NPRs are too stingy with their sensors

[Grunden (OP)]

Here's the situation:

Fleet doctrine is carrier based FAC squadrons backed by a command ship with a big honking size 50 active sensor. Sensor finds the target, FACs go in to max missile range (which is beyond where most thermal pasisives can detect them), alpha strike, rinse/repeat. Brutally effective; too effective.

Enter a new NPR race (SM'd in to be high tech) and I am engaging a fleet of theirs for the first time. Usual tactic, though I fire a light salvo to gauge missile effectiveness. Too light as it turns out; no ships destroyed and they turn on their 73mkm resolution 16 sensor, painting the FACs, with predictable results. They then TURNED OFF the sensor again. Which of course allowed the follow up squadrons to use the same tactic and obliterate them with full salvoes.

Which begs the question of why they didn't turn their actives on as soon as they were painted by my sensor ship (which incidentally would've forced me to disengage and go build missile cruisers).

I would think a rule of "he can see me, I might as well light up all sensor ranges" would make the NPR a lot more effective. Would ensure those long range missile salvoes get spotted further out too, let alone sneaking in small ships. I can see holding intelligence back regarding sensor capabilities, but I don't think the NPR will ever be able to play that game convincingly against a human. I would think fleet preservation would rank higher; the player still gleans that info, only via salvaging wrecks instead.

[Panopticon]

I've noticed and abused this tendency of NPRs too, I agree that it makes things a bit easy.

[ollobrains]

any suggestions for making them more liberal with their sensors perhaps a sensor power array to boost or maintain a longer signal time

[Grunden (OP)]

I don't think they necessarily need a boost, but just to actually use what they already have. I think a simple algorithm of "IF in range of enemy active sensors THEN turn on actives" would go a long way towards improving them. I specifically wanted to avoid suggesting anything complicated.

[ollobrains]

ok so more a UI AI use it if u got it thing.  ANy idea for counter modules and sometimes changes or more slightly complicated and refined ideas can work just waiting on the first build of N aurora to see if any changes made

[Charlie Beeler]

There are a lot of factors at play here.  But they all boil down to one,  the AI as it stands is very simple minded.  It's going to stay that way until Steve feels the need to invest the time it takes to completely re-write how tactical and strategic intelligence functions and then builds a much more robust and flexible AI that can use it.

In the meantime, if you really want a challenging NPR turn of the computer control and manually manage the NPR's.  Yes this will slow things down considerably.  The upside is that you will not have cookiecutter NPR's that have a standard forumla to defeat.

[Thiosk]

I agree here, there are tweaks one can do, but I'm unable to think of any strategy or tactics game AI that is able to go toe to toe with an advanced human player without extensive cheating.  As soon as you got the idea of how to play Civ 2, for example, you could ramp it up to Deity and still win.  And Steve doesn't charge for the game, so its unlikely he'll have IBM-levels of programmed "AI" that will enable NPRs to both beat us in space and at Jeopardy.   

[xeryon]

So far the AI does appear to be simple and repetitive.  Even in the face of significant losses or even victories they really do not deviate from their patterns.  This is kind of a neutral point though.  The game is more about systems management and organization and not just battle strategy.  Rather then repeatedly kill them using a known loophole the challenge now is to beat them in a non-exploitative way or to conquer them and add to the management and control difficulty factor.

[Beersatron]

If Steve was able to open up the part of the code (if it is distinct enough from the rest - which is might not be) that controls AI behaviour then I would love to have a bash and writing some basic routines that he could then plugin.

[ollobrains]

this has been covered before the idea of open sourcing it apparently its in some ancient programming language and his reluctant to open it up which its his baby thats fair enough.  I havent found apart from free orion any open source space type game that falls into this type of dwarf fortress-aurora type area.  Its one of those niche niche things he does for his own enjoyment and shares with everyone else

Side note yeah the AI does seem a bit erm predictable u can always let it win by having youre own weak designs and tactics seems a bit well meh.  Only way to get around it atm

[ardem]

Perhaps when Newtonian Aurora is in full swing, which will not be everyone cup of tea there would be a few programmers willing to put time into a Aurora open source project based on current game style. I cannot imagine Steve going back to this style.

Just a thought not trying to start a munity.

[ollobrains]

mutiny no, evolution and willing contributors yes of course its been knocked on the head before.

Situation where NA goes ahead and steve says ok i dont have time to do this alone we got peeps hankering for some serious development what about if i open source it or even ask for serious programmers to come on board maybe non disclosure agreements or whatever but expand the programming base to get aurora moving along.

[Jacob/Lee]

I doubt Steve would get more people to dev the game. Aurora is to Steve as Dwarf Fortress is to Toady, they've coded their games on their own as long as they've existed so letting other people help them would be quite... Strange, to them. The games are like their own children to them.

[Erik L]

Another issue with that is someone would need to QA the various bits to make sure there are no bugs. Right now, when Steve finds one he knows the code since he wrote it. Deciphering other people's code is not always the easiest.

[ollobrains]

Yeah valid point i get the feeling with steve being real life busy aurora is about if not open sourced in some way end up with just 5.6 at least for a few months more he must be hjaving one hell of a real life party