M28AI Devlog (v158)

maudlin27

v56 release
More replay focused changes, mainly for dealing with nearby enemy firebases and naval production

18 Changes relating to winter duel replays to try and get MML faster and attack more aggressively with them
9 Changes mostly relating to navy from a mixed mapgen map to try and increase the build power assigned to navy when it's contested, including building torp launchers and subs
Refinements to T2 arti targeting so they choose their target a couple of seconds before firing (instead of 20 seconds)
4 other fixes, including an infinite loop that could happen in some late-game scenarios

Trophy awards
Radde was lightnig fast again with replays securing the two trophies:

Radde Trophy - Radde
Sladow Trophy - Radde (beating a 1.7 AiX M28 on winter duel)

I'll adjust the trophy awards slightly going forward - the trophy will now to go the highest AI modifier beaten under the trophy requirements for the latest release of the AI (AiX for Sladow trophy, Resource modifier for Radde trophy); where multiple people beat it at the same modifier, it will go to the first person to beat it at that modifier.

I'll also try to keep the original post updated with the current trophy holder (i.e. ahead of the next version release)

Acknowledgements

Radde - for providing numerous replays in addition to the trophy winning ones
Fearghal - Replays/posts highlgithing several errors and a crash
Triangleleaf - Honourable mention for a replay beating a 2.0 AiX M28

maudlin27

v57 release
Campaign and replay related changes

Added a new 'no rush' type feature to the hostile campaign AI if it 's using M28 - you can now specify in game options how long it will be before M28 applies most of its logic (including attacking). This is to help make some of the missions where the AI starts with a huge army no longer impossible:
3 fixes for Aeon M3 so M28 works as a hostile or allied AI
9 changes based on Radde's trophy entry (beating M28 1.4 on a naval map), including reduced ecoing so that more resources can be spent defending against navy
2 changes on Winter Duel (Sladow trophy entry) so more T1 arti get built and tanks should wait longer before attacking the enemy ACU
3 other changes, including adding a threshold for torpedo bombers to be built so the enemy doesn't trigger an emergency response when sending a single engineer across the water

Trophy awards

Radde trophy - Radde and KuhwaKlimakleber - 1.4 resource 2v2, naval mapgen map
Sladow trophy - Triangleleaf - 1.8 AiX Winter Duel

ender06

Played 2 matches on Adaptive Ben's Turtle, AI played much better the first time despite bumping the build/resource mulitplier to 1.5 from 1.4 for the 2nd match.

1st match: https://replay.faforever.com/21295565 4H vs 2AI (Aeon/Seraphim, 1.4x)
2nd match: https://replay.faforever.com/21307459 4H vs 2AI (UEF/Cybran, 1.5x) <- expected this race combination to be much harder.

maudlin27

@ender06 Thanks, unfortunately both replays desync for me the moment the game starts, but if you play any further games let me know as there's a chance the replay for them won't desync.

maudlin27

v58 Update

21301510 Mapgen replay - 6 changes, including making M28 slightly harder to snipe with air
21301625 – Winter duel - 7 changes, including making better use of very high resource modifiers
21305751 Mapgen - 5 changes, including fixing some issues with fatboys and T2 arti. T2 arti should now be built across the map in some cases (which will likely make things a bit worse and need toning down in a future release)
21306326 Mapgen - 4 changes focused on improving MML use against enemy firebases
21306893 Naval mapgen - 3 changes, mostly improving how M28 handles HARMs
21310805 Mapgen - 2 changes to increase engineer production and mex assistance where multiple mexes are upgrading
8 other changes, including having M28 eco less; then having M28 eco more; and stopping M28 trying to get adjacency from non-M28 teammates

Trophy awards

Radde trophy - awarded to Triangleleaf for beating M28 with a 2.8 resource modifier
Sladow trophy - awarded to Triangleleaf for beating a 2.2 AiX M28

Acknowledgements

Radde for feedback on M28 shortcomings in addition to some replays
(Ender06 - replays although I wasn't able to get them to work)
Albert C – Highlighting how M28 tries building adjacent to a human player’s hydro

ender06

Had a few games crash today and yesterday. This is the most recent replay: https://replay.faforever.com/21332089

maudlin27

@ender06 Unfortunately it still desyncs for me from the start of each of your replays. However, the replay still crashed for me and after only a short time, with the following message in the log:
info: Sim crashed hard in DoSimBeat(): Invalid blueprint ID in CDecoder::DecodeIssueCommand()/DecodeCommandData()
Given the number of sim mods enabled, it may well be one of these that is contributing to the crash.
Another possible cause (given the actual replay went on for a long time and it appeared to be a high mass map so presumably went late game with lots of units) is memory - if the memory used by FAF exceeds 2GB then it becomes very prone to crashing.

Unit mods are a significant contributor towards high memory usage, particularly with AI in the game (as the memory used increases for each different type of unit built, so if you have 3 factions and a bunch of new units in addition to core FAF units, you'll get to 2GB much faster).

If playing with M28 I'd therefore suggest turning off all but one of the other mods and seeing if you get a crash, and also keeping an eye periodically on the memory used (via taskmanager) to see if it is almost at 2gb (in which case more measures may be needed, such as a lower unit cap, smaller map, more restricted faction choice, unit mods that add fewer units, etc.)

Cyberdyne_Skynet

Hi maudlin27

We realy love your M28 AI, its so far the best AI we fought. Up to x2.0 and 2000 units its a beast of an enemy. I just want to say thank you for your hard work.

But if its possible we want to know with wich Mods this AI is compatible.

We play most of the time survival or hardcore 5 vs 1 cheat multi AI with this list of mods:

UI:
NoShake + Redux ACU Icons

SIM:

Marlo's mod Compilation (working)
2x Resources, Storage, BuildRate, BuildRange (working)
Advanced ACU (working)
Some of the BlackOps Mods / BlackOps FAF EXUnits / BlackOps FAF Unleashed (working) BlackOps FAF ACU's (not working, so we dont use them)
Hive Enginnering Stations For All (working)
Nuclear Repulso Shields (working, but we ban all the stronger shields execept the simple "t4")
Quantum Resource Generators (working)

Working means the M28 AI is using it, we needed to ban some single units because there is no logik for the AI but still very playable with some simple bans. Sometimes there are random crashes and on some maps there is a desync. But i would say from 10 Games so far we can play 7/10 till the end atm. Hope you can untestand what i wrote here, english is not my native language.

Rowey

@cyberdyne_skynet No shake is now integrated into faf under shake intensity slider in the game options

maudlin27

@cyberdyne_skynet I wouldn't expect UI mods to have any impact.
For SIM mods, I'm not (as yet) aware of a mod that M28 is incompatible with (in that it breaks M28 if its used), while M28 should also make use of custom units for most unit mods, and ought to also make use of custom ACU upgrades e.g. from BlackOps where the default upgrades are overwritten (but I last tested this pre-v1 release).

However due to the difficulty in figuring out the cause of issues where there are lots of mods (e.g. it may not even be M28 that is the cause, but an interaction between those two mods, and it could just be that M28 makes such an interaction more likely) my focus would be on games with just 1 other SIM mod where M28 is crashing/suffering major issues.

Cyberdyne_Skynet

@AdAstraNoob Thanks I didn't know that. So one less Mod to care ^^

@maudlin27 Thank you for that information, we allways testing the Mods for compatibilty so no one gets random desync, game freeze or game crashes (looks like that Hive Enginnering Station Mod is making some random desyncs on some maps). Do you know a Mod or an ingame setting to reduce significant the RAM usage? I will try to do what u said in some posts above, but in larger games with units Mods its very difficult to not go over 2gb RAM usage.

maudlin27

@cyberdyne_skynet Graphic settings might impact things but Ive not tested to confirm.

However most benefits are likely to be a game setting thing - eg use 1-3 factions, fewer AI players, have a sub-1k unit cap, use a sub-20km sized map, play on a map with no water

I doubt you’d need to do all of these but just some of them may help

Saver

Hello Maudlin, your blog about the M28 is great. However, you should consider promoting the AI feature in COOP missions more. Unfortunately, I have to admit that I only read the point this week and I suspect that many people don't know about this great option in the Mission. Maybe. This information should be sent to the FAF news area. sorry for my worst English

maudlin27

@saver I'm planning to request a news post once I've finished testing M28 as a hostile campaign AI on the rest of the Supcom campaign, since then I can highlight all the campaign features in one go and it's less likely to break the missions. For now it's mentioned in the mod description and on the wiki (re being an AI buddy), but I suspect not many people read them.

Saver

Here is a test of the first mission FA with your AI with three people. Unfortunately the game leaked a lot https://replay.faforever.com/21362409

Saver

In addition, construction took place again in the non-playable area. But otherwise it was a nice change

maudlin27

@saver said in M28AI Devlog (v58):

21362409

What do you mean by leaked a lot? did it slow down to -1 or worse game speed?

Saver

The game speed has fallen from 0 to -6 in the game. Unfortunately I don't know if it can be seen in the replay.

Saver

Mainly in cases where air battles started

maudlin27

I didnt notice when I was watching the replay but I stopped after 41m as I had enough points to look at by then, do you know roughly the timestamp where it went to -6? It makes sense that it would be slower in a big air battle although I wouldn't have expected -6 (assuming everyone has average to good cpus) so it could be an indication of something gone wrong with the code. It's also possible it's a result of some of the additional checks that have to be run in campaign maps that will add to the overhead (although again I wouldn't have expected such a big impact)