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

Hello, I am Kazuya more formerly known as Azraeelian Angel.

I am the new Community Manager and look forward to increasing engagement with the Community as well as creating more transparency with the development process.

I am extremely interested in receiving suggestions and feedback on both my ideas stated in my application and potential ideas that people may have.
That being said I am also looking for people willing to assist me in some of my goals! You can dm me at Azraeelian Angel#9240. If you havn't seen my application you can check it out here! https://forum.faforever.com/topic/6040/community-manager-candidates-2023/3

I mostly wanted to post this to get the conversation going and interaction going but also to break the silence since my election!

@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.

@thomashiatt said in Game Councilor:

@jip said in Factory models:

There is no 'we' here Thomas, there is just 'you'. Stating I abuse the privilege of being game lead is pretty disgusting when I announced that these were my intentions from the very start.

I think that your constant usage of the word 'immersion' and the changes you make for its sake are misguided. It's just a game industry buzzword. You do not need better graphics for immersion. You can be totally immersed in just a book, or any other simple activity. I assure you that my mind is entirely immersed in the game when I am playing it in its current state. Improvements to graphics, performance, or UI are not going to increase my level of immersion, its at 100% already. Games with horrible graphics are just as immersive as games with good graphics. Performance could actually have an impact on immersion, but 99% of 1v1 to 4v4 games I play never get slowed down, so performance is not at all an issue for me. It kinda feels like a joke to improve the performance of the game after so many years and hardware getting so much faster.

While i agree with your upper sentences. Your last sentence is just lost in ignorance of the game. You can only run so fast because the game is single core and not multi-core. People want to play bigger games. You ain't the only guy playing the game. You don't have performance issues because you dont play bigger games, ok? Cool?

What about the other people who do play 20k+ with AI or 20k+ with 6v6 etc. They have slowdown and thats what the patches are definitely aimed for. Again, you can only run so fast with a 3090 RTX and I9 13k, simple as that you will cap out. Jip's work increases that cap for EVERYONE! Not to mention that the game is slowed down to the slowest person's PC which improves everyone's game when Jip introduces more patches that improve performance.

Let's not get into the memory improvements that Jip has added which does so much for AI Developers on FAF, while you might not like the certain features. That are turned on by default. You could always turn them off it's definitely just a personal negative experience on your part which is fine but i wouldn't make that an arguing point.

Also freeing up performance allows more actual useful code to be running and mods to be slightly more intensive like Total Mayhem for example. It's all around a big improvement for not just gameplay but for modders, more CPU to work with and more Memory to work with.

The game is healthier then ever because of Jip and his ability to not only code this work but to gather an entire team and lead it to make the game better more beautiful more performant. Your arguments are opinions but the facts of his work lay in front of us, so i mean if he's the only guy really doing anything then he should have the most say in all things because hes the only one making the game better in all aspects and single handedly allowing bigger more awesome games which is what SUPCOM was designed for!

Jip not only contributes to the game but he literally makes features at request for example nav generator for AI. He works so hard to modernize the game for Professionals like yourself (I know cringe), Thomas. Thats what his UI work is for, it's too increase the ability to control the units and make everything less tedious. I'm pretty sure Jip's work is making FAF grow too, because FAF looks alive and worked on a lot. The developers are responsive as well.

Game has fundamentals issues and its hard to have retention unless you are dedicated to improving or you play purely for fun and eventually people who play purely for fun go away.

I think a lot of people also play pvp a few times then just quit because toxicity and just generally ass maps/players on global.

I don't think most play ladder Because it's not pushed enough to the front. If anything we need to start making matchmaker more of a focus and push global into a arcade type style like SC2 does.

So paying many to promote FAF is a huge waste of money when nobody is dedicated to actually dealing with core issues that just make players not want to come back.

Everything money wise for tournaments, promotion etc could be a lot more if we had a more dedicated fan base instead of people who just play with 0 interaction. I think that stems from a toxic mentality and an inability to actually change major components of the game and not only the game but how even the client is structured and etc.

Hello! It's nice to meet everyone. I'm not around as much as I used to be (Due to my Military Life). Although I'm looking to get back into the role of things and this is a big thing for me!

Some people may know me for things like

-> Founder of the AI Development Discord for Supreme Commander FA Globally. https://discord.gg/ChRfhB3
-> Creator of AI-Swarm https://github.com/Azraeel/AI-Swarm
-> Developer for the LOUD Project (AI Focused) https://github.com/LOUD-Project/Git-LOUD
-> Developer for FAF
-> Member of FAF Association

My goals are pretty straight forward and are focused on hopefully engaging the players with Content not only in the form of Game Development but also tournaments. I really want the community to be informed of most FAF on goings in the future. I hope as CM I can fulfil these things.

My biggest ideas currently are:

-> Dev Dairies either every month or 2 months to get an insight into the minds of Game Developers & Client Developers.
-> Dev Dairies either every month or 2 months to get an insight into the minds of Balance Developers.
-> Creating Tools & Stuff for Retention Rates & Seeing why players come back and why they dont come back.
-> Encourage the funding and support of more professional tournaments with completely fundraised money.
-> Encourage the funding and support of more game development with completely fundraised money.
-> Promoting Streamers & Casters, who contribute to the retention and gain of players.
-> Promote Personal Trainers to the global FAF Community, who seek to improve players for the future.

I hope some of these interest the community and of course these are not all my ideas and I still have so much thinking to do Especially as this is a new Position in the FAF Structure, it's obviously not cleared defined what the job fully entails and thats certainly something I'll have to adventure into!

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

To key in on this performance and development large phase that faf is currently going through. I am working on really improving functionality and performance of ALL core AI code on faf so helpfully for you AI Players you'll get even more benefit once these patches come out.

Very exciting stuff that jip has allowed us to do

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

Thomas has the right ideas so, i think clans should really be about getting new players into the game and right habits and such. Galactic War is pretty essential to that, and i think after TMM - GW was the plan? Atleast thats what i remember being said.

@blackyps said in What is the biggest issue that plagues FAF in your opinion?:

Here is a list of pain points that are frequently mentioned:
playerbase too small
competitive scene dying
map pool not to personal preference
too many changes to the game
connection issues
PvE experience bad
no reason to play
game ui too clunky
balance too slow
players too toxic

does anyone have any further discussions on any of these topics.
Specifically No Reason to Play, Too Many Changes to the game, Competitive Scene Dying, etc.

I will say Connection issues and client stuff is always being worked on but its the most difficult part of faf even Triple A Studios struggle with connection issues nowadays.

I was wondering this isn't an official poll, but I wanted to generate some discussions on issues that plague FAF in your opinion, this could be anything from Toxicity, Lack of Content, Lack of Transparency, and more.

I understand Connection Issues are a big thing right now and Me and Promo Team (Thanks to Rowey & Fichom >:) will be delivering a post on this soon so Stay Tuned

Meanwhile, I want to see what type of discussions and issues are brought up from this post and I will potentially look into expanding the most talked about issues into forums post of their own and polls.

if people do not want to remove auto oc and require more micro then just use the on enabled for "Overcharge" to increase overrall ACU Gun range, and when its not enabled then the range returns and is decreased from what it is right now by (DEFAULT) around 20-30% , it makes OC a lot more valuable and gives it a unique downside and upside.

If people are against I can think of a few more interesting things you could do for gun-oc synergy

SIMPLY, OC = Equal More Gun Range and NO OC equal less gun range but this is only enabled when the gun upgrade is added.

@defiant

1. Can you expand upon Profiles of Players, like player cards of something?
2. Highlights, sure @Rowey we already do shorts on the FAF Youtube!
3. Mod of the Week, I guess we could do a vote but I'd probably do mod of the month instead.
4. Not sure how I'd do this but it sounds interesting for sure
5. This was actually brought up by someone recently and it pointed out an issue that is part of a larger issue I've wanted to fix
6. Maybe if High Rated Players were up for that, sounds like something that could akin to a show match for fun tho.

@sladow-noob said in Community Manager Introduction - Kazuya (Azraeelian Angel):

mercypatch when?

There is a beta open for it right now, you can find @SpikeyNoob post in Balance Category

Hello, I am Kazuya more formerly known as Azraeelian Angel.

I am the new Community Manager and look forward to increasing engagement with the Community as well as creating more transparency with the development process.

I am extremely interested in receiving suggestions and feedback on both my ideas stated in my application and potential ideas that people may have.
That being said I am also looking for people willing to assist me in some of my goals! You can dm me at Azraeelian Angel#9240. If you havn't seen my application you can check it out here! https://forum.faforever.com/topic/6040/community-manager-candidates-2023/3

I mostly wanted to post this to get the conversation going and interaction going but also to break the silence since my election!

Nomads is the biggest waste of time, it's a massive time sink with 0 reward.

The simple answer that nobody wants to say is No it will not get integrated. There's simply no benefit for FAF to integrate even if it would be at the bottom of the totem pole.

I understand players want it but they can't have everything.

just remove the range upgrade for aeon or just making it cost a lot lot lot more in terms of mass and e

@rowey said in Community Manager Candidate Q&A:

@kazuya Thanks for the answers.

Few other questions based on the answers

1. I assume the Dev Diary's would be forum based?

2. What do you mean by the following statement

I think especially in the sectors of development maintenance so like paying for servers id include in that, that'll allow maybe better Client Services in the future.

3. what do you see being the easiest part of what you set out as your main point to be achievable from the get go and other that may take some work from others?

4. do you indented to do this role solo or if people are interested to help out delegate out tasks ?

1. Yes, most likely

2. Basically, making sure Maintenance in which I see as improving existing infrastructure is focused on (maybe GW too )

3. By far, Dev Dairies are the easiest just because I already have good connections in that area to be able to establish that.
   The hardest, I think is probably creating a more connected and cohesive FAF Community that heavily supports Tournaments, Development, and other things through fundraising. This is just an extremely difficult task as engagement in my eyes isn't very high from the average player.

4. It depends on how large my job is/becomes. I think Community Manager has a lot of potential to be an outreach to the general population. I think i'll definitely be looking for help and ideas!

@madmax said in Community Manager Candidate Q&A:

@kazuya said in Community Manager Candidates 2023:

-> Encourage the funding and support of more game development with completely fundraised money.

how will you fund dev work will all devs receive equal funding or are some expected to carry on for free while others get paid this is a can of worms you don't wanna open

I never understood this logic.
I will say that multiple Devs on LOUD for example have gotten paid, others haven't. Nobody has complained and there has been no can of worms opened.

I also run a large project for arma 3, my lead Dev is paid. All the other developers (3 devs) are not paid.

In my experience there is no can of worms to open.