[Marcov]

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?

[Shivan Hunter]

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).

[Qent]

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.

[bigchunk1]

I think you're looking for $Courage in the ai.tbl

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.

[Marcov]

The theory behind this is behind the context of the "[elite squad vs. enemy ace" 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.

[Marcov]

The theory behind this is behind the context of the "elite squad vs. enemy ace" 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.

[KyadCK]

While there is no substitute for Multi, there is This. A few people from IRC might recognize the file.

[QuantumDelta]

"Tweaking the difficulty" ?
On any skill setting other than insane, YOU, the player, are cheating.

[Dragon]

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.

[Marcov]

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).

[QuantumDelta]

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.

[Marcov]

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.

[General Battuta]

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

[Dragon]

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.

[Marcov]

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?

[Qent]

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 ), 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.

[headdie]

here is a random thought can scripting be tied into the game's AI?

[Marcov]

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?

[QuantumDelta]

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.

[General Battuta]

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