On the AI

posted on June 6th, 2010, 7:03 am

Yes, I know most people don't care about the AI, but I just discovered something interesting with it.

I was playing Blue Amber (the map I usually play when I'm just playing by myself) and I ended up playing as Optimize Borg.

Opponents were Fed, Rom, Klingon, Dominion, Borg, Borg, Borg.

I eventually, against heavy opposition, broke the backs of everything but the Dominion, who I had yet to find.  (Hard to get a detector into every corner of that map when everything else is hostile and spammy.)  When I found them, my primary fleet (2 base-cracker tac cubes, 2 regen3/prime1 spheres, 2 regen3/torp 1 spheres, 2 regen1/prime 3 spheres, 2 beam3/prime1 spheres, 2 beam3/regen1 spheres, 1prime3/torp1 sphere, 2 battle-diamonds - 1regen, 1 torp, 1 beam, 1 queen module, 1 standard diamond queen3/torp1, 3 emscubes, 3 regen scubes, 3 int/regen dodecs, 1 Excel II, 2 Monsoon, 1 Norway, 2 Sabre, 1 non-mixed Adaptor, and 2 Assim3 Assimilators) was vaporized within 15 seconds.

Yes, 15 seconds.

The Dominion-spam turned all viewable portions of the minimap around the battle solid orange.  My second fleet started hauling ass in a line that would take the 7 taccubes straight down the throat of their primary base while my baby fleet of spambusters (20 3beam/1regen spheres) moved to engage that massive spamfleet.  Imagine my surprise when, while the sphere fleet engaged the massive fleet, a fleet just as big evaporated the tac cubes.

It was impressive to watch, but it brings up a question to me.  Why does the Dominion AI spam like that when nobody else does?  It's not the first time I've seen it, but it is the first time I've seen it that bad.  I've seen romulan warbird arcs that were half a screen wide, and 4 screens long, and those were minuscule compared to what the dominion AI fielded.

(For those who use AI allies, I suspect that Dominion AI is the most powerful one you could field.)

Yes, I do know that playing on such a large map against so many AI is just begging for some kind of mega-spam.  I tend to enjoy the challenge of it, but that was...insane.

posted on June 6th, 2010, 7:55 am

Optec knows... 

Maybe Dominion AI is layed out for mass ship production so it was scripted that way. Maybe they found that Dominion has to spam to be able to compete against the other races. But I'm not sure on that. 
It would make sense as it could be Optec wants them to behave that way to make them more like in the show.

posted on June 6th, 2010, 8:54 am

I've noticed it with Dominion heavily. I only play offline, so I tend to go against the Dominion; finding that I start to panic 12-15 minutes in as I realise the Dominion have started spamming.

posted on June 6th, 2010, 3:09 pm

It's probably due to a combination that they use similar Shipyard rules to the other factions, but have faster build time combined with low supply cost (the low supply seems to affect the spamability).

posted on June 6th, 2010, 3:32 pm

Why don't you complain about the Borg AI? Imagine those vast waves 4 screens wide of spheres and cubes!

Attachments

posted on June 6th, 2010, 10:13 pm

The Borg AI rarely goes more than 1 screen thick. 

Which is still grossly excessive with all the cubes they spit out, but the Dommies...wow.  Just wow.

I really want to know how/why that specific AI does that.

posted on June 6th, 2010, 11:51 pm

Why don't you complain about the Borg AI? Imagine those vast waves 4 screens wide of spheres and cubes!

Speaking as another who has only been able to play off line, borg spam has gotten better in 3.1.2 thankfully... at least IME

posted on March 31st, 2011, 6:58 am

I was going to start a new Thread, but not sure if this has been talked about either, for almost a year now I haven't seen the issue that the Dominion AI has access to the Breen Battleship, AND the PureTech Battleships (Defender?).  Like they arn't OP anyways.

posted on March 31st, 2011, 7:08 am

I was going to start a new Thread, but not sure if this has been talked about either, for almost a year now I haven't seen the issue that the Dominion AI has access to the Breen Battleship, AND the PureTech Battleships (Defender?).  Like they arn't OP anyways.

I played against a merci Dominion yesterday and they still have access to both 

posted on March 31st, 2011, 7:35 am

The AI has access to ships from both avatars, regardless of race (as the AI is incapable of "choosing" an avatar .


  Neither of those ships are OP, but against an AI they are fielded in massive numbers that will be very hard for you to stop.  That's the sacrifice you make when you play the AI - it has to cheat .

posted on April 3rd, 2011, 9:51 pm

From what i've gathered, the Dominion ai becomes dangerous/fatal during the mid game and late game.  For the first bit, they throw out a few small fleets.  Nothing really significant but enough to be a distraction.  By mid game though you really start to notice a sudden increase of Dominion.  By late game, if left unchecked,  the Dominion simply dominate the battlefield.  It's incredibly hard to take them down at this point.

Honestly, the Dominion AI makes the Borg AI seem friendly.  For me atleast, Borg AI is unpredictable.  Either they quickly buildup and dominate or they just flatline early on and never become a major threat.

posted on April 3rd, 2011, 9:55 pm

dom ai is worse because:

dom ships cost a lot of supply and less dil/tri, this makes them balanced in multiplayer as we have to get supply by mining/buying it
all AI players get loads of supply, they get it given to them per second automatically, so supply is not an issue at all for an AI
therefore their ships are even cheaper, and the dominion is meant to have loads of ships, in mp too. just the computer cna make way more than you. their unique proto system allows them to tech really fast as well.

[Tok`ra]

posted on April 3rd, 2011, 11:34 pm

Last edited by Tok`ra on April 3rd, 2011, 11:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Why does the Dominion AI spam like that when nobody else does?

Becasue teh devs barley paid any attention to SP balance.

Merciless AI only pays 10% of the  base price of anything, and builds it in 10% of the time.

As for the communities views on that.... let me quote from one of my previous attempts to fix this.

Im going to say shut up and play medium because i can beat mercy so its doable

That is the kinda response you can expect in this thread starting on maybe page two.

posted on April 4th, 2011, 6:20 am

And why didnt you ever fix it then you said you were going too? You said it would be easy where is our fix???

posted on April 4th, 2011, 8:03 am

Becasue teh devs barley paid any attention to SP balance.

[img width=400]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Barley.jpg[/img]

not sure thats what you meant

As for the communities views on that

most of us dont care, fleetops is meant to be played online, the devs have told you that to your face so many times and u just dont listen, if u want a balanced and perfect AI game DONT PLAY FLEETOPS, go somewhere else and troll their forums.

And why didnt you ever fix it then you said you were going too? You said it would be easy where is our fix???

he realised that everyone was right in saying that the fix isnt as easy as changing a couple numbers, he doesnt have the ability to fix it quickly. the devs have been modding this game for quite some time, if it was a quick fix, it would have been fixed.