[TomShak]

Hi,

There seem to be two models of AI in space-shooter games, the XWA approach and the XvT approach. The XWA model has the player going up against a large number of remarkably incompetent enemies. This model is used in most space shooters (X-Wing, FS2, TIE Fighter, XWA). Presumably because the player could then be the "dominant" force in the battle, and the outcome would depend very heavily on the player's action, rather than on random luck or on how well the mission was balanced.

XvT had a different AI model because XvT was a multiplayer game. The AI was used as a substitute for missing players, as such it's ability was much closer to that of an actual player.  So whilst in XWA you would think nothing of taking a single X-Wing against an entire wing of AI controlled TIE-Interceptors, in XvT they would completely cream you if you tried.

Anyway, perhaps it's a bit premature to ask this but I was wondering what kind of AI was planned for FotG?

I myself really liked the XvT approach, it really kept you on your toes. It was particularly good because it meant you could take any TvT mission and play it co-op against the AI (which was great fun if you only had a limited number of people). However, it did make mission balancing much harder - in particular it could be hard to ensure that the player had any real effect on the mission outcome. This is perhaps quite realistic, but might not make for a particularly good singleplayer experience.

Thoughts?

[TopAce]

In X-wing Alliance, if you played on Medium, your opponents were Veterans. In XvT, Medium difficulty meant Ace and Top Ace pilots. That's essentially it.

To be FotG-specific, we're currently using the AI we get for FS. I don't know if we could alter the AI to be more effective apart from editing the ai.tbl. As far as I've been told, coders don't like tampering with the AI code for some reason.

[Shade]

Basically, AI in FS2-based games is tied very heavily into the difficulty setting. On very easy, the AI is incompetent and you can basically have your way with them. In addition, you have massive bonuses to shield and weapons recharge making it even more unfair.

On insane, however, it is an entirely different game: Insane is the only difficulty setting where players and the AI are fighting on even terms, and at the same time the AI is actually quite competent for most jobs, dogfighting included. On Insane, taking on just two enemy fighters on your own is not an assured win, and even a single very maneouverable enemy can give you problems.

So I'd say the problem isn't so much the AI itself, but the fact that the AI's abilities are scaled down with lower difficulties despite those also giving the player other bonuses.

There is also another thing though, which will benefit some of your fighters. The AI is significantly better when its shields have been taken down - Or when it doesn't have any to begin with. So there's every chance that TIEs at least could be quite nasty opponents.

[TomShak]

It'd be good if the FS2 AI is sufficiently flexible to be able to produce both types of behaviour

Still there's a question of what kind of missions FotG will have? Will it have missions like XWA where it's you versus the rampaging hoardes, or more like XvT missions where the mission is balanced to be fair assuming equal skill on both sides?

[Galemp]

In XvT, even single player, you get respawns. I don't see that happening in FotG.

[chief1983]

I'm banking on more towards balance, it's not going to be this Alpha 1, Hero of the Universe thing all over again.  If you've got 2 flights, we're not going to put you up against 8 wings of fighters probably, unless you're in a vastly superior craft.

[General Battuta]

If you play FS2 on a higher difficultly level, it's much more like XvT than XWA. I imagine SWC will be the same way, as the developers here have suggested.

"Alpha 1, Hero of the Universe" occurs largely because we all want to be heroes and set our difficulties correspondingly low.

[Snail]

Exactly; it's very hard to complete Lion at the Door on Insane.

[Shade]

Hell, it's not just the AI. The game is completely different on insane...

Turrets fire faster filling the sky with fire, any hit counts as even a couple will drain your shields and leave you exposed, you have to constantly micromanage engine, weapon and shield energy or you will run low at the worst of times, wingmen are actually useful in a fight (in MP I've once seen two remaining AIs complete STV gauntlet for us after all players had run out of respawns), your missiles are evaded more often than not and the enemies are more than happy to send a swarm of them after you, the list goes on.

Honestly, insane is the way the game should be at all times, and ideally difficulty settings should only affect the penalty to damage for the AIs and the bonus to energy regeneration for the player.

[Snail]

This is another reason why "just send in Alpha 1 lolololol i am so funneh lol lmao rofl" comments are idiotic.

[TomShak]

If you play FS2 on a higher difficultly level, it's much more like XvT than XWA. I imagine SWC will be the same way, as the developers here have suggested.

In terms of the quality of the AI yes, although in terms of how the mission was designed they are very different.

FS2 missions put you up against overwhelming odds. On easier difficulties you win because the enemy AI is very weak. On harder difficulties you just don't win very much. FS2 missions are fundamentally unbalanced: if you replaced every AI in the mission with human pilots then one side would typically always win.

In contrast XvT missions are much closer to being balanced. Because the player could often play on either side no one-side was given a massive advantage. If you replaced all the AI with human pilots you would (ideally) get a mission where each side won approximately 50% of the time.

I'm glad the project is planning on having more balanced missions, it's both much more realistic and it means singleplayer missions can also be used as multiplayer missions

[MR_T3D]

If you play FS2 on a higher difficultly level, it's much more like XvT than XWA. I imagine SWC will be the same way, as the developers here have suggested.

In terms of the quality of the AI yes, although in terms of how the mission was designed they are very different.

FS2 missions put you up against overwhelming odds. On easier difficulties you win because the enemy AI is very weak. On harder difficulties you just don't win very much. FS2 missions are fundamentally unbalanced: if you replaced every AI in the mission with human pilots then one side would typically always win.

In contrast XvT missions are much closer to being balanced. Because the player could often play on either side no one-side was given a massive advantage. If you replaced all the AI with human pilots you would (ideally) get a mission where each side won approximately 50% of the time.

I'm glad the project is planning on having more balanced missions, it's both much more realistic and it means singleplayer missions can also be used as multiplayer missions

agreed.

[MR_T3D]

With regards to XvT-style AI, please make it try to avoid nose to nose when flying unsheilded TIE's

playing custom dogfight, all i needed to do against the 'top ace' was switch deflectors front, and i frag it on my first pass in the y-wing

[chief1983]

That's one reason I liked Z-95 dogfights so much in XvT on the Zone, they were slow enough that I could score hits even on dialup, and I could almost always go 1:1, with most of my kills in headon passes.  Deflectors forward every time.

[aRaven]

Since the ships in SWC aren't slow anymore, things can get relative

[MR_T3D]

so long as my y-wing can alost keep up, i'm fine

[Shade]

With regards to XvT-style AI, please make it try to avoid nose to nose when flying unsheilded TIE's

While completely avoiding head to head passes would probably be rather hard, the simple fact that it's unshielded makes a huge difference in how the AI fights. The standard FS2 AI is fairly careless while it has shields remaining but gets very serious about evasive flying once they're down... and giving it an unshielded ship to begin with makes it very evasive from the get go even without attempting to modify AI behaviour.

Of course, the standard disclaimer about this only being true on higher difficulties applies here as well, as the AI is never more than passable at evasive flying on normal, and downright sucks at it at anything below normal.

For fun, try making a mission where you start at close range and with your back to an unshielded Dragon (a Dragon has an extremely weak hull so it's not a bad substitute for a TIE, in fact, it's probably weaker than a TIE would be) then play it on insane, and see how long it takes you to kill it.