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The AI is cheating but I guess that's ok


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I understand it is for the better, even if rather infuriating, particularly in ironman.

And please don't tell me it is not. Situation is:

Defending base

Turn 21 +, so no fog of war, can see all aliens

4 troopers staying in command room: the 3 aliens in the workshop just move randomly back and forth for what ... 10 rounds?

2 troopers get out of the command room, aliens have no line of sight at all. And ... oddly shall I say, during alien turn, an alien makes a sudden, straight and bold move, manage to reach grenade-throwing range and blast into pieces the 2 troopers.

I can cite several of such weird moves, where without line of sight, the alien makes the perfect "I move around you to fire on your back" move. But I'm not here to make a trial, that's ok. I accept alien sees what I do. Perhaps the dev is genuinely believing that the alien AI is not cheating, that it is not using at all any positional infos. Me, I believe that somewhere there are 'threat maps' and 'sight maps' calculated who are making use of the positions of the xenonauts, and so this lead to this kind of behavior.

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I can cite several of such weird moves,

Unless you want just to complain/chat and nothing more, cite is useless. Provide a save that reproduces it.

And please don't tell me it is not.

Let's try it, just for the fun of it: It is not. See why I wrote the above?

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Someone discovered that AI in computer games is cheating!! Lets enter the MATRIX!!!

Man of course it is, cause computers are just to stupid to think in a way as human does. AI (in games) is generally all about making an illusion of thinking or directing the action. I guess there is some kind of a general planner above which sees a little bit more than average alien trooper.

Other thing is that u shouldnt have been able to notice that. And it is a small design mistake.

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Nieblung44, if you want to make claims that the AI is cheating, then please support those claims with evidence: saves would be good or (as you're doing ironman, I see) video (use something like Bandicam) because essentially you're telling GJ that he wasn't a good enough coder to make actual AI and had to resort to cheating.

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Well, the AI knew where you were, maybe just guessing. Since you didn't do anything the AI moved around a bit knowing you see it doing nothing (through hidden cameras in all rooms, I know you like peeking at the girls showering ...). So, the AI successfully lured you out of your cover to perform their own ambush.

Mission Accomplished!

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I have not seen programming for the AI cheating. It does, however, maintain quite elaborate memories about where it saw your soldiers, what direction shots came from, and so on, and it's capable of making good guesses about unseen soldiers.

Fun fact: there are even more advanced AI capabilities that are turned off for performance reasons now, and that are good enough to guess the location of your soldiers really often.

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I know there are parameters in the AI files about the AI detecting noises, is it what you are talking about? Because noises amount to receiving infos from a spot you have no LOS.

My game is modded, so I can't provide proof. As I said, 3 Sebillians moved a maximum of 3 squares away from a location during 10 turns. (I had complete view as this was after the 20th during base defense). The very same turn I move out of the command room 2 soldiers, a Sebillian makes a dash to be in the spot where he can throw a grenade and kill the 2 soldiers.

So yes, this might be coincidence. But I have seen that far too often to not get suspicious, sorry.

Edited by Nibelung44
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Someone discovered that AI in computer games is cheating!! Lets enter the MATRIX!!!

There is a difference between cheating by increasing certain stats (like armour, strength, etc.) and by giving the AI an advantage that a human player cannot match. The first case is what happens for example in Civilization 5. Now, having the AI hearing... noises... effectively knowing where your troops are is something different.

Before shooting the OP, let's wait for the video to upload. But it is true that there have been reports in the forums of AI throwing grenades to invisible soldiers hidden besides hedgerows. :)

Edited by ntalas
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The AI occasionally gets fed some extra information on the location of your soldiers for a turn, once every 10 turns or so. This provides a little more variation in the game, prevents players from camping and generally just forces even veteran players to deal with unexpected situations sometimes.

EDIT - actually, no it doesn't. GJ explains more on page 3.

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Thank you Chris for clarifying. Is this logic available on all levels, or only at Veteran and above? I did not have any nasty surprises on Normal. I can imagine this logic being game-breaking on Iron Man.

To the rest of the people that almost crucified the OP for daring (OH GOD!) to accuse the AI, please don't treat Xenonauts with religious devout, it's only a game ;-)

Psionics have 1 TU skill, which locates the enemies, ie opens the map. That's how they find your guys wherever they are and rape their minds. Just an example tho.

If Psionics only take one 1TU to open the map, then yes, I would dare to classify that as cheating. It's too much isn't it?

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Psionics have 1 TU skill, which locates the enemies, ie opens the map. That's how they find your guys wherever they are and rape their minds. Just an example tho.

None of the aliens have that particular psionic ability, though.

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I can cite several of such weird...
By rights, the aliens should know where all your soldiers are 100% of the time while you're in their bases or ships. If anything the AI knows too little about your positions, so if the AI receives an update once every 10 turns about your location I certainly wouldn't say it's cheating. Generally speaking, the AI really doesn't have enough information about a lot of things that you can derive in your mind.
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Well, my example was about me defending my base... You can imagine how frustrating it is to not move during 10 turns and then the turn you move, the AI counter-react you perfectly as if omniscient.

But as I said in the title, 'that's ok'. I'll cope with that, it's just that I prefer to be served the truth.

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Well, my example was about me defending my base... You can imagine how frustrating it is to not move during 10 turns and then the turn you move, the AI counter-react you perfectly as if omniscient.

But as I said in the title, 'that's ok'. I'll cope with that, it's just that I prefer to be served the truth.

That would be the exception. I agree with you in this case.
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Well there is something weird going on with grenades and alien AI I think. They are sometimes thrown to places where I have no clue how the alien would know that someone is exactly there at that tile. I once made a thread about one such case. Other than that, everything seems ok.

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I'll chime in as well; as this issue seems to pop up quite a bit, just provide me with a save and I'll look into what's going wrong.

And, I've got no problems with admitting when I've made a mistake. More than enough bugs popped up during alpha that I have no problem with admitting fault. :D

Anyway, as I said before; there is a trigger for aggressivity when a unit nears the AI.

And if you camp; you're quickly letting it get a *heck* of a lot of information. (Especially during base defense where the AI has squadsight on near damn your entire base from the start)

As for the 10 turns Chris refers to; this is the aggressivity, not a ping to the AI on where you are.

Just an incentive for it to move towards you.

If you provide a save and I can see that it's a bug, I'll fix it.

The grenade scenario makes me think it's a bug, however with the upcoming projects I've had to temporarily switch my attention. So I can't go bug-hunting without a reproducible scenario.

Edited by Gijs-Jan
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The AI occasionally gets fed some extra information on the location of your soldiers for a turn, once every 10 turns or so. This provides a little more variation in the game, prevents players from camping and generally just forces even veteran players to deal with unexpected situations sometimes.

I knew it.

Can't say I like this mechanic. It feels cheap, and can lead to some pretty horrific consequences if alien grenades are involved.

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