AI Bugs, Improvements & Suggestions

I think there were concerns that the last aliens used to come out of the ship so you could just set up and wait for them.

I vaguely remember discussions about it being more realistic that aliens defending the ship should stay inside to actually defend it rather than leave and be gunned down.

The community keep moving the goal posts which hasn't helped I imagine.

Aliens are too passive, make them hunt the player aggressively!

Aliens are too aggressive, they charge the dropship too much, make them less aggressive!

Aliens are too passive in the UFO, make them charge out!

I am waiting for 'Aliens shouldn't leave the UFO they are supposed to be defending, make them hide inside and defend!'...

This was indeed the case; and at some point the decision was made that some aliens should stay inside the UFO at all times.

Anyway, this should be fixed in the next build, along with a far more diverse number of AI settings.

For the modders this will mean that the AI weights can be set per Race, per Rank, per Behavior Type.

Anyway, this should be fixed in the next build, along with a far more diverse number of AI settings.

I think that's what we're all hoping for, if it's possible. You don't want all of the defensive aliens sitting in their ships at all times, nor do you want all of them rushing out into an ambush that players are certain to set up if they know it's coming every time. A mix would be fantastic and really add suspense to storming a UFO...

I know this is not an AI issue rather collision but still need to be improvement

like you see target is on line of fire

@Amiga4ever:

edit: What do you mean "not on the line of fire"? It looks perfectly aligned to me.

Where I find this corner blocking thing really annoying is with the Chinook. the blocking area around the cockpit extends a LOT over the visible sprite.

StK of course :-) thats why its annoying. Just I wrote wrong. Funny think is that bullets hita target almost every time. Looks like this block doesnt affect bullets...weired

Anyway, this should be fixed in the next build, along with a far more diverse number of AI settings.

Let me remind also that, I think, currently aliens are incapable of opening doors if all tiles on the other side is completely occupied by xenonaut soldiers. They seem incapable of doing the "right click to just open the doors without moving" trick we can do. They have to move to the tile on the other side to open the door, and so it can be taken advantage of by blocking the other side. This is most apparent in bases, but can also be observed in Ufo maps with doors.

You may want to fix this while you're at it as well.

I'd quite like to have claymores or proximity mines.

I'd quite like to have claymores or proximity mines.

[e22.5 hf] . First base attack, small seb. So is this officer supposed to come down to this room to face me? Not that I object to him finally moving from his fixed tile in the command room but it's surprising that he came to make a stand so early in battle.

Yeah, that does seem a bit much. They should be able to go outside the Command Room, but should still be in or around it for most of the time.

Before you send the officer back to his den, there is value in having the officer of the base lead attacks and run away towards the Command room would help cement the emotional "end-level" value of him.

I don't know how much of this is due to GJ's improvements and how much is due to the RNG gods, but I seem to be witnessing a LOT more variety in the AI behavior in 22.5.

Prior to my current game I never saw the door on a UFO (seemingly deliberately) open; now I've come across it several times, with the ETs sniping my guys outside. I just finished 3 landing ship missions on the same game day, and all three played out differently. In the first I never set foot in the vessel; all but two sebs (who were immediately inside the front door) engaged me outside. On the second mission I never went upstairs, but had a rather fine battle with 9 androns on the first floor. Third mission most of the passive/defensive aliens stayed up in the control room. I've also done a couple of large firefights where I was rushed by the majority of the aliens in the first few turns, but then was pleasantly shocked to see the rest of the outside map wasn't depopulated, and there were still some enemies around waiting to ambush me.

If these are representative of the AI changes being made, I love it

It's on a good track I think, though needs much tweaking. I'm not seeing any command rooms in bases or Ufos in this build. Officers just rush me all the time. It's fine that they may get aggressive and lead the rush sometimes, though I'd also have them be sometimes defensive and just hold the command room with several warriors, will add quite some difficulty occasionally.

It's on a good track I think, though needs much tweaking. I'm not seeing any command rooms in bases or Ufos in this build. Officers just rush me all the time. It's fine that they may get aggressive and lead the rush sometimes, though I'd also have them be sometimes defensive and just hold the command room with several warriors, will add quite some difficulty occasionally.

Yes, now that you mention it, I've only had to enter a command room twice. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, as trying to stun officers and leaders that are mobile and often part of a group strikes me as at least equally challenging...

OMG, I just had one of the moments I've always been begging for. Assaulting a landing ship. Ten of my soldiers stacked up right in front of the door, five kneeling, five standing behind them. Same as always. Ho-hum. Stretch. Yawn.

The door flies open, two sebs six inches from my face. First one tosses a grenade, killing two of my troops and badly wounding 4-5 others. The second seb unloads a point-blank plasma burst and deep-sixes another soldier. None of my guys reaction fire (prob because I'd just moved into position and had low TUs). I'm looking at my screen with my mouth hanging open.

The only thing that ruined this classic moment was the game immediately CTD. Truly a shame, because I should've paid the price for my complacency. But oh yeah, you can bet this is gonna change how I approach UFOs. The training manual just got tossed out the window, and that's a beautiful thing

OMG, I just had one of the moments I've always been begging for. Assaulting a landing ship. Ten of my soldiers stacked up right in front of the door, five kneeling, five standing behind them. Same as always. Ho-hum. Stretch. Yawn.

The door flies open, two sebs six inches from my face. First one tosses a grenade, killing two of my troops and badly wounding 4-5 others. The second seb unloads a point-blank plasma burst and deep-sixes another soldier. None of my guys reaction fire (prob because I'd just moved into position and had low TUs). I'm looking at my screen with my mouth hanging open.

The only thing that ruined this classic moment was the game immediately CTD. Truly a shame, because I should've paid the price for my complacency. But oh yeah, you can bet this is gonna change how I approach UFOs. The training manual just got tossed out the window, and that's a beautiful thing

Good to hear :-); Except of course the CTD!

I still encounter passive AI behaviour every now and then. Some times they just move really close to my units and do nothing else (like, you know, shoot?) or just skip the turn and do nothing.

Just imagine they went in overwatch mode? In Firaxis XCOM aliens also would do nothing and enter overwatch - maybe he thought that nothing better he can do.

It happens in some really odd situations, though, such as when aliens have clean shots on your soldiers or even when you have soldiers adjacent to an alien unit.

In fairness, this issue is much less pronounced than I remember it being - in my playthrough over the weekend I barely noticed it at all. Still, I hope it can and does get fixed, because otherwise the AI is really impressive.

I wonder if the problem is with the AI auto-selecting snap or burst fire every time. With the minimum thresholds set relatively high for snap/burst shots, the AI might be thinking "nope!".

If you guys manage to get a save of the behavior then I can probably get it fixed quickly. Otherwise I have to spend my time playing the game to encounter it, as it is a bug that doesn't seem to happen often (reliably that is).

And with the deadline approaching I am currently focusing my efforts on the Harridans taking flight.

Yes! I got a perfect save with these passive aliens.

Just select unit #2 Klara Sokolova and end turn. (notice there's a sebillian very close to her)

After alien turn, check Klaras surroundings and you'll see 2 sebillians crouching adjacent to her doing nothing.

Could it be something with the bugging night time LOS discussed here?

passive aliens.sav

passive aliens.sav

Yes! I got a perfect save with these passive aliens.

Excellent, thanks!

I sometimes see aliens charging but eventually actually not attacking.

Saved game: http://ge.tt/63b6M7h1/v/0

Tech Info: V22.8

Observed: There are 3 soldiers waiting outside of the Shrike (and they intentionally have no TUs left). If you end the turn, a Sebillian will appear, run towards them, but about halfway will suddenly stop and fire at something else (there's a cop in that place, so presumably at him).

Desired: There are several things wrong with this:

- The alien fires at a (relatively) harmless cop instead of firing at the much more dangerous Xenonauts.

- The alien fires at the cop that is quite far, about as far as Xenonauts were when the alien appeared. If it's ok with firing at such a distance, it might have opened fire the moment it spotted Xenonauts, instead of running closer.

- The alien ended up standing in the open with 3 Xenonauts aiming guns at it. This may be because it's a Sebillian, but I think this happens quite often in my games even with e.g. Caesans (I'm not entirely sure though and I don't have any saves for that), sometimes I think aliens even just run closer but don't fire (and they of course don't live long enough to get a chance the next turn). I could try to come up with another save for this if you'd be interested.

Ahh, the AI is so brutal! haha, I'm getting my ass handed to me on normal! Amazing job GJ, I love it.