I quote:
"What we found out was that our AI was basically crap," Gas Powered Games' producer Jeremy Ables confessed to me, and not a moment too soon."
"For instance, while the computer AI was devastatingly efficient during the beta stage of the game's development (only encountered when a player dropped out in a multiplayer test), the AI included in the retail release was barely competent, even at the highest possible settings."
"With the original computer opponents so unchallenging as to quickly spawn dozens of player-made AI mods, it was no surprise to learn that the AI has been rewritten from the ground up. Ables assured me that the team of three programmers in charge of the task are experienced RTS players, and have been working hard at upping the difficulty for cooperative and single player enjoyment. Apparently the new super-AI is capable of defeating the original hard AI in a mere 10 minutes, with veteran human players only lasting around 20 minutes before succumbing to its superior commanding. All of this is done with less processing power than was devoured by the previous algorithms. Ables also mentioned that a cheating AI, which gains more resources per tick than other players, may be included and labeled as such. Cheating AIs were used by modders as band-aid solutions to the original poor AI. One would hope that a cheating AI included in Forged Alliance would be a decision based on on options, rather than necessity."
I remember that man players wanted back the BETA AI but were told that the AI had not been changed, seems that was not true. The Beta AI WAS better.
Thx to Archangel for the link!|||Irrespective of marketing speak, I wonder how much time has been allocated to the AI for FA.
SC vanilla was 2 people for 1 month (2 man-months) apparently, so what has FA been allocated?|||From article:
Quote:|||As I stated earlier. The AI did not change from beta to release... the game changed. AIs are very susceptible to balance changes. Lots of balance changes happened but there was never a chance to update the AI.
So, it was technically the same AI, just the AI wasn't tuned for the shipped balance.
The basic framework for how the AI works will be the same in FA, DFS is just making the system a whole lot more robust and putting time in to make it play a lot smarter. He's one smart cookie, that DFS.|||I can't wait to see the changes, and then tweak the heck out of them :).|||Aralez|||Depends on the map. If they are saying their new AI can beat the old one in 10 minutes (assuming it is not an exaggeration) it is probably a 5x5 map. Unfortunately atm the GPG Horde AI is broken (see below) so testing my Rush AI against it is pointless.
GPG added a new feature to the Horde AI where it will take one factory and constantly pump out unit after unit. Unfortunately, after a while it seems that this factory ends up being the ONLY factory producing units.
The other side effect is that the AI will never tech that factory up and that means that the Horde AI will never have a T3 land factory. One of the build conditions for the Horde AI to tech a land factory to T3 is there has to be less than 1 T1 land factory; with this bug that doesn't happen.|||sorian|||I didn't know that the post-3251 Horde AI is broken. I assume it happened with 3251 and thereafter.
That sure explains a lot.
I remember the Horde AI being rather impressive, especially on a land map and a small map, but it was seeming a bit lackluster as of late.
Sorian, were you able to fix the Horde AI for them in the Merged Mod ALL?|||"veteran human players only lasting around 20 minutes before succumbing to its superior commanding"
Superior Commanding? Superior Commanding??!!
How dare they think a mere computer AI can out strategize and command me.
My tin head robots of destruction will follow me into the depths of hell and not come back!
Eeerrr... ment and come back. Oh wait. They are conon fodder. Uhhh..... Ummmm.
Need to get back to the factory ASAP to lead another wave.|||What the game needs is a battle plan A.I. (with a couple of battle plans) just like we had in WWII. Instead of attacking blindly, attack with a purpose! Like take out the commander! Send in a wave of bombers that don't stop to tackle the air defense, but flies on to the target taking the less defended route. Or use armour to divert the opponent's attention until it's too late.
Too many times the A.I engages the nearest unit in a slug fest.
The A.I. needs a sense of purpose or missions. Once it breaks through the defensive line, pour in armour and go after specific targets of interest... not spend the day engaging the defensive artillery and getting shot to bits.
The A.I. could have specific missions based on the other players setup and strategies... such as when to use armour, when to bombard or when to blitzkrieg.|||First, bring up the A.I. army group to the front line.
Bombard defensive positions to soften up the defense and AA batteries with artillery while holding back the armour.
Release bomber to take out what's left then...
Release the armour to mop up what's left.|||You guys make AI building sound so easy.
|||That's because they have never tried building one.|||I once made an AI for my own freeware 2D maze game (which was luckily never released, the graphics looked aweful, sheesh 
), but it was a rather simple AI. All it had to do was to avoid walls, find the shortest way to the enemy, try to attack from the back, use different weapons according to the situation and stuff like that. The game was made with Gamemaker, which uses a Delphi/Basic like language.I wish the AIs for SC would be as simple and small like that one, sigh
The main problem with making AIs for SC is the fact that they are enormous, very complex and all the parts are connected and tweaked to fit each other. (e.g. i change a single build-priority and end up with an immobile AI).
And if that is not enough: try to keep up with the incredible speed of Sorian's AI developments, eeeeek!
Each time when i manage to finish an at least semi-useful version of my AI, he already has released two or three major improvements which make all other AIs look like dead ducks
lol, when my first AI was released i said i feel like bringing a chihuahua to a bear-fight, but today it is more like bringing a chihuahua with a 10ton weight attached to a bearfight....
|||Sorian, u made and u still make a great work with your AI mods, but lets face it, GPG released SupCom with a very very bad AI. If in this world were not be any other RTS game with decent AI we will all say.. yes .. its very hard to make an AI.. that's it. BUT because there are RTS games with decent AI's out there there is not excuse to release such a bad AI and after that, to say .. ok.. we will make it better BUT you have to buy another game.|||Needa|||well yes there is a lot of work with the AI as it is and there is more to do than just adapting it to balance changes.the more i dig into it the more i am disapointed with what was made. some function are just basically not working properly.
sorian team did a great job actually sorians Ai can already beat the crap of embedded Ai in 10 minutes. I really hope the new one provides a clarified and much more modder friendly interfacing with the core engine.
basically the Ai is not even competent with what you would expenct a computer to be good at and that is reliability, and micromanagment.
how the hell an AI could have been good at with such drawbacks to start with.
As a matter of fact i cant wait to discover what goodies will be put in with FA.|||Xenoc|||Sorry for the highjack, but where did you hear about AI in the beta?|||Surprised that you don't know about it. The early beta players found away to unlock it before the final patches and well it was absolutely mind blowing, even the easy AI was able to beat me in the beta in 20min.
While a current Hard AI can take me into a game for 1 hour and i still crush it by land forces and air drops. Something that was near impossible to do for me when the beta was out with the early AI types.
(Sample taken in the first 3 day's i played the beta, somehow i liked it better than current patches.)
Anyway beta had its flaws regarding to the scathis 99k+ energy per shot needed at least, glad that has been changed as well for scarab.|||I should have been more specific. I was curious where you heard about the AI in the FA Beta.
The SC1 beta is a different story with the unlocking to play AI.|||DFS|||Yeah, we didn't want that to happen again definitely. So we worked on it throughout the beta and still are.
But I just don't know how anyone can comment on the AI in the FA beta at all.|||Don't worry DFS, I have faith in you :).
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