Author Topic: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.12.1  (Read 129883 times)

Offline Abyss

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.7
« Reply #360 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.   

Offline Xilmi

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.7.0
« Reply #361 on: September 30, 2023, 02:19:26 pm »
I just added a new feature: Fog of war.

You can now enable "Fog of war" under Options => ADVANCED => Extended.
You can also select a color for the fog of war.

When enabled any tile that was previously visible to the player but currently isn't will now be drawn in the selected fog of war color. The default is grey.

It was requested here: https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenXcom/comments/16420i7/fog_of_war_mod/

Offline KaMef

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.7.0
« Reply #362 on: October 05, 2023, 01:31:05 pm »
I just added a new feature: Fog of war.

I really like this new feature, would it be possible to take into account the smoke for fog of war?

Offline Xilmi

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.7.0
« Reply #363 on: October 09, 2023, 02:59:16 pm »
I really like this new feature, would it be possible to take into account the smoke for fog of war?
That's not so easy for the reason that smoke only impacts vision on units but not on tiles.
So tile-visibility-data can't be taken "as is" for this purpose.

Offline KaMef

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.7.0
« Reply #364 on: October 12, 2023, 04:16:34 pm »
That's not so easy for the reason that smoke only impacts vision on units but not on tiles.
So tile-visibility-data can't be taken "as is" for this purpose.

It would be a great feature to be added in my opinion. :)

Would it be possible to have an option 3 for the fog of war feature as a mix of 1&2?
- visible fog of war for the actual turn + fog of war for the selected unit?

Offline zee_ra

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-AI 2.1.1
« Reply #365 on: October 22, 2023, 10:28:42 am »
I'm no longer actively pursuing OXCE-integration. If they want to have it, they can feel free to include it though. And that goes for everyone who wants it in their fork.

...

@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?

Offline Abyss

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-AI 2.1.1
« Reply #366 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.

Online Meridian

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.7.1
« Reply #367 on: October 22, 2023, 02:13:03 pm »
There are also other mission triggers, for example Retaliation.
And retaliation works differently in BAI than in OXC/E.

Offline Xilmi

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-AI 2.1.1
« Reply #368 on: October 23, 2023, 11:18:46 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?
There are two optional changes for the geoscape-level-behavior. One, as Meridian already mentioned is related to aggressive-retaliation.
With aggressive-retaliation enabled retaliation-missions can also trigger on successful missions against landed ufos and the search-pattern for the UFOs that look for your base is more consistent.

The other option makes it so that you can't outrange UFOs without having higher speed. This was done so that in vanilla you need  something better than interceptors to safely tackle bigger UFOs. I think in mods this is usually already resolved by rebalancing weapons.

But none of this has a huge impact on the geoscape-gameplay.

Offline Xilmi

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-AI 2.1.1
« Reply #369 on: October 23, 2023, 11:27:09 pm »
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.
What exact settings are you using?
The default "Enemy aggressiveness" of 2 shouldn't produce such behavior.

But if you use a higher value or enable "Inherit unit aggression", the AI uses the unit's aggression-setting to enact certain behaviors, which likely are sub-optimal from their perspective.

If the AI is easy to camp on "Enemy aggressiveness" of 2, then it's something I shall take a look at. If it happens on the aforementioned settings, then it's kinda intended for those.

Offline QuybiT

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.7.1
« Reply #370 on: October 24, 2023, 06:42:04 pm »
Hi. Will you ever port your mod to Android?

Offline Xilmi

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.7.1
« Reply #371 on: October 24, 2023, 10:51:50 pm »
Hi. Will you ever port your mod to Android?
Whoever is capable and willing to make a build-environment for that, is allowed to do it. I'm just not incentivised enough to do it myself.

Offline Xilmi

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.6.3
« Reply #372 on: November 01, 2023, 10:33:25 am »
Okay, I'm now positive the AI cheats in a major way in vision mode 3.
Little heads-up for you:
As of version 7.7.4 the AI no longer updates their knowledge of the whereabouts of your units when you open doors.

Offline Abyss

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-AI 2.1.1
« Reply #373 on: November 02, 2023, 12:43:48 pm »
What exact settings are you using?
The default "Enemy aggressiveness" of 2 shouldn't produce such behavior.

But if you use a higher value or enable "Inherit unit aggression", the AI uses the unit's aggression-setting to enact certain behaviors, which likely are sub-optimal from their perspective.

If the AI is easy to camp on "Enemy aggressiveness" of 2, then it's something I shall take a look at. If it happens on the aforementioned settings, then it's kinda intended for those.

Good day!
This comment may be outdated, because last version of BAI I played with was 7.6.8.

I was frequently switching between aggressiveness 2 and 3. Because it became too boresome watching same tactics BAI uses for every fraction.
May I take little of your time for better understanding of the idea behind my words? Below is basic table of scenarios.
Most battlescape scenarios player prefers to choose lay within white-green section, when player has 100% success probability, while evil modders tend to create battlescape scenarios within magenta-white area. That's sort of plot-moving force, so player feels the tension and overcoming of cruelties. It's also classic RPG scenario: to get something to deal with someone. X-COM is sort of RPG, too. Because, as I have it written many times, player has to raise soldier units from useless autistic battlescape meat into supersoldiers via in-battle experience and geoscape trainings and transformations. The battlescape tension curve is considered by modders.     

(Please note that Weapon power and Armor effectiveness are relative to average enemy on battlescape. I mean: RPG should be considered somewhere 3.5 vs power armor, gauss tank barrel is 5.0, while AK-47 should be considered 1 because it will never inflict any harm)

While 1-1 and 5-5 scenarios are generally uncommon, there are multiple missions with all possible variants of balance.

I will try to compare player's and BAI winning strategies for extremes:

1-1: Within this scenario, in most cases player couldn't win if not blind luck (or cheating)

2-2: Weak player units, the only possibility for player to win is in-door camping, or camo, use of flares and other tricks + peeking. In this case BAI should attack immediately, not prefer to hide first. Also, BAI can take open positions for preserved reaction fire, because it has good chances to survive and kill in return.

5-2:  Weaker player units with strong weapons. The best solution for player is reaction fire from camo positions. Because BAI ordinarily prefers to hide first, and only then to peek and attack, then go back, losing more than 50% of it's TU on movement. BAI has three scenarios:
- hide and wait till player comes first and reaction-fire his units;
- peek and suppress with explosives and no-LoS fire;
- or zerg-rush the position with possibility of player units miss or get out of reserved TU's

2-5: Player units are terminators with machetes: Player rushes for enemy openly, while BAI can't do much about it. It fires, but no particular harm being inflicted. The only relevant tactics for BAI are best available weapons and explosives. There passing weapons to each other could help (like, passing assault machinegun to other unit wielding pistol), if this is possible.

5-5: Player's forces are OP in all ways: BAI has no chances to win.
 
While considering extremes is kind of a wrong game overall, the scale of armor/weapon power (multiply) unit amount can be used for getting number of threat points to correct the strategy BAI uses to deal with player's invasion.   
 
Like,
for scenario 2-2 BAI acts with all possible means, suppresses more + reserves a lot of reaction fire at least for half of it's units, while others move forward;
for scenario 4-2 BAI, depending on layout, acts in more hidden manner or rudely exchanges chess pieces on rush (when amount of BAI units is >> amount of player units).
for scenario 2-4 BAI relies more on most powerful weapons and explosives

All this has been written in sole purpose to convince you that there are tons of possible stuff going on and reserving TU's for reaction fire is sometimes good. I don't know on which conditions your BAI taught itself, but in 50% of major mods missions it feels like a brutalless castrate who prefers to hide instead of punch the problem into the face. Who would run away in a power armor vs some black powder guns? Also, almost no reaction fire means less gaming experience and adventure of possibilities (making game more routine and less excited).

UPD. Ofc this is oversimplified model, for many other factors should be considered before strategy review. For discussion.
« Last Edit: November 03, 2023, 09:25:21 am by Abyss »

Offline Xilmi

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Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-AI 2.1.1
« Reply #374 on: November 08, 2023, 07:50:32 pm »
This comment may be outdated, because last version of BAI I played with was 7.6.8.
I highly recommend using the most current version, which can be found here:
https://github.com/Xilmi/OpenXcom/releases

Especially when part of the critique is the AI not reserving enough TUs for reaction-fire as this is something that definitely has improved since then.

Other than that, I suppose you are advocating for some sort of dynamic adjustment of the AI's behavior based on stat-comparison.

It also in parts could be understood as some sort of guidelines for modders to properly balance the game-progression.

One part I was missing in that matrix is the amount of units involved. If there's only a few units then they should probably behave differently than if there are a lot.

My thoughts on that are that, sure, if a unit is comparably tanky it can afford to play more aggressively and does not need to be concerned with cover. But on the other hand still taking cover despite having superior stats, while maybe not necessary, is also not really a disadvantage.

One thing that could be improved is the AIs utilization of their equipment. Right now the AI will never bother to pick up another weapon as long as it still has ammo left in theirs. Picking up a Heavy Plasma from their dead friend to upgrade from their Plasma Pistol is something they definitely could benefit from.
Right now the picking up of weapons is handled in a place outside of the AI-code, which is not really good design. Reworking this would be a relatively big effort. How much gain there is in that highly depends on initial loadout. I think XCF sometimes has dramatic differences in loadout-quality. With some enemies wielding nothing but a stick while others have a combat-rifle.