxing:
Orders a con-unit to start placing metal extractors where it sees fit.
This is sorely needed. It would really improve the game, especially if I could order it to move somewhere, and it would build at the closest location it sees fit around where I moved it, then expand TOWARDS my base. If it runs out of space, it should then start expanding proper.
Resourcebuilder:
Orders the con-unit to energy/metalmakers as it seams fit.
NONONONOONO! You need to anticipate what your energy and metal will do. This is half of TA. The AI will be worse at it, and wreck the game, too. Another danger is that noobs will never really develop their skills, cause they'll leave all the details about their resources to the AI.
Auto Metalmaker:
All built Metalmakers auto-join the metalmaker groupAI. Not sure if it can be done.
I hope it can, I mean, it just makes sense!
Basedefence:
Orders the con-unit to just place defences where it seams fit.
I'm skeptical, but okay, well give it a run. Maybe a better alternative would be to skatter defenders around your base, for air cover. That's always a remedial and boring job, whereas the placement of a HLT or three involves careful thought.
Gatherer:
Orders a con-unit to wander the map and just extract/gather recourses it can find, like trees and rocks. May be usefull for homeworld type of games/mods.
Yep, I like.
Seek and destroy:
Tells the unit to seek out and attack the enemy(nearest/known enemy).(most controversial, but would you really trust the AI to handel your attacks? Will be most useful in mex raiding attacks.)
Just have a raid AI, no attack AI.
If it sees enemy combat units it just runs, if it sees undefended structures i.e. mexes it would kill them.
Looks like the mexxing GroupAI is the most populer. I wouldn't personaly use most of the AI's except for a few.
GroupAI's can also even the learning curve. The AI sucks but it can teach the player of the basics before he/she starts taking over the base planing by him/herself.
I wouldn't use the scout AI but it would be very useful for a noob.
Basebuilding can also be useful for a complet noob and lessen the learning curv even more.
IMO the Resourcebuilder can teach the noob on how to plan base construction. But as I've said it's only my opinion and is open to debate(on another thread that is).
I would be using the basebuilder and resourcebuilder AI's late in a game when there are several hundred units to control.
Alantai:
That's a really cool trick! I guess I'll do that in my next game
GroupAI's can also even the learning curve. The AI sucks but it can teach the player of the basics before he/she starts taking over the base planing by him/herself.
I wouldn't use the scout AI but it would be very useful for a noob.
Basebuilding can also be useful for a complet noob and lessen the learning curv even more.
IMO the Resourcebuilder can teach the noob on how to plan base construction. But as I've said it's only my opinion and is open to debate(on another thread that is).
I would be using the basebuilder and resourcebuilder AI's late in a game when there are several hundred units to control.
Alantai:
That's a really cool trick! I guess I'll do that in my next game