Reindtroduction and thoughts on AI

[Voidfoam]

Hi there,

I was a backer of Xenonauts and have not been gaming for many years. I used to be very active on the forums before the launch of Xenonauts. Life took other turns and i quit gaming for a while. I have just started gaming again a few months back. I recently restarded a Xenonauts campaign on insane mode and have actually kept my backer portrain personality alive for 7(!) missions without savescumming. I anticipate a deadly reaper attack very soon. 

I have been following the development of Xenonatus 2 only sporadicly. But it seem it is well on its way to become a solid improvement over Xenonauts. Now i have read on some of the improvements coming to AI, that will make the Aliens move around more(roam) around the map. This is good. One thing i find is a weakness of Xenonauts is a fairly predictable AI and alos a quite passive AI.

I have recently been playing a game called Ultimate general Civil war. Best way to describe it is realtime combat on a painted 2D map. It's fairly simple but the AI is one of the best i have ever encountred in a tactical game. One of the things that make the AI feel different from time to time is that the behaviour of the AI is semi determined by traits of the Units. If enemy brigades have certain traits that will decide wether they will hunker down, come at you in mass, charge often or try to owerwhelm you with firepower. This way the same battle many times take on entirly differant pace or character, even if enemy units reinforce or start at the same place every time. Becuase thier behaviour is semi randomized.

One thing i felt would have made Xenonauts better is if different crews of UFOs had different overall tactic. It could be explained by some alien officers being different as humans are different. Even if you down a corvette with Ceasans (psyons) like you did last time. This officer this time is very aggresive and will take all his soldiers directly to you grabbing you by the belt as soon as you come off the landing ship. Next officer is a sneaky one and has his shooters on the rooftops, with units waiting in abushes on the bottomfloor. And the third one hunkers down with almost the entire crew in anticipation of your breachparty. 

This way the player can only semi predict what he will face. He maybe( by resarch) will know the race, but not this certain crew personality.  And of course a aggressive sebilian will be very much more scary than a Sebillian chosing to snipe at you, since sebillian aren't snipers. This way you could also explit the enemy using 'wrong' tactics. I feel it is an oppurtunity to make the AI change and not always behave the same, and also let the player feel that he really need to determine what he is up to. 

 

Nice to be back. I am in anticipation for Xenonatus 2.  Very thankful towards Chris and the team for keepin my childhood game favourite Microprose Xcom alive, improved and reskinned in a fantastic reimagination of this gem. Cheers folks

[Komandos]

I agree. When an AI does not have a winning strategy, the best tool for it is a variety of tactics.

 

 

P.S.

It is worth adding 5% of tactical missions to the game, where the player does not have a winning strategy and a reasonable choice for the player would be to retreat. For example, a UFO with an excessively large crew. (80-120 units).

[Visperas]

I'm more worried about the aliens having good AI to begin with. It feels like they don't know how to deal with smoke grenades at all. 

[Alienkiller]

The AI-Programming isn´t easy, that we expert Players know (the Players which are playing since the 1970s / 1980s).

In that you have 3 Options:

1. AI is Cheating (like in the older Games C & C et.c)

2. AI is Stupid (like in Ponnyhof)

3. AI is Balanced which is in the most newest Games since the 2010s and some Prototypes (like in Star Wolves 1, 2 and 3, new XCOM).

Point 3 isn´t easy and Goldhawk is doing their best to make an very good balance. Atm. you won´t see much differnece between the Difficulty-Settings.

[Komandos]

If all the aliens are armed with grenade launchers, then the aliens will have a real chance to defeat the player's soldiers.

[Alienkiller]

They have already that Chance. The Aliens and her Human-Traitor-Helpers have better Weapons then you, higher Armor from their Suits etc (mostly Aliens). and advantages at Day or Night (Aliens). And when the Aliens use their Grenades or their Close-Combat-Abilitys (and they use it), then you are in big Danger with the esp. beginning Underdog-Starting-Equipment and light upgraded Starting-Equipment you have in all that Games (old X-Com, new XCOM, Phoenix Point, etc.).

Dosen´t matter what you do, you as player will have minimum 1 light wounded Soldier per Mission. In all my Tests from the first real playable Beta up to now I had 8 Missions with 0 Wounded Soldiers.

That´s to the Theme that the Aliens wouldn´t have a Chance.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Alienkiller

[Komandos]

3 hours ago, Alienkiller said:

Dosen´t matter what you do, you as player will have minimum 1 light wounded Soldier per Mission. In all my Tests from the first real playable Beta up to now I had 8 Missions with 0 Wounded Soldiers.

If this happens at the maximum complexity of the game, then to someone such a "maximum complexity" of the game may seem insufficient.