TACtical AI - Discussion

[Legionite]

[>Master Thread<]
[>Tech Suggestion Thread<]
Any concerns, problems, suggestions?
Feel free to state them below

 

[LCo]

Hello Legionite,

First of all, I'm simply amazed by your work and can't imagine the amount of work behind it.

I still have a question regarding your AI (what follows is a copy/paste from the main discussion on the TAC corp):

I have been building a heavy lifter/transport helicopter as part of an air mobility concept, inspired by the US Skycrane.

I tried recently to build a squadron of those and when I set their altitude and AI to follow, they will inevitably collide with me, often in a catastrophic way (if they don't blow up, they'll lose their cargo and fly away since).

Your AI module do prevent that from happening? Will they make the following helicopters use a linear path as much as possible?

Thank you for your answer

 

[Legionite]

Snip

For cases with one helicopter - one load
The AIs do have collision avoidance, but it ultimately falls down to the control of the Techs involved since there are no direct PIDs (stability systems) involved with the AI in this mod.

They try to maintain a path but that's a path directly towards the target player, not in the general direction of flight (eventually it evens out with the avoidance when going forwards with multiple Techs but it's not an organized state)
They space apart from each other based on Tech sizes, so depending on the maneuverability and scale of the Tech, the AI could have no difficulty (large and slow) to high difficulty (small and fast)
I suggest equipping your AI helicopters with a BF AI module as those feature two-point avoidance, less likely to crash.

If the load itself is a separate Tech attached via a hook to the helicopter, then it is advised to set that Tech's AI to Slave, Turret, or Mimic to prevent the helicopter from trying to avoid that separate Tech.


As for cases where multiple helicopters carrying one large load:
Currently the TACtical AI mod AI does not operate in a clean linear formation, but it might be possible to use the Mimic function with the cargo being the main controller, assuming the cargo "chains" are a solid part of the cargo.

As always, experimentation is key - I've done a bunch of testing on this mod but have only scratched the very surface.

 

[LCo]

Thank you for your reply, very instructive and detailed. I must admit I tested only the HE AI module at the moment, very useful specially in swarms and way smarter than the regular ones.

 

[LCo]

Air mobility test.

In the picture there are 3 techs: 1 attack helicopter, 1 heavy lifter, 1 tank.

I used the BF Altitude Control system to lock the various aircrafts altitude and try to keep them in formation.

The AI responds well enough on small aircraft. The attack helicopter does what it's supposed to do (escort and eliminate close targets). On the other hand, even using the BF AI for the heavy lifter, it has, as you wrote earlier, no straight flight patterns and has a tendency to circle around the player's aircraft losing in consequence the transported tank.

 

[Cupholder]

Thank you for all the new additions of AI, don't overwork yourself though

I have a slight problem that does not require immediate attention.

There is a base AI that spawns called "Error on load" That spells out error and has some fuel tanks on the bottom. When spawning this base will hit its fuel tanks and more often then not, detonates. Maybe moving the fuel tanks away or raising the base will solve it, but I'll leave it to you. Like I said before this does not require immediate attention.

I hope this helps

 

[Z_THETA_Z]

given the name, i think this might be intentional

 

[tororogohan]

Hi. Thank you for making a great AI.
This is strange because I can hear the sound regardless of the distance from the enemy that is auto-healing with rebuilt enemies. It's also very noisy. Is it possible to fix this?

 

[Cupholder]

I realize that but I don't think free blocks was the original intention

 

[Rafs]

you don't understand the ErrorTech philosophy

 

[Cupholder]

That is true, but the main purpose was to notify and I think that has been fulfilled

 

[Legionite]

Thank you for all the new additions of AI, don't overwork yourself though

I have a slight problem that does not require immediate attention.

There is a base AI that spawns called "Error on load" That spells out error and has some fuel tanks on the bottom. When spawning this base will hit its fuel tanks and more often then not, detonates. Maybe moving the fuel tanks away or raising the base will solve it, but I'll leave it to you. Like I said before this does not require immediate attention.

I hope this helps

Since "error on load" is a spawn that happens whenever the Tech spawner can't find something to spawn (can affect really early game), since there are some Hawkeye BMBs on it, those blocks in particular are intended to be hard to obtain.
But also on second thought, the excessive weapons it yields is a bad idea.

As for Rafs' statement, YES

I'll change that "error on load" spawn next update.

As for the long-term solution being to increase the built-in TACtical AI population so that it doesn't run out of options to spawn.
The tech suggestion thread for that is coming real soon (bug smashing), maybe a week from now.

Hi. Thank you for making a great AI.
This is strange because I can hear the sound regardless of the distance from the enemy that is auto-healing with rebuilt enemies. It's also very noisy. Is it possible to fix this?

If you install Nuterra.Native Options, in the settings menu tab "MODS" should contain "Mute Non-Player Build Racket"
Toggle that on to disable that build noise.

 

[jolo_]

Hello legionite.

Questions:

What are the block requirements for the TACais
(To make them work)
For
the raid TAC
The plane TAC
Helicopter TAC

why?

I can't get the raid techs to move with tank treads

I have succesfully created one TACai plane all my other 40 designs failed. 5 partly because the enemys can't use them. most of them nosedive or fly away.

And for helicopters yea... none of my helicopters worked even with the circle gyro they still just nosedive

Suggestions

Make the plane ai turn around when going too far from you aka out of render distance.

Try to tune the plane ai to make them not nose dive whenever they are top heavy or down heavy (ai can indicate how fast it goes down and up so it will calculate the right hight to go down and not chrash)

Make a aggresive plane ai wich will attack any enemy nearby and chase them not just fly circles and try to hit them

For the helicopter i dont really know because i dont see whats wrong as they all fly for 2 seconds before they crash

I hope you could do something with this feedback i still really like the ai and you did a great job with it

If i can get the ai to work i will personally create ai friendly techs for you dm me on discord with techs that you still need for certain amounts of bb and for wich kind of tech and i will make them. (i can make atleast 10 a day)

-JOLO

 

[Falchoin]

I love this mod. It's breathed new life into the game for me. Much fun has been had tweaking existing builds to better work with various AIs (the "Space" AI is amazing!) and building new things for specific functions. Thank you!

That said, I've run into a problem with the Harvest AI... or more accurately my harvester has. When it returns to base it makes a straight line to the nearest receiver, even if said receiver is on the opposite side of the base. So it just rams the backend of the base in a vain attempt to phase through blocks to get to the receivers. Is there a way to fix this or will I just need to link up more receivers? Already tried adding in a BF AI hoping the smarter driving would help (dunno if that's functional at this point).

 

[Zonko]

can this mod be mixed with TTMM steam?

 

[Legionite]

What are the block requirements for the TACais
(To make them work)
For
the raid TAC
The plane TAC
Helicopter TAC

See the linked posts for more details:
For Allied AI, each AI module is capable of handling different operations:

TACtical AI - Alternative Tech AI

Need it Now? [>Install TTMMThe Discussion ThreadHere

forum.terratechgame.com

For Enemy AI, the AI is auto-set based on the Tech's block composition:

TACtical AIs Enemy Tech Suggestion Thread

This is the thread to submit Techs for the Random Spawns in TACtical AIs. It will remain open for as long as someone is able to tend to this thread. To Generate JSON or RAWTECH Techs: Pause the game with your current Tech and press the "SAVE RAW" button in the upper left hand corner. To Find...

forum.terratechgame.com

Make the plane ai turn around when going too far from you aka out of render distance.

Try to tune the plane ai to make them not nose dive whenever they are top heavy or down heavy (ai can indicate how fast it goes down and up so it will calculate the right hight to go down and not chrash)

Hopefully the Devs down the line fix that when they get to Legion...
- Since this AI mod does not (currently) use PIDs in nature, the AIs don't have an automatic trim function. As a last resort, I would suggest adding more Steering Hovers to aid AI control.

As for most of the other issues in AI controls:

I can't get the raid techs to move with tank treads

Make a aggresive plane ai wich will attack any enemy nearby and chase them not just fly circles and try to hit them

I have succesfully created one TACai plane all my other 40 designs failed. 5 partly because the enemys can't use them. most of them nosedive or fly away.

And for helicopters yea... none of my helicopters worked even with the circle gyro they still just nosedive

For the helicopter i dont really know because i dont see whats wrong as they all fly for 2 seconds before they crash

Quick fix:
Scout/Raid/Kill AI
They require a charged charger base (in range) to function properly and appropriate energy shielding.

Aircraft
Try to keep your aircraft as center-balanced as possible

• Try to avoid GSO wings as their delay in control make them painful in general
• Make sure your aircraft can pitch up to 75 degrees without stalling. If they don't stall at all, the better, and then they can perform immelmanns which increase their combat ability against both ground and air targets.

Helicopters
Keep most of your thrust pointing upwards, mostly towards the center of mass and some gyroscopes on board

• The AI can't pitch forwards with a copter anyways because not even normal human players can when the controls bork. This could be partially solved by adding forwards thrust boosters for the chopper to use.

The rest of these issues are more technical and fall back to Tech designs (and the AI's lack of a PID - stability system).

If you could link these Techs or post the snapshots to help troubleshooting the AI, it would be thoroughly appreciated!

That said, I've run into a problem with the Harvest AI... or more accurately my harvester has. When it returns to base it makes a straight line to the nearest receiver, even if said receiver is on the opposite side of the base. So it just rams the backend of the base in a vain attempt to phase through blocks to get to the receivers. Is there a way to fix this or will I just need to link up more receivers? Already tried adding in a BF AI hoping the smarter driving would help (dunno if that's functional at this point).

Update 1.7 (smarter AI pathfinding) should have helped reduce this issue's severity. If all else fails:

• Placing a ring of receivers around that base should help reduce downtime in both navigating around the base and AI errors from getting stuck on the base.
• Check the base's AI - the current icon hints that it is set to a Multi-Tech AI, which means the AI will intentionally not pathfind around it as Multi-Tech builds usually involve two techs attached to each other via some physical linkage method.

can this mod be mixed with TTMM steam?

Someday this mod will be on Steam, but right now there's still some remaining light crash issues and the Steam Workshop TTMM does not let the player skip the crash reporter.

There's a fuel regeneration mod up there on TTMM Steam, sure, but this mod is on a caliber which makes it far more difficult to port over.

 

[Zonko]

You misunderstood.
Can i use TTMM steam, and also have THIS on TTMM regular?

 

[Z_THETA_Z]

if you mean Nuterrasteam, then yes

 

[Z_THETA_Z]

yes
btw it's Nuterra steam, not TTMM steam

 

[Zonko]

Cool. Imma see if i can sort it.
you know where to put these files to have them work?
I know how to do the old way, but i have no idea about new stuff.