M28AI Devlog (v228)

goblinsly2

Hi, i am playing against M28 everyday and i have tons of fun. Just 2 things to report and a question.

For some reason on Rush me green V3, players dont utilise torpedo bombers. I see they build them and if u walk with experimental on small patch of water on land, they attack. But on main water they dont. So i just rush megalith's in water.
Same for Strats and Exp bomber - they dont attack megaliths under water. Im guessing it has to do with depth of water ? Bomb from ahwasa doesnt damage mega

Im playing with certain restrictions, mainly game enders. Latest replay is #24583934

Question: since i mostly play only against AI, does it make any difference to AI, UI and how game behaves between opening a new game in FAF client, or just click play localy from FAF starter page and make new skirmish game ?

maudlin27

@goblinsly2 Thanks, unfortunately the replay doesnt work but I've been able to reproduce an issue with torpedo bombers not targeting naval units on that map so should be able to investigate.

For strats and exp bomber I expect the issue is the unit is too far underwater.

Playing offline should be similar to playing through FAF, the main differences being the replay wont get saved to FAF (so unless you rename your lastreplay it gets overwritten when you start a new game), and you need to create a game through FAF after any update to benefit from the changes in that update.

maudlin27

v218 Update
5 changes, including:

Fixing a bug in QUIET where mobile SMD would be built instead of spearheads
Units should be more likely to engage enemies near the frontline that they outrange.
Improved ACU build order so it is less likely to build the 5th+ mexes at the start

v219 Update
15 changes, including:

Various improvements to Aeon missile ship usage, including making them less likely to fire at units protected by cliffs
Civilian buildings in water will now be considered for capture
Fixed a bug where water zone locatiosn could be considered as land zones
Fixed an issue where if the asf support location was too near the frontline (with the enemy having ground based AA near the frontline) they'd ignore all enemy units

Acknowledgements

Relent0r - Replay involving Aeon missile ships

v220
Hotfix with 4 changes, including:

Fixed a major bug with torp bombers that meant most of the time they wouldn't attack
Fixing a couple of ACU related errors where the ACU was in a different plateau to nearby units
Fatboys should be more likely to attackmove in LOUD and QUIET

Acknowledgements

goblinsly2 - Highlighting issues with M28 torp bombers
Vortex - QUIET replay involving fatboy

maudlin27

v221 Update
13 changes, including:

Island factories should build land scouts in teamgames and be less likely to pause
Indirect fire units should try and attack if the nearest enemy is outranged and not protected by friendly enemy units.
Adjusted t3 arti targeting to reduce the value of heavily shielded zones when assessing the best zones to do a detailed check on
T3 facs should in some cases be ctrl-k'd for mass late-game

v222 Update
10 changes, including:

More PD builders
ASFs should shadow friendly strat bombers even if the enemy has AA nearby
Naval factories should be more likely to get engineers if they have higher tech than land/air
Units should transfer on death (relevant for QUIET+LOUD)

Acknowledgements

C04spoon – v218 QUIET replay
Azraeel – v218 QUIET replay
Vortex – 3 v220 QUIET replays

maudlin27

v223 Update
8 changes mostly relating to improving M28's response to a comdrop attempt:

More inties should be built if an enemy T2 transport is detected
Various adjustments to inties+asf micro when engaging enemy air targets
Emergency PD's build location should be reassessed if the PD is going to be built in range of existing enemies and the engineer is sitll moving to the build location.

Acknowledgements

Chucups replay where 4 M28 lost to a 2 player T2 comdrop

NomenNominandum

It would be awesome if I could tell the AI to gift me an engineer.

maudlin27

@NomenNominandum You can (try using a text marker to ask)

maudlin27

v224 Update
15 changes, including:

M28 should place markers when it spots high value enemy units if it has a human teammate
Engineers should be more likely to reclaim wrecks within a second of being in range of the wreck.
Decreased bomber aggression early game and where M28 lacks intel
T2 radar outside the base can be upgraded to omni on larger maps when M28 has very good eco
2 QUIET specific changes, including an infinite upgrade bug and fixing factory enhancements

Acknowledgements

Relent0r - identifying triggers relating to a brain gaining visual of a unit that I was able to use to add in some taunts (although after working on it some more I decided to go with a custom approach for greater functionality)

Swarm133

Firstly, I like the AI. For someone that likes to play vs AI rather than pvp, I appreciate the work you do.

It would be great to have a setting to turn down the strat bomber hover spam. Or the ability to scale the amount of APM to a more human-like amount. I get flooded with 50+ strat bombers, each hovering out of range, flicking bombs forward. No shields can protect you and AA cant kill them fast enough. By itself, it is a minor issue, but the AI being able to focus on that while doing micro on everything else on the battlefield can make it hard to deal with.

I'm also unsure of how balanced ASF vs AI ASF combat is. I've often outnumbered their ASF while having vehicle AA below, and my ASFs get decimated while the AI ASF are barely touched.

Laso

The AI is cheating again.
Last game the M28 (easy) marked a nuke without seen it.
Same seems with other funktions but i cannot proof it. For example the first bomber. It seems he sees everything without having a scout.
It would be nice to have a funktion to stop M28 doing things that are not possible for humans.

Sprouto

@Laso That's essentially how M28 (and many previous AI as well) performs. It has information it shouldn't, and does things with units that you would find it either impossible or incredibly difficult to do. It's not, and doesn't claim to be, a level playing field.

maudlin27

@Swarm133 Thanks for the feedback; I can look at how feasible it would be to add further customisation into how it uses hover-micro as a game setting (e.g. the number of units it's able to hover-micro simultaneously); in the meantime you can play using M28Easy which should disable all hover-micro.

For ASF vs ASF combat I've seen it lose lots of air fights that have looked relatively close in separate replays, but there is a high degree of variability in asf matchups even with the same tactics being used by both the player and the AI, so it's certainly possible that you can have more asf and lose an air fight, although I'd expect with a significantly larger force you should overcome the variability/micro difference.

To help illustrate what I mean, in sandbox you could create 50 asf for two players, and have 1 group attack-move towards the 2nd group, and the 2nd group move and then press stop when near the 1st group; I'd expect the 2nd group to win the fight. M28Easy will disable the main micro M28 uses in asf vs asf fights, which I'd expect to make it weaker (although I've not actually tested to confirm!)

@Laso Please can you provide a replay - the only scenario I'dve thought M28 would have knowledge of a nuke it hasn't scouted is if that nuke has already launched its missile; M28 aims to approximate what a competent human player can infer by recognising certain units exist when they fire, to avoid scenarios where an unscouted unit can fire at M28 and it continues as though that unit doesnt exist (another example would be a monkeylord firing outside of visual range - a human player would see the big laser and know there's a monkeylord there). I'd need a replay to check or (if it's marking the nuke when it shouldn't) to fix the bug causing this).

As for the first bomber again I'd also need a replay to assess, but I can assure you it is very much limited by intel, and doesn't see everything despite not having a scout. For example, in the recent rainbow cup semi-finals you can see the dark blue early t1 bomber do a number of suboptimal plays due to its lack of intel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQI_jUrivfk&t=120s

Once it gets near the enemy T1 AA (bombers have a radar+visual range although you can't see this in the cast due to observer view) it decides to turn and try and seek a different target
It then proceeds to go towards various empty mexes with no units, because it's trying to find enemy engineers to target (2m10 of the replay/2m32 of the video)
It's not until 3m20 of the replay (3m47 of the video) that it approaches a location with enemy units, having wasted a long time trying to find some

Saver

@maudlin27

Hello maudlin,

I can confirm the message that the M28 detects special units such as Experimentel or Nuke even without sighting. Unfortunately I don't have an ID because I tested it in the offline mod. However, here is a picture. The M28 was in support mode here.

Laso

@maudlin27
You are correct the nuke was marked when it was fired.
Replay is #24774490
I watched the replay and the bomber looks ok. Fast reactions but ok.

maudlin27

@Saver If it's the last game you played then the replay should be available, e.g. in:
C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\My Games\Gas Powered Games\Supreme Commander Forged Alliance\replays\FAPROFILENAME\LastReplay.SCFAReplay

I expect in your case M28 sent an air scout near the enemy units at some point which allowed it to detect them (e.g. since both those units have an anti-air attack, it could've been that they fired this at the air scout; alternatively M28 could've got intel with no Omni coverage, or subsequently stalled E, meaning the unit was visible for a brief period of time to it)

However in the case of nukes I'll tone down it's approach to highlighting units for enemies so if it doesnt have a visual and it is a long ranged unit (like a nuke) it should just warn in chat (since while a player might have a good idea where the unit is from the direction the missiles/arti shells come from, on some larger maps it can still be hard to infer)

maudlin27

v225 Update
17 changes, including:

New game options to make M28's micro more configurable. You can now specify the maximum number of units it can simultaneously apply dodge micro to, and/or hover micro to (previously there was just an option to enable/disable dodge micro, or to use M28Easy to disable). Refer to the "M28: Use hover air micro?" and "M28: Use dodge micro?" settings in Game Options. @Swarm133 this means you can disable its hover-micro with asfs without affecting other micro.
Gunships should use a more precise check of if the enemy has nearby groundAA when deciding whether to retreat (or search for further away targets)
T1-T2 gunships should be more cautious when taking damage so they're less likely to die (e.g. meaning jesters have a chance of surviving when fighting a single flak)
Several refinements to how ASFs decide whether to attack targets, including factoring in nearby enemy ground AA that isn't large enough to make the asfs run in its own right, but when combined with the enemy air force could turn an air win to an air loss
Changed the use of markers to a general chat message where long ranged units that M28 hasn't seen start firing at it and it wants to warn its teammates

Acknowledgements

Votex – Highlighting M28 building t3 shields to protect 1 mex from a t3 arti

Saver

@maudlin27 Thank you for your detailed feedback. I will do another test without air units in the next few days to see if the supposed case occurs again. Nevertheless, I think your improvements are a success. Thank you for your work

maudlin27

v226 Update
12 Updates, including:

Refinements to Inties/ASFs to make them more cautious if the enemy has an air threat in an adjacent zone to the one it plans on defending, or if lots of airAA units have been sent for refueling
Several tweaks to the first bomber for some rare cases where they'd get stuck not attacking a unit, and to consider hover-bombing before firing their first bomb
ACUs should be more likely to run from approaching land experimentals
4 mod specific changes, including removing AA threat from ACUs in QUIET, recognising if bombers in QUIET/LOUD fire salvos, and increasing the AirAA M28 wants to defend friendly targets

Acknowledgements

Vortex - QUIET replay on big wonder
Little Tank – Replay and highlighting a strange M28 message (where it just said “1” in chat, when it should’ve been saying it had gifted a mex)
Zhanghm – Log with some error messages relating to a unit mod

maudlin27

v227 Update
13 changes, including:

Various adjustments to air anti-air (i.e. asf) logic, increasing the number M28 wants to think it has air control (including a bugfix) and having them be more likely to follow strat bombers to protect them
If M28 wants to build an experimental, but first wants more T3 units, and lacks power, it should be more likely to build a pgen instead of a land factory
Fewer pre-emptive SAMs should be built if the enemy lacks a nearby air threat and M28 could be spending the mass ecoing.

Acknowledgements

Vortex – QUIET v225 and v226 replays

Saver

Hello I have now been able to do three tests and have not found any errors with the unit markers for threats. but I have a small comment. Is it possible to remove the markers automatically after a time of x seconds?