[Fury]

This mod has been discontinued and replaced by Blue Planet: Age of Aquarius 3.6.12 Feature Pack.


I created new AI profile and six custom AI classes for Blue Planet: War in Heaven. You can now try it out and give feedback to further improve it.
NEW! Now works as a launcher selectable mod and all but training missions of FS2 campaign have been modified to use custom AI. Enjoy!
Download custom AI

If you used older versions of this mod and extracted contents to FreeSpace2\mediavps\data, don't forget to delete following files from mediavps:
notes.txt, AI - Apocalypse.fs2, AI - But Hate the Traitor.fs2, AI - Into the Lions Den.fs2, ai.tbl, ai_profiles.tbl and turrets-obt.tbm.

Readme.txt

ai.tbl contains six custom AI classes: Rookie, Veteran, Elite, Wingman Rookie, Wingman Veteran and Wingman Elite.
ai.tbl contains most settings that affect behavior of AI pilots and overrides any values in ai_profiles.tbl.

First three are "normal" AI classes intended to replace retail AI classes for fighter and bomber class ships. I advise against using these AI classes in capital ships unless you know what you're doing.
Wingmen classes are special classes designed to not scale with difficulty level, meaning their performance should be consistent regardless of selected difficulty level.

ai_profiles.tbl contains global AI settings that are used by all AI classes, including retail ones. Most, but not all gameplay affecting changes affect turrets.

turrets-obt.tbm contains a flag to enable turrets on fighters and bombers to pick targets on their own instead of firing at pilot's current target, like capital ships do.
This table is completely optional and can be skipped if you don't like independent fighter/bomber turrets.

These tables do not have any effect on missions that do not make use of this AI profile and/or these six custom AI classes.
You need to edit existing mission(s) to use this custom AI, or create your own. Exception to this is turrets-obt.tbm, which is always in effect if it is in tables folder.

Included are all but training missions from Mediavps 3.6.10 patch that have been edited to make use of custom AI profile and AI classes.
This custom AI was not created for retail campaign mission balance in mind, these missions are only there to show how this AI performs in various situations.
To play these missions without issues, you need the latest mediavps, including patch.
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=65038.0

Last but not least, to use these tables you need 3.6.11 nightly build 5641 or newer, older builds or 3.6.10 won't work.
While not required, it is highly recommended to use 3.6.11 nightly build 5720 or newer to get fixed countermeasures.
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?board=173.0

The easiest way to try this AI mod, is to extract contents of this zip-file to your FreeSpace2 folder, then select CustomAI as your mod in launcher.
When you have this selected as mod, missions containing in the zip-file replaces those in retail or mediavps and you can see custom AI in action.

Optional semi-newtonian flight model with gliding now available to retail FS2 ships. This should be used together with custom AI for AI to make proper use of it. Based on SushiGlide mod by Sushi. To use gliding, please see control config in-game. To install, install custom AI mod first and then extract contents of this mod to FreeSpace2\CustomAI\data.
Download semi-newtonian flight mod

If you had previously extracted contents of this mod to FreeSpace2\mediavps\data, don't forget to delete following files from mediavps:
newtonian-shp.tbm and velindc-sct.tbm.

Above download links are always the latest. Trouble opening 7z-files? Get 7-zip.

[QuantumDelta]

Having done some testing on this initially, I have to say that it makes playing the game seem more fun.
The AI is more 'alive', it's motions more fluid and it doesn't deadlock in on a target regardless of what ever else is going on, at least not that I noticed.

The AI is more evasive and less offensive, it's a much more exciting way to go about playing with them, makes it seem much more like a proper furball you might see in a sci-fi movie than just a duking fight between ships in a game.

I've said this and other people have confirmed it so I'll say it again;
I personally find this AI slightly easier than SCP AI - However, it may be more difficult to other people (evasive flying is just target practise for me), there is a marked difference in the behaviour and personally it's very much for the better, consider it for your mods if you have a lot of fighter action (I haven't tested bomber changes yet).
Also, ships that use glide handle (AI wise) significantly better with these tables.

[General Battuta]

Hooray!

Feel free to grab the War in Heaven AI stuff and use it for your own mods. Rising tide lifts all boats and whatnot.

[Sushi]

Hooray indeed.

Fury, I probably should have mentioned this when you were showing me these over PM, but I'll put it here since it's generally useful information that applies generally. Sorry I forgot about it.

You have to be careful with the Friendly/Hostile AI Fire Delay Scale parameters. If they're less than one, the AI can actually fire faster than is technically allowed by the ship (faster than the player). In some cases, this may be the effect you want, but it's something you definitely want to be aware of: setting those lower than 1 means the AI will "cheat" and fire faster than it should be able to.

[General Battuta]

That could be useful. 

[Fury]

If they're less than one

Oops, chalk that up for my misinterpretation. Will fix it to next AI update.

[Fury]

New edition now linked to in the first post. QuantumDelta says it's better than the first one, so hopefully you will have similar experience. It also now includes three missions from FS2 campaign to make use of new AI.

Edit: Don't forget to read notes.txt in the zip-file if you haven't already.

Edit 2: Comments would be much appreciated, it'd help to tweak this AI further.

[MatthTheGeek]

You have to be careful with the Friendly/Hostile AI Fire Delay Scale parameters. If they're less than one, the AI can actually fire faster than is technically allowed by the ship (faster than the player). In some cases, this may be the effect you want, but it's something you definitely want to be aware of: setting those lower than 1 means the AI will "cheat" and fire faster than it should be able to.

That explains why a couple of Nephilim was able to screw up my herc with their tiny turrets

[Fury]

As I wrote in notes.txt that was included in the zip-file, I recommend keep using retail AI classes in turrets rather than these custom classes. The custom classes are for pilots, not turrets. In missions I included with ai_v2.zip, turrets still use retail AI classes unless you have changed them manually. In the first AI edition I did not include any missions, so you probably had changed them yourself, assuming they in fact used custom classes.

[Dragon]

Maybe it was a custom mission that used this profile.
IIRC turrets inherit ship's AI class unless stated otherwise, so it's an easy thing to oversight.

[Sushi]

Maybe it was a custom mission that used this profile.
IIRC turrets inherit ship's AI class unless stated otherwise, so it's an easy thing to oversight.

Yeah, and even IF stated otherwise, as far as I can tell by looking at the code. :/ Turret/subsystem AI classes don't appear to do anything based on what I see in the code, although I thought I remember someone saying they COULD see a difference. I dunno.

[General Battuta]

Isn't there a ROF difference? It might've been a placebo thing, but I could've sworn I observed such a difference, at least in flak turrets.

[Fury]

IIRC turrets inherit ship's AI class unless stated otherwise, so it's an easy thing to oversight.

Changing pilot AI does not affect turret AI and vice versa.

[MatthTheGeek]

My mistake was to change the AI class for fighters and bombers in the ship table. There turrets inherits the AI class. What I should have done is modifying the pilot class manually in each mission for bombers.

[Sushi]

Isn't there a ROF difference? It might've been a placebo thing, but I could've sworn I observed such a difference, at least in flak turrets.

All I know is that I've looked at the code several times to see where the turret AI class set in FRED affects anything at all, and I consistently came up with nothing. A rigorous experiment to determine The Truth is on my TODO list: probably having one ship with two otherwise identical laser turrets with different AI classes set should be enough.
I brought this up also on SCP Internal: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=65611.msg1309366#msg1309366

[Fury]

My mistake was to change the AI class for fighters and bombers in the ship table. There turrets inherits the AI class. What I should have done is modifying the pilot class manually in each mission for bombers.

Indeed. But that hints at two things as far as turrets are concerned.
1) Turrets do use $Friendly AI Fire Delay Scale and $Hostile AI Fire Delay Scale flags set in AI class.
2) Class index may not affect turret ROF as $Autoscale by AI Class Index was off.

[Fury]

FUBAR discovered an annoying bug in ai.tbl.

12:34:55   <Fury`>: FUBAR
12:34:59   <FUBAR>: yea
12:35:09   <Fury`>: what's this about ai.tbl going bonkers when adding more than 10 classes?
12:37:33   <FUBAR>: From what I can tell the game allocates memory for 10 classes.  If you use more it adds them in blocks of 10.  Something is happening and the 11th entry causes weapons to start firing from out of range.  It seems to get worse the farther down the table you go.  So while entry 11 fires missiles with a range for 1600 at 2800 entry 21 might fire them at 3600 and entry 41 just fires at any range.
12:38:03   <FUBAR>: Guessing this is why the Minbari fighters always fired out of range as well as they are in the second group of 10.
12:38:53   <Fury`>: oh ffs
12:39:41   <Flaming_Sword>: ...
12:39:44   <Fury`>: this is serious bug
12:39:50   <Fury`>: is Sushi aware?
12:39:55   <FUBAR>: yes and no
12:40:24   <FUBAR>: yes it's serious and no Sushi doesn't know.  I think this predates Sushi's chagnes though but need to do some testing for that.
12:40:31   <Fury`>: are only secondaries affected or is there other weird behavior?
12:40:57   <FUBAR>: Primaries as well but not to the same extent. 
12:41:09   <FUBAR>: Not sure on other behavior
12:41:30   <Fury`>: so THAT'S why battuta always complaina AI firing beyond their weapons range
12:41:47   <FUBAR>: possibly

In my tables posted in this topic, this bug would affect Wingmen AI classes. But apparently classes from Coward to Elite are safe.

[Spoon]

So I was messing around with these ai changes and was wondering about 'Chance AI Has to Fire Missiles at Player'. The wiki has nothing on that. Higher value means a higher chance the ai will fire missiles at the player?

[Sushi]

So I was messing around with these ai changes and was wondering about 'Chance AI Has to Fire Missiles at Player'. The wiki has nothing on that. Higher value means a higher chance the ai will fire missiles at the player?

More or less, the number is the chance out of 7.

Bug Wanderer for more details, and see if you can get him to document it properly on the wiki.

[Spoon]

That tells me enough, thanks