[MOD] Hard AI Mod -- Link to be posted soon

Hi

            I'm finishing a Hard AI mod, for all of those that prefer harder games and tougher opponents.  :)

I will be putting the last touches on tonight and uploading it probably to filefront and mediafire and will post the link then. I will also update the description to give you an idea of what was changed and how i think that will affect the game.

Take care,

-Teal

 

8,597 views 22 replies
Reply #1 Top

For serious!?

Reply #2 Top

:)  Yes, for serious.  :)

-Teal

 

 

Reply #3 Top

I would enjoy a hard AI if it didn't cheat.

I don't suppose you've done anything about the AI's "har har I spawn a whole fleet in 2 seconds regardless of cost or upkeep" behaviour?

If so it'd be an instant download for me :P

Reply #4 Top

^I've never expirienced that behavior. The only cheating the AI does in Sins, as far as I know, it it has increased construction and income rates, but doesn't get ships for free and has to pay upkeep like everyone else.

 

And Teal, how did you mod the AI? The only AI mods we can make are to the gameplay.constant and those don't do nearly enough to actually change the AI.

Reply #5 Top

^ that's why I am so excited, if true.

Reply #6 Top

:)  haha, have to run to class, but its a secret....

no, cant do that to ya, i will elaborate when i get home and get it finshed, uploaded and i can sit down and tell everyone what i did.  :) 

-Teal

 

 

Reply #7 Top

Yes, I am extremly curious.

Did you actully figure out a way to improve the AI?

Or did you just allow them to cheat a little?

Reply #8 Top

Please let this be truely achange to the AI behaviour. Any change has got to be better...

Reply #9 Top

I am dying to know how you did it Teal_Blue, am trying to improve the AI for Distant Stars beyond the gameplay constants

Reply #10 Top

Sooo Kewl...

Please post please. pretty please.....

Reply #11 Top

Okie,

            BIG DISAPPOITMENT, i guess, I didnt hack the AI, can't hack the ai to be more precise. I dont know how to do that. What i did is this:

            If you give a new frigate to the Pirates and the Militia, not to the playable factions, because then you could play one of them and get the goodies, but to the Pirates and Militia, with specs like a CapitalShip, and you give the scout a spawnable ability to spawn a small fleet, say 5 ships. And you set each of the militia fleets in the Galdef file one of these scouts along with what they already have, then almost from the time the screen first comes up, you got neighbors in your grav well.

I did this is StarFire 7.5 and have seen a few other modders do it in some more recent mods.

Instead of Hard AI mod, probably what i should have called it, at least at this stage of the work, is "SlaughterFest Mod"

Because right now, i can get a Capital up and running, but the fleet is already in my well by that time, and this is about a minute and a half into the game.

I can't get a second Cap up fast enough to beat back the invasion yet, I've tried getting beam defenses up, but they only get taken out and all the frigates at this point dont live long enough to make a difference.

I have played about 2 dozen games, and each one is different, sometimes, its just two Militia i get swamped with, sometimes 3, sometimes 3 and Pirates on top.

The last game i played i had over a hundred Pirates and 3 Militia factions in the well 5 minutes into the game. I was outnumbered over a hundred to one, as i only got my first CapitalShip up and was trying to get enough credits to get the second when I lost the first. Building structures didnt help, only took credits away from trying to get a small fleet up and running as fast as possible.

SO...

I have uploaded the first version "SlaughterFest Mod" which i had already named Hard AI Mod. You are welcome to give it a try.  :)  I have tried out-waiting the first wave of invasion, but that didnt help either, the Militia come in and duke it out and take out my planet structures, no siege ships yet in those first waves, so that is some small consolation, but not much. But trying to out-wait them didnt work either, as soon as i started building i had another wave in. So... I'm not the best player, but i'm thinking of lowering the number of ships coming into the well right off. And lengthening the cooldown time on the spawn ships ability they have. In addition the Militia carry ships that can capture other frigates, haha, so watch out for that too.  :)

Anyway, this is version 2.0 and you can give it a try to let me know what you think. It's not easy, haha, heck its not even very very difficult, its H *** mode.  :)

I'm going to tweak it, and see if i can make it, half as difficult as it is now, so that will let me at least get a couple of ships up, maybe tweak it more than that so that i can get a small fleet and only get half of them taken out.

But if i do that, i'm afraid i will make it un-interesting for those looking for really really difficult games, because that is where this was originally aimed. At those that beat the 9 hard ai on huge maps and eat nails for breakfast.  :)  I wanted something that would give them a run for their credits, so to speak.

Let me know what you think, If you are even still interested, because this isnt a hack to the ai, really, juat a tweaked set of bad guys that come in and trounce things very fast and very hard.  :)  Haha, anyway, take care, hope there are some that will like it, even as horribly unfair as it is now. And suggestions on making it better, and by better i dont necessarily mean easier,  :) are always welcome.

Thank you for listening, take care,

-Teal

 

link :   http://www.filefront.com/14853531/Hard%20AI%20Mod%20v2.1.7z

 

 

Reply #12 Top

ah bummer -_-

well I do like the idea you did use, I was thinking of doing something similar with the pirates for the Distant Stars Mod (and they are nasty already) this kinda gave me an idea of what it would look like

hopefully Diplomacy will be similar to Entrenchment in the fact that it will add a lot of modding options, especially with the AI.

Reply #13 Top

Quoting Ryat, reply 12
ah bummer

well I do like the idea you did use, I was thinking of doing something similar with the pirates for the Distant Stars Mod (and they are nasty already) this kinda gave me an idea of what it would look like

hopefully Diplomacy will be similar to Entrenchment in the fact that it will add a lot of modding options, especially with the AI.

That would be interesting,  :)  Sorry this wasnt what everyone thought it was, the name seemed innocuous enough when i first started, haha, but after i posted, it suddenly seemed everyone thought i had "hacked" the magic AI and was uncovering something humungous.  :)  Haha, i didnt intend it that way, but i guess it means that hacking the ai means alot to alot of people.  :)  Anyway Ryat, good luck with your mod, let me know when its done, i would love to give it a try. Take care,

-Teal

 

Reply #14 Top

Been looking over the mod, never thought to use the fleet beacon. I have been trying to get the pirate fleets above the 299 maxout, but have not had a lot of luck, this may come in handy, thx.

The Distant Stars mod 0.90 will be coming out sometime today (11/04/09) and it has my current version of powerful pirates (both ingame and an addon). We added on some caps for the pirates plus reworked the stats to seem more piraty plus some new visuals. Will work this in for the next patch update release.

Reply #15 Top

:)  Glad it was useful, I would like to take a look at it later, take care,

-Teal

 

Reply #16 Top

Well the Distant Stars Mod 0.90 is out if you want to try it out.

Reply #17 Top

:)  Sounds good.

 

Reply #18 Top

Why not just make it so the AI get even more bonuses in terms of % of income rates. The issue though is that by late game even the unfair aggressor in my DS games only has like 4 capital ships and yet when they died they had like 100,000+ credits and metal/crystal

c..c

It seems to be an issue of they aren't using their resources effectivly, can that not be changed with coding like, if cap ships<4/5/6/8 etc and creds/metal/crys >6,000... BUY CAP SHIP.  :P

 

I did that kind of modding for cnc generals, made it so the AI would keep evaluating how much money it had, more than 5k it would make another war factory [for tanks etc] and another secondary resource to boost money even more. I got games where the AI like a human player just kept building out and out exponentially, not just reaching a crappy limit and stopping c..c

Reply #19 Top

Believe me DanzaDragon, if we could affect that line of thought we would have, I rarely see the AI use more that 10 (and that was a very long game with a very long chain of planets to meet each other) and it can be frustrating. But we can only do what we can. The only current way to affect the AI is through the gameplay constants, which is very limited.

Reply #20 Top

:)  Also with galaxydef file, but the two, galdef and gameplay.constants. There are tricks like the "spawn" ability that alter behaviour, but isnt really in a config file. Other abilities may as well, but that is an estimate at this point. As far as having the AI use more resources?  I'm not sure, except to say i have seen the AI also not use what they had, in the same way a human player would.

I have been trying to get the Pirates to have Capitals, but haven't worked it out yet. But will keep looking, there are a lot of modders here, i'm guessing if it can be done somebody would stumble on it sooner or later.  :)

-Teal

 

 

Reply #21 Top

check out the Distant Stars mod, we have caps for the pirates and starbases at their base (Nacey pulled a great stunt with that one)

we did have to borrow the mesh files from the other races though

Reply #22 Top

:) 

ok, will do, i will let you know what i think,  :)