So what gets into the AIs?

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defaultuser
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So what gets into the AIs?

#1 Post by defaultuser »

Now, I'm still playing the old 9-01-2015 version, so there might have been improvements in newer versions. Still, the AIs approach to colonization often leaves me puzzled. They pass over good planets for lesser ones. Here's an example (AI Chato), see snaps below. Admittedly this is one of the worst starting positions I have seen an AI get. Pretty empty area, and you can't tell now but Angstrom had a sentinel on it, and Van Allen a maintenance ship. But when I got to Inti alpha there, I found that the AI had colonized the inferno world, but left the medium toxic at a white star (near perfect) alone. And it went over to Alphecca to colonize an ocean world and put exobots on an asteroid belt.

What was it "thinking"? There was very little for it to do, and that system should have been one of the first uncovered. Why would it pass up a "good" for an "adequate" and a "poor"?
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MatGB
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Re: So what gets into the AIs?

#2 Post by MatGB »

In this specific, I can answer. I'll admit I personally would've gone for the nearby Good/Adequate/White system first but…

The other system has a) a blue star and b) many inbuilt production bonuses. It'll be easier to defend (I think the AI overrates outposts on spare gas giants for defence but my fleets tend to be at overkill level anyway) and will have a very large production output. The system you and I would go for will have a good research output. But Chato homeworlds already have a good research output. The AI overvalues industry in the early game, in part because it builds more ships, etc.

You're looking at individual worlds. The AI tends to look at what bonuses a world can have. A blue star ocean world with asteroids and a gas giant generator will have high PP. Add in Exobots and it'll have even higher PP. 43/16 is better than 10/36 if you're low on PP in the rest of the empire.

Of course, leaving that second asteroid belt unpopulated is a weird choice, and I'd be converting the second GG to a factory world already, but, y'know, the AI doesn't use artificial planet yet.

This answer is pure speculation based on answers given to me in the many many threads of a similar nature I've opened in the past ;-)

(also, finish this game and upgrade, we need feedback for balance as we get ready for the next Release and your feedback is normally useful)
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defaultuser
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Re: So what gets into the AIs?

#3 Post by defaultuser »

I'll buy that for the other system. My capture should have been taken earlier to make things clearer, but when I captured Inti alpha only planet had been colonized. That was the inferno world. The toxic was still open. I had to colonize that myself.

Morlic
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Re: So what gets into the AIs?

#4 Post by Morlic »

Thanks for reporting this behaviour. In order to find out what is "wrong" with the AI calculations, I would need the AI log of the game. I suppose chances are you have started another game and/or loaded so the logs may have been lost by now.

If you still have a complete log for the AI in this game, uploading it would be really helpful.

Alternatively, if you still have the "seed" of the game or an older load, could you replay it for some turns (no need to actually play, just auto-advance so the AI plays on) to generate new logs and then post them here?



Without that, hardly a chance to guess what exactly is happening. Anyway, here is the guess: With Asteroid Belt and Gas Giant, there is +15 flat industry, so the total resource output from the Asteroids may have been greater than the Chato planet without these boni. Also, the AI prefers dense systems slightly.
Then again, not sure why the inferno was colonized over the toxic one. May have been early in the game so the flat boni of eccentric orbit outweigh the pop loss? Not sure.

Anyway, this is another good example of the shortcomings of the AI colonization strategy. It is on the Todo-list but it probably won't be addressed (at least not by me) before 0.4.6 is out, the fighters branch is dealt with and some other nearly-completed projects are included.
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defaultuser
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Re: So what gets into the AIs?

#5 Post by defaultuser »

Shoot. I have started another game, and I have been "rolling the dice" for seeds, so I don't know the one used. If I see anything similar in the future I will attempt to gather more data.

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Vezzra
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Re: So what gets into the AIs?

#6 Post by Vezzra »

defaultuser wrote:Shoot. I have started another game, and I have been "rolling the dice" for seeds, so I don't know the one used.
Do you still have a savegame of that prior game? Then you can load it, and look at the game settings in the pedia. There you can find the seed.

defaultuser
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Re: So what gets into the AIs?

#7 Post by defaultuser »

I'll check, but I think I just used the last turn out of autosave to make the caps.

defaultuser
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Re: So what gets into the AIs?

#8 Post by defaultuser »

I checked, and I don't see any save files from that. I normally don't make save files on my own, just use the auto save for times when I need to restore after quit/reboot/power event/etc.

You're probably wondering if I really saw that, but I'm 99% sure. Ah well.

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Re: So what gets into the AIs?

#9 Post by wobbly »

So the unfortunate timing of the screenshots (your research/production is identical on both planets when you took it) got me curious enough to run some figures. I'm playing a later version so they may not match up.

For the inferno vs toxic: eccentric moon is +3 research. +12 population x 0.4 Chato great research is +4.8 with algorithmic elegance +6. Clearly a bad decision irrelevant of tech level. However I notice that if it had been human with adequate vs good I may well of made the exact same decision as the AI. +3 vs +12x 0.2 = 2.4 or with algorithmic elegance +3.6. It'd take over 10 rounds (actual no. depends on pop bonus techs etc.) of growth w/algorithmic elegance for the good planet to catch up, so there's a fair bit of play on which order of colonization is best there. Of course Chato, so something was off there.

On the asteroid system I absolutely agree with it valuing that system highly. The timing may be wrong, but later with the right techs. 3xcolonys w/microgravity industry + gas giant generator + nascent + adaptive automation + asteroid hulls + rock armour plating etc. With the right techs that actually is prime real estate & chato certainly have the research to try rushing for asteroid hulls. Of course whether that's best for the ai is questionable. I'd see that system & say well I need these techs early on to make it work, easier for a human to do then the ai.

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Re: So what gets into the AIs?

#10 Post by MatGB »

Morlic wrote: Then again, not sure why the inferno was colonized over the toxic one. May have been early in the game so the flat boni of eccentric orbit outweigh the pop loss? Not sure.
Killing tabs, found this, observation: the population loss was removed from that special some time ago, it now gives a Supply malus which won't affect anything given the location. Given the research boost, if Inti beta were my homeworld, and that system was right next to me, I think I'd put my very first colony on the eccentric orbit moon as well, 3 research going up to 5 with nascent very very early is quite a significant boost.

I suspect the AI would have had either a colony base or an outpost queued for that world when it was captured, but obviously as the screenshots are from significantly later and it's from the last Release we can't really ever be sure.
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defaultuser
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Re: So what gets into the AIs?

#11 Post by defaultuser »

The moon might make sense. However, it didn't seem like the AI was targeting that any time soon. It was busy expending forces on trying to clear a Sentinel off one system and a Maintenance ship from another. The Sentinel was on the only entry point to the system, so you would think that the AI would fully colonize everything before taking on that monster.

Morlic
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Re: So what gets into the AIs?

#12 Post by Morlic »

MatGB wrote:
Morlic wrote: Then again, not sure why the inferno was colonized over the toxic one. May have been early in the game so the flat boni of eccentric orbit outweigh the pop loss? Not sure.
Killing tabs, found this, observation: the population loss was removed from that special some time ago, it now gives a Supply malus which won't affect anything given the location. Given the research boost, if Inti beta were my homeworld, and that system was right next to me, I think I'd put my very first colony on the eccentric orbit moon as well, 3 research going up to 5 with nascent very very early is quite a significant boost.
Population "loss" due to the worse planet type in direct comparison.
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