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Building Better Monsters

The dang Monsters are still too timid.

In tweaking the 'Monsters VS Galactic Patrol' mod I keep working my way thru these steps:

Make the Monsters tougher.
Improve the Galactic Patrol just enough to survive the Monsters.

I think I have most of the pieces I need to make the monsters into an unstoppable plague. They breed. They make lots of powerfull monsters. But now, their AI is really making me mad. I am starting to feel a lot of sympathy for Skeletor or Emperor Palpatine.
ARISE!! (I scream) Awake, my minions of darkness!! Spew forth and wash the quadrant in Blood and Fire!!! Eat their Ships!!!! Rape their Buildings!!!!! BUUUURRRRRRRNNNN the Livestock!!!!!!

But, what I get is a dragon saying: "But, there are TWO cruisers there. I might get scratched. I better wait for re-inforcements."

As far as I can tell, the current Monster designs have at least a 3 to 1 advantage over equivalent tonnage. I don't care about the odds! Attack anyway! If you die, there are plenty more where you came from!

Is there some way I can tell the Monster AI to always attack?

Or, is there some way I can fool the AI into thinking that the odds are always in it's favor?

For example, if the decision is always based on tonnage, maybe I can 4X the size of the Monster hulls and components without changing the costs.

Miles

Re: Building Better Monsters

hmm, I am not sure how exactly the AI measures the odds. I do know however that it can evaluate the battle capabilty of enemy ships (i.e. cheat by looking into your ships http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif ).

In order to make them more aggressive. Try if raising 'Fleets Percentage of Ships For Fleets := 30' in the AI_fleet file had any effect (set that 100 perhaps). I wanted the original monster to operate mostly alone. For your Version larger fleets might be better. Also the divisions of ships in that file should be altered to make bigger fleets.
Lastly (not sure if that has a big effect) you can try and play around with 'Turns to Wait until next attack := 0' setting in the AI_settings file. A longer wait could yield bigger fleets.

That is pretty much everything I can think of now. An 'always attack' option doesn't exsist to my knowledge. The ways ships and fleets are handled are mostly hardcoded. Only few settings in the AI files can influence the AI behavior in that respect.

Hope that helps,
Rollo

Re: Building Better Monsters

Quote:

Originally posted by Rollo:
hmm, I am not sure how exactly the AI measures the odds. I do know however that it can evaluate the battle capabilty of enemy ships (i.e. cheat by looking into your ships http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif ).

<SNIP>
That is pretty much everything I can think of now. An 'always attack' option doesn't exsist to my knowledge. The ways ships and fleets are handled are mostly hardcoded. Only few settings in the AI files can influence the AI behavior in that respect.

Hope that helps,
Rollo

Thanks. I have already fiddled with those parameters. The problem is, currently monster combats fall into the following categories:

Monsters have overwhelming forces.
Monsters have incredibly overwhelming forces.
Monsters have unbelievably, incredibly, overwhelming forces.

The problem is, it is boring and ineffecient. The human should occaisionally have a chance. That makes the final smackdown so much more satisfying http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif .
So, I believe that my only hope is to fool the AI's odds generator. I think that I will finish my current tweaks and issue another release. Then I will try inflating the size of the Monster hulls and components and see if that makes any difference.

Miles

Re: Building Better Monsters

How fast are your monsters? If the player has some hope to outmaneuver them strategically sometimes, they may be able to arrange for some attacks at favorable odds.

Another approach would be to try to figure out how the AI judges strength (it might be resource cost, or shield + structure, for instance) and then make the monsters seem tougher to the AI than they really are. For example, really high structure and powerful weapons but short range might be interesting - the player would be trying to keep away from the horde's attacks via fighting retreat, hoping to hurt them enough before they get cornered. (OTOH watch out that this doesn't mean hours of silly tactical battles where the monsters never get a shot off.)

Just some ideas...

PvK