Author Topic: Update on Progress  (Read 252728 times)

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Offline Adseria

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #210 on: March 22, 2019, 07:04:30 AM »
Purely out of curiosity, why is everyone talking about "humanising" the AI? I thought they were meant to be aliens anyway?
 

Offline Tree

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #211 on: March 22, 2019, 07:22:53 AM »
Steve talked about adding a setting making it so NPRs spawning would use the same race as you, as he wanted to play a game inspired by WH40K's Great Crusade.
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #212 on: March 22, 2019, 01:26:26 PM »
And it's already possible to have multiple human races starting on Earth/Sol with the others as NPRs.
 

Offline JacenHan

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #213 on: March 22, 2019, 03:28:27 PM »
It would probably be more accurate to say "give the AI a semblance of personality that makes it have the appearance of a sentient being rather than a computer following a flowchart" but "humanize" is easier to write.
 

Offline Barkhorn

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #214 on: March 22, 2019, 08:41:25 PM »
How exactly will the AI know what weapons a ship has?  Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't get any messages or anything about which contacts fired what, only how many missiles are coming or beam weapons hit you.
 

Offline Jovus

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #215 on: March 22, 2019, 08:46:48 PM »
In VB6, your intel window will tell you what ships were observed firing which weapons. I imagine this is much the same in C#.
 

Offline Barkhorn

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #216 on: March 22, 2019, 08:50:02 PM »
If an enemy fleet is far enough away that you only have active sensor contacts on their ships but not their missiles, will you still get that information?
 

Offline King-Salomon

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #217 on: March 23, 2019, 02:31:38 AM »
If an enemy fleet is far enough away that you only have active sensor contacts on their ships but not their missiles, will you still get that information?

the C# changes in the wiki

http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=C-Alien_Contact  there you will find "Alien Weapon Detection"
 
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Offline Shuul

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #218 on: March 23, 2019, 05:05:28 AM »
Will AI be bound to the same rules and require new module to gather info on player?
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #219 on: March 23, 2019, 01:32:43 PM »
While Steve hasn't explicitly said so, generally NPR operates mostly on the same rules.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #220 on: March 23, 2019, 02:00:13 PM »
Will AI be bound to the same rules and require new module to gather info on player?

The AI uses the same intelligence gathering methods as the player, which mainly involves using normal sensors to observe behaviour and weapon fire.
 

Offline chrislocke2000

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #221 on: March 26, 2019, 03:37:09 AM »
It should be tonnage or HTK-based.  Losing one fighter out of a wing of 5 is a huge loss.  Losing one fighter in a wing of 500 is no big deal.  Likewise losing a battleship should be scarier than losing a destroyer.

I've set it up so the AI analysis of the 'threat' of a hostile ship is an independent function, which is influenced by the situation and its knowledge of the ship. This function will be called when required by other parts of the code. The AI will track the capability of different ships using an internal version of the intelligence window. For example, assume a player TG of four ships of different classes. The AI has previously observed all four classes in action and knows the respective armaments are 10cm lasers, 25cm lasers, size 5 missile launchers and AMM launchers. The AI will radically change the different threat levels posed by those ships depending on the range.

In general, at 20m kilometers, the AI will take out your missile ship first, at 200,000 km it will probably take out the 25cm laser ships and at 20,000 km the 10cm laser ship will be the priority target, etc. The priority of secondary targets will also depend on the range. In some situations at longer ranges, the AI might instead decide to eliminate the escorts first. There are other considerations as well, such as speed and sensor capability, but I don't want to give too much away :)

I can add to the intelligence of this 'threat' function over time without it affecting other parts of the code (except for returning a 'smarter' decision).

All of this is still relatively early, so the results of play testing should improve the AI considerably. With the speed and flexibility of C# I have a lot more scope to improve the AI compared to VB6.

Interesting to see in the latest AAR that the precursors didn't turn round and attack the player ships. In that encounter it looked like the AI could tell its ships and missiles were substantially faster than the hostiles and that its AMM was able to defeat the incoming missiles. Are you still working on how the AI iterates its threat assessment or is that working as intended?
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #222 on: March 26, 2019, 05:08:34 AM »
Interesting to see in the latest AAR that the precursors didn't turn round and attack the player ships. In that encounter it looked like the AI could tell its ships and missiles were substantially faster than the hostiles and that its AMM was able to defeat the incoming missiles. Are you still working on how the AI iterates its threat assessment or is that working as intended?

The AI was prioritizing its defence mission. While it couldn't hit the player ships at that range, the calculation was that the player force was stronger and therefore it should not engage in a deep space engagement as would take heavier casualties. By holding position, it increased its chance of defending the planet. It is still relatively primitive but as I encounter more situations and add code to deal with them, the AI should get better at weighing its options.
 
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Offline Jovus

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #223 on: March 26, 2019, 09:27:35 AM »
The AI was prioritizing its defence mission. While it couldn't hit the player ships at that range, the calculation was that the player force was stronger and therefore it should not engage in a deep space engagement as would take heavier casualties. By holding position, it increased its chance of defending the planet. It is still relatively primitive but as I encounter more situations and add code to deal with them, the AI should get better at weighing its options.

I cannot praise this kind of analysis enough. Even if it might have won, the AI would have substantially weakened itself, thus hurting its long-term goals. This is exactly the kind of choosing strategic victory over tactical victory that marks a good commander.

(Not every AI needs to be a good commander, of course.)
 
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Offline Drakale

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Re: Update on Progress
« Reply #224 on: March 27, 2019, 10:19:41 AM »
New AI seem really interesting. Just a small point I'd like to make, it would be nice if there was some variation to the AI decision making, like most of the time it will do the logical thing but once in a while it will make a bold decision, or even a mistake. Main point is to make it not totally predictable so it's harder to manipulate it. Possibly way harder to program that in than it's worth but it would be nice.
 
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