Improving EaW AI?

[Uranium - 235]

Really, I don't see how hard it'd be to make the AI smarter. They don't need to be able to beat Gary Kasperov in chess, but there's just some basic tactics that we should see done that frankly aren't very hard to manage.

 

For example, retreating damaged units. Part of what makes the player so effective in battle ( http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/5853/untitled37iv.jpg - In case you're wondering, the reason I lost was EVERYTHING WAS DEAD, except for ONE victory destroyer and a wing of TIE fighters. The Victory had no weapons at all, and the shields on my station were down and it was almost dead. The TIEs whittled me down and that was it) is that when my units are taking a pounding, I simply move them to the back of the line. The AI will stop firing on them and begin firing on something else, allowing me to bring my craft back into battle and continue attacking, but without the AI firing on them. They begin attacking new targets that are stronger.

 

Not only does the AI *NOT* take action for this (for example, if an enemy player were retreating damaged units, I would focus fire on the engines to keep it in place, or send faster units after it while my big guns find a new target), but the AI doesn't actually do this themselves. A ship taking a beating will continue to fly to its doom instead of taking evasive action, hiding in nebulae, or calling out covering craft.

 

Secondly, the AI needs to learn focus-fire tactics. In any fight, I first concentrate all guns on their Tartans / Corellian Corvettes. These guys are the most annoying and eat up my bomber wings which are lethally effective against capital ships. In most fights with the AI, they simply fire on anything near them. It'd be nice (and far more difficult) if the AI continuously targetted most of their guns on specific ships.

 

Finally, the AI just needs to respond to threats better. I sent a handful of Y-wings to take apart an ISD, and the AI never sent a Tartan or an Acclamator, or even any of the endless TIE fighters over to take them off.

 

 

I mean, really, how hard can this be?

[Nick2730]

i agree, the ai is just nothing

[Uranium - 235]

To be fair, I haven't seen a good AI in any RTS game in a long while. Total Annihilation's impressed me, but, even the AI in Starcraft wasn't too hot.

[Lucius]

comon, do you know at these times... should we really ask whether we should make computers smarter? 

I mean, they could one day take over the world....

 

lol, i duno

[SirNuke]

Ever try to program an AI before?  It's a lot harder to do then you think, especially with the general trend away from AIs that cheat to gain advantage.

[NOT Hadoken13]

I'd rather have a totally inept AI then one that cheats any day

[Dorkthehunter]

I don't care as long as the AI provides a challenge on land and in space.

[Uranium - 235]

Actually the focus-firing could be done with a complicated series of flags and say, 'threat levels'. Each unit would have an ever-increasing threat level that, when it reaches a certain point, would encourage craft that are strong against it to fire on it, with a heavier preferrence towards craft that are already under fire.

 

In theory, the way I'd do it is possible, and you could even code a little program to simulate it, but I have no idea how the EAW AI files work either.

[dinkatak]

this goes to player vs ai

it is so easy to play as rebellion as u can raid and as soon as u have a speeder u just raid any planet twice with 2 sets of 3 speeders and u can gain control.

but the empire is harder..

[MistenTH]

There are some basic AI targeting issues that are ridiculous though, that are easily fixed.

 

Do you notice your Mon Cals or ISDs ALWAYS aim at FIGHTERS even though they have 70 inaccuracy against them?  How stupid is that?

 

This is because fighters and bombers have the highest threat level in the Capital Ship targeting priority, even though they will NEVER hit.

 

This is easily fixed by a few lines of XML code, but the fact is it was released in this form.