Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Marcov on October 14, 2011, 11:51:17 pm
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So I just recently tried a one-on-one dogfight with a BALLS OF STEELE Ulysses, on Medium difficulty. I have to admit, the fight was pretty easy, and it's really nothing compared to fighting a real human in Multiplayer games.
So, here's this "jousting run" thing, and the AI excels at it. But after the run, the AI simply does a series of quick, fancy manuevers, making it incredibly hard to hit (plus, it's a ULYSSES!). But whatever it does, I still find no trouble in putting it down. It just keeps dancing around, bringing a few well-aimed shots while turning this and that against me, but all I had to do was just engage in turret mode (0 velocity, simply turning your craft to face the opponent), and he was down in about 2 minutes.
Is it possible to create an AI that is VERY aggresive, so aggressive that it can survive a wing or two of 99th Skulls pilots for 10 minutes? Without putting up the game difficulty?
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lol
You're not going to get anywhere near a Multi experience with AI. It just won't happen. Humans (even myself) are vastly more intelligent than AI and that's not going to change anytime soon.
You can, however, give your enemy an overpowered fighter and some values in the ai profile. BALLS OF STEELE already ****s with the values a bit (it can turn twice as fast as the fighter's table says it can, for instance).
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Even so, why are you doing it on medium? Insane with Little Devil (or whatever it's called) would be a better approximation of a "fair" fight, since you'll at least have the same stats.
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I think you're looking for $Courage in the ai.tbl (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Ai.tbl#.24Courage:)
This value determines how likely a fighter will simply run away when you point your fighter at it. This value can be tweaked so that the ai will never run, but that increases the likelyhood of enemies behaving more like turrets and less like actual fighters.
The ai as it is makes the game pretty fun, changing the ai can radically change how the game is played. There are many interesting things you can tweak in both the ai.tbl and the ai profiles.tbl
Note values in the ai.tbl are assigned according to difficulty. You assign them yourself. If you want an insane ai on very easy, you can table one but I don't recommend doing so.
Edit: hmm, balls steele already has courage maxed... perhaps it's get away chance but i'm just guessing at this point. I'm pretty sure the evasion frequency is something you have control over with tabling though.
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The theory behind this is behind the context of the "[elite squad vs. enemy ace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Voss#Death)" kind of mission; the player tries to evade the wrath of a really skilled AI pilot until help comes, or, if Alpha 1 is good enough, he may be able to down the opponent.
I'm looking for missions where Alpha 1 will finally find a match, without actually tweaking the game difficulty.
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The theory behind this is behind the context of the "elite squad vs. enemy ace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Voss#Death)" kind of mission; the player tries to evade the wrath of a really skilled AI pilot until help comes, or, if Alpha 1 is good enough, he may be able to down the opponent.
I'm looking for missions where Alpha 1 will finally find a match, without actually tweaking the game difficulty.
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While there is no substitute for Multi, there is This (http://www.mediafire.com/?uxrz4123p7g8z2u). A few people from IRC might recognize the file.
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"Tweaking the difficulty" ?
On any skill setting other than insane, YOU, the player, are cheating.
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Indeed, try playing WiH on Insane, especially the mission where you go against enemy elite (there are two of them).
Medium actually buffs the player a lot compared to Insane.
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I don't know why this "you're cheating on Medium difficulty" argument matters. I'm simply trying to ask if there can be an AI Class (NOT difficulty) wherein the player is actually really challenged by a SINGLE enemy pilot. As I said, sort of like an ace duel.
Meaning to say, even if it's in Medium difficulty and the player has certain privileges over his enemy, he should be challenged; after all, not all of us are that good. Newbies can make the mission not-so-hard by switching off the difficulty, while the single enemy pilot is still an expert (after all, the difficulty actually affects ALL craft, and what we want is a single AI opponent far more skilled than his colleagues).
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Come duel me.
I'll extend that to anyone that wants that service.
And, if you want a 1on1 vs player experience, you wont ever get it without it being on 'insane'.
Unless the tables are set up so that insane = all difficulties.
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Hmm...but doesn't that make friendly firing rate high as well?
Also, it kind of defeats the purpose. If that mission were supposedly best played at Insane, then the player's tendency would be to have most of the missions of the campaign containing that mission Insane, which would be his present mentality ("I want to challenge myself, so I'll play this on Insane").
In other words, this means that the player is prepared to face a hard game anyway, so he won't be surprised if the enemy ace is skilled. In other words, it defeats the purpose because the enemy ace is supposed to have shockingly higher skills than most opponents. However, if it's in Insane, then all opponents are going to be a bit hard to beat, making the ace's skills not that notable.
BTW, yeah, I fought it on Insane, and it was quite a match.
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Pretty pointless to do this on anything but Insane, but there's no reason you couldn't just edit the Little Devil or BALLS OF STEELE entry to even more ridiculously high/low values
You probably forgot to select the right AI profile in mission specs though
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In other words, this means that the player is prepared to face a hard game anyway, so he won't be surprised if the enemy ace is skilled. In other words, it defeats the purpose because the enemy ace is supposed to have shockingly higher skills than most opponents. However, if it's in Insane, then all opponents are going to be a bit hard to beat, making the ace's skills not that notable.
If you use Fury's AI, not really.
Normal combat is moredately difficult on Insane. Fighting an ace, on the other hand, is really challenging and in most cases, the first time you go against him, you'll lose.
You'll notice he's much better than an average AI, I assure you.
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Exactly, but well...the jousting run is threatening enough, but once he passes you, all you needed to do was turn off your engine, and snipe at him all you can...he will just do wild maneuvers, occasionally doing some astounding spin while taking pot shots at you, but in the end, you two will collide and somehow, while firing everything, you finally blast the **** out of him.
But well, maybe I'm just used to the slow, dramatic ace-vs-ace battles of WWI or even WWII simulators where all you did was turn and turn, do some wild maneuvers, trying to fly behind the adversary's tail and deliver a killing shot (if he evens stays on your sights, which will be quite unlikely), and you couldn't engage on "turret-mode".
BTW, I've been hearing of that "Fury AI" stuff. Is it something to download? Where?
Pretty pointless to do this on anything but Insane, but there's no reason you couldn't just edit the Little Devil or BALLS OF STEELE entry to even more ridiculously high/low values
You probably forgot to select the right AI profile in mission specs though
The Mission Specs? The profile is on "BP2". Anything incorrect with that?
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Fury AI is pretty much what's used in WiH, AFAIK.
It sounds like you are trying to make a smarter opponent, independent of the bonuses and handicaps that accompany the player's choice of difficulty. In that case, you should definitely be starting with Little Devil instead of BALLS OF STEELE, because as mentioned above, BALLS OF STEELE gives AI ships bonuses that the player cannot achieve by changing the difficulty. Little Devil is just as "smart," but without the cheats.
If you're comparing to single player, go ahead and use medium, or whatever your usual difficulty level is. If comparing to multi, use insane, since that is how multi is played by necessity.
After you've made it "smarter" (or given up because it's impossible :P ), you'll be free to give it the crazy BALLS OF STEELE buffs to make it "harder."
Finally, if you're doing this for an actual campaign, there was a lot more that went into making tough aces (I'm thinking specifically about "My Brother, My Enemy") than just making them more difficult to defeat. The music, their callsigns, their equipment, and intercepted messages all played a big role.
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here is a random thought can scripting be tied into the game's AI?
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What about the "tough aces" thing? Please explain, I'm quite curious of this.
And okay, finally, I confess, I actually wanted to re-created the battle between WWI German ace Werner Voss vs. the elite British 56 squadron. He fought 7 aces for 10 minutes, and predictably, he got killed in the end, but not after placing bullet holes in (afaik) each and every one of them. Another elite German fighter pilot tried to aid him, but got shot down right away.
Now in the context of FreeSpace, this would be a bit...unlikely, since space dogfighting is much faster and it might be a bit hard trying to get an AI that will actually stand a match against 7 elite pilots for at least a few minutes.
but then again, what's this "a lot more that went into making tough aces" thing that you are mentioning?
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You could do it the other way around though.
Pit yourself against 7 AI and keep raising the settings on them until you can't kill them any more.
If I could do this against 7 human pilots in a non-dogfight(read; the mission type), trust me I would.
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but then again, what's this "a lot more that went into making tough aces" thing that you are mentioning?
If you read his post he tells you exactly what he's talking about and where you can look to see it
And okay, finally, I confess, I actually wanted to re-created the battle between WWI German ace Werner Voss vs. the elite British 56 squadron. He fought 7 aces for 10 minutes, and predictably, he got killed in the end, but not after placing bullet holes in (afaik) each and every one of them. Another elite German fighter pilot tried to aid him, but got shot down right away.
Now in the context of FreeSpace, this would be a bit...unlikely, since space dogfighting is much faster and it might be a bit hard trying to get an AI that will actually stand a match against 7 elite pilots for at least a few minutes.
No this sounds pretty much exactly like fighting good AI in FreeSpace, as long as you're the one pilot and not the seven
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I don't know any way to make the AI challenging in a 1on1 fight for Vanilla freespace.
Once you add gliding and sidethrust, preferably at high damp settings, though... (http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2011/7/24/5d923b41-4cd1-4d7c-ae95-588c235664bd.jpg)
It's very possible to make an AI that is super aggressive, basically always is pointing at you, and has perfect aim. He'll sidethrust to throw off your aim. If you DO get behind him somehow, he'll use glide to face you.
Basically, once you get rid of the restriction that ships need to fly the way they're pointing, the upper level of the AI gets much higher.
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Finally, if you're doing this for an actual campaign, there was a lot more that went into making tough aces (I'm thinking specifically about "My Brother, My Enemy") than just making them more difficult to defeat. The music, their callsigns, their equipment, and intercepted messages all played a big role.
Well, as to "My Brother, My Enemy", this is kind of the other way around; a wing of elite pilots vs. 1 super-pilot (the player). Well yeah, kind of not that fun if you've got seven-to-one odds in your favor against an enemy super-ace.
If I could do this against 7 human pilots in a non-dogfight(read; the mission type), trust me I would.
What does this exactly mean?
Basically, once you get rid of the restriction that ships need to fly the way they're pointing, the upper level of the AI gets much higher.
Can the player actually "sidethrust" and "glide"? I never knew you could do those things. Are they possible to do?
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Well, as to "My Brother, My Enemy", this is kind of the other way around; a wing of elite pilots vs. 1 super-pilot (the player). Well yeah, kind of not that fun if you've got seven-to-one odds in your favor against an enemy super-ace.
No uh that's exactly how "My Brother My Enemy" works, tell your two wingmen to depart at the mission start and it's you (1 player) versus 7 elite pilots (the enemy)
Can the player actually "sidethrust" and "glide"? I never knew you could do those things. Are they possible to do?
Yes it's very easy, in a ship with the right tabling glide is alt-G by default, check the controls for the sidethrust bindings
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Can the player actually "sidethrust" and "glide"? I never knew you could do those things. Are they possible to do?
In vanilla Freespace, no. In many mods and TCs, yes to one or both.
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Sidethrust is bound to SHIFT-1 and SHIFT-3 by default.
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Try my gauntlet for BP2 - it's in the forum somewhere. You will not make it through the whole thing on medium settings the first time, and you'll probably die before the third wave.
That's BP-Lieutenant.
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He's talking about one on one.
Getting swarmed wave after wave in a gauntlet isn't 1 on 1.
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He's talking about one on one.
Getting swarmed wave after wave in a gauntlet isn't 1 on 1.
. . . he was talking 1 v 7 last I heard.
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7 v 1
Of course you can make it hard for the player by giving the AI the numerical advantage. >.>
I want an AI that can give me a run for my money. ALONE... which is pretty much impossible seeing as all AIs are predictable and thus some silly strategy or another will always work against them. ie. TURRET MODE.
Honestly, I tried to recreate this by giving the AI a maxed-out stats, 1/4th turn time, take 20% damage etc...still too easy.
Added 12 fighters (training drones) to support them...and still you can just abuse the AI by running away and then treb spamming, since no matter the AI skill, they still fail horribly at avoiding trebuchets at long range >.> (though yes, 1 vs 13, you try dogfighting them you DIE)
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The main thing about the AI is that they always fly straight at you, sometimes doing little jiggles. Unless this behavior can be engineered out of the human instinct and how AIs are programmed, they're always going to be easy to kill unless it's an unfair fight.
[Droid experiences]
*whistle*
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The main thing about the AI is that they always fly straight at you, sometimes doing little jiggles. Unless this behavior can be engineered out of the human instinct and how AIs are programmed, they're always going to be easy to kill unless it's an unfair fight.
This is actually the exact opposite of the problem FYI
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Yes, pretty much, the key in dogfights is to be aggressive as possible. In dogfights where there are more than 1 participants on each team the tendency is to have a "turning" fight, meaning to say, engaging in the classic-style dueling by keeping on turning until hopefully, you reach your opponent's tail (though often if 2 duelists have about the same turning speed they end up in a jousting engagement, then begin the whole turn-try-to-get-the-tail process). This is what is really fun; this is what happens when you fight a Dragon (though I think it was simply fun because I wasn't so aware of the "turret-mode" strategy).
But again, sadly, the AI simply isn't human. The best they can do is to do those fancy maneuvers and as I said, take pot shots at you while spinning round and round but conclusively, you get to destroy him pretty easily by staying in turret mode. If my opponent were a human, he should ALSO engage in turret mode, forcing ME to flee out of fear of losing the "frozen jousting" engagement.
In other words, even YOU against ONE VERY SKILLED AI pilot will often be not that interesting, because 1)Space dogfights, or rather FreeSpace dogfights are fast-paced and dogfighting is really made for 1 player engaging many AI enemies at once, 2)AI pilots aren't smart and are based more on calculation than on logic, and 3) This isn't multiplayer.
So, if we get to the point wherein some smart coders get to have the ingredients for a really sane, expert AI ace, Player vs. AI will usually be best with 1 player against many AI pilots.
I actually tried the 7-to-1 odds thing, in fact I think it was 6 friendly AI pilots flying Persi (I think they were even below General, maybe Major or something, I don't remember exactly; but for goodness' sakes, they were supposed to be elite pilots!) against 1 BALLS OF STEELE Ulysses (on Insane to avoid firing rate buffs).
The Ulysses should have considerably more maneuverability than the Perseus even though it is the much older design, plus the Balls-of-Steele bonus turning rate (someone proclaimed that several posts ago); in fact, that was my point; in Werner Voss' fight against 7 opponents, he flew a plane that was basically more maneuverable but was simply the more outdated, harder to fly machine.
But NO. Humans are simply better - the 7 Persi BLEW IT TO BITS in probably less than half a minute - clearly, in AI fights, sheer numbers will MASH the fewer but more skilled opponent. Besides, this whole recreate-history thing simply won't have high chances of actually being worthwhile in a game concerning robotic-minded NPC's. Though of course, a skilled FREDder can even the odds very easily.
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BALLS OF STEELE Ulysses (on Insane to avoid firing rate buffs).
I'm 99% certain that doesn't work.
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I have no idea how good or bad this AI is, but I tweaked it just for this topic. Since I have no FS2 installed at the moment, I could not test it in practice. Sushi and others like Spoon may know additional tricks to make the AI more aggressive and I could tweak these values further if any tips are posted.
http://www.mediafire.com/?h7c8cu9wpk469cp
Experimental AI
- No difficulty level scaling
- No player bonuses
- An attempt at aggressive AI that uses gliding and sliding as much as it can
- AI doesn't cheat but doesn't pull any punches either
- Fighter and bomber sliding velicity 1/2 of top velocity
- Fighter and bomber sliding acceleration and deacceleration 1/2 of forward acceleration and deacceleration
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What about custom building AIs, so say it's FREDed to fight a slower fighter it uses Jousting tacticts, or if it's fighting a fighter wih poor maneuvarability it tries to get in close and personal to out-turn the enemy. You could custom-build your friendly AIs to be able to those magnificent spins, but give them poor courage and a hopeless precision so they just look like they're fighting well, but in reality are terrible. Put the enemy in a different, probably superior fighter. Give the enemy an attack Alpha 1 at high priority, and attack the others at a very low priority.
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I have no idea how good or bad this AI is, but I tweaked it just for this topic. Since I have no FS2 installed at the moment, I could not test it in practice. Sushi and others like Spoon may know additional tricks to make the AI more aggressive and I could tweak these values further if any tips are posted.
http://www.mediafire.com/?h7c8cu9wpk469cp
Experimental AI
- No difficulty level scaling
- No player bonuses
- An attempt at aggressive AI that uses gliding and sliding as much as it can
- AI doesn't cheat but doesn't pull any punches either
- Fighter and bomber sliding velicity 1/2 of top velocity
- Fighter and bomber sliding acceleration and deacceleration 1/2 of forward acceleration and deacceleration
I couldn't extract any files, kept complaining about "unsupported compression method."
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It worked fine for me. Did you update 7-Zip? Maybe it's LZMA2.
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I created a very interesting AI behaviour for a mission by differing the goals of the enemy fighter depending on its distance to different things, like the player.
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How about tabling special ships and weapons for the AI? I'm sure you could sneak some extra slide or glide without making it too noticeable. Maybe you could also give them autoaim or make their missiles more countermeasure resistant.
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How about tabling special ships and weapons for the AI? I'm sure you could sneak some extra slide or glide without making it too noticeable. Maybe you could also give them autoaim or make their missiles more countermeasure resistant.
Kind of defeats the purpose. Aces are supposedly elite pilots, not pilots who win all the time simply because they've got better equipment.
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What are these countermeasures of which you speak?
Marcov, honestly, just play multi :p
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How about tabling special ships and weapons for the AI? I'm sure you could sneak some extra slide or glide without making it too noticeable. Maybe you could also give them autoaim or make their missiles more countermeasure resistant.
Kind of defeats the purpose. Aces are supposedly elite pilots, not pilots who win all the time simply because they've got better equipment.
Marcov you would expect elite pilots to have better shot placement than your average pilot so each shot would do more damage not by virtue of better weapons (though it could be expected that they have access to better weapons technicians able to keep weapons in better state of maintenance and perhaps tweak the weapons performance to better suit the pilot) but anyway as you cant simulate this better weapons placement with the AI it would have to be done with damage scores. The auto aim (2-5 degrees) would help simulate the better accuracy without being too obvious. It helps when you are modding to separate reality from the game, dont think in terms of AI is the pilot and the ship/weapons tables are the equipment but instead think of the pilot and ship as an overall package and that sometimes it is more effective to implement things ship/weapon side to simulate pilot behaviour.
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Yes, exactly.
Kind of defeats the purpose. Aces are supposedly elite pilots, not pilots who win all the time simply because they've got better equipment.
It would fall in the same category as the BALLS OF STEELE buffs; you lie and tell the player that they're flying the exact same ships as he is, but theirs are really better.
Having different equipment would actually be a separate way to make them seem elite to the player. Going back to "My Brother, My Enemy," one way you can tell that the enemies are elite pilots is that they each have very customized loadouts, including Trebuchets, which in WiH are reserved for special occasions.