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Author Topic: Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N7 16-Dec-2023 Flying Tiger, Hidden Tentacle  (Read 3611208 times)

Offline Starving Poet

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3735 on: December 08, 2016, 11:30:19 pm »
I'm wondering if there are ways to make the zombies more aggressive and actively moving towards things that shoot at them. 

They don't have very much in the way of TU - nor are they meant to - but if you want to go ahead and make them fast zombies, just up their TU and energy recovery to 100.     :D


Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3736 on: December 09, 2016, 12:56:45 am »
The problem isn't speed, but coherence. 20 slow Zombies which more or less charge at you at once is a very bad thing; 20 slow Zombies which just ramble about and only attack you when they have no excuses is just a long mission.

I tried upping their Aggression to beyond-vanilla levels, but it doesn't seem to do anything. I guess it would need an AI upgrade, or maybe better understanding how melee AI works, so I could think of some sort of trick.

Offline KateMicucci

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3737 on: December 09, 2016, 01:29:35 am »
What if you give them perfect knowledge of where the player is?

Offline legionof1

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3738 on: December 09, 2016, 01:42:40 am »
The AI is pretty awful if nothing is in vision, so super vision might help. Perhaps long range "sense".

Still more reasons to rebuild the ai. Last few months have had alot of issues where the best answer for quality was "new AI".

Offline Arthanor

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3739 on: December 09, 2016, 01:48:20 am »
Looking into the AI code, there's a lot of stuff that makes a unit want to escape, but especially if it's hurt and sees lots of enemies at once. In a zombie mission, the player generally shoots the closest zombie first (why wouldn't you?) and also generally keeps all the soldiers together (because you don't need to move, they all need support and that's closer to the ammo pile). This results in a situation where the closest zombies are hurt and see many enemies, so likely try to escape. Zombies are also melee and pretty slow, so the further ones probably can't charge this turn they're probably unlikely to try to advanced unless they can get cover.

This result in a situation where the closest zombies retreat when wounded, the ones not too far refuse to advance into exposed positions because they see 4 soldiers (assuming a van) and the presence of other zombies does nothing to influence their decision and make them likely to charge because every alien is considered independently (that's the point of vanilla: Superhuman aliens grown in vat and with no coordination but great weapons VS simple human with crappy weapons but good team play: Humans + team play + good tactics wins and player is happy). But it doesn't work very well for zombies or some other factions in mods.

As for giving the knowledge of where the player is, that's usually not a problem in zombie maps since there are plenty of zombies in sight already (and they see you too). But that would make them deadly in terrain heavy maps where you are more likely to be in charge range and to spread your soldiers as opposed to open maps where you can stick together and there's no hiding for zombies. A good fix should make a zombie horde charge you in open terrain and try to overwhelm you with numbers, not make scattered zombies in terrain suddenly psychic things that know exactly when to leap out to get you.

For this, I can only see cranking up aggression to insane levels to lower escape odds as much as possible but in the following code:

Code: [Select]
https:// take our aggression into consideration
switch (_unit->getAggression())
{
case 0:
escapeOdds *= 1.4;
combatOdds *= 0.7;
break;
case 1:
ambushOdds *= 1.1;
break;
case 2:
combatOdds *= 1.4;
escapeOdds *= 0.7;
break;
default:
combatOdds *= std::max(0.1, std::min(2.0, 1.2 + (_unit->getAggression() / 10)));
escapeOdds *= std::min(2.0, std::max(0.1, 0.9 - (_unit->getAggression() / 10)));
break;
}

It looks as if values other than 0-1-2 get handled by a default that caps useable values for aggression at 8. Changing this min/max to a formula that can be extended beyond 8 could enable modders to set aggression to 200 and pretty much get a unit that always goes for the charge?

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3740 on: December 09, 2016, 02:49:25 am »
Thanks for the detailed info, Arthanor. I don't understand the code* and why aggression is effectively capped at 8, but I'll take your word for it.

If we set Aggression to 8, how likely are Zombies to charge on average?

* for example, what does it mean: std::max(0.1, std::min(2.0, 1.2 etc. - what syntax is this?

Offline ohartenstein23

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3741 on: December 09, 2016, 02:59:11 am »
The std:: can be ignored for the sake of reading, so it's taking the maximum value between 0.1 and everything in the min() value, which is the minimum between 2.0 and 1.2+aggression/10.  That minimum statement effectively caps aggression to 8, since values above 8 would make 1.2+aggression/10 greater than 2.0.

At 8, it looks like the chance of charging is doubled every time this code snippet is run.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3742 on: December 09, 2016, 03:15:11 am »
The std:: can be ignored for the sake of reading, so it's taking the maximum value between 0.1 and everything in the min() value, which is the minimum between 2.0 and 1.2+aggression/10.  That minimum statement effectively caps aggression to 8, since values above 8 would make 1.2+aggression/10 greater than 2.0.

At 8, it looks like the chance of charging is doubled every time this code snippet is run.

OK, it's simple enough.

Wouldn't it be enough to just change 2.0 to something higher then? With my extremely limited understanding, I can't see how it would harm vanilla.

Offline CaptainCorkscrew

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3743 on: December 09, 2016, 11:53:57 am »
That depends on whether vanilla has higher values than 8 in their rulesets or not. If they only have 8 or lower - no problem. If they use higher values, event though it did not result in combat odds above 2, then it would change vanilla behavior.
Edit: Other mods might also be affected for the very same reason. They simply might not have realized that 8 is the effective cap for aggression.
« Last Edit: December 09, 2016, 12:19:39 pm by CaptainCorkscrew »

Offline CaptainCorkscrew

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3744 on: December 09, 2016, 12:25:25 pm »
Difficulty also increases ufo firing rate and alien stats.  Also, the lowest difficulty cuts all enemies armor by half.  See this article for more information.

Thanks. It's a bit odd that there is no 'default' or 'normal' difficulty level with everything at 100 %. I guess the closest thing is "Experienced".

I'll likely use that for my first LP then. Starting soon-ish. I also wonder whether I should wait for the next X-Piratez version and use OXCE+ 3.5.

Offline Starving Poet

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3745 on: December 09, 2016, 02:33:34 pm »
Yeah, Aggression might be a problem but if you look at the units, Chryssalids actually have much less aggression than the zombies, but they are more likely to attack and, boiled down, that's because they are more likely to get in range and attack with 110 TUs versus the zombies 40.   So, yes - new AI to make 100% aggression a thing should help - and I agree that zombies should have it, but until then - giving them the TUs and Energy recovery should simply make them more likely to try to get into range.

/edit: We should also probably tone down that zombie death rattle - it's significantly louder than anything else.

Offline DeWolf

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3746 on: December 09, 2016, 08:21:00 pm »
So how do I get the industrial scanner?

Offline ohartenstein23

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3747 on: December 09, 2016, 08:27:43 pm »
Start looting more shippings.  Sometimes Cutters have them.

Offline Drasnighta

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3748 on: December 09, 2016, 09:50:30 pm »

/edit: We should also probably tone down that zombie death rattle - it's significantly louder than anything else.

No Way, my Toddler cheers from across the room when he hears it....  :D

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - 0.99E.2 - 18 Nov - Dead in Space 2
« Reply #3749 on: December 09, 2016, 10:41:30 pm »
No Way, my Toddler cheers from across the room when he hears it....  :D

Truly a young warrior! I have no intention of tuning the sound down.

As of currently, zombies have full psi vision of your units and have Aggression set to 6. I will dial it up to 8 but probably the difference will be slight.

What would be nice, if there was a setting that makes enemies ignore enemy numerical advantage in their calculations.