Several questions about the AI and difficulty

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Ivan Rajic
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2016 6:56 am

Several questions about the AI and difficulty

Post by Ivan Rajic »

Just several question about the AI of some units. I'd be super happy if the developers could answer them, as I've been curious about them for a while.

a) What's up with the Drone AI? Fairly often, a drone will move in an illogical fashion - move two tiles, and then move another two tiles, or move away from my troops, and then move back, and so on. Occasionally, it won't do anything. But, then, on other occasions, it will do what you'd expect it to do - move towards my troops and shoot, and attempt flanks.

b) The same happens, though I think less often, with Floaters. And, very occasionally, Sectoids will just do nothing, though I've never seen them move erratically. I don't think I've noticed any other alien doing weird things like that.

c) I was looking through some ini files, and I think I noticed in one of them that on classic and up, the enemies are more likely to use grenades. I'm assuming they're also more likely to use other abilities as well?

d) But, apart from grenades/abilities, are there any other differences between the difficulty levels in terms of what the AI does?

For example (though I could be imagining things), I think I've noticed a difference in what EXALT does between Normal and Classic. Previously, their response to a Com Relay hack was to reload their weapons. Now they will often grenade me, which they'll actually do more often even when not hacked. But, I think I also noticed that they do not rush so blindly towards the encoder or emitter. They actually overwatch camp now, or, when near the emitter, they might nevertheless choose to engage my troops instead of moving towards it.

Also, I seem to be noticing that the aliens will try more often to get a long-range flank on me - i.e. if I drop out of sight, or they do, they often won't run back into my overwatch from the opposite direction of my cover, but will take a long route around to come on my flank. Or just camp and overwatch instead.

It could be that I'm just playing more carefully now, so I'm noticing these things, but is there an actual difference in how the AI behaves, apart from being more likely to use abilities?

Thanks!
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szmind
Long War EU Crew
Posts: 102
Joined: Tue Dec 29, 2015 9:56 pm

Re: Several questions about the AI and difficulty

Post by szmind »

Well, first of all I do not think that LW devs messed with AI scripts. I think they just found the way to exploit the built-in AI mechanics by giving enemies more movement, modifying their stats and perks and so, and giving soldiers positive Defence stat and increasing cover-protection.

I found in DefaultGameCore.ini only maybe two lines or so that determine aliens behaviour - lowered chance to hit and kill-chance which provoke alien to take a shot. Now if aliens have more movement they will have more opportunities to flank and they do it. It is not new mechanics - it is just giving aliens more chance to exploit the built-in mechanics. Also if they have low aim and you get full cover they will not have chance-to-hit high enough to take a shot if they have better options.

Now drones - in vanilla they were also acting kinda weird. It is just (I think) the built-in role for drone, which is scout / recon. Drones have also little aim and low damage so they often do not get the chance-to-hit or chance-to-kill high enough - so they don't take shot. Same for sectoids - they prefer Mind Fray instead.

Well, that is what I can figure out of my.. ehm....some 800 hours in LW... :)
Ivan Rajic
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2016 6:56 am

Re: Several questions about the AI and difficulty

Post by Ivan Rajic »

Good answers. It's been so long since I played vanilla X-Com that I actually can't remember how Drones act. Though I did not necessarily mean that the mod developers changed anything about the AI (though they may have, I guess), but that they might know what's going on, that is, why the aliens sometimes (and drones in particular) just do weird things. I can understand that a drone has a low chance to hit, but just standing and shooting, or moving towards a flank, and shooting, is better than moving two tiles left, two tiles right, or just standing still. And a Sectoid that does not want to shoot, and perhaps its mind fray is on cool down, could at least hunker, not just not take any action.

As for EXALT, I did take look at some of Beaglerush's gameplay videos, and they could have completely grenaded his squad into oblivion in one case (he thought they did not use grenades in the Long War version he was playing, so he put most of his soldiers next to each other), but actually all but one of them reloaded after a hack. So, I guess it's not as simple as I thought, i.e. the AI is not necessarily different between difficulties, but it just happened that on the missions I went to, they used more grenades than usual.
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