A.I. / Alien Behavior (or the lack thereof)

[mllange]

In well over 50 battles so far I have yet to see an alien inside a building (bases and ships excluded) or even using cover. Hardly the behavior of a highly advanced civilization, IMO. Any reason why?

[Erik Rutins]

It does seem very rare. I have seen aliens in buildings twice, over about the same number of missions. Clearly they prefer to be outdoors...?

[GalacticOrigins]

Wow. Well, I have aliens in buildings often. Especially the science center in year two. They sometimes hide out even on the grassy map, but not that often. What difficulty are you on?

[mllange]

Normal difficulty for the last 15 missions or so, the rest were in my first (easy) game.  Hopefully the normal difficulty will ramp things up a bit indoors.  I'm spending a fortune on sunscreen with all this time outdoors.  [8D]

[Hard Sarge]

Odd, my game is on Easy, and I see a lot of Aliens inside of building and sheds
 
just had one, with a Gaint Tractor, all you really seen were two widely spaced treads with a eleavator, I by passed it, with one guy standing next to the eleavator, and had a Alien drop down from inside the tractor behind the rest of my troops, would of been in for a shock, if I hadn't of left the slowpoke were he was
 
I have fought Mechs inside of buildings, had one where the Mech was on one side of a desk and my chem man, was able to move to the inside of the desk and then fire with out the Mech being able to move any closer to me (of course, it could of just shot the desk apart, but it died before it got the chance)
 
so over all, I think it may just be luck or roll of the die
 
(plus, I also see, some doors that are opened, and the Alien just outside of the building, as you normally don't see open doors, I "assume" that the Alien had been inside and just came out)
 
 

[The Gnome]

Might be the luck of the draw - or lack thereof. I think the randomizer in the game has an awful tendency to get stuck in a trend. I notice that in areas ranging from name selection (Ever notice if you get one John you tend to get a few?) to the missions I get, to the maps.

My main concern is the alien AI seems to be limited to: acquire target, move into firing position, plug away. In addition to using cover I'd like to see them: a) Work in teams more, b) Breach obstacles, c) hunt a little better.

AI being what it is, will never be perfect, but I think there is some room for improvement here.

Has anyone seen an alien ever throw a grenade?

[Lrfss]

I have seen Aliens in buildings or such approx 20% of the time in say about 125 missions on easy mode, which BTW is not all that easy! This is harder than X-Com to be sure, which also IMHO makes it easily a better game.

I also have not seen the Aliens throw anything, it may be that they only throw in Normal or Hard levels and not until later on as in Normal mode after about 20 missions there was no throwing in that game either?

[Hard Sarge]

well, since I am stuck on trying to get a commander, I don't know what the Aliens nades look like when they go off
 
but what are the green clouds of gas you see ? (they seem to do more damage then what looks like shell rounds ?)
 
 

[jureidinim]

The chem bombs those floaters drop gives the gas clouds.

I also have seen aliens in buildings (or exiting them) on a few occasions.

So far though - none have thrown even one grenade - even though they are loaded with them. Mind you, with how difficult the game is already, grenade lobbing from the darkness would make many troopers scared to leave the landing craft. [:D]
.. but the aliens should be allowed to - at least on the hardest level.

Slightly off topic - why can't i research their (alien) rifles/grenades? I don't even see them in the inventory - do the troopers just leave all this alien weaponary on the battlefield after every fight?

[Hard Sarge]

you should have them, you need the Vipon Commander to start the Plasma reseach area
 
(in mine, I got Plasma pistols and rifles, nades and then Ion pistols and rifles greyed out)
 
 

[JHAYES3489]

I agree on the alien activity. In X-Com it always seemed like the aliens were up to something when you arrived. Molesting cattle, killing everyone, ya know.. the kinda things evil beings hell bent of taking over the earth would do.

I can still remember one terror mission in X-Com where I had the whole place secured and was tracking down that one last alien. Then I heard a blast, a scream and my marine popped off a reaction auto-shot through a window and opened up the side of a building. The alien killed two more people before my eyes and then took cover. He was a ruthless MF'er

These aliens just seem to lolly-gag around with no apparent mission a lot of the time. Or maybe that's just my personal experience, I am still playing on easy. [8|]

The artifacts thing kinda bothers me too, I hope I open the closet door in my base where all these plasma rifles I've been collecting on missions are once I've researched them. I should have well over 50 or so.

But for all the improvements that we'd like to see in this game, it's still awesome right out of the box. Add a mod, and you've got a game worthy of a DEA classification. Thankfully we'll see all the changes or options we want in good time, thanks to CC, and the code monkeys

I plan on playing it all weekend while soaking up some sun on my deck (I just haul my pc out there, I'm a lan party veteran The plan is to get Ion weapons by monday!

Happy Hunting

[Hard Sarge]

just in case, this battle had lots of Aliens inside of the building

ended up with a running battle with in the elevator, then got to the room and there were 3 more

[Chris Bisson]

I also see aliens in builings all the time. I remember reading in this forum a while back to not bother checking buildings because they are never in there. I thought to myself, WOW I see them in buildings all the time! and I was only in my second month (game time) at the time. Since then I find they are always in buildings in terror missions, or on any map with larger buildings. Maps with small buildings and sheds are usually empty. It seems random much of the time. You just can't ignore the buildings.

[GalacticOrigins]

If you don't check a building the aliens tend to sneak through it and hit you in the backside. Also, I have notied that the aliens stay clear of searched terrain a little more than not-searched, even if you have no lookout. Although they will still go through checked areas ...
 
On the artefacts, Yes, JHAYES, all of those plasma toys are in the research back closet. You get them, well, you now when. [:)]
 
Last Terror Op, I had not checked a simple home that was just before me. Guess what? A Big Brown Monster came out and dropped one of my Finest. So, yeah, monsters can go into buildings. Some buildings are just not that big. They will sneak through them if they can.

[The Gnome]

Yes, the aliens will tend to path through buildings even if they don't start in the building. I think there is a range limit on their hunt routine kicks in set by unobstructed squares to you.

For example if I have an ambush setup and I am near a building with no doors visible, I will wait a few turns for critters to show up. If nothing does I'll blow a hole in the wall, and usually that triggers activity.

So either:
a) The noise is triggering the hunt
or
b) I am reducing the range of the shortest path between me and the aliens

Maybe there is another explaination or possibility someone else noticed. At any rate this is playing into what is my pattern for beating the aliens in almost every situation, save terror missions.

Setup an ambush at the LZ. Defeat the initial rush of aliens - this will account for 80-90% of the force - then hunt down the remainder.

[bman654]

I've been doing alot of work on the AI and have improved it quite a bit in the latest version of my mod.  They now use grenades and have improved targetting & firing selection, improved hunting skills, improved team-work, improved AI usage.  I've not done anything about them taking cover just yet but you'll be surprised out how effective they are at taking you out once they know you are behind cover.
 
You can configure it to be only slightly harder or significantly harder.
 
The latest version of the mod can be found here:
http://www.ufo-extraterrestrials.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1691
 

[The Gnome]

ORIGINAL: bman654

I've been doing alot of work on the AI and have improved it quite a bit in the latest version of my mod. They now use grenades and have improved targetting & firing selection, improved hunting skills, improved team-work, improved AI usage. I've not done anything about them taking cover just yet but you'll be surprised out how effective they are at taking you out once they know you are behind cover.

You can configure it to be only slightly harder or significantly harder.

The latest version of the mod can be found here:
http://www.ufo-extraterrestrials.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1691

Haha, nice, thanks! I'll finish getting smacked around in my current game and be sure to give this a whirl!