M28AI Devlog (v129)

v91 Update
19 generally small tweaks and fixes, including:

• More cautious use of bombers (meaning they're less likely to suicide in the campaign missions and more likely to target ground AA units of the enemy inbetween them and their target)
• Nukes should no longer be launched by a hostile M28 campaign AI until the timer for its attack logic to commence has passed (meaning on Forge UEF Mission 5 it is no longer an auto-loss at the start of the game!)
• LABs should be more aggressive
• Expanded M28's snipe logic so it can trigger in more cases where its ACU isnt near the enemy ACU
• Reworked most land logic to determine the nearest enemy unit by reference to the closest M28 base instead of the zone's midpoint.

Acknowledgements

• Radde – replays vs 1.2 resource M28
• Saltanis – mentioning that M28 nukes players at the start of UEF M5 (as a hostile AI), making the mission impossible
• Goblinsly – Issue with M28 not gifting its second+ paragon to teammate
• Zhanghm – Mentioning M28 would build multiple paragon type units where they’re modded ‘non-Aeon’ paragons.

Trophies
No change from before (Radde trophy - Radde and KuhwaKlimakleber vs v86 1.4 resource M28 on mapgen; Sladow trophy - Radde vs v81 1.5 AiX M28 on a 10km map)

v92 Update
23 changes and fixes, of which just over half can be summarised as 'making it harder to kill a team of M28s with a novax'.

• Fixed a bug that could crash the game in some rare scenarios when trying to build PD (such as UEF campaign mission 1)
• Submarines should consider attacking even if outmatched if they think they can kill a vulnerable unit that is away from the main naval force
• Similar 'use closest unit to base instead of zone midpoint' change to naval logic that was added to land units in the last update
• Several adjustments and fixes to mobile shields (likely caused by switching the basis for assigning the shields in recent updates)
• Numerous changes to try and make it harder to snipe M28 with a novax, mostly focused around use of mobile shields, the ACU assisting a fixed shield it is sheltering around, and making health type ACU upgrades more likely
• Expanded the 'factions'/players that the M28Allies campaign logic will apply to, so it will now apply the maxim 'the enemy of my enemy must be my friend' (to treat a non-hostile faction as being an ally). This means for example it will now take over the UEF mission 1 research base.

Acknowledgements

• Radde - Several replays, including one where 2 novaxes wiped out the entire M28 team just as they were about to win (hence the reason for the majority of changes this update!)
• Colonel Arnold – Mentioning how M28 doesn’t take control of the research base in UEF Mission 1 (if told to be used for allies)

On Operation Trident M28 Reclams the base you're supposed to defend meaning you loose the mission. Not sure if this is fixable on your side. Perhaspe a toggle for reclaming nutral buildings?

Another minor nit-pick, some missions already divide troops amoungst players. Then you AI divides it again in favor for you AI to you end up wil hal you starting army .

Operation Trident is such a mission.

@savinguptobebrok I tried just now but M28 didnt reclaim the civilians (I had 1 M28AI buddy and had M28 applying to allied units).
Could you send me the replay number for the game where it did reclaim them?

https://replay.faforever.com/22429263

At around the 15 minute mark. if you need anything else le tme know.

v93 Update
Hotfix, with 15 bugfixes and other changes

• Fixed bug that could break M28's land combat unit manager
• Fixed major bug with M28's naval logic that would break if its units were outranged
• Operation trident civilians should no longer be reclaimed
• Aeon M6 control centre should be fortified more once captured
• Increased the amount of MAA to be built in some cases

Acknowledgements

• Savinguptobebrok – Replay where M28 reclaimed the civilians to be protected
• (Chidori – trying to help with resolving a suicidal Campaign M28 ACU, but ultimately I couldn’t find the cause due to the replays desyncing).

Tnx. Im still playing on that fortress map. Just 3 quick things.

1. when i go and snipe paragon, i always kill 1 or 2 commanders along with it.
2. even when para is built by aeon, it's com is still pretty stock, so killing him is easy. It would be harder if he had shield and some hp boosting upgrades. Same for other coms.
3. Cybran i think is to confident in its T3 gunships and bugs. He will go around the map without any ASF's even when enemy has tons of ASF's and it's an easy prey due to neglible AA on those 2 types of gunships. It's prolly depending on me protecting the flock since im an air dominant player ?

@goblinsly2

1. It's intentional, as that will be the most heavily shielded part of M28's base, and there's a good chance if it loses that then it would have lost anyway. However it's on my longer term todo list to look at trying to avoid having 3+ ACUs all sheltering in the same place.
2. I'd expect UEF and Sera to already get shield/nano respectively, is this not happening? Cybran and Aeon would need special logic as they won't get the health upgrades if they've gone the RAS route.
3. If M28 gifts you any asfs then yes it will assume you will be covering its air units and will be more aggressive with them if it thinks you have air control (or are roughly even on air).

v94 Update
18 changes and (mostly campaign related) fixes, including:

• Added a fix for a change to Cybran M6 that caused M28's asfs to not engage the czar
• Improved the avoidance logic for Cybran M4 to make it far less likely that units damage the mainframe base (and cause the mission to fail)
• ACUs should be more likely to remove RAS upgrade and get health based upgrades at high eco levels
• Reduced likelihood of Aeon building a T3 arti when it hasn't tried building a Czar or lots of GCs

Acknowledgements

• Radde - Various replays
• goblinsly2 - noting how M28 isn't getting shield/similar upgrades when a paragon is built

No changes to trophies from before

v95 Update
11 changes/fixes; aside from some campaign bugfixes (including fixing an issue where M28 could ctrl-K almost its entire army when the map expanded), many of the changes were to try and improve how M28 deals with restorers, including:

• Czars should be more likely to build asfs if they're needed
• M28 should focus on air instead of experimentals if the enemy has air control coupled with a significant air threat
• Fatboys should seek a larger dedicated MAA escort if the enemy has a significant gunship threat
• Gunships should be less likely to attack enemies if they have a significant air based AA escort
• ASFs should be less likely to suicide to protect a friendly experimental in certain cases

Acknowledgements

• Radde - Replay showing M28 losing with a 1.3 modifier

Trophies

• No change from before (Radde trophy - Radde and KuhwaKlimakleber vs v86 1.4 resource M28 on mapgen; Sladow trophy - Radde vs v81 1.5 AiX M28 on a 10km map)

Quick question: Any way to enable the overwhelm cheat option for M28? Unless I'm mistaken, this setting has not effect on M28.

Thanks!

@hammi Not at present, as that feature has to be specifically coded into an AI

v96 Update
16 mostly minor tweaks and fixes based on campaign testing, including:

• Fixed a bug that meant M28 wasn't building factories at expansions when low on mass
• Land scouts should be built initially in teamgames even if the faction choice would be suboptimal
• Adjusted T1 build conditions to factor in how many M28 players are on the team (to stop it being built much too early in teamgames)
• Various adjustments for when M28 is close to the unit cap and overflowing mass (primarily for campaign scenarios where higher end units are restricted)
• Adjusted how M28 determines zones to factor in the travel distance between mexes close to player start points (to make it less likely M28 incorrectly thinks a mex is its own rather than a teammtes)

Acknowledgements

• Fearghal - Replay where M28 reclaimed Fearghal's airgrid

I got an unhandled exception after a long time, prolly played this map 30-40 times without a single crash, and long games, 3+ hours with paragon and tons of units.
The only difference is that i was streaming to my friend this time. Could this be the reason or u see something in logs, maybe recent update to M28 ?

game_22515801.zip

@goblinsly2 Nothing obvious from the log, can you turn on the FAF debugger? That way if you get crashes in the future there's a greater likelihood the log will contain information pointing towards the cause:

I will do that. Also, when the game stopped responding, i waited about 30 seconds, then i alt+tabbed and saw another window opened called unhandled exception. Does it matter which one i close first in order to give game enough time to write into logs, game window or unhandled exception ? The only other thing that comes to mind is that i was streaming a game to a friend, but game was at 0 at that time.

I don't know if it would matter, but if it did I'd guess you should close the unhandled exception first just in case it affects the crash report log.

v97 Update
10 generally minor changes and fixes, including:

• Fixed a bug with the decision on whether land units should engage an enemy where units that were far away would sometimes be treated as nearby, and made a few other tweaks to make it more likely units will attack if they outnumber the nearby enemy forces
• ACU should include its current weapon target when deciding if it has nearby enemies (to cover niche cases where it would be at the edge of a zone and so not 'see' a unit in an adjacent zone its firing at)
• Fire beetles should no longer be built when trying to snipe an ACU (since M28 doesnt have any special code to use them
• Fixed several issues with land scouts where they could be overbuilt, and/or get build when M28 has AiX omni vision

Acknowledgements

• Radde - several 1v1 replays against M28

v98 Update
11 more changes and fixes:

• Support for absolver (and Cybran equivalent) added - M28 should now build a small number if faced with a nearby enemy shield threat
• Improved late-game potential on 0 mex high reclaim maps like Forest Nothing (i.e. M28 should be more likely to build mass fabs and RAS SACUs)
• Fixed an issue where MMLs could ground-fire TMD they didn't have intel of
• Tweaks to mostly early game logic, including transports being less likely to abort from a far away enemy threat, Selens being slightly more aggressive, and tanks supporting t1 arti being more cautious around an enemy ACU

Acknowledgements

• Chucups - mentioning that M28 doesnt get RAS/Fabs on Forest Nothing (a long time ago!)
• Radde - 3 1v1 replays

Trophies
No changes to before:

• Radde trophy (1.4 resource 15km+ mapgen) - Radde and KuhwaKlimakleber beat v86 M28AI
• Sladow trophy (1.5 AiX, 10km+ map) - Radde beat v81 M28AI

v99 Update

13 changes including:

• New T1 arti drop logic for transports
• Guncoms should be more likely to have a land scout nearby to give them intel
• Delayed upgrades in the first few minutes at higher resource modifiers
• Adjustments to how units backup to make it more likely (since it appears units have to be stationary for backing up to work now)
• Decrease in ACU aggressiveness at the start of campaign missions so its less likely to suicide into nearby PD

Acknowledgements

• GerJS and Hypoxic – Campaign replays where M28’s ACU is suicidal vs enemy PD near its start position
• Radde – 1v1 replays

Trophies

• Radde trophy - Radde beat M28AI (v98) with a 1.4 resource modifier (albeit it was on a mapgen map that had been played a number of times)
• Sladow trophy (1.5 AiX, 10km+ map) - no change (Radde beat v81 M28AI)