RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.04 Release) (Full Version)

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fruitgnome -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.04 Release) (5/24/2015 5:32:05 PM)

You can see this while you want to save see above in the Explorer Window.



QuestGAV -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.04 Release) (5/24/2015 9:52:31 PM)

Sorry, I should've been more specific. I know what directory the autosaves are going to. Games that I manually save are either in a different directory or they're not saving (and not giving an error message) for whatever reason.

This is the directory that the autosaves & vanilla manual saves go to:

C:/Users/Username/My Documents/My Games/Distant Worlds Universe/Saved Games

I don't think it's an install problem as the mod works correctly. Has anyone encountered a similar problem?



Tanaka -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.04 Release) (5/24/2015 11:20:38 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: QuestGAV

Sorry, I should've been more specific. I know what directory the autosaves are going to. Games that I manually save are either in a different directory or they're not saving (and not giving an error message) for whatever reason.

This is the directory that the autosaves & vanilla manual saves go to:

C:/Users/Username/My Documents/My Games/Distant Worlds Universe/Saved Games

I don't think it's an install problem as the mod works correctly. Has anyone encountered a similar problem?


Did you install the new patch? When a new patch is installed the saves go in the new or old patch save folder...



QuestGAV -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.04 Release) (5/25/2015 5:26:20 AM)

Strangely, I started another new game and it seems to be working just fine now. Carry on!



Bingeling -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.04 Release) (5/25/2015 7:59:58 PM)

I am just trying my first game with extreme difficulty and the latest of this mod. Normal home system and expensive research.

Allowing the AI to run the first 20 years of pre-warp may not have been the best idea ever.

Oh, and the pirate spaceport I busted hurt quite a bit more than previously observed. At least it cured my cashflow problems while going down.



Icemania -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (5/30/2015 2:05:10 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Icemania

Extended AI Improvement Mod 1.05 Beta Changelog

1. Patch 1.9.5.10 introduced the ability to flee at 50% Armour or 20% Shields. Aggressive races with Short Range Weapons which were previously set to Never Flee now use the new setting.

2. Shifted Caleph Special Weapons Research Technology in the Tech Tree to match other races Special Weapons, otherwise the Caleph get to high tier weapons too early.

3. Shuffled Colonisation tree design based on feedback on the relative benefits and costs of each tier.

4. The AI now builds Planetary Shields at 1B population rather than 5B and Massive Shield Projection is researched much earlier. To ensure this change does not effect AI cashflow the maintenance cost of Planetary Shields has been reduced.

5. Zenox Shield Technology is nw an optional pre-requistite for Massive Shield Projection (so the Zenox don't need to research weak shields just to get pre-requisites for Planetary Shields).

6. Added Banoserit Special Technology for Long Range Scanners to their research build order.

7. Fix made to Kiadian Research Order which sometimes meant they would not research their Special Technology.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ls3pzrr874nuns9/Extended%20AI%20Improvement%20Mod%201.05.zip?dl=0

For those interested please give it a run and let me know how it goes. It's just uploading to Dropbox now, should be 30 minutes away.

Since there has been no feedback of any problems I've updated the OP with the 1.05 Extended Release. I haven't had a chance to do the same with Vanilla and since almost everybody downloads the Extended Version anyway I'll probably just focus on the Extended version for any future changes.



Icemania -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (5/30/2015 2:24:53 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

I am just trying my first game with extreme difficulty and the latest of this mod. Normal home system and expensive research.

Allowing the AI to run the first 20 years of pre-warp may not have been the best idea ever.

Oh, and the pirate spaceport I busted hurt quite a bit more than previously observed. At least it cured my cashflow problems while going down.

Glad to hear that Bingeling! Suggestions to continuously improve the Mod are always welcome.



SirHoraceHarkness -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (5/30/2015 4:14:45 AM)

The planetary shield tweak seems to have the desired effect. Started a game as boskara for the plasma firestorm and went on a bombard policy and by the time I had wiped the first empire and started on a second they started building shields so I had to resort to planet destroyers to quickly take out core worlds of the remaining empires.

I imagine on a game with the shakturi as the bad guys this will give the ai empires a much better chance to survive as you build up to be able to take them on.



Lyoncet -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (5/31/2015 12:42:05 PM)

Hey Ice,

Great work on this mod! I was on the forums time to time when you were just laying the theoretical framework of the mod, so it's great to come back and see you've done so much great stuff with it!

I'm probably just misunderstanding this, but it seems to me like changing some point-blank ships to retreat at "armor 50% or shields 20%" would make them run away SOONER than just "20% shields" rather than later like you seem to want. I'm assuming you set that as a medium between never running and running at 20% shields, but since hitting 20% shields still triggers the run behavior, it seems like it would have the opposite effect of what you're going for.

Although like I said, I'm probably just misunderstanding either your intent or the mechanic. Apologies if that's the case!



Bingeling -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (5/31/2015 12:48:24 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Icemania

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

I am just trying my first game with extreme difficulty and the latest of this mod. Normal home system and expensive research.

Allowing the AI to run the first 20 years of pre-warp may not have been the best idea ever.

Oh, and the pirate spaceport I busted hurt quite a bit more than previously observed. At least it cured my cashflow problems while going down.

Glad to hear that Bingeling! Suggestions to continuously improve the Mod are always welcome.

I think I just gave up on this game, it hurt too much, and was too much like work. Some thoughts that are from a single game that never expanded from the starting system, but I added two colonies there that never got far enough to be profitable. And I am quite rusty in playing the game in general, in addition to not being a "power gamer".

I started with normal home system and got the Gizurean by random. I tried to run with AI taxes, research, design. And characters, I hate characters. Expensive research. 30 years or a bit more to get the gerax drive, and that was with manually retrofitting the spaceport to energy labs only while doing the last 50% gerax research.

I may have been hurt by my start at the edge of a cluster. The rest of the cluster was grabbed by my neighbor who had way of the ancients by the time I got my gerax drive. By the location I lost a half circle of controlled systems, but of course, the other half was tightly packed. Starting "central cluster" with no neighbor interfering would be rather golden.

The AI spamming ships in pre-warp made sure I ran out of fuel. The early resupply ships helps a lot, but I had issue with the AI being very greedy for ship size and medical tech. I manually had to research the first transportation system to help my resupply ships. My home system gas giant being a caslon/hydrogen source did not help, of course, but refueling any decent size fleet on those ships was too much of a chore. I think they had about 3400 caslon after the first transportation upgrade, not a lot when carrying 20-40 ships in a fleet.

The good thing about medical tech focus was that I actually got the wonder. That surprised me, as I felt very far behind, which may have been because my local rival colonized very fast and had the ancients government. I saw his exploration ship probably 10 years before I left the system. I saw another empire (Ketarov) grab the trade wonder while I was building the medical one.

The AI researched basic fighter tech, but does not appear to use it. Maybe it is needed for something later, but no big deal as it is cheap.

The AI was all construction size, and insisted on getting 800 or whatever even though we have a 650-ish size capital ship size. It totally seemed to ignore researching the core energy techs, the reactor, hyperdrive, engine stuff is very cheap compared to higher tier techs. I would think that with 500 size available, it can be a good time to research the upgrade of the basic techs (for instance upgraded gerax).

The Gizzie ships felt weak, but I have never been much of a fan of those long range lasers. It is not like it prevents them from getting hurt by keeping out of range.

I liked the mining base design. They seem more tanky, and local defenders will have time to make a (first tech gerax) hyperdrive jump to the attackers and save the base if they are present. Maybe the quite fast gizzie ships helps in getting there in time.

The last thing I did was trying to take out the LSP of pirates bribed to attack me. I think I had about 45 cruisers where 6 were a distraction force (landing away from the spaceport and "first"). My guys barely scratched the shield, gravity weapons can be nasty :)

I tried to grab a local independent, and failed twice. I am not sure what went on, but they appeared to have no troops, I attacked with 10 or so, and appeared be considered as raiding. It could be some game issues with invading as a raid is happening. The pirates hurt too much to really pick the best moment to drop troops...

It was weird to wield more than 70 cruisers, have one colony system, and feel weak when it comes to military force [&o]
It also felt weird to watch my cruiser lose a 1 on 1 with a pirate escort.

One reason why the AI sucked so badly in pre-warp is of course that it was on the wrong side of extreme difficulty. It was on bubble drive with 4 construction ships, 5-10 troop transports and 20 (or more?) exploration ships. Or something like that. I doubt you can fix this in the mod, as there is no logic of "before and after gerax". And with enough money and gerax, it is a good setup, apart from building troop transports with no invasion target present.

It is always fun to watch the AI build troop transports according to late game percentages with no known colony apart from the capital, and no warp drive.

The game really needs a split in "before/after gerax" when it comes to construction percentages. 20+ exploration ships trying to bubble and explore nearby systems (where they can reach a lot, but run out of fuel) with a single fuel source that they can't defend because they use all the maintenance on exploration ships and troop transports.



Icemania -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/1/2015 1:06:40 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lyoncet
I'm probably just misunderstanding this, but it seems to me like changing some point-blank ships to retreat at "armor 50% or shields 20%" would make them run away SOONER than just "20% shields" rather than later like you seem to want. I'm assuming you set that as a medium between never running and running at 20% shields, but since hitting 20% shields still triggers the run behavior, it seems like it would have the opposite effect of what you're going for.

You might be right. What I had asked for a while back was a 50% armor setting which would be really cool for aggressive races. When you enter it in the design templates the text is just "Armor50" but the patch notes mentioned "or 20% shields". Since I'm playing other games at the moment I'm not really sure but I'm very interested in what you actually observe in-game ... ?



Icemania -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/1/2015 1:10:09 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling
The game really needs a split in "before/after gerax" when it comes to construction percentages. 20+ exploration ships trying to bubble and explore nearby systems (where they can reach a lot, but run out of fuel) with a single fuel source that they can't defend because they use all the maintenance on exploration ships and troop transports.

Nice write up Bingeling and very much agree with your suggestion above. Different percentages for other milestones would be great as well. For example after the explorers finish exploring they just sit around consuming maintenance costs but unfortunately there is nothing I can do to change that without gimping AI exploration.



ciadude2 -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/2/2015 4:13:26 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Icemania


Different percentages for other milestones would be great as well.


I think it'd be cool to be able to set it for specific tech levels for the aforementioned reasons. On top of that it would be cool if instead of the regular "explore system" option, if you could set your exploration ships to have a go at specifically just stars, or stars + ruins. Automated exploration would be far more efficient for outlying planets you don't plan to build at for a while.



ciadude2 -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/4/2015 7:59:59 PM)

Hey Icemania, I have a quick question.
Sorry if this has been addressed before, but I'm running into some weirdness with automated ship designs. When I change the techs to be focused on in the empire policy screen, the automated ship designs don't seem to take this into account. Like for example, I started a game as the Quameno and swapped it from missiles to torpedoes, researched all the way up to the second tier torpedoes(the long range fast moving ones) but my space port and ships still for some reason insist on using maxon blasters.
I'm not a huge fan of designing my own ships but at the same time this issue kind of makes it impossible not to. I also had my construction tech up to the point where I had the shipyard wonder and the capability to build cruisers so I know it wasn't merely that I was out of space. Power also wasn't a problem with their unique reactor. I had plenty of credits as well.

Otherwise this is a fantastic mod. I haven't had any other glitches or issues besides this. Thanks in advance.



Bingeling -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/4/2015 8:32:23 PM)

The reason why it uses maxos blasters, is that the design tells it to. The designer does not consider what the empire policy on research is. And in this mod, neither does the AI researcher.

The mod has a fixed research order to improve the pathing.

Independent of this mod, the AI designer always creates the design specified in the template. They are found in the designTemplates folder.

In the vanilla game you will see that tech focus is set to make the AI focus research on the weapons used by the design templates.

Looking at the Quameno design files in this mod, it appears that they are using area graviton weapons and a couple of graviton beams and a single blaster. They will do this whatever you research.






ciadude2 -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/5/2015 1:18:52 PM)

Ah, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks Bingeling!



Kaien -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/6/2015 12:22:09 AM)

I have a scientist, with gifted (+20% on my empire).
I dont have any bonus when I check my research page and I use my calculator.

Vanilla bug ? This mod bug ? I dont understand something ?



Fishers of Men -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/6/2015 4:08:29 PM)

Hello kaien! I am guessing that you are using the AI Improvement Mod with your current game. As far as I know, this mod does not make any adjustments to the research formula or individual scientists. Someone else might jump in here if I am wrong on this.

You might want to ask this question Tech section. I hope you get help you are requesting.



Kaien -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/7/2015 4:33:36 AM)

I use 3 mods. This one, a french translatiaon and a graphic one.
So, I think only this mod or the vanilla game can give this bug.

I will try to have this bug in vanilla version and go to tech section.



mordachai -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/7/2015 3:42:58 PM)

You have deployed your scientist to a research base / station with science labs on it?



Retreat1970 -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/7/2015 4:14:22 PM)

If I remember right, ultra genius trait gives 20% to total output, not a 20% bonus. Maybe I'm wrong, been awhile since I've played.



Haree78 -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/11/2015 12:16:20 PM)

Hi Icemania

Great work here, looking forward to seeing the improved designs etc. in game, will have to give them a go. So glad someone else went to work here, it's been a loooooong time since I went through all them designs and I think the originals took me something like 2 weeks full time work to do, if not more so I really appreciate what you have done.

One observation is that you have edited the race biases file extensively, what was the reason for doing this? A large part of the personality of the Extended races based on their background and their intended game effect was put in to effect through the race biases file. The entire point of the X-Humans for example was to in some games cause a massive rift in the repeated humanoid alliance that will occur in every game.
I know with your changes most of the balance work I did is probably redundant but their place in the galaxy and how they perform was largely based on the biases between the races. For example the new Avians are very unlikely to do well with these biases unless you have done something to counter this somehow?

A cursory glance shows things I don't understand also. Why are the Keskudon neutral towards the Keterov?

I don't intend to concentrate on the negative to an obviously stellar piece of work here but I wanted to ask what was going on here before I revert to the Extended version of race biases to keep the personalities and dynamic games I have come to expect.



Icemania -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/12/2015 9:47:24 AM)

Hey Haree78:

Good to see you here! There is a long story on this topic.

When I joined the Distant Worlds forums my initial concern was that the game was too easy. One of the main reasons for that was that I could always dictate terms to the AI. Even on Chaos Aggression the AI hardly ever declared war and I could simply pick them off one by one. In parallel, I would have a Free Trade Agreement with almost everyone and be able to trade technology with almost everyone. The personality of the more aggressive and unfriendly races was curtailed because they often played like a peaceful race with only relatively minor variations.

When you start the AI Improvement Mod you’ll see that most races don’t like you. You’ll have a couple of friendly races only. This is very, very deliberate … it’s a not a tea party anymore. Since relations start weaker generally, some of the AI’s are far more likely to declare war or blockade, you’ll have fewer Free Trade Agreements and fewer Technology Trading opportunities to exploit the AI with. Within a group, races may form a Mutual Defence Pact and therefore declare war on you as a group (although I’m considering whether to increase the friendly biases within a group a little further). There are also modifiers based on the race's characteristics.

And even more important change was to the policy file parameter “WarWillingness”. I realised that these were set to very low values in the range made available in the Modding guide … even for aggressive and unfriendly races. When I tested the impact of changing this parameter I was very pleased to see the AI declare war more often so I made changes to ensure there a much wider variety aligning with their racial characteristics.

The end result is you can’t simply dictate terms to the AI all the time. If you want to play a peaceful race you can but there will be times when the Space Nazi’s come along, declare war or blockade when you are not ready for it, and you’ll have to find a way to do what is necessary. How frequent this is will be determined by the aggression slider where the literal interpretation of the aggressive setting is what you will see in game. Restless is indeed Restless etc.

With respect to personality in the broader context I’ve enhanced that in a wide variety of ways. This was important because sometimes I have to get the AI’s to do the same thing to be competitive and I wanted to more than offset that. Some examples are … the races use a much wider variety of weapons and tactics. The Insect races use Bombardment and Planet Destroyers more. There is vastly more variety in what world types that different races target for colonisation and how they prioritise them. There is more variety in what structures the races build e.g. focused on the right Academies for their strategy. Different races have different Wonder targets that align with the racial preferences. Every race has a different research order aligned with their strategy (some parts of their research order are the same but not in combination across all three fields), so for example races that focus on speed/agility have much more focused research on speed/agility and you’ll notice the difference in-game. This includes race specific technologies including those you added in Extended, which you are much more likely to see being used and earlier. And as I mentioned already, aggressive and unfriendly races are actually aggressive and unfriendly, with every shade of grey in between depending on racial characteristics.

Now the choice I made was for the groups to be split primarily along racial lines. Some races are grouped together to avoid highly uneven numbers (such as Ursidian and Reptilians which explains your specific question on the Keskudon and Ketarovs). So what you are seeing is that it’s different to what you were expecting. Since different people have different “stories/backgrounds” they want in the game … I have a solution that anyone can apply with very little effort required. If you go to the Excel sheet in the Mod, go to the Summary worksheet. There you can choose which race is in which group to suit your liking via the column "Alliance". All the modifiers for aggressiveness, friendliness will calculate automatically through to the Race Biases sheet. Then just copy the Race Biases in that worksheet (in column CH) to the xml file and start a new game. I’d certainly be interested in how you split the groups up, if done this way we could probably get the best of both worlds (i.e. both align with the changes above and your original intent between the races) which could be a cool change for the next release.



Icemania -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/19/2015 10:16:34 AM)

I've just received a temporary ban from Dropbox due to excessive traffic. I changed to Dropbox some time ago as they could host the Mod for free while ensuring no advertisements when you download. However, they seem to have a pretty tight upload limit. I've been able to reset it but I'm not sure what they do on repeat bans.



ASHBERY76 -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/20/2015 5:08:08 PM)

Did the last update break the race families.The Yl'ta are showing up as humanoids and the Avian?



Icemania -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/20/2015 10:32:41 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
Did the last update break the race families.The Yl'ta are showing up as humanoids and the Avian?

I just checked the race files and started new games with the Yl'ta and Humans ... and as far as I can see everything looks fine. The Yl'ta are indeed Avians etc. Could you be more specific? The only thing I can think of is that you might be looking at the race biases. The way the Mod works is that there are 4 groups (this ties into the discussion with Haree78 above). Within those groups, races tend to be friendly ... but only within those groups. Now some groups contain more than one race family to ensure the number of races in each group are very similar. Otherwise the number of races in each group are completely different which means some races would have an advantage or disadvantage. The Humanoids and Avians are part of the same group. It's been this way for a long time, nothing changed in the last patch. If you don't like the race biases (noting that I do), just copy the vanilla race biases over to the Mod. Or change it to suit your personal preferences.



Pymous -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/21/2015 8:38:13 AM)

Just a message to thank you for this mod :)



ASHBERY76 -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/21/2015 5:09:58 PM)

When I look at the diplomacy screen the Yl'ta are classed as humanoid.



Icemania -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/22/2015 10:12:11 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
When I look at the diplomacy screen the Yl'ta are classed as humanoid.

They are clearly shown as race family "Avian" in the diplomacy screen in a couple of test games at my end. The race files clearly have them in the Avian family. Note that which race is in each family was not Modded beyond Extended and during testing I never saw a case such as this.



SirHoraceHarkness -> RE: AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release) (6/24/2015 6:28:18 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Icemania

I've just received a temporary ban from Dropbox due to excessive traffic. I changed to Dropbox some time ago as they could host the Mod for free while ensuring no advertisements when you download. However, they seem to have a pretty tight upload limit. I've been able to reset it but I'm not sure what they do on repeat bans.


Unless the terms have changed recently all that happens when you run into your limit is a temp suspension until your bandwidth allocation resets. A simple solution is to drop the file on several services and add a mirror list so there is always an option. Tbh a lot of modders I know from world of tanks and homeworld use adfly and at least make a few bucks if they have popular work. It's no big deal to me to wait five seconds on an ad page to get to the files someone put hard work into creating.



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