Campaign and AI

[Avimimus]

Hello,

I have just finished reworking the Marakan ships and all weapons to make the game more challenging.

In testing I have played Operation Highland. I noticed that enemy ships were spread out, often did not fire and could generally be slaughtered.

I have not played the original but from the much weaker performance of the Dantari craft (based off of the original Defs) I conclude that it was probably similar. Is this true?

Has anyone found a way to redesign the campaign or manipulate the AI such that individual destroyer squadrons are actually frightening (as opposed to the challeng being soley due to gradually attrition to the hull and personal carelessness)?

[Tophat1815]

In process of playing through things now,I'll comment more soon! interested in your tweaks though.

[wdboyd]

Salutations,

I'm quite sure that the original campaign/game was made to play the way it plays. Specifically the hull attrition. One could modify the stock ships like you have all one wants, but their mission deployment and performance would probably remain much the same except for any weapon enhancement effects that is added or modified.

The dynamic campaign mission generator is basically a mystery. The included campaign is dynamic. Those missions aren't necesarily like missions that can be created by players. We can make a missions and the ships AI in them perform pretty much like we want them to. It's pretty safe to say that the dynamic campaign mission generator doesn't do as well as a live mission creator could do.

Creating a new original dynamic campaign has yet to be done, as far as I know. Even if it is done, the same limitations in ship deployment and performance would probably exist. A probable exception would be pre-designed missions the dynamic campaign could possibly be directed to run. If that is the way its done, that is.

I'm not all that sure. My modding efforts have, to date, been creating a fleet and a static campaign for them to contend in.

[Zanthras]

Structure of the dynamic campaign does include both dynamic missions, (missions that will vary slightly each time) and scripted missions, (missions that will play out exactly the same each time).
 
One of the commands that creates the dynamics is the RLOC command. Using this instead of the LOC (location) command will allow a vessel to appear somewhere in a pre-designate circle around the choosen coordinates. The circle radius can be changed by the mission programmer.
 
Whereas there are also scripted events that occur, like it or not. Along the way there are specific casualites that will occur, certain people will die and every effort to save them will be in vain. It is part of the storyline, and rightfully so.
 
as was said, mod all you want, the overall direction of the game/story will play out as it is.
 
I cannot say for sure, but my impression of the AI is that it has no creativative, no learning ability, no personality and no thought but to follow the course that is set and blow up anything that doesn't have the same IFF. I have thrown multiple IFF ships into one circle and cut them loose. Blue shot purple, red shot green...green was shooting blue...you get the idea. In the end the last man standing was a frigate. Second time through an Avenger flew in endless circles having no place to go.
 
As a suggestion, try using the mission generator and watching the results of what you do. Learn the AI, fighting with what it cannot do could just be frustrating. If you really want to play the game well then learn how the sim plays, how it responds and what it can do. It might take a few hours playing but I can make ships do pretty much what I want. Often it is not the straight-forward way of doing it.
 
The AI is a trained dog, before it will jump through a fiery hoop, it first must be shown how.

[Avimimus]

I have made a number of static skirmishes in order to test the game ballance. In these a few enemy ships, while not impossible to defeat were much more threatening.

The part of the campaign that we can access seems to be broken into three main stages:
- establishing the order of battle
- establishing the order of missions, the enemy assets each sector each sector is likely to have and the objectives for the missions
- templates for each mission (with probabilities, waypoints etc.)

We should be able to reballance the forces with the 1st one and modify the waypoints to create tighter more defensive formations with the 3rd.

It would still help a great deal if the AI would turn off its engines and attempt to bring its helm around to face you after each pass (to avoid the problem of the player getting into a ship/fighter's blind spot). If there are no further patchs it might be possible to change this by modifying the engine and thruster model.

The final potential problem is that I often found enemy ships to be fairly unresponsive and focused more on following waypoints than engaging the player. Is this a problem, or do I need to do more testing? It might be possible to address this with some kind of trigger in every mission that causes enemy ships to attack (or flee) if the player gets within a fixed range

It would be interesting to see if the developer has any advice

[wdboyd]

"In these a few enemy ships, while not impossible to defeat were much more threatening."

Guess what.... in real life there are military units that are tougher than others. That is as it should be. Wait until you engage the Zolons. he he.

"The final potential problem is that I often found enemy ships to be fairly unresponsive and focused more on following waypoints than engaging the player."

It depends on what orders the ships have in relation to a particular nav point route. If it is a sweep order, they should engage any enemy craft along their route. Experiment with such commands to see the results obtained.

I have noticed that frigates will not normally attack larger capital ships without being specifically order to attack a particular ship. Discovering how AI controlled ships react to such commands can be suprising and frustrating. But one creating a mission can better dictate the actions of such ships. The dynamic mission generator is most likely less competent.

Don't hold your breath waiting for input from Milo. [:(] 

[Tophat1815]

 Milo being the game creator correct?

[Zanthras]

that would be correct.

[algorithmicender]

This is probably a stupid question, but what are the units that the waypoints are in?
 
Another stupid one: Are the "FS_" and "IS_" Patrol templates used for all fighter missions? It seems to me that the initial and Return To Base rally points could be a bit closer to the ship, and more randomized.
 
I'm a 2nd year programming student, mostly C++ experience, but the Patrol templates have me completely confused. The F-34 Eagle and F-38 Thunderbolt aren't there.

[Avimimus]

Thank you for the replies.

- I have managed to make ships more aggressive through changing weapon performance and I intend to release this mod fairly soon (does anyone know how to get the *.dat file to take priority from shatter.dat?).  
    (changes are:
    - increased enemy durability
    - added dispersion to all weapons
    - improved some marakan weapons
    - created separate marakan lasers and torps
    - changed range values for almost all weapons to improve ballance)

- I am modifying the size of ground objects, scale of terrain and performance and size of fighters to make atmospheric flight less like flying through pea-soup.

I would like to modify the stock campaign as well to 1. add triggers to all missions which change the objectives of enemy craft to attack if the player comes with in a certain radius, and 2. to either find a way to keep capital ships in tighter formations or to do the equivalent by increasing the number of craft on both sides (say doubling the size of every destory squadron or carrier group).

I need help in both of these areas so that I can figure out the best approach.

[wdboyd]

(does anyone know how to get the *.dat file to take priority from shatter.dat?).  

One should be able to open the shatter.dat... make the changes desired....then recreate a NEW shatter.dat to replace the original. In essence you would be replacing the games original shatter.dat in the root directory. Unless Milo put a protective limitation somewhere, this should be possible. No guarantee. I haven't done it, yet.

Help? Hey you are taking on a galaxy. [:'(]

Suggestion.... completely playtest your creations to ensure things work. I'd suggest an incremental approach. Make a chosen major change, recompile the new shatter.dat and run the simulation to test. Remember to keep a copy of the ORIGINAL shatter.dat , because things will probably get messy.

Become throughly familiar with the games manual, SDK information and modding data available. They will help clarify the possibilities and limitations of the simulation.

Keep plugging away at it. We mad scientist modders must do something or we may go sane. [:D]

[Avimimus]

The problem is the sheer size of shatter.dat would prevent redistribution. Anyway, this "galaxy" is fairly small. I have found work arounds for all of these problems and what remains is simply redoing the OOB to double the size of the Terrelian forces, adding triggers to missions and a bit of tweaking.

I may not have the time to complete it though