AI-Swarm

This mod has been in development for about a Year, Now. My Goal was to create a well rounded AI, that would be able to do Navy, Land, and Air. I wanted it to be able to face any challenge from 1v1 to 1v8 Situation. My Goal was also to make an AI, that doesnt depend on Multipler to win the Game. I, Also wanted him to be good in all situations be that on a map with less mass or a map with more mass, and I wanted him to be able to adapt to any situation and be strong in T1 to T4 Stages.
Requires AI-Uveso For The AI Map Marker Generator in the Options

Installation - AI-Swarm is available on the FAF Vault. Search for 'AI-Swarm'.

Swarm plays very good on Open 10km Maps. It can play some 5km maps (Note: I havn't tested him very much on these maps). It, also can play a mean navy on 20km maps or 10km Maps. His land game isnt the best on 20km maps depending on the type of 20km map. He doesn't play very well on "Gap" Maps.

Special Thanks to
Sprouto, and Uveso: For Basically teaching me everything i know about AI, Especially Sprouto, who without him. I'd be not close to where I am today. Uveso, too for helping me fix many bugs, and proving the base for Swarm. Both of these kind fellas gave me motivation to never give up.

Relent0r: For Basically giving me the competitive motivation to improves Swarm 1v1 capability and Relent0r was a good sparring partner! He, also helped me with a few things

Evan and BullydozerNoob: For Being Some High Leveled Players, that 1v1'd Swarm many times and gave me VALUABLE Information and help!

Jammer, Mhad, DFViper, and Clarko: For being long time players and testers of Swarm

Everyone Else Who Made Swarm, what it is today 8-)

3 New Sub AI's:

-AI: Swarm Terror/AIx: Swarm Terror : This is your Standard Swarm AI.
-AIx: Swarm Eternal : This one cheats harder as the game goes on and Cheats harder when its losing. (mostly for Fun)
-AIx: Swarm Test : For Testing Purposes

Map Suggestions

10km:
Adaptive Wonder Open
Adaptive Hilly Platuea
Adaptive Diversity
Miracle
Crash Site
Crash Site - 1v1
Mavys Marsh
Abhor
Adaptive Pyramid
Adaptive Morning Prayer
Adaptive Hansen Gorge
Open Palms
Oracle
Cadmium Green
Hollow

20km:
Adaptive Metir
Adaptive Maridia (Only 1 AI)
Point of Reason
Adaptive Skadi
Seton's Clutch
Seraphim Glaciers
Chiron
Osiris

Updates will be Posted On This Forums and the AI Development Server!!

AI Development Discord Server
https://discord.gg/ChRfhB3

@FtXCommando said in The Last Thread about RAS SACU Balance:

They aren't "OP" in the sense of being a dominant strategy but they promote inherently toxic gameplay. The only thing that should combine mass + e + flexible BP is the ACU itself. When other units do it, you open up the ability to do things like protecting infinite eco in a single, condensed area. Lategame eco should be about factoring in the risk/reward of additional eco adjacency efficiency and additional risk of exploding mass fabs. Not make boys and forget.

They should just be nerfed into irrelevancy or even removed just for the sake of promoting a healthier game.

100% Agreed.

Ideas, that are dumb ofc

1. The Othuum is a siege tank correct? Why does this "Siege Tank" have less health than both bricks and pervicals? The classific of this unit makes no sense really. A siege tank is supposed to be extremely beefy, but currently, balance shows this as a glass cannon with lots of DPS and no health.

2. Does anyone use Harbinger Reclaim Ability? (Just a Question)

3. Purposed reduction of Engineering Stations Buildpower to encourage more mobile engineer usage?

4. This is a restated purposal but the Reduction of t3 extractor income to a lower value, maybe 12 with ringed income being 18?

5. T2 Scout Planes? Since I saw a pull request on the GitHub to give Aeon and Seraphim; engineering stations before. I will propose the introduction of T2 Scout Planes.

6. Removal of Veterancy from all units except SACUs, Commanders, and Experimentals If you want the stats; this will increase sim speed by 2 - 4 sim speed. We have tested this in AI Development, many times. I will give data if wanted.

This is a topic of ideas so bring them on, criticism is welcomed

Making Reclain like 20% of the original unit cost or even lower will make gameplay 100x better honestly you'll get a lot more action, lot more risk, but overtime you can still lose from reclaim war. This also fights turtling and not only that you dont have to worry about losing the game so fast due to one battle, also slows the pace of the game especially late game where shit tons of reclaim that causes the game to slog.

@HoujouSatoko

@TheWheelie

Late game should have options... Right now your kind of forced into this standoff late game where the middle of the map is a wasteland with tons of reclaim your just licking your lips at and I understand reclaim is very vital to the Game of course.

I'm not saying remove but it's so important to the game in some many aspects its hurting more then helping. Every T3 you lose is basically 1k mass on the enemy's doorstep which may look good but it's really not good, because you end up rewarding certain bad behaviors and punishing certain gameplay styles.

This is where stuff like turtling and being aggressive diverge Because reclaim will always lend in favor of the defender but late game it lends so hard into that said defenders favor your basically forced to play like him even if you have 80% of the map, you cant attack with your large useless army too risky too punishing especially if he has lots of pd and his own big base. You lose 20 pervicals there goes 20k mass to the enemy for example.

By late game theres so much reclaim you might as well not even have mexes. What I'm stressing is this is just one step towards creating a healthier playing environment. Where you can be proactive late game instead of it being almost a 100% chance of mass economical artillery/experimental spam.

If the game wasnt so stalematey you could play 20km more proactively, because you could actually attack, you could invest into these larger pushes without having to worrying if you lose this single reclaim field the game is just cooked. 20km is a prime example of economy being extremely out of hand. Most of the time theres simply too many mexes, too much early game reclaim which turns into a super quick stalemate because you reach t3 and t4 so quick that reclaim is pretty much out of control, everyone has these large bases full of ras coms, Sams, Pd, And Armie. That any push any proactive gameplay is immediately shut down because even if you gain ground it's done nothing to the enemy in fact you've probably done more dmg to yourself given the enemy more reclaim and demoralized yourself into this slog fest of a game.

I would happily agree with FTX, and i dont believe we should be balancing the game for PvE though maybe a differently balanced gamemode because of a AI Developer, its honestly really hard to do real ai improvements and work and etc with the way balance is right now.

To simply describe balance issues, bascially the balance is forcing us as AI Developers to develop our AI in a very specific way that i keep in mind most of dont like in reality and simply put the AI cant keep up in the way the balance is right now. The game is just too fast especially mid game and late game and even early game. Eco in FAF scales too quickly, The Meta is too strong and the balance is restrictive on what you can actually do in the game. I mean like seriously you do it the meta way or the highway. Thats how FAF balance has always been.

I have played LOUD, and ill say it here and right now, that the balance on LOUD is a lot more fun because i have choice and that choice lets me play the game more happily and more creatively. Thats what should be important and fun. I feel like we stress that we are a pvp community so much that we forgot
Quoted From FTX "That half the faf games are launched with a single team" which means in reality we look over 50% of faf in favor of the pvp community when we should be balancing ourselves truly.

@axel12 said in Is FAF growing?:

Corona...

It spiked even before corona though tbh

Yes, Lets Buff Aeon... The Strongest Faction

@Fearghal

Thanks for including my AI, "AI-Swarm"
I recommend you add AI-Uveso, and RNGAI. Both provide an awesome challenge.
"AI-Swarm" Requires AI-Uveso anyway for markers and such so.

Supreme Commander is too boring lol.

Bronze --> Silver --> Gold --> Master --> Grandmaster --> Legend

yikes....

AI-Swarm will be entering this tournament hopefully.
Hopefully I will have another very large update before this tournament. Although I dont know if I'll be here for such tournament as I might be going on vacation for the summer. If I'm not then I guess find someone to support me, but idk if I'll even remember 2 months down the road.

Good Stuff

@Fearghal

Thanks for including my AI, "AI-Swarm"
I recommend you add AI-Uveso, and RNGAI. Both provide an awesome challenge.
"AI-Swarm" Requires AI-Uveso anyway for markers and such so.

@Psions Aggressive Gameplay is mass donating at any level above 1k lol.

One bad attack late - mid game and your basically toast. People forget the game is about having fun, i promise if you reduce reclaim by like 40% gameplay will be so much better because not only can you risk going in for an attack, but if you destory half the base then its worth it because he'll not be able to get the amount he spent back instantly to just rebuild the base. People will be much more aggressive, games wont slow down as much because the attrition will be higher. Games will be more and more action packed later game because you can push into the enemy without being so badly punished just because you lost like 10 T3.

You realize 10 Pervicals is 10k mass in reclaim, thats retarded. Reclaim is one of the reasons this game scales out of control so quickly when you reach lategame because nobody is really losing mass because reclaim is like 81% return in either side so your only losing like 19% of mass collected in the entire fucking game; go do some math on that and you'll see how dumb that is.

That's really where I'm coming from... Your pretty much only hurting yourself late game if you attack imo.

Tagada explained it much better then I did

Reducing Reclaim wont make it exactly mindless attacking. You'll still be able to lose if you literally gift mass.

Reducing reclaim will give more options, I didnt say dump it down to 5% of original or anything. I saying like 40% of orginal. You'll still get punished but not as nearly as hard, if you didnt know navy reclaim was changed to 40% of original.

RAS and T3 Mex income are really side problems not a super serious issue so I wont get into that topic. The main topic is reclaim

In reality late game without even talking about stuff like T3 Mex income or ras income or mass fabs. Theres just core issues like too many mex points theres too much natural reclaim things like that which flood the FAF Vault, and of course you cant do anything but I hope we get a clean selection of maps for TMM, that will address these issues.

I just dont want my late game to turn into this slog every game.... I want active, productivity and proactivity. Late game feels like map control just doesnt matter at all theres just so much mass everywhere quick and easy ways to get mass like RAS Boys and things like T2 Mex being 9 income and then t3 mex being 27 things like this which just make the economy go wack late game contributing more and more into this late game slog and disgusting lag fest of a game where nothing is fun or active or anything

@TheWheelie

Late game should have options... Right now your kind of forced into this standoff late game where the middle of the map is a wasteland with tons of reclaim your just licking your lips at and I understand reclaim is very vital to the Game of course.

I'm not saying remove but it's so important to the game in some many aspects its hurting more then helping. Every T3 you lose is basically 1k mass on the enemy's doorstep which may look good but it's really not good, because you end up rewarding certain bad behaviors and punishing certain gameplay styles.

This is where stuff like turtling and being aggressive diverge Because reclaim will always lend in favor of the defender but late game it lends so hard into that said defenders favor your basically forced to play like him even if you have 80% of the map, you cant attack with your large useless army too risky too punishing especially if he has lots of pd and his own big base. You lose 20 pervicals there goes 20k mass to the enemy for example.

By late game theres so much reclaim you might as well not even have mexes. What I'm stressing is this is just one step towards creating a healthier playing environment. Where you can be proactive late game instead of it being almost a 100% chance of mass economical artillery/experimental spam.

If the game wasnt so stalematey you could play 20km more proactively, because you could actually attack, you could invest into these larger pushes without having to worrying if you lose this single reclaim field the game is just cooked. 20km is a prime example of economy being extremely out of hand. Most of the time theres simply too many mexes, too much early game reclaim which turns into a super quick stalemate because you reach t3 and t4 so quick that reclaim is pretty much out of control, everyone has these large bases full of ras coms, Sams, Pd, And Armie. That any push any proactive gameplay is immediately shut down because even if you gain ground it's done nothing to the enemy in fact you've probably done more dmg to yourself given the enemy more reclaim and demoralized yourself into this slog fest of a game.