I have modded Ai’s for myself since the first release of Supreme Commander. But I have never modded anything for release so any errors on my part I ask that you bear with me until I figure things out like FTP uploading etc. I have always modded the game files themselves before so hooking etc, even scd packaging for upload for me is new.
This is a resurrection of an old pre FA mod made by a map maker here who goes by the handle of stix. I have contacted stix via pm and have received his permission to update his original mod
This is a very very Beta release more to show what I am trying to do. I am primarily looking for constructive feed back at this point. I know it needs a real AI. As it is now it is tuned for stock GPG AI use. The only things that are actually affected by the small ai already in this version are engineer resource builders. I had to tune them to not spam build. The ai is not perfect yet in any sense of a real challenge against a good player and there is still much AI work to do. But it is functional. It will build etc.
I do not play on line. The current mod ai uses the engineer resource platoons that are in the stock GPG AI. This causes a warning message stating that there are duplicate builder and platoon templates to appear in the debug log window in game. This is only a warning and not a game stopper and it has no affect on the game when playing skirmish but I have no idea what effect it may have in on line play.
I HAVE THIS WARNING MESSAGE DISABLED BUT THE DUPLICATE TEMPLATES ARE STILL THERE !!!!!
I do not know if this can cause desyncs in on line play. If somebody could test this for me I would appreciate it very much.
As it is now I have enabled drag build for the extractors thus the human player can drag build. Remember regardless of on line or skirmish the AI can build the same as the human player thus if you are using the all metal mod then so is the ai.
I have been trying to get a player only version but I have been trying to over come a steep learning curve concerning hooking files, Lua coding and such things.
Many people try to judge an ai by playing it against another ai and only observing. I can tell you from experience that an ai will perform very differently when a human player is playing against it. Plus the more AI’s you have running also affect how it will respond
INSTALLATION
Installation is the same as any other non scd mod. Extract to your mygame/mods folder.
For Vista and Windows 7 users this folder is found in,
C:\Documents\My Games\Gas Powered Games\Supreme Commander Forged Alliance.
You may not have a mod folder in there yet. No problem just create a new folder in there and name it mods and place the extracted file in there. Start the game and use game options and open the mod manager and activate the mod.
As for XP users I am not really sure where the FA mods folder is located. Most likely the same place as I remember other games using the XP documents my games folder.
I hope this mod catches your interest and we can all build it together. It would be nice to see some old TA style metal maps again.
DOWNLOAD LINK
http://www.mediafire.com/myfiles.php
Moe|||Hello Cipher
As it is right now yes. Because it has no ai to speak of. The ONLY thing that the mod ai controls at this point is the resource builder engineers. Everything else is the stock GPG ai. I am going to start to change that just as soon as I post this. Oh, I did add 1 pd turret and 1 anti air turret to the commander initial base build. The Ai utility still has and uses all of the mass marker functions and they are still used as reference points by the ai. The resource builders still move mostly but not always to the mass points first and then off to the adjacent areas to build the extractors. So the Ai still seeks to control the map. I just need to add some amperage to the ai so it hits with more of a jolt The Ai still uses expansion bases etc because of the defensive point markers. If you have noticed in skirmish games the ai builds factories that it never uses or upgrades. 2 primary issues cause this. Lack of balance in the upgrade ai and lack of metal. As I was first adjusting the resource engineers to not spam build mexes every factory it had was producing and upgrading because of ample mass resources. This adjustment still needs more work and as I change/add to the Ai it will have to be economically rebalanced many more times. This is done with the ai build conditions that each construction platoon follows. The primary problem at this point is Mass needs power so more mass means more power generators etc thus if it is unbalanced it goes into a build loop of extractor-power extractor-power and builds little else. Also you can place a cap on how many extractors the ai will build. Once it reaches a certain number it will not order any more but any extractor orders that were issued will still be built so the cap is rough at best.
As you probably already know but others may not, You can check the ai resource supply in game by using the run opponent ai function in the ~ console. it is always choking on metal. Also notice that the ai only builds a factory next to a mass deposit mostly by accident. With build anywhere you can use the AI adjacency function and have extractors built next to factories thus taking advantage of the bonuses. Well, At least that is the plan anyway. We will see how well that works out. The Ai can be very un cooperative at times.
Another wasted feature to me at least is the ai building mass storage units 4 per extractor. While the AI is hurting for metal to build it is building 4 soft target units that usually get blasted along with the extractor and the engineer that was doing the building along with it thus causing the ai to build more engineers to build more mass storage units before they are even finished building the last set. It is better served to have Point and air defense as at least part of the adjacency rather than just mass storage thus making every extractor a defensive point with a longer life expectancy to produce more mass. In an early Sorian release of the original SP ai he had td 2 defences with a shield at each mass point. that was pretty cool looking but he took the shields out later probably due to economy. I am not knocking the mass storage units. They are useful units. I am just saying that they are over built and usually in hostile areas. Spam building has always been a difficult thing to control in both FA and vanilla SC mostly because of the way the Ai assigns it's build orders.
Also remember that this AI can be tuned to hunt extractors in force. Thus if the human player has decided to consolidate their extractors inside their main base then the primary attack focus of the Ai is going to be their main base.
Just a few points among the many to consider about the real potential of this type of ai once it is tuned. It can build more experimental units, More T3 artillery, More nukes, More tech 2 and 3 units etc making a much more difficult and challenging game.
In the early days of Supreme Commander when Sorian was first developing his AI I received his permission to use functions from his code with the common courtesy caveat that I simply give credit where credit is due. I do at this point at least intend to incorporate various Sorian functions such as transports, path finding, scouting and Intel. I am not going to do it right away though and not if it is not necessary. It is usually more difficult to merge functions than it is to simply adjust the existing functions.
I am looking for models and scripts etc for new engineers. I want to add a new class of engineer that does the build anywhere function and return the original engineers to build on the mass points. I can do that now but it leaves a blank spot in the build menu plus all the engineers look the same thus making difficult to which engineer has the build any where function and which one does not.
I do appreciate yours or anybody else's input. But no ai nor any mod is one size fits all. Thus the diversity of mods that make gaming interesting and fun for every type of player rather than just a few.
I am not sure if this type of discussion is permitted in this part of the forum so if you have any further input can we move it to the ai thread where I have already started a thread for this mod.
Moe|||I just want confirm what this mod is...
Is it just an AI to work on metal maps or does it enable anywhere mass building on all maps? Does it include any metal maps?|||duncane|||While I think what you have done is great, I think the key is metal maps...
It was never really a worthwhile tactic on non-metal maps.|||duncane
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