Re: One reason for strange AI attack behavior
 

Ok, now I observed another interesting quirk. This one is probably related to the situation raynor was asking about. I set up a one-on-one with the Earth Alliance to test some tweaks I was making to my AI. There happened to be a nebula system between the two empires, so it was interesting watching both sides and seeing ships passing each other without seeing each other. Then, my AI sent a satelite layer to drop a satelite on the warp point leading into the nebula system from my side. An EA destroyer popped through and destroyed my ship and the satellite it dropped, but it took moderate damage in the process. When my turn came around I watched one of my destroyers approach the warp point, and I was thinking, "Now you'll pay!" Unfortunately, I guess the destroyer was under orders sending it through the nebula to hit something on the other side, so it wouldn't attack the EA destroyer on the warp point. Instead, it did a little side-to-side dance in front of the warp point until it was out of movement points. The next turn, the EA destroyer disappeared back into the nebula system and escaped.

Re: One reason for strange AI attack behavior
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by raynor:
Could you please run a test for me? Try placing an enemy ship in a warp point between your fleet heading back to resupply and the closest resupply depot. I'm curious if the Resupply Minister is smart enough to engage and destroy the enemy ship enroute to resupply? It seems possible that the Resupply Minister may try to avoid combat enroute to the Resupply Depot. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I had a carrier returning for resupply that came to a warp point blocked by an enemy ship, and it did not engage the enemy. It did a nice little dance in front of the warp point until it was out of movement. The enemy left the following turn (it was on its way back to resupply so it avoided the carrier) and then the carrier resumed its trip home.

Re: One reason for strange AI attack behavior
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jc173:
Well according to the docs the resupply minister is a global one so you don't need to give the AI direct control of the vehicle for the resupply minister to issue orders. Seems that way in my experience too. I sent an attack fleet to hit a far away enemy planet with a resupply depot, with the plan of landing troops and securing it for myself, refueling, and continuing on. The AI of course decided to send the fleet home before it reached its target.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ya may be right here .. but it's annoying. And spealing of minister behaviour, I noticed something very strange lately:

"Transport minister" did quite well, unless I turned down the cargo hold size (IIRC I halved the cargo space for Cargo Bays and Colony "Pods"), suddenly the minister does not touch a loaded ship any more .. so if the ship arrives "exactly" at a planet with no movement left, it is filled up with pop, but is left alone on the next turn ??

Besides , does anyone know how to change the amount of cargo space that pop takes ?? Should be something like "1M = 50kt", no tenth of that like now ..

Arralen

[This message has been edited by Arralen (edited 17 March 2001).]

Re: One reason for strange AI attack behavior
 

Thanks for the post, Alpha Kodiak. It sounds to me like a ship sent to resupply
won't engage in combat along the way. This sorta makes sense since weapons use supplies. But if the ship just does a little dance until it uses up its supplies moving aimlessly, doesn't that sorta defeat the purpose of trying to avoid the combat?

Do you think some of us should try to save our games when this happens and email them to Malfador?

Re: One reason for strange AI attack behavior
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by raynor:
Thanks for the post, Alpha Kodiak. It sounds to me like a ship sent to resupply
won't engage in combat along the way. This sorta makes sense since weapons use supplies. But if the ship just does a little dance until it uses up its supplies moving aimlessly, doesn't that sorta defeat the purpose of trying to avoid the combat?

Do you think some of us should try to save our games when this happens and email them to Malfador? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Once I get back to a stable environment, I will try to get something together. With all of playing around with my race AI, let alone the fact that it is a race no one else has (yet), I don't have any saves that would be useful.

If you want to learn a LOT about what is going on with the AI, set up a game with two human players using any races you want. Turn off random computer player and neutral generation. Start the game and turn on all AI ministers for both races. Then just keep ending turns and watching the action. Either use strategic combat, or, for even more entertainment, use tactical combat, but as your first action issue a "Resolve Combat" order. Then you can sit back and watch the AI fight itself.

Re: One reason for strange AI attack behavior
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by raynor:
Thanks for the post, Alpha Kodiak. It sounds to me like a ship sent to resupply
won't engage in combat along the way. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Its not just ships controlled by ministers that have this "dancing around the warp point" problem. Any ship you send manually through the warp point rather than to the warp point will have this problem. They used to automatically attack when your course intercepted an enemy ship then this was changed in an early patch. The patch made a ship with a destionation sector other than the specific sector the enemy ship was in move around enemy ships rather than automatically attack them. This has wierd results when enemy ships are visible at warp points. If there is a path around that ship even if its 4 or 5 systems out of the way your ship will take that route instead if a visible enemy ship is blocking the closer warp point path. I believe this is just a case of one fix causing other problems. Now that there is an accept or reject attack dialogue maybe this should be changed back to not have ships avoid enemy ships in its path.

Re: One reason for strange AI attack behavior
 

I dunno about this. It sounds to me like a clever player could really use this against the AI pretty easily? For that matter, couldn't you also do some damage to fellow human players who didn't micro-manage their ships but instead just told them to go from point A to point B? I think the default behavior should be to go straight through and engage in combat if necessary. This skipping out of the way to avoid conflict just doesn't make sense to me.

Re: One reason for strange AI attack behavior
 

I agree that the general "avoid combat when moving" bit is a problem, as is the unintelligent resupply kick-in. In my Last set of AI tests, I discovered yet another reason that black holes with damaging warp points are such a problem for the AI. If a human player needs to go through a damaging warp point with a ship, normally he will do it as few times as possible, trying to establish a base on the far side. Not so with the AI. It kept sending ships through, where they would get to the next system (sometimes)only to determine that they needed to be resupplied, so they would turn around and come back through the damaging warp points.

Now that I am done with my AI testing (shameless self-promotion: the Rage Collective is now posted in the mod forum http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon6.gif ) I am going to see if I can get a save game to show some of these problems so that I can send it to Malfador. I would recommend that anyone else who sees similar behavior do the same. They have been so willing to fix those things shown to be broken that I suspect this will get taken care of as well, though it may be fairly tricky to fix the resupply issue.