Messages

121

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-AI 2.1.1

« on: October 22, 2023, 02:01:20 pm »

@Xilmi, What is your perspective on the mod compatibility with XCF?  Would it be reasonable to expect the Brutal-AI's behavior -- aside that from inside the tactical missions -- differing from the mainline OXCE when XCF is loaded as the master mod?

While waiting for Xilmi's response, I can comment as a player. 
No. It doesn't affect the global scripts, which are either time-based or research-based. So you'll get all the missions the same time you will otherwise get them in vanilla. But on battlescape... Sometimes I hope Xilmi makes a switch for enemies to reserve more TU's for reaction fire. Or even whole TU's after getting to the snapshot position. Because otherwise it's too easy to camp enemies that are coming closer each turn.

122

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.7

« on: September 28, 2023, 10:04:40 pm »

https://t.me/jnarical[/url]

I may use that way, but it is very convenient to write all suggestions and questions here on forum because some other players may join the discussion.
As some questions and questionable mechanics are years-old now, I could say your and Xilmi's visit should have brought far more attention, if everybody still interested in occasional improvements.   

123

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.7

« on: September 28, 2023, 02:13:24 pm »

Other than that... I can't make a mod, which would be balanced against all other mods. I totally don't want it to be balanced against one particular mod either. All it has to do is to show CORRECT accuracy numbers which align with real chance to hit. If there's 1% then it should hit 1 time of 100, but not in a way "I counted 99 misses, the next one should be a hit". And I'm afraid I can do nothing to make it align with, I'd say, such STRANGELY balanced mod as X-Piratez.

I assure you that in 99,5% cases both BAI and your mod will be used in mods.
And, most likely, statistically, 50% cases will be that it is used by Piratez player, 20% in XCF and Wh40K, and 9,5% rest. I guess, only tiny part of the players play vanilla X-COM in OXCE.
Nothing is balanced to the perfection. This particular autogun from my save is PSI-powered and considered OP by many players + soldier has weird high stats too. But that's due to excess of battles and battle commendations.

Initially, request was about weird voxel issues. One example is if enemy stands adjacent the wall, and is target for a shooter that stands parallel this wall, this wall somehow affects shooting chances, which makes no sense to me, but still is.

I will get the savegame as soon as I will find this behavior once again.

124

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.7

« on: September 28, 2023, 01:53:25 pm »

There are no known bugs when your shot fly through the unit but not detected as hit.

Actually, there is, and when real accuracy is off, and extender is on, I simultaneously see the cases when supposed 100% shots miss and projectiles fly through the sprite, not hitting the voxel itself. I just don't have savegame, because I never thought I will address these issues. Nevertheless, your mod makes this particular shot actually hit, thus the problem is solved.

As for the balance - if there's indeed no clue of how close-range shots affected by extender accuracy, may we talk with the designer of this? You see, it's kind of magic and fits game very well.
I'll bring you the case:
You have auto-fire sniper rifle, which has reduced hitchances for any tile closer than 10. At 10 tiles away it gives you 100% vanilla hitchance (which magically won't hit 100 out of 100 shots, but that's cool, too), but 0% at 2 tiles away.
Still, due to extender accuracy, you will likely hit at least 1 time in a queue of 3 shots, but also it may be 2 times or even 3.
I can only guess, that it somehow creates cone of possible trajectories, and the more precise the shooter, the narrower the cone is.
It's not like it will shoot somewhere 45 degrees from a target, right? Soldier with accuracy 120 should shot with little deviation from LoS (line of sight), but still can miss because target is too far away and it's actual contact surface is too small.

The question: what actual mechanics are, both in your mod and extender?
Is it cone mechanics, or just pure formula-based pre-hits (mean, system rolls 1 hit out of 10 and then forcefully pulls 9 hits to the random tiles around the target?)
     
And, one suggestion for your accuracy mod:
If it checks several points of shooting before deciding which fits best, shouldn't this also affect accuracy? You see, if straight/ out-of-the-waist  shot is considered worst, then the obstacle is on the way. If then weapon shifted to a side, such action must have penalty of decreased accuracy. My suggestion is 1/4 decrease of the final value.
Same to melee. I've noticed from the game that if target stays in front of the door, it sometimes can be attacked from adjacent tiles, and vice versa. These hits shouldn't be of same accuracy to the straight attack, because target has natural cover and has lesser area to evade/parry from. I guess, final chance attack success rate should be, at least, halved.
I would also suggest that shifting the hand should affect the chances, if not complicated to implement.
     

125

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.7

« on: September 28, 2023, 12:14:48 am »

tanks in x-piratez are killable now (maybe too easy, but what do you want from rocket launchers with accuracy > 150 while kneeling?)

The thing is, battle tank with the select box "sunken" into the chassis is the only tank and only mission in the whole giant mod. It might be done in such fashion to be harder dealt with, if not for basic defense from below. It also may had been done so player had to use his brains to deal with it. It's "challenge mission", too, btw. 
Other tanks, which are not static objects, are movable 4x4 units with clear select box.

I wanted to ask you, regarding your improvements in shooting mechanics:
can it be done in such way that legacy hit chances stay in place (e.g. extender accuracy, because all firearms had been balanced with it in mind), while weird stuff, like missing all twelve 140% shots, because bullets fly through the sprite, but don't hit the actual voxels, got solved? This mostly happens when enemy is either near the wall (while your soldier shoots from parallel position to it), or near the border of the map, or behind the opened door, or behind a stick pinned into the ground and so on. That's really frustrating.

The save is attached, soldier is facing the ninja, which is adjacent to map edge.
From this position, and from one tile diagonal closer it weirdly misses.

Don't get me wrong, your accuracy modification improves close-range shooting too well. And that's why I think it affects the balance (had it checked, too, vs plasma autofire enemies, and I thing there should be misses in the queue. Literally all plasma shots hit my soldier and I was upset. That's not what I got used to!). There's not only mechanical issues why things miss (aside from weird voxel issues) - each turn in X-COM is similar to 6-8 seconds in real life. Thus, hand tremor can justify three misses with 60% hit chance. Or four with 70%, rarely. But not twelve with 140%).

126

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.6

« on: September 22, 2023, 09:22:22 am »

One more "bug" report: enemy turrets don't shoot. I haven't checked 1x1 turrets, but 2x2 turrets, which are supposed to be the most troublesome enemy in specific missions (and during the base defend at the side of player too), just stay looking at same direction with no particular action.
With BAI turned off works as intended (seeks targets within line of sight and perform shooting).
I checked the stats of turrets, if this somehow helps: they all have some amount of TU (32-100) and 1 energy (immobile), with shooting cost flat % (like, 40% for chaingun turrets, 55+% for battle tank, which is this mission). Turning the turret costs some TU.   
Savegame is attached (XPZ).

As turrets are common and most strong enemy in early & mid game missions, this is vital issue.

127

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.6

« on: September 21, 2023, 06:03:49 pm »

New AI decision making breaks patterns of weak enemies: they just dance back and forth on two tiles. The save is attached (past few panic screaming sounds. The whole situation is that one unit dropped gas grenade and killed other unconscious BAI-controlled units).
BAI doesn't yet consider own unconscious units as potential combatants past couple of turns? Doubious situation, but overall ok.

128

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.6

« on: September 21, 2023, 05:22:43 pm »

Of corse this will not fix problem like energy shields that are vulnerable only to specific weapons types.

Of course, that's what I come up to during the analysis of possibilities: if modder (universe's God) gives something to the unit, it is purposeful and should be used.
Other, special attacks use should be balanced purpose-wise. If howl, then specifically to disrupt reactions. If CHARM, then specifically to take one out of the equation, not just to inflict some stun.

129

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.6

« on: September 21, 2023, 01:30:03 pm »

A mission vs ghosts that can only do CHARM damage. (it is similar to daze and inflicts stun.)
Indeed, now AI doesn't use it, preferring to hide or run around, whereas in vanilla it just spammed charm spells until whole crew is unconscious.
I, in person, think that AI still doesn't realize that driving whole enemy squad unconscious is victory condition, too.
If it can inflict wounds - that's good,
If it cannot, then every possible way is good.
Ghosts can do much better, as their attacks ignore armor.

Firstly it checks this via the scoring-algorithm that also determines who to attack. There it calculates the assumed damage based on their weapon-damage, the targets armor and the targets resistances.

That's convenient, but does it:
- count (0-100)x2 damage roll? Which means, that weapons rarely make 200% damage
- to be not that cheaty, at least try to inflict damage before deciding to flee or hide?
- know that fire does at least 1 damage?
- know that his weapon (mostly, multibarrel weapons and energy weapons) reduces target's armor, and then damage can be inflicted?
- interesting, can BAI decide to pass the most convenient weapon to the next unit (e.g. drop it on ground and move a tile, then next unit picks up the weapon and shoots one more time, as player can do this multiple times)

Well, actually the part of the balance is mostly up to the modders who design enemies in each tier of game, BAI's part is to make it better in decision making.
If some unit cannot inflict damage, it still should act with it's powers.

BTW, ghost mission is not the only when possible CHARM attacks are mostly ignored by BAI. There's a mission where naked guys are running around your single soldier on cruise liner. Seems like they don't know how to use melee CHARM attack properly. This is their only attack, because lore-wise they are non-combatants (no brawl).
Ranged CHARM attacks from other units were simultaniously used (although not that efficiently as it could be).

What is it all about, I think:
If modder adds some special weapon (like special claws, howl, or melee/ranged charm, or mind control), he presumes that it alone will make difficulties to the player, thus keeping intrigue even in mid/late missions where all-brutally armored.

130

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.6

« on: September 21, 2023, 11:11:01 am »

Made saves for werewolves howling, both geoscape (vessel approaching) and battlescape. The version with "bugged" behavior was 7.6.1. Testing it too.
UPD. Works much better.
Still, one thing that will raise the elegance: howling disrupts reaction attacks, so if werewolf howls at someone, he logically should attack that particular unit.
Right now howling is much less (still here, which is good for objective reasons), but melee attacks and "aimed shots" are patterned in such way that melee to closest unit, while howl at random.   

131

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.6

« on: September 21, 2023, 10:35:48 am »

Xilmi, I read the changelog for 7.6.6. and it seems practically good approach.
The mechanics in OXCE are that each crewmate death damages morale for all units. Plus, in XPZ morale lowers by itself due to units' armor stats (crew gets bored).

"The AI shall no longer attack targets that it cannot harm at all and instead spend their time-units on something else." -
How is it checked?
If by trial and error, then will it be that barehanded naked guys will flee from power-armored crew? 

132

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.3

« on: September 20, 2023, 01:36:05 am »

Xilmi, one more thing I found out:
dogs, werewolves etc. have barking/howling attack, which is ordinarily used to damage TU, morale and reactions, rarely causing stun reactions.
BAI tends to prefer this over convenient claws/jaws, which damages HP.
Recently I've got the mission in X-Piratez where I had to deal with 9 werewolves barehandedly (don't ask why, it's insanely deep lore of XPZ), and they were running around me and howling.

Could that be another AI check: if something can do lethal damage, prefer it over others (not 100% chance, maybe 66-80% because howling is fun too). But I have little comprehension how that would not cause troubles with tribals behavior, who prefer using poisonous darts (damages little HP, but lot of morale and stun), but have daggers as well. See, they doing good. Only dogs and werewolves aren't.

Right now I am doing mission vs deep ones on cruise liner, and I have to say it's very immersive to freaking be scared of every door across, because that last couple of MF's lured so nicely for last suicidal run in the name of deep ocean god.

GJ man. 

133

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.1

« on: September 07, 2023, 12:48:44 pm »

Edit: Question: Was this with his feature enabled?
Also: Can you provide a save where you think they should have used ranged-weapons but went for melee instead for testing-purposes?

Oh. God. Save is long gone. I should have long gotten into the spirit of baghunting... It also may be worth considering that I still play 7.5.1.
Will try to catch the moment, if it will happen again.

- For the lobstermen: I noticed that they indeed prefer to take things from the ground. In "vanilla" X-Piratez, btw, they don't, possibly because of hardcoded string in the unit description.
Naturally, I think, strong-armored units like lobstermen should act more open, instead of peeking and taking cover. Also, their claws are strong enough to rip non-powersuit player units apart.

Actually, all these questions are fluid, as the player's progress goes on, strong enemy units eventually become weak (not even saying about special measures vs most types of enemies that modders carefully introduced. Like, deep ones are very exposed vs poison grenades).
So, strong enemies that are supposed to be very aggressive in the beginning of the game become paper-made in the late game.
I don't think this issue can be addressed other than by careful map-balancing by a modder himself.

- For the zombies.
1. In vanilla OXCE X-Piratez and X-Com Files low-tier zombies cannot evade shooting from close-quarter combat (CQC) position, whereas Brutal OXCE somehow enables this behavior.
2. Even with max aggressiveness, BAI zombies sometimes prefer to surround and go around behind player units instead of just biting from closest tile. Sometimes this behavior is good and interesting, but most of the times it reduces actual strength of zombies attack wave. I cannot find out what type of attack zombies do use, X-Pedia 2.0 says they have built-in item "zombie punch" worth 15 TU but doesn't specify the damage. It might be hardcoded somewhere specially for zombies.
3. Also, in vanilla XCF zombies make special growling sound when seeing and chasing enemy units)
The easiest way I might suggest is BAI rely on vanilla rules with everything that regards low-tier zombie threat. They are well-balanced and there's not much for AI to consider: see-chase-kill.

134

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.1

« on: September 04, 2023, 12:11:37 pm »

I’ll go on the wave of illogic things BAI does:
When BAI decides whether to go onto melee or not, it doesn't count weapon strength and estimated target's armor. I'll specify that bare fists count as melee weapon, too.
Now, how weird it's to see that enemies try to punch a power-armored player's unit.
Not that it is unfavorable, but can be dice rolled, if not forcing BAI to assume armor/weapon check via cheat (cheating may raise the difficulty of gameplay, which is already a couple of tiers higher than vanilla), or more honestly, to check whether it works or not (damage/stun application check (yes/no) -> decides to switch weapon).

135

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.1

« on: September 01, 2023, 08:11:54 pm »

I toyed around with considering dead friends in the cuddle-Avoid-Modifier but eventually decided against it.

I'm sorry, this reply will not be even close to structurized: I try to estimate experience with BAI from different perspectives the same time. I really want to keep this challenging, yet balanced to certain point of joy.

I am considering, specifically two things:
- Ag3, because it seems like the most live-action (not mega-boring game, faster game, but disappointing in terms of wasting TU for too fast advance vs keeping it to fire back)
- There are tons of various scenarios for this game.
From player is Naked/rifles vs Powersuits/rockets/plasma/gauss enemies
to Player is powersuits/gauss/rockets vs Naked enemies,
to 190 TU chupacabras fights (which BAI wisely invests in killing player units within every possible scenario) 

One of the most challenging scenarios: when you begin mission, surrounded by tier/tier+ enemies, all facing towards you, with 100% TUs. And after you shoot, you get a hail of reaction bullets, plasma, rockets, whatever.

Same time, no matter how advanced AI in terms of open-battlefield tactics is, it may be weird to presume that armored units should take cover, not preserving TU's for reaction fire, being able to actually fire in reply, or even prior to player.
Also, in the fair scenario, enemies rarely die from 1 bullet taken. And after taking single bullet, even in back, they may turn back and fire whatever they have equipped. But, in case of weak enemies, usually missions designed in way of enemies quantity. 

If only BAI can decide whether this particular unit can take role of a tank... I would suggest a bit of change for Ag3. Name it Aggressiveness 3,5 (Plan B). instead of force-hide closer to supposed player location, BAI can act more open:
- if player is seen, then Ag2 tactics,
- if not, prefer more strategic surrounding over ending turns w/o TU's (not close enough, more reaction-fire oriented, with chose of two strategies: weak armor: carefully advancing + preserve from the corner AND  strong armor: reaction fire-oriented surround + preserve facing the open direction).