Attempting to improve the AI for Proportions 3.05

[PvK]

Any requests or observations of what is and isn't working well?

[Arralen]

Hi Peter,
at first let me say, I really have trouble running Proportions 3.07

Overall, 3.06 seems to run fine - but it's only turn 23 so there might be more to come; here some remarks ... :

- why did you switch to CD music?

- drones with Design Type: Probe and Hull: Probe still are only usuable as attack drones; there's no way to move them like normal ships (move to, warp), only an (A)ttack button

- planets can launch drones remotedly, but not recover them (button's there, but it doesn't work; presumably not your fault)

- design type "satellite layer" is missing

- some tech costs feel unbalanced and "random"; this mostly apparent in high tech cost game with 1 start planet; e.g. Biology-1 costs 100k, while Astrophysics-1 costs only 85k - yet Bio-1 is the prerequisite for Medical Technology, which you need to keep your pop from diseases

- small starliner can use up to 6 engines, yet the starliner module is so big that there's only place for 4 left, and non for supplies, so range is severely limited.

- engine sizes/numbers vs. speed are unbalanced; a scout with effective engines only can move 5, while civil ships can get 3 at best; colonizing is a PITA with speed 2 ...

- Satellite Bay I can only house 1/2 a lvl 1 small satellite ?! (40kt space vs. 80 kt sat)

- 1st level of advanced armor completely negates direct fire fighter weapons .. and "Fighter I" costs 175k, while Armor only is 40k +100k(chemistry)

- max. number of systems is upped to 130 from 100, yet "high number of AI players" is still 6-10.

- isn't "Minimum Empire Point Storage := 500000" slightly excessive?

Some Settings.txt entries don't make sense to me, too:

Maximum Mines Per Player Per Sector                                   := 13
...
Maximum Planet Percent Value                                          := 1000

[Arralen]

!*§%! time limits on edits

turn 25 :

- standard spaceport is missing from the build list - made obsolete too early (from start?) by the Distribution Center; D.C. takes to long to build in a new system, though; combined "Space Port + Supply Depot" takes research and is even more costly

=> whole bunch of the facility upgrades don't seem to work out ok, as the AI will build the latest tech anyway, so doing an upgrade path like "minor, medium, big colony" won't work if its tied to the tech tree ... and is pretty much inconvenient for the player, who has to turn of "only latest" in the build screen and gets swamped with obsolety facilities. "Upgrade facilities" button screws up everything ...

- transport minister doesn't seem to work with starliners; AI does not build pop transports at all

[PvK]

Thanks for the great input, Arralen!

One thing is it shows me how unclear some things are to players when I'm not around to explain.

What is the zip filename, origin or whatever of your version 3.0.7? I see I have posted a 3.0.6.beta.zip which is older than 3.0.6. I don't see where I posted a 3.0.7. I may have forgotten, but I'm not seeing it on the forum either.

I don't remember ever enabling the CD music, certainly not on purpose.

I know there are limitations of drones which can't be modded away, but probe drones do serve a limited purpose. They are the only units which can move through warp points by themselves (attack the warp point, IIRC), and they don't give the enemy experience when they get destroyed. They are useful as a cheap way to see what evemy defenses exist at a location, or on the other side of a warp point, without giving away experience or losing morale due to ship loss. Also it just seemed like an ability that should be easy to get to make an unmanned exploration probe (we could more or less do that in the 20th Century, after all).

Yeah, there's no way to mod in a way to recover drones in strategic mode, or to remove the button that makes it look possible, that I know of.

Design type Satellite Layer - ok, I'll add that.

I don't claim the tech costs are perfect, but I did give them many layers of thought and tweaking and so on over the years. Unfortunately, all the reasoning isn't fully documented. Medical Technology is the ability to stop amazingly deadly planet-exterminating horror viruses. As I recall, there's no way to raise the natural disease level above a certain point, so the tech cost is balanced to make it a meaningful choice and a serious thing to have to deal with, etc. But I am open to suggestions and explanations of what doesn't seem to make sense or might be better, etc.

Starliners in 3.x are carefully balanced against transports and warships to have a niche, in a complex way - as I recall, when you research higher levels of Starliner Modules, they become smaller, making room for more engines and supplies or whatever. In 3.x there are several techs that start out rather clunky but gain more interesting design possibilities as you get higher tech levels.

I understand you're not used to slow ships, but what's unbalanced about the speeds? Civil ships with low tech engines are cheap low-tech things. Warships with better engines go faster, etc. Colony ships are supposed to be a major undertaking (aka PITA).

I forget what the thinking was about small satellite launchers not housing a small satellite. Your point makes common sense... I think it was just that this way, high-tech cargo space has more of an effect, because less space is assumed to be using the built in generic storage of the launcher. It does seem like it'd make sense to either include enough for the smallest satellite, or none at all. The typical solution of course is to include cargo components.

Fighters are not well balanced in 3.x yet, but you're not right about advanced armor making fighters impotent - a stack of fighters pools its damage against armor (which unfortunately can't be modded).

So what about the max systems 130 without changing high number of AI opponents?

I don't think the Empire Point Storage is excessive. Proportions tends to have long-term resource efficiency games (e.g. building up resources during peacetime to burn during war), and even with that and the other things that store heaps of resources, storage is still an issue and facilities may be worthwhile to add more storage.

Max mines per sector is 13 because mines in 3.x represent entire gigantic barrage minefields or many devices, not single devices. Minesweepers are similarly reduced.

Maximum Planet Percent Value 1000 means you could theoretically use special technology (e.g. Value Improvement Plants IIRC) to develop a resource value of a planet to 1000.

Unlike vanilla SE4, there are many technologies in Proportions where lower levels are still very useful even after higher levels are developed. So using the filters that only show the latest techs, or convenience features that auto-upgrade to the latest techs, is generally not a good idea. There are a few cases where upgrade paths that can be done at one level of research, become unavailable at later research levels. Unfortunately there's no great way to avoid that.

I thought the Transport Minister just took your transports and moved stuff with them - is it really meant to construct pop transports?

[Arralen]

Originally Posted by PvK

What is the zip filename, origin or whatever of your version 3.0.7? .. I don't see where I posted a 3.0.7. I may have forgotten, but I'm not seeing it on the forum either.

Me neither.
'twas a bad attempt at humor ... wanted to hint that we're all still waiting for 3.0.7 eagerly

I know there are limitations of drones which can't be modded away, but probe drones do serve a limited purpose. They are the only units which can move through warp points by themselves (attack the warp point, IIRC)

Oh, that's what I was missing.
Guess that you get for playing too many similar games at once (SE4 and SE5, Civ4 and Col, Un- and FAangband etc.) - I'm getting really confused sometimes concerning the features ...

Starliners in 3.x are carefully balanced against transports and warships to have a niche, in a complex way - as I recall, when you research higher levels of Starliner Modules, they become smaller, making room for more engines and supplies or whatever. In 3.x there are several techs that start out rather clunky but gain more interesting design possibilities as you get higher tech levels.

Hmmm, ok, I'll have a look at how those components develop at higher tech levels.
Nevertheless, IMHO even the first tech level should make for some usuable ships, and the ship I am able to build atm looks like this:
Small Starliner Hull - 565 kt
1x Basic Bridge 10 kt
3x Life Support 30 kt
1x Basic Crew Quarters 10 kt
1x Starliner Module I + Starliner Mount 475 kt
.. that leaves 40kt for engines:
4x Ion Engine II 40kt, 1040 supplies, 52suppl./sector => range 20 sectors @ speed 3
or
3x Eff Ion Eng II 30 kt
1x Ion Eng. II 10 kt, 1040 supplies, 25 suppl/sector => range 40 sectors @ speed 2

Range 20 is totally insufficient, but mixing engines on every new design again is tedious.
Is the AI able to?

Fighters are not well balanced in 3.x yet, but you're not right about advanced armor making fighters impotent - a stack of fighters pools its damage against armor (which unfortunately can't be modded).

Ouch. Now that you mention it I vaguely remember .. looks like I have been confusing games again

So what about the max systems 130 without changing high number of AI opponents?

We have 16 stock AIs available .. why not allow all of them at once?

I thought the Transport Minister just took your transports and moved stuff with them - is it really meant to construct pop transports?

Dunno - you made the AI files.
I would expect it builds some star liners and uses them for pop transportation.
Looks like that neither it builds starliners nor the minister is willing to use them for pop transportation !?

[PvK]

Range 20 on a starliner is fairly limited, but not useless (also considering the cost and that IIRC you may have no other way to build a ship that can haul a population unit at the point that you can build those starliners) - you'd just need to provide supplies for where you want to use it, which is also an intentional part of Proportions - you're supposed to have logistical problems to solve, and using tankers is a useful option (building cheap ships with a lot of supplies and fleeting them with ships that don't have much range themselves).

I don't expect the AI can build good starliners except by accident, though it should be possible to fiddle with the AI to get it to do so. What I'm thinking of doing is resorting to some AI racial techs to provide a challenging opponent rather than investing the time to get the AI to play by the rules designed for humans.

The number of AI empires isn't limited by the definition of a high number of AI opponents for randomly generated games. Also there's no reason the player can't change that setting if they want a full set of AI opponents. But, ya, I might as well turn up the number on that default setting.

The construction minister, when on, decides which things to build without your orders. The transport minister decides whether to order some ships to move units and population around or not.

[Arralen]

As the forum ate the rather lengthy reply of mine, and I don't have the energy to type all that again, here some more findings from my current game in more or less random order:

Xiati Empire does build Starliners, but has no use for them: On turn 2.6 they're still only at Rock Colonisation 5, putting too many expensive other techs into the research queue; On turn 40, researching Temporal Tech III (400k) while Rock Col 7 isn't even queued)

Cue Cappa does have colonisation tech in turn 40, but only 1 world colonised, 1 coloniser en route to the same system, 1 idle. On that colonised world (large domed), it's building a "Minor Spaceport City" what "only" will take 6.1 years ... instead of a simple Spaceport!

Xi'chung is colonising it's home system, and even builds Starliners - yet 2 of those seem to sit 1 move away from the HW in open space, at least 1 doing nothing... (both didn't have orders, but the minister seemingly moved at least 1)

Ruins: 3 times I "discovered advanced technologie" .. but got nothing .. yeah, I know it's in the readme, but I expected that those "dud" ruins do not generate a missleading message ?!

CSM I : damage resist 30kt // Damage Self-Def Cannons I 25, PD-C 25, Def Can 20; And things are bound to get worse, as CSM II is 80k resarch, PointDefCan II is 160k research ...
Who would design defense cannons which could barely not detroy incoming missiles?
Hmmm, okay, maybe make that question "Do we want that much realism in SE4?" instead ...

[PvK]

Interesting AI test results. Looks like the AI can use both colonizers and starliners, but isn't very coordinated about it in the early game, as you reported. Starliners moving speed one sounds like they are out of supplies.

Ruin messages aren't moddable. Sometimes they have ordinary techs which the game unmoddably randomizes, resulting sometimes in you getting tech levels you already have.

As for capital ship missiles versus point defense, I note your experience with them, but I've used them in competitive PBW games, and there they are balanced pretty much as intended. Yes a single PDC I will not shoot down on CSM I in one shot, but they can in two shots, and CSM I fires only once per three turns and the launcher takes 50 kT ship space and uses supplies, while the PDC I fires once per turn, even during enemy movement so it can get two shots in per missile, and it is only 20 kT. If you have 100 kT of CSM I's, that's two missiles, which facing 100 kT of PDC I is 5 shots at least, maybe 10. There are other factors too of course such as range, whom you're trying to defend, etc. I think it plays out pretty well and if anything, I'd say CSM's tend to lose out against point defense in a single tech versus single tech consideration - of course it becomes a guessing game how much PD you need, etc.

[Arralen]

Originally Posted by PvK

Interesting AI test results.

At least the Xiati need some tweaking of their tech research priorities: Investing 400k points (~40 turns) into Level 3 of their racial tech (Temporal, which does not even give ships hulls etc) while not having colonisation tech available is a no-go.

Looks like the AI can use both colonizers and starliners, but isn't very coordinated about it in the early game, as you reported.

It's only a guess, but to me it looks like that some AIs do not manage to beeline for Colonisation Tech-10. They're building lots of combat ships in the meantime, which seriously hampers their ability to colonise once they finally have the tech needed because of the high upkeep costs.

Starliners moving speed one sounds like they are out of supplies.

Oh, it's not 2 starliners moving 1 step - it's 2 starliners sitting in open space, both fully loaded and amply fueled, but only 1 is moved by the minister on the next turn, while the other just sits there doing nothing (2 steps away what could be the originating planet). Interestingly, both don't have any "standing" orders (like "move to XY, drop pop" or something).

As a player, I never got a minister to even touch a starliner, no matter what I did ...

Ruin messages aren't moddable. Sometimes they have ordinary techs which the game unmoddably randomizes, resulting sometimes in you getting tech levels you already have.

Ok, so as soon as I get the "tech discovered" message, it's a "standard" ruin, not one of your "dud" ones?
Then - how big is the chance that I get a tech I already have - with 3 ruins @ turn 40? Atm., it looks like ruins aren't working at all, but I'll check some more ...

[Arralen]

Ok, obviously there's lot of room for improvement on the AI for Proportions:

I did a test run, all 15 AI in a large galaxy, simultaneous game. I looked into the AIs turns on 2400.1, 2400.5 and 2401.0. I've attached my notes in pdf format.

- lots of AIs do not build proper scouts, but missile attack boats with 1x CSM and 2x std. ion engine: those ships run out of fuel before reaching the next WH ...

- most AI do not manage to research the colonisation tech 10, adding to many expensive techs "in between"; presumably to have some difference between the AI players, some of their research scripts have the same research topics listed in different orders. Sadly, it looks like those lists haven't been adjusted for the vastly different tech costs in Proportions.

Amon'krie are the only ones which (mostly) get things right (colonisation tech 9 on the 10th turn, 4 systems explored), showing that it is possible for the AI to be competitive - after all, the human player only manages to get to col tech 10 in turn 10 because he can rearrange the research queue, what the AI is unable to do.

- Troop transports and cargo tech shouldn't be build/researched before colonisation is possible, as those are basically useless before then.


=> Sadly, it looks like that adjusting the initial research of the AI will make all AI basically act the same during the first 10-15 turns, as there are limited options to choose tech because of prerequisites and costs.
On the other hand, interactions between human player(s) and AIs are very limited during this time frame, too, therefore this shouldn't be too much of an issue...