Brutal-OXCE 8.5.3

[Juku121]

Purely technical complexity: 2-1-1.

Actual in-game complexity of player/computer decisions: likely depends on the map and other factors.

Realism: impossible to tell without knowing what you consider 'realistic'. Especially considering you're the guy with DOSBox speedup addiction and certain other strange ideas.

[aziza]

Realism: impossible to tell without knowing what you consider 'realistic'

maphack by aliens - is not a realism (Targeting behaviour 4 + Bug hunt)
leeroy too, maybe

Purely technical complexity: 2-1-1.

what means 2-1-1?

[Juku121]

what means 2-1-1?

2> Multiplied with unit-aggression and take Leeroy-flag into account.
1> Use unit-aggression.
1> Inherit intelligence from unit-intelligence

maphack by aliens - is not a realism (Targeting behaviour 4 + Bug hunt)
leeroy too, maybe

The aliens can mind scan you. Realism!

More seriously, this doesn't really narrow it down much. Do you see the enemy defeating you with optimal play as 'realistic', or do you want them to have 'realistic' weaknesses in tactical decisionmaking?

[Xilmi]

how to configure these two options to get maximum complexity and realism?

The options you cited are outdated.
Which probably means I haven't updated the description since I last changed them.

[aziza]

are these options the most brutal?

[Xilmi]

are these options the most brutal?

No.

Realistic accuracy imho helps the player more than the Aliens. (but overall low impact)
Brutal AI for neutral forces can also help the player as it makes civilians pick up and use weapons. (but overall low impact)
Aggressiveness-mode should be 0 for smartest behavior but depending on the mission-type 0 can make it easier (notably if you don't have to kill all aliens and just have to reach a location or destroy an objective).
Intelligence-mode should also be 0 for smartest behavior. But it's impact is lower than aggressiveness-mode. It adds some randomization to the behavior which can make the AI less predictable but by the means of having them make sub-optimal moves.

However, the biggest impact comes from the following two:
Enabling bug hunt Mode for Brutal AI should make it quite a bit harder. The aliens no longer have to peek and search for you or will accidentally get caught by you flanking them. They always know where your units are which allows them to prepare much better ambushes.

The second big one is:
Targeting behavior for Brutal AI. On setting "4" the AI basically gets infinite mind-vision when it comes to targeting. So smoke doesn't help you anymore and they can also snipe you across the map without a spotter.

So with these two it would be way more brutal but by the means of being very unfair by giving the AI abilities you don't have.

[aziza]

bug hunt Mode
Targeting behavior 4

maphack = cheat
----
with the same success you can add 100% all weapons accuracy (to all aliens only) and write that this is a smart Brutal engine
and add 500 hp and 200 TU (for aliens only)
---
for special "pro-people", you can turn on this mode:  "Targeting behavior 4" + "Terrain destructibility 5" and see what happens on your first pro-mission

[Xilmi]

Sure it's a cheat. That's why it's disabled by default.

Earlier versions did have bug-hunt as default though because it was a lot of effort to teach the AI to play well without it.

I had to give them a memory of where and when they had last seen/noticed enemies and a way to take a guess where the enemy could have gone when it's confirmed not to be where it was believed to be.

[aziza]

That's why it's disabled by default.

it seems default BAI settings are most brutal

[aziza]

"Brutal AI avoids proximity-grenades" is working not perfectly, it is very easy to use these grenades, almost always you will catch some sectoid (even if there is a workaround) (and even if he was alone, he was not a suicide scout for attack by other teammates)
although to be honest, I had never used these grenades before and only started using them to defeat Brutal AI, because it is very difficult to win by other ways (Of course it’s possible, but with these grenades it’s much easier)

in other aspects - the quality of AI is at a very high level, x3 harder than original AI

[Xilmi]

"Brutal AI avoids proximity-grenades" is working not perfectly, it is very easy to use these grenades, almost always you will catch some sectoid (even if there is a workaround) (and even if he was alone, he was not a suicide scout for attack by other teammates)
although to be honest, I had never used these grenades before and only started using them to defeat Brutal AI, because it is very difficult to win by other ways (Of course it’s possible, but with these grenades it’s much easier)

in other aspects - the quality of AI is at a very high level, x3 harder than original AI

Is this with tweaked intelligence and/or aggression?

I've seen some players use them anyways as a ways to lock aliens in, which also could be helpful. But with default-settings they shouldn't walk into them. If they do I gotta check if I accidentally broke something.

[aziza]

all default - Aggressiveness 0 , Intelligence 0
BOXCE 8.3.3
just play 2-3 battles supply ship with sectoids and 50 proximity grenades + 50 grenades + 50 smokes

I will check it on 8.4.1 soon

if you throw a proximity grenade near the door of a house, you just need to wait for the explosion with the first death - alien will drop the primed grenade and will explode all the house with the rest 3 aliens
you can add shooting at walls for aliens to escape from a booby-trapped house
you can add mechanics for aliens to explode lied on the ground proximity grenades for exit other aliens (without deaths) from the house or from the UFO
and you can add random alien throwing grenades to the center of the smoke (random for minimal human abuse)
in common words - defeat BAI with grenades-only is more funny and easy than the rifles, rifles is really hard

in general, the random behavior is very cool, in one battle you can kill 15 aliens and lose 0 people
and in another battle you can kill 15 aliens and lose 15 people (when you don't play perfectly and forget 1-2 safety precautions)
but when there are only 3-4 aliens left, they will use the same waypoints every time

the attack trigger is very funny when the aliens push you - and kill 3-4 people or blow up 3-4 aliens with proximity grenades in 1 round
the smoky alien ninja is the special cherry-icing on the cake

[Xilmi]

if you throw a proximity grenade near the door of a house

Wait, you said "house", not UFO. I think I know what likely happens.
If you throw them near the UFO-wall, they will not avoid it and sometimes explode it by getting into the trigger-radius but while at the other side of the wall.
I made it so that they can defuse grenades that won't harm them anyways.

However, I didn't consider regular houses with weak wooden doors. If they try the same there, the mine will just explose outside of the door but the door will break and the alien will die anyways.

Maybe I can make them consider the armor of whatever they think will protect them from the explosion so they can figure out what things don't.

Edit: I'm actually already doing this. However, I compare armor of the blockage vs. the mine's power but the damage can be up to power * 2. So I guess that it's the explosions that roll higher are the cause of it and I have to require the armor to be twice the power in order to deem it save. I'll experiment a little with what you said.

Edit 2: It's kinda weird and inconsistent. Some mines are respected and they totally will not explode them. But others are ignored. Guess I have some debugging to do.

Edit 3: I found the issue. The proxy-safety is checked in "isPathToPositionSave". The function checks for risk of reaction fire with it's return-value and for risk of triggering a proxy-grenade in a reference-parameter.
So when it found an issue with reaction-fire-fear it would "return false" at this place. But this value was then only used as a score-modifier. And since the path is checked backwards from goal to start, it won't notice anymore that proxy-grenades on the path will be triggered as it has already left the function.
So the fix was to no longer "return false" but instead to set a return-value and only return it at the end.
The issue got way worse with 8.3.1 since this also used virtual positions of enemies for reaction-fire checks, whereas before it only used units actually visible. That's why I didn't notice it before and I didn't recheck if it still works after this change.

So thanks a lot for finding and reporting this issue!

[aziza]

ways to capture the commander:
way 1. shoot+dance around the avenger and fish out all the 15 missiles, then attack - out of 5 times it never worked, my team was dead, and flying armor for the whole team is very expensive and takes a long time to farm. even if you can survive - a neighbor alien killed by reaction fire, from which a primed grenade fell to the ground, and killed the commander
way 2. attack the base and not the battleship - at the base they generally kill me in the 1st turn, maybe just bad luck
way 3. destroy the entire battleship with 10 blaster launchers in the first two turns - the aliens go berserk and kill yourself with their own blaster launchers OR your soldier will miss and kill all your avenger team
way 4. even if there is a commander among the 5 survivors, then you still need to not only stun him, but also pick up his grenade, which he primed and which at the end of the turn will explode his body. if he was the last then you never can save him if he have a primed grenade because of  "auto-end battle" option
way 5. landing troops immediately on the 3rd floor through a broken wall and hoping that someone else’s missile doesn’t fly towards you (optional use way 3 to panic aliens)
it's just boring and not fun

+ if you wait landing battleship - then will be more countries collaborating with aliens
+ if you attack battleship - commander can be already killed at the start of the battlescape

even get 1 Blaster Bomb (Blaster Launcher ammo) for research - is a very big luck

way 6 - and it seems that rockets blown up at Avenger ramp always and never fly into Avenger itself, so it seems need to take 4 tanks and 10 humans and use tanks for scouting + move humans deep inside the craft, further away from ramp - then they will always be alive, need to test some battles. it seems like a winning strategy for fishing all alien rockets, you even can not only shoot+run by tanks, but stay+shoot by humans from the Avenger and await an additional ramp-rocket

so alien ramp-rocket is a bug

[Akamashi]

I play xcomfiles on the brutal. I am disappointed that zombies and other animals, which usually behave ultra aggressively, run away and hide like girls behind a corner. I drove four zombies with 4 agents in 40 turns. Is this normal, or should I change something in the settings?