intrinsicValue and ATtackPower question

posted on December 25th, 2012, 9:24 pm

Hello all,

Bit of a philosophical question really, but how does FleetOps, and other mods, determine intrinsicValue and attackPower ratings for ships?

I know how to change the values, naturally, but what I am meaning is how do you, the modder, decide what is a high value target or not? I mean technically speaking a Battleship is a high value target, but it's also incredibly powerful, so really if you can avoid it, avoid it. Obviously non-combat ships are extremely high value and great targets. Is that the purpose of attackPower then? To tell the AI the difference between a high value capital ship target (i.e target this ship, it's a tough beast but it's their flagship) and a high value freighter target (Go for it, it's easy pickings) ?

Also what sort of scale are we talking here? If I were to say set the attackPower values on a scale of 1 to 10 or 1 to 20, is that a huge scale or do I need to make it more along the lines of "Frigate = 10, Battleship = 500" ? Is there a point where a number is so large it doesn't matter any more? What are good sensible values basically

Just trying to tweak my AI a wee bit and see if I can't get KA2 to play even better

posted on December 25th, 2012, 10:30 pm

Intrinsicvalue and attackpower aren't used actively in 327 - in v4 the commands serve a different purpose in order to allow us to determine how the Craft AI chooses targets .I'd read up on the commands at the guide before continuing further http://guide.fleetops.net/guide/modding ... insicValue

posted on December 26th, 2012, 2:24 am

I have read that wiki page. I know that these values may not be used actively in FleetOps but I was hoping they could be in KA2. I guess I'll just have to experiment and see what affect they have

posted on December 26th, 2012, 2:47 am

The effects are listed right there - just plug and chug for what outcome you desire

If you want battleships to be targeted first always, or some battleships targeted first, and others targeted last, that will determine what value you use in conjunction with their hitpoints. Values of 10 or 500 are meaningless if your hitpoint values do not bear them out.

If you're asking a balancing opinion, you have to go with what role you want your ships to take. In v4 our Defensive vessels act as tanks, thus they are always targeted first and all Defensive vessels will be chosen randomly, regardless of their hitpoints. Depending on the playstyle you are looking for, you should adjust the numbers accordingly .

posted on December 26th, 2012, 12:14 pm

Ah I see, and if I understand correctly, intrinsicValue is only used until a unit gets within attack range, then attackPower takes over? InstrinsicValue telling the AI how eager it should be to pursue and intercept, with attackPower telling it what to engage with. Is that right?

Oh one further query, does the AI also use these values for determining the value and power of it's own ships? So lets say an Akula Refit has an attackPower of 50, and a K'Tinga has an attackPower of 100. All things being equal, the AI would know to send at least 2 Akula Refits if I send a K'Tinga.

I assume this also works with stations, so I can give my starbases a huge attack power and intrinsic value to make them high value but enormously dangerous targets.

posted on December 26th, 2012, 6:04 pm

Not exactly, intrinsicValue is more complicated than that and is never "pushed to the side": it's used to establish the basic threat map. You could consider two targets on a map that the AI has explored: the AI will choose to investigate the target with more intrinsicValue first. Once at the location it will choose the highest Attack Value target that enters sensor range, but reinforcements are still sent on the basis of the original threat mapping (plus whatever new threat mapping comes about due to the ongoing fighting). It may be also that the AI only uses stations to consider intrinsicValue - I haven't experimented with that very much, but it seems likely given the threat mapping implementation.

AttackPower seems to solely be used for ship vs ship encounters - it seems to play no role in the AIs determination of global threat mapping. The AI shouldn't be sending equal value AttackPower interceptors. It determines how many ships it should send purely by matching shield strength - this may not work properly however.

* I use "seems" a lot, because the code for the AI is not exposed and is largely not modifiable - making experimentation rather useless. Ian included a lot of handwritten notes, but I can't tell how accurate they are, and unfortunately he doesn't remember either. Even if you want to experiment with the goal parameter files, I strongly caution - the game will go out of sync most of the time in online play.

If you want to learn more about the dysfunctional AI, I suggest reading here: http://guide.fleetops.net/guide/modding ... telligence

posted on December 26th, 2012, 11:05 pm

Alrighty. Wowsers the AI is a mess isn't it? And we wonder why it struggles to build things sometimes!

The way I look at it, it can't do any harm to change these numbers to something calculated coherently. At the very worst it will do nothing at all. If it helps fine tune the way the AI views it's ships and it's opponent's ships, then all the better. Who knows, I might learn something new in the process

posted on December 28th, 2012, 1:39 am

Well, I am unsure at this point as to the cause, but it seems something has made my AI turtle up spectacularly. It's either

A) My changing the values mentioned in this post
My Hydran AI is just a bit crap
C) Overwriting my attack personality files (A2_very_aggressive etc) with the ones from FleetOps didn't work as planned (wondered if my changes were the source of some of the instability KA2 suffers from occasionally)

I'll figure it out though. It's not entirely bad if the Hydrans turtle up, thats kind of what they do, but if it's all the AI, well I am stumped. I can only think that the attackPower alterations only affect how the AI sees other ships not it's own, so suddenly it is crap scared of everything and thinks it's constantly outgunned when it isn't.

WIll test further tomorrow and post my results.

posted on December 28th, 2012, 10:09 am

Triple Post!

After testing the same map again, in the same positions but with my side as the Federation and the AI as the Klingon Empire, I can confirm that it is just the Hydran AI that is rather passive. Unsure why. The Klingons are, fittingly, very aggressive. They also seem to be using attack patterns, which is nice. Big swirling battles between two fleets are very pretty

Escort Duty: Two Soyuz Class CGs escort a Clydesdale Class AK from Titan to Neptune


Battle Commences: A Federation Destroyer Flotilla and Cruiser Squadron engage Klingon forces around Neptune and Nereid


The Tide Turns: Luck is not with our ships and their men today, the Klingons are overwhelming in number and firepower. An Akula Class Refit DD suffers a direct disruptor blast to her sensor dome, and a nearby Miranda Class CL is struck by a heavy disruptor strike on her starboard nacelle. It doesn't all go the Klingons way though; a Constitution Class Refit CA manages to cause heavy damage to the bridge section of an already crippled Klingon D7C Qo'Nos Class BC near to Triton.


Loss: An Akula Class Refit DD suffers a core breach and explodes with the loss of all hands. Another Akula weathers the blast, although with the impact and incoming disruptor fire, her shields are soon crumbling.


(forgot to remove the GUI from this one)
The End: A Constitution Class Refit CA loses antimatter containment and begins to suffer a core breach after a whithering hail of disruptor and photon torpedo fire from a Suvwl'QeH Class CC near Nereid.

posted on December 28th, 2012, 7:14 pm

Nice. Did you make the explosions yourself? How do you give ships the damaged plasma trail? (I tried, but failed in the past. I dont know why.)

I dont know if you know, but do you know how to give ships a continuous trail without damage, or do I have to go to Mr. Vulcan to find out?

posted on December 29th, 2012, 12:52 am

The damaged plasma trail is just a bog standard Armada II "smoke" emitter that I placed and rotated so it looks like a damaged engine from KA Done exactly the same, simply link the emitter to a damage node, in this case the engines. I added an extra damage emitter "rift" which was originally used by the temporal gate I believe, for when crew are low. You can link an emitter or emitters to any system so that when it is damaged or disabled, the emitter turns on.

Regarding constant trails, simples Instead of linking the emitter to a damage node, just link it to (I believe) the hardpoint node. Tada, constant emitters. I did this for a very old mod of mine. Tis a little system intensive depending on ships on screen and number of emitters per ship though.

The explosions are from the NanoEffect mod. Again, I chose them because they looked like the sort of explosions seen in KA.

posted on December 29th, 2012, 6:00 pm

Thanks. Maybe I can put them to use in my mod.