View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0002719 | AI War 1 / Classic | Suggestion - AI Behavior And Tactics | Feb 1, 2011 1:41 pm | Apr 12, 2011 12:26 am | |
| Reporter | TechSY730 | Assigned To | Chris_McElligottPark | ||
| Status | resolved | Resolution | fixed | ||
| Product Version | 5.000 | ||||
| Fixed in Version | 5.007 | ||||
| Summary | 0002719: Allow zombies, Dyson gattlings, human resistance ships, and other patrolling ships to aid attacks | ||||
| Description | I noticed that dyson gattlings, resistance figheters, and zombies never enter into enemy planets on their own accord. Although it is nice to see them stick around where they can make a difference, in some cases it seems like it would be safe and very helpful for them to aid a human attack. How about this? If you have some ratio of the AI's firepower (a human firepower : AI firepower of >=.75:1 or something like that) on that planet, your ships have been on that planet for some time (10-20 seconds, maybe), and that planet is adjacent to a human planet they are currently patrolling to, then they will be willing to wander there as well, and help out with the offensive effort. This should let them actually help out with attacking without them targeting planets you don't want hit and stop them from being suicidal and entering planets when they have no chance to win. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Internal Weight | |||||
| related to | 0002767 | resolved | Chris_McElligottPark | Massive late-game slowdown due to Zombie patrols? |
| related to | 0002867 | resolved | Chris_McElligottPark | Zombies Patrol, Not Attack |
| related to | 0002969 | resolved | Chris_McElligottPark | Dyson Sphere an Over Powered Ally |
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I guess this logic would also apply to AI zombies as well, and any other AI allied ship that patrols AI planets in the same way they would patrol human planets. |
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I just realized this would help to solve the "endless spawning patrolling Dyson gattling" issue. |
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I like this idea. Currently zombies/gatlings are OK for defense, at the very least through their firepower keeping the AI from sending stalking forces in to a planet if you move all your ships off. They're not really capable of handling waves by themselves, though, due to their very slow reaction time, so you still need to keep some fleet ships nearby even if you have hundreds of bot ships already patrolling there. If they saw that I just moved a lot of ships in to an AI planet that is one hop away, having them decide to come along for the ride would be pretty neat. |
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They also need to stay on "dead end" planets longer. By which I mean if they're going to turn around and travel back through the same wormhole, they should stick around a bit first. As it is, they fade in and immediately fade out again. |
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@BobTheJanitor Would you also support making it such that the chance of a wandering ship choosing a friendly planet to go to next goes up a little bit based on the amount of human player firepower on that planet? |
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Yes, absolutely. Right now they just seem to pick out their conga line and follow it until the end of time. I'd like to see them spreading out based on where nearby human firepower is. |
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Okay, Maybe add as a separate request that wandering ships still spread out, but tend to prefer planets with more human firepower on it. |
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Updated title to be a little clearer about what this suggestion would affect. |
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Bingo! Strong Support. |
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To help ease some fears of this causing unintentional, unwanted freeing of AI ships, let me restate these parts of the suggestion and why that would help to keep this from happening. The patrolling ships will only attack an enemy planet if all of these conditions are met: 1. humans have a significant force there already (so a single raid starship will not trigger it) 2. they will only go in after there has been a human military presence on that planet for some time (so popping in and popping right back out will not trigger it) 3. they will only attack planets adjacent to where they are already patrolling (thus, they will not unintentionally deep strike planets you want to be left alone) These conditions almost completely ensure that no planet will be attacked by patrolling ships unless a player wants to heavily attack that planet anyways. |
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Aren't zombies already unable to free AI ships? |
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@KDR_11k I don't think zombies and minor faction ships can free AI ships by firing upon them, but they most certainly can free AI ships by destroying a guard post, thus freeing all the ships that were protecting that guard post. |
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I like the idea a lot, though I think it should be made optional before starting a campaign. Some people enjoy the zombies and endless dyson spawns patrolling through their systems till the end of time. for example, when playing against an AI type that sends a lot of powerfull waves, you'd want the dysons to defend. But when playing against a defence type of AI, people might want to set it on offence? just randomly making suggestions. of course, if the endless patrolling was never intended, then nevermind what I said just now :P |
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I certainly like the symmetry in one's automaton allies gauging the relative firepower of them & you vs. the AI on the other side of the wormhole. Maybe you sending your forces through a wormhole could be the trigger for them to evaluate the situation and, finding it in your/their favour, pop along to help! |
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Hmm, maybe instead of a fixed minumum ratio of human firepower to AI firepower for a patrolling ship to consider joining you, it could vary based on what kind of minor faction they are. All ratios given are the minimum human firepower to AI firepower before they will consider entering. Whether allied minor faction firepower should be considered part of the human firepower is up for debate. If they do count towards friendly firepower for this decision, as that would be a great way to some minor faction units that are spawned on the attack to unintentionally trigger more minor faction units to come in, which in some cases, may not be desirable. -Human resistance ships: As they are not all that powerful, they should wait until you got a decent force before they join in (like .75 : 1, like the original suggestions) -Dyson gattlings: As they are quite powerful, they can move in with much less human backup and still stand a chance (so, make that ratio closer to .5 : 1, or something) EXCEPTION: As Dyson gattlings cannot attack Mk. V ships, they should be unwilling to enter enemy Mk. V worlds (the AI homeworlds) no matter how much you bring in -Zombies: As they are [i]supposed[/i] to be mindlessly aggressive, the ratio of fire power needed for them to go into a planet should be quite low (like .3 : 1 or something) For further "extra credit", the cutoff of firepower could go down slowly as the number of minor faction/patrolling ships [i]of thier type[/i] goes up. (for example, zombies would be willing to go in with less and less human support as the number of allied zombies increase, but they would not count human resistance ships as part of that) This would let 100 dyson gattlings be willing to show up even if your force isn't all that powerful, but 2 dyson gattlings will wait for you to have a good force before going in. |
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Right now what they do is patrol around so if you hhave a circle of worlds they will patrol around the circle and up and down a line of planets. If there is a battle going on at an end planet they will certainly come into help as they arrive in system. One way to fix that would be to have them stop off at the player command station on the way through the system (as some do anyway), that would ensure that there is always significant Ally forces in system even on a planet at the end of a line, and some AI ally ships would always nbe close to a command station in the event of an attack. I still think putting a rather high cap on their numbers would solve some issues though. |
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* Previously, allied minor faction and zombie ships would just patrol around player planets endlessly, which was helpful for defense, but problematic for two reasons: first, that it could cause massive amounts of slowdown after many hours of them stacking up, and second, that it could cause massive buildups of AI stalkers, who never dare to attack the planets with so many defenders, which leads to something akin to stalemate situations. ** Thus the allied minor faction and zombie logic has been adjusted as follows: *** Neutral planets are now considered the same as allied planets, and the ships will patrol to them like any others. *** If there are more than about 100 of AI threat ships on an adjacent planet, the ships will also patrol to that planet to clean them off. *** If the human-allied team has more than a token military force (more than about 10 ships) on a planet, then these ships will patrol to there, to help aid in that attack. **** This allows for small raids to still happen with raid starships or whatever without assistance from these minor factions, but it enlists their help for larger-scale engagements. |
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Already a complaint about the new behavior of zombies and minor faction ships. See http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,8476.msg74989.html#msg74989 |
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This sounds about right, actually, if you're loading it up for an existing save where the AI is really entrenched. The allied minor factions and zombies were always meant to just show up for one battle, help out a minor bit, and then die. That infinite patrolling was making them a thousand percent more useful than they were supposed to be, but that was done in response to them running off WAY into AI territory in the past and really stirring up the AI. I view this as something of a middle ground for them. A variation on the stalking mechanic of the AI would be particularly tricky, because the calculations for the stalking rely heavily on the processing power available to the AI thread, and the AI thread doesn't control these ships in any way. It's possible some more changes might be needed here, but honestly I think this will work out to be closer than you might expect, long-term. You'll still wind up with some guardians running around from time to time, but not huge stores of them (definitely my goal), and in the meantime they will put some dents into the surrounding AI planets with threat stalking ships, or aid you in offensive attacks, but they aren't going to win any battles on their own. That dials them back to about where I want them, maybe slightly weaker than I'd like, maybe not, I'm not sure. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 1, 2011 1:41 pm | TechSY730 | New Issue | |
| Feb 1, 2011 1:41 pm | TechSY730 | Description Updated | |
| Feb 1, 2011 1:44 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0009928 | |
| Feb 7, 2011 6:56 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0010099 | |
| Feb 7, 2011 8:17 pm | BobTheJanitor | Note Added: 0010103 | |
| Feb 8, 2011 12:28 am | vinco | Relationship added | related to 0002767 |
| Feb 8, 2011 3:01 pm | Draco18s | Note Added: 0010147 | |
| Feb 8, 2011 3:36 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0010148 | |
| Feb 8, 2011 9:45 pm | BobTheJanitor | Note Added: 0010170 | |
| Feb 8, 2011 9:47 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0010171 | |
| Feb 19, 2011 12:32 am | TechSY730 | Relationship added | related to 0002867 |
| Feb 23, 2011 7:34 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0010699 | |
| Feb 23, 2011 7:34 pm | TechSY730 | Summary | Allow "wandering" ships to aid attacks => Allow patrolling zombies, Dyson gattlings, human resistance ships, and other patrolling ships to aid attacks |
| Feb 23, 2011 7:34 pm | TechSY730 | Summary | Allow patrolling zombies, Dyson gattlings, human resistance ships, and other patrolling ships to aid attacks => Allow zombies, Dyson gattlings, human resistance ships, and other patrolling ships to aid attacks |
| Feb 24, 2011 9:55 am | Entrenched Homeperson | Note Added: 0010720 | |
| Feb 24, 2011 5:55 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0010739 | |
| Feb 27, 2011 5:20 pm | TechSY730 | Relationship added | related to 0002969 |
| Mar 12, 2011 2:12 am | KDR_11k | Note Added: 0011048 | |
| Mar 12, 2011 10:01 am | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0011054 | |
| Mar 18, 2011 9:00 am | zoutzakje | Note Added: 0011146 | |
| Mar 18, 2011 10:33 am | zebramatt | Note Added: 0011148 | |
| Mar 18, 2011 12:44 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0011149 | |
| Mar 18, 2011 12:52 pm | TechSY730 | Note Edited: 0011149 | |
| Mar 18, 2011 5:46 pm | Sir T | Note Added: 0011158 | |
| Mar 18, 2011 5:47 pm | Sir T | Note Edited: 0011158 | |
| Mar 23, 2011 11:23 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0011333 | |
| Mar 23, 2011 11:23 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | new => resolved |
| Mar 23, 2011 11:23 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Fixed in Version | => 5.007 |
| Mar 23, 2011 11:23 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Resolution | open => fixed |
| Mar 23, 2011 11:23 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Assigned To | => Chris_McElligottPark |
| Mar 24, 2011 12:19 am | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0011422 | |
| Mar 24, 2011 12:25 am | TechSY730 | Note Edited: 0011422 | |
| Mar 24, 2011 12:29 am | TechSY730 | Note Edited: 0011422 | |
| Mar 24, 2011 12:31 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0011423 |
