v31 - Bombers and TML
The main focus of this update was a rewrite of most of my bomber targeting logic and use of the Ahwassa. This took a bit longer than other updates in part because I had a week away.
- Ahwassa can be built by Seraphim
- Bomber targets are now determined based on the bomber tech level (previously the current Air factory HQ was used as a proxy with all bombers assumed to be the same tech level)
- New engi hunter targeting mode for early bombers
- Bombers should avoid targets protected by static AA ((previously they'd only avoid if the AA was near the target itself)
- Introduced hover-bombing, mostly for strats and Ahwassa
- Strats will launch co-ordinated attacks to try and take down more heavily defended targets
- TMLs can now be built
- 12 Bugfixes (including one causing massive over-production of engineers at the start of the game)
- 37 General misc changes
- 17 Further misc changes focused more on late-game (e.g. refining the logic for what experimental gets built, and how certain experimentals are used)
Some of the misc changes resulted from feedback/replays provided by people. In particular thanks to the following for this version:
- Chp2001 – I almost gave up on getting hover-bombing to work, but Chp2001 shared code they’d used that achieved hover-bombing. Although I couldn’t get that code to work, it gave me better motivation due to knowing it should be possible for an AI, and a better steer on some of the timings - even after this I had so many failed attempts I was going to give up on my last attempt (which ended up working), so had it not been for Chp2001, there'd be no hover-bombing in M27AI as I'd have given up far sooner and needed more attempts to get there.
- HintHunter – replays highlighting poor early-game performance including heavy mass stalling and engi-overproduction
- Relent0r – highlighting poor performance on Selkie Mirror vs Sorian Air (on running the map I realised one reason was a bug with the pathfinding I used that led to 2 mexes being ignored)
- Azraeel – Replays showing a number of late game flaws and issues when dealing with units on a plateau
- Babel – Notes on ACU being too aggressive, and M27's vulnerability to enemy air if it doesnt scout the air fac in time (M27 now gets a couple of inties preemptively to support its bombers while its ACU is far more likely to fall back when ahead on eco)
(apologies if I've missed anyone off - as it's been a longer update cycle I've lost track of the reasons for some of the changes)