Player Use Ai?

[jcj94]

Remember back in Outpost, the original AI kept saying NO HELP AVAILABLE ON THIS TOPIC, for the Setting up an AI for an unattended colony?

COULD WE DO IT FOR A MULTILAYER OR COLONY GAME?

Like, put units over a *beacon area* marked out by code in the map, and the AI would take over some of your units in an area, and start autocolonizing that area with a generic base until you took that unit/ units off.  Of course the base will be a terrible one, but hey, Doing this at all would be near insanity, that, or just mind numbingly mundane.  I'm more for the second, seeing as all it is, in essence, is taking base AI code and setting a trigger so the player can use it and not worry about building anywhere other than their main base.  This would allow "expansionists" who like the slower games because they can have large bases, be able to have their little mansions by the sea, and inland, and in space.  I have a feeling its going to take more than one person, because I'm not that experienced yet, and It had come to me when setting up one of my hopefully future LoS games.  Really its just a La Corrida with Tiger wreckage... and a bunch of Thor's Hammer guard posts to keep watch ( I don't want you to bum rush with a scout and cargo truck and get it super early..).  I had though "If the AI can use this to make ITS own bases, could human players activate a trigger to build THEIR own bases?


Just a thought.. but who agrees or disagrees/ wants to help or hinder?

[Sirbomber]

Wasn't this talked about years ago in the Genesis threads?

Anyways, the last thing I want is to relinquish control of my defenses to some AI that will inevitably screw up.  From the other end, if all you have to do is assign a bunch of units to AI control then people would never learn how to play for themselves.

[Hidiot]

If you could do that properly, then you have a good base for an AI that can serve as an actual player replacement.

[evecolonycamander]

my idea on this:

select the basic vehicles for colony construction;
icon for AI built colony pops up in menu;
select icon;
select possible location;
AI builds basic colony(CC,VF,SF,Agri,ore(based on nearest ore type));
you send your defending troops so it doesn't get trashed;
new colony made
 

[TH300]

If I understand this idea correctly, it is about automatic building of (part of) the player's base in Land Rush games. It can probably be done (at least initial structures like cc, sf, smelter, mine and tok), but I don't see much benefit. If we want to help new players, we should teach them the game in an ordinary way and they'll probably learn as quickly. Its not too complicated. I suppose, its even easier than learning the research tree.

Not to forget Sirbomber's point: automatic base-building will likely yield crap, so it could be useful for beginners, but not for players with a little experience.

Edit: Something I don't want to omit is that op2 is about micromanaging many things. We shouldn't take too much away from that.

[jcj94]

I was thinking more for large LoS maps, and the AI mostly controling the defences.. like building X # of defences around an around X,Y topleft X.Y bottom left


You still have to manage everything BASE WISE (if we do it this way) but the AI will autobuild so many structures...

Another problem with doing and letting AI autobuild, I't will probrably build another if you disable a building.......   and it would also take from your resources.. I would think that would be a little more difficult.

 

[evecolonycamander]

we could make a mission in witch all player control is disabled until the AI builds at minim a dynamix-like base for the player. wile this is a time waster it would be an excellent tutorial and also very interesting to watch. something like a group of convecs and cargo arrive at a location and you watch as it sets up your CC, SF, ore, and other basics. mabie add a few attack vehicles to take up positions as the units move into place. oh and for those people saying 'what about the colonists?' i say have those colonists stored in evacs and then dropped off after site completion. the begining would be like demo i guess then go in game

EDIT: we could even give make it so the convoy is ambushed and you take control of your lynxes until the colony is completed.

[jcj94]

Kinda late response, but I didn't see ECC's comment till now.


Actually, I was thinking of having another Ambush map, in wich you four players control NOTHING but a bunch of Lynx's, Panther's and Tiger's and you place a Scout on one of the "selectors" for Eden/Plym packages (like a Rare/Common ore beacon) and It will give you 1 of each type (1laser lynx,panther,tiger 1rpg lynx,panther,tiger ... and so on).
With this, you defend your Joint Base (really, just a bunch of CC's and Residences, controlled by another "AI") against wave after wave of the AI's attacks.


The Player Use AI would come in play when you add the "mass Attack" feature.

It would take over your units for the time it takes to tell them to attack a point on the map, then kick them out of the group.