Controlling A.I

[Solidusbucket]

I think its important that A.I are made to be slightly more controllable.

A good start would be letting us control each individual A.I while continuing to use the current command system.

I know this game is meant to be played with others, but with Alliance coming out, there will be players who play alone (or with unfilled boats) and will quit the game / complain about bad A.I.

It has been proposed before on here but the thread went pretty unnoticed.

1-4 are pilot tools.

5-8 should select the A.I (and it can be rebound).
5=all
6=first a.i
7=second a.i
8=third a.i

I would personally have it bound as 5, T, G, V but thats just me.

[Unarmed Civilian]

They're going to say "AI are intentionally bad to encourage playing with real players". But the AI in my experience are better than half the real players in the game. It's to the point where I have to compensate for real players joining and filling out my ship that started the match with 3 AI by engaging way closer than I want to because they can't aim. At least I've been handing out lumberjack experience.


Either way, this would definitely be an improvement on AI, being able to command AI individually. It might make Mobula possible to fly without 4 people on it and coax people out of the double side flare Pyra loadout. This could also be used as a method of directing individual crewmen without using a mic or stopping to type in chat.

[Richard LeMoon]

That is because AI are predictably bad, while players are unpredictably bad.

[Unarmed Civilian]

AI are skilled, but brainless. New players have brains (in theory), but are unskilled. In theory you can teach them basic skills to put them on par with AI, but that takes time and a ship that's both forgiving of mistakes and one the pilot is willing to fly.

Of the ships that have especially unforgiving roles, 3 of them can have AI fill in the gaps effectively (doesn't take a ton of micromanagement): Pyramidion, Goldfish, Squid.

2 of them, Spire and Mobula, absolutely cannot. Some might argue Galleon should go here as well, though I think otherwise.

Having more ships that people would actually want to fly whose more unforgiving roles can be filled adequately with AI would do a lot to encourage pilots to fly ships that they wouldn't normally take with randoms. Very new, very inexperienced people are not capable of filling the unforgiving roles, so we need the AI to make up for that if you want to see experienced captains taking newbies on ships that aren't Pyramidion.

[fp lambda]

How about programmable AI using YAML (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YAML), or some sort of GUI to customize the AI behavior? Here's an example of a possible schema for programming the AI for the Hades-Artemis Mobula in YAML:

---
ai-1:
    class: gunner
    ammo:
        - lesmok
        - greased
        - lochnagar
    engineer-tools:
        - wrench
    pilot-tools:
        - spyglass
    shoot:
        - weapon: 3
          ammo:
              - lesmok
              - greased
    repair:
        - part: weapon-3
        - part: middle-engine
          damage: 50%
          when: not-in-combat
    rebuild:
        - part: weapon-3
        - part: middle-engine
          when: not-in-combat

ai-2:
    class: engineer
    ammo:
        - burst
    engineer-tools:
        - spanner
        - mallet
        - extinguisher
    pilot-tools:
        - spyglass
    shoot:
        - weapon: 2
          ammo:
              - burst
    repair:
        - part: weapon-2
        - part: hull
          damage: 50%
        - part: left-engine
          damage: 50%
    rebuild:
        - part: weapon-2
          priority: 3
        - part: hull
          priority: 1
        - part: left-engine
          priority: 2
    extinguish:
        - part: weapon-2
        - part: hull
        - part: left-engine
        - part: middle-engine
          when: not-in-combat

ai-3:
    class: engineer
    ammo:
        - burst
    engineer-tools:
        - spanner
        - mallet
        - extinguisher
    pilot-tools:
        - spyglass
    shoot:
        - weapon: 1
          ammo:
              - burst
    repair:
        - part: weapon-1
        - part: balloon
          damage: 50%
        - part: right-engine
          damage: 50%
    rebuild:
        - part: weapon-1
          priority: 3
        - part: balloon
          priority: 1
        - part: right-engine
          priority: 2
    extinguish:
        - part: weapon-1
        - part: balloon
        - part: right-engine
        - part: middle-engine
          when: not-in-combat

Maybe have multiple AI plans bound to F5-F8: standard positions, full repairs, short-range combat, etc. And all of a sudden, AI works on the Mobula.

I'm aware that this has problems like when someone joins in the middle of the match and replaces an AI but I'm sure it can be refined. Surely this idea will never be fully implemented but it's still fun to think about how much humans or rather, newbies are worth if AI are a little smarter. At the very least, the ability to lock the AI to certain parts of the ship would be nice.

[RearAdmiralZill]

Individual control of AI would be swell, even with the generic orders we have now. At least a step in the right direction.

Biggest issue I see with AI on a Mobula/Spire/Galleon/Junker is option overload and AI paths. Option overload being the amount of guns and the AI just using whatever has arc if told to shoot something. Paths being no stamina usage for movement (to my knowledge) on large ships and their lack of parkour.

While making AI super customizable would be cool, I don't think it's that feasible given their scope. I doubt Muse want us to have that kind of control because then we could make them better than a lot of players, which leads to worse conditions for newer players. A little more use out of them would be nice, but within reason.

[Richard LeMoon]

I think it would have the opposite effect. Good AI means vets will start matches with AI crew more often. This takes vets out of the MM pool. New players will get matched with each other more often, and also start games with partial AI crew, with AI making them not completely suck. The only issue you might run into is new players not wanting to play with each other because the AI is better. That can be fixed with scaling crew AI difficulty to the level of the players. MM can then be more selective in where it puts players, making better games for everyone. More people would log in, since it would not matter if population was low.

We saw this exact result in Alliance, where AI on your ship were a match for the PvE AI ships (both are pretty bad). An overwhelming majority of matches were started with AI crew.

Look at any other team vs team game with AI. The AI are generally pretty good, and new players don't feel bad having "The AI 'character'" on their team. They eventually outgrow them and want to play with better players. In effect, the AI are often the equivalent of a noob tube to starting players.

As it is, AI are bad. They are predictable, but bad. Any 1st gamer that can listen is better than they are. So, you end up with vets holding out for that one extra crew, hoping that level 2 that just joined will be more competent than an AI.