[3.1+] NullBot: an adaptive skirmish AI

[aubergine]

Well, you have to remember also that once the AI does manage to break down the walls, it will have lots of old units inside. Which might sound like a bad thing until you realise it reached it's build limit and had nothing to spend power on other than lots of research So after losing it's ancient units, it comes out with some pretty badass stuff

[aubergine]

Seems to be some problems with latest version (when playing generic nullbot):

* Not building power modules
* Not building research modules

[NoQ]

Impossible Works for me.

[aubergine]

I'm going to start recording games and upload them to youtube heh.

[NoQ]

Well, screenshots did just fine so far, but if it's not hard for you, i could benefit from videos as well! (:

[NoQ]

v1.05

Changes:

• Hopefully fixed the problem of adding tanks to other player's groups. I ended up doing it the easy way, removing the code responsible for decreasing the number of groups; it didn't affect the gameplay seriously enough anyway.
• Reduced slowdowns in games with many players: i finally moved the timers apart, so that they didn't get called simultaneously.
• Improved early research path for generic AI branches.
• Now puts a certain percentage of units to defense group.
• Some more typo fixing in defense group code, also now regularly brings defense group back to base.

It also sounds as if NullBot was added to the official git (: I'd seriously recommend to pull v1.05 up there as well, since it has some important bugfixes (how should i tell this sort of things? make a ticket?)

[Per]

It also sounds as if NullBot was added to the official git (: I'd seriously recommend to pull v1.05 up there as well, since it has some important bugfixes (how should i tell this sort of things? make a ticket?)

Yes. Or prod me into action on irc.

[NoQ]

I'm on irc since morning but you don't come
upd: #3306 (:

[aubergine]

Just got totally toasted going up against 2 allied Hard-mode nullbots.

[aubergine]

Been a while since I posted a screenie:

Click for large view

[NoQ]

Oh, did it get stuck again?

[effigy]

I'm not sure how I'm doing this, but I've been able to hosting Nullbot 1.01, and have been using him to fill slots (because of the challenge mode map)? He's surprising a lot of people myself included.

On Emgergence the rocket persona came from 2 bases over to kill me.... I guess he could sense I was weak ( I was late with units, being dumb)?

In a different game (i think it was flamer persona) got stuck right outside his base.

[NoQ]

I think i have some anti-stuck plans, like doing random movements when a group doesn't seem to move for a while (but is supposed to be).

I'm not sure how I'm doing this, but I've been able to hosting Nullbot 1.01, and have been using him to fill slots (because of the challenge mode map)?

The challenge map, "Anchor", includes NullBot v0.11 and was never updated, and isn't supposed to appear in the AI list in the first place. Probably you have it from somewhere else

[aubergine]

@NoQ Yes, it got stuck, but that didn't matter too much because it created such a huge wedge of units in that valley that nothing could get past it for a good long time, and due to the number of versatile weapons it had VTOLs weren't able to bomb it without taking massive casualties themselves.

One solution to it getting stuck might be to store position of a droid and then if 60 seconds later it's not moved more than 2 tiles send it and all other droids (not just attackers) within a 10 tile radius to attack the nearest enemy structure.

[NoQ]

One solution to it getting stuck might be to store position of a droid and then if 60 seconds later it's not moved more than 2 tiles send it and all other droids (not just attackers) within a 10 tile radius to attack the nearest enemy structure.

I'd rather store the group mass center position, since it's calculated periodically anyway, and i store some info per group anyway.

P.S. Another idea is to implement some formation movement, like the simple idea of trying to keep units in a line purpendicular to the attack vector; might be a nice easy tweak as well.