Aliens not aggressive enough in V20

[kmdcomp]

I played the hell out of V19, but something has noticeably changed in the aliens aggression level in V20. In V19, I loved how well the aliens not only used cover, but would happily dig in and engage in fire fights of attrition with my troops. Now though, they seem obsessed with cover, to the point of seeking out a different covered position, even when they already had a good covered location and firing arc, rather than shooting at my guys, who can basically walk right out into the open without much fear of drawing fire. Reaction shots are now more dangerous and likely than direct fire as the aliens are more likely to just look for another covered location during their turn.

Anyway, loving the game, you guys are doing an awesome job, just wanted to throw this out there as something that I noticed.

[Aaron]

This is certainly an issue - it actually has to do with the accuracy system changes interacting with the AI. Firstly the AI has a minimum accuracy level below which it will not even consider taking a shot, and this was set to 35% which is actually pretty high if the target units are behind cover and/or crouching; reducing this to 10% has immediately made the AI more likely to shoot during their turn. Secondly the AI had a very steep penalty against any plan (plan meaning the series of actions an individual unit will perform during one turn) which involved staying within the line of sight of an enemy unit - that might seem tactically quite sensible, however the upshot was that any time the player could see an alien, that alien had the massive urge to just move anywhere that would take it out of players line of sight; reducing that also seems to have helped them seem less timid.

Those are only the first little tweaks I have made to the system - now that I have both a better understanding of it and access to the controls, I am hoping we can make some significant improvements in AI behaviour beyond those.

[MrPyro]

Secondly the AI had a very steep penalty against any plan (plan meaning the series of actions an individual unit will perform during one turn) which involved staying within the line of sight of an enemy unit - that might seem tactically quite sensible, however the upshot was that any time the player could see an alien, that alien had the massive urge to just move anywhere that would take it out of players line of sight; reducing that also seems to have helped them seem less timid.

If you could change that from line-of-sight to unobstructed line of fire (aka out of cover or flanked) then it would be pretty sensible.

Edited November 1, 2013 by MrPyro
messed up the quote code

[StellarRat]

If you could change that from line-of-sight to unobstructed line of fire (aka out of cover or flanked) then it would be pretty sensible.

I agree wholeheartedly with this suggestion. If the aliens aren't even willing to engage from behind cover they might as well just surrender. Although I could see adjusting the alien "stickyness" to take into account how solid the cover is. Hiding behing a wooden crate is far less desirable than hiding behind a concrete wall obviously. I have no idea how finely the AI can be controlled though. I would think that stone and concrete houses would be very desirable places to take cover.

[Aaron]

They do actually already have a preference for cover controlled separately from that.

[MrPyro]

I agree wholeheartedly with this suggestion. If the aliens aren't even willing to engage from behind cover they might as well just surrender. Although I could see adjusting the alien "stickyness" to take into account how solid the cover is. Hiding behing a wooden crate is far less desirable than hiding behind a concrete wall obviously. I have no idea how finely the AI can be controlled though. I would think that stone and concrete houses would be very desirable places to take cover.

That's actually pretty situational though. In some circumstances sticking with the weaker cover and shooting back first would be better (after all, if your attacker is dead then they never get to try to break your cover). On the other hand, if your chance of hitting is bad and there is more solid cover nearby, it might be a good move. Also, it might be worth moving from stronger cover to weaker cover if doing so gives you a good shot on an opponent, although that might be only considered by aliens in an aggressive AI mode; on defensive you're right that once they're holed up in a tough structure they should mostly stay there and provide harassing fire.

AI is hard, man

[MrPyro]

They do actually already have a preference for cover controlled separately from that.

Cool, then just turning down that urge to run out of LOS should make some solid improvement.

[StellarRat]

That's actually pretty situational though. In some circumstances sticking with the weaker cover and shooting back first would be better (after all, if your attacker is dead then they never get to try to break your cover). On the other hand, if your chance of hitting is bad and there is more solid cover nearby, it might be a good move. Also, it might be worth moving from stronger cover to weaker cover if doing so gives you a good shot on an opponent, although that might be only considered by aliens in an aggressive AI mode; on defensive you're right that once they're holed up in a tough structure they should mostly stay there and provide harassing fire.

AI is hard, man

Yeah, we used a bunch of formulas we came up with and tried to make ours play like a expert human would. It really takes a long time and a lot of fine tuning to make an AI good. Edited November 1, 2013 by StellarRat

[kmdcomp]

Awesome, thanks for the update Aaron. I look forward to the first V20 patch.