LOUD AI & Game Speed Improvement Project

[paxton676]

Fear not, I believe everything is worth at least a look. I'm not so vain as to think that LOUD is as good as it gets -- there is ALWAYS room for growth and improvement and new approaches and ideas are what keep FA so interesting after all these years.

If you've played much LOUD, you'll surely have noticed quite a few changes to the way certain things work. Nukes (and anti-nukes) have been pushed deeper into the game, being only constructed by Sub-Commanders, and there is NO adjacency bonuses for either one. Furthermore, the build power of the structures has been pushed way up to marginalize the effect that assisting has on them. You can still do it, but the impact is massively diminished. Those changes, at least as far as LOUD is concerned, put nukes in a reasonable perspective.

As with nukes, we've studied the relationship between shields and artillery and the long game for a long time. We've gone thru many iterations, but an important aspect of LOUD was agreeing about the general backstory of how shields work, how effective they are in certain applications, factional differences, and just how far you can reasonably extend the shield metaphor. One feature that's not immediately obvious is that LOUD offers enhanced shield performance thru an adjacency bonus with energy storage units -- or as part of LOUDs integrated storage mod (which incorporates mass and energy storage into resource buildings as an upgrade). While LOUD has the Experimental Square Shield, we've reworked it many times to fit into a realm that keeps it relative to it's smaller brothers, and currently we're toying with the idea of turning it into a pure anti-artillery shield only. LOUD will build them, but as an addition to his robust normal shield matrix. So give the included one's a try and see what you think.

We've recently completed a large review of tactical missiles, TMD, torpedoes and torpedo defenses. It's clear that the static T2 TML is at a disadvantage to almost any other tactical missile firing unit (several ships, mobile launchers, etc). Aside from it's one clear advantage in range, the T2 TML suffers from a low rate of fire and the cost of having to build it's missiles. At present, we're thinking the forced manual fire was just a band-aid, and should likely be removed, turning the T2 TML into a weapon platform just like any other -- outstanding range, but easily defeated by proper deployment of tactical missile defense (which, by the way, has been revised in LOUD). I'm also considering that it may also become 'homing' to further increase it's usefulness -- and make it worthy of it's cost.

Than you for explanation. Also, "LOUD offers enhanced shield performance thru an adjacency bonus with energy storage units" thanks, I didn't know that.

That MK1 shield is insane at 225,000 defense or something. late game I destroy all T3 shields and make all mk1. Even still, the cybran mobile rapid fire artillary and tactical missiles will get through if not careful. This is all without loud mod installed.


I really am happy with loud mod and included blackops, 4dc, total mayhem etc... My only real desire right now is to have all music from vanilla and fa in game and working for battle and peaceful tracks, thank you for help with that.

I would like a powerful shield generator as well. I have used that Experimental Shield Generator MK I but for some reason (don't recall why) I use "Advanced Shields V4" instead. Sorian AI does not build the shields in that mod though.

It sounds like LOUD has a lot of shield changes to explore though already. Adjacency bonus is exciting.

One mod I would like is an air crash damage disabler. Debris going through shields and killing the shield generators is pretty irritating...

Hi, nice to see someone else who likes to play defensive turtle style. I prefer MK1 because ai uses it. I am not interested to install any mod that changes game play just for player because I think takes fun out of it. I want ai to be able to do what i do.

[IanC]

Hi, a couple of us got together to test out LOUD on my home LAN. Our findings were:
Played 3 humans vs 2AI. Despite being VERY rusty, we flattened the AI almost instantly with our first few units out the door

In the spirit of in-at-the-deep-end we then instead went up against 5 AIx on Setons' 40km. The AI is certainly very defensive, but sheer number of units prevented us from doing any rushes. The AIx were starting to get some decent forays going towards our front line (and a lot of cheeky airdrops behind us) when the game crashed

It was rock solid for 2hrs + when testing 10AIx at once on one PC, and all three PCs threw the crash popup at exactly the same time so I'm thinking something networky? I think you've hammered out an issue like this before so find attached the replay and all the error details I could find - don't think supcom runs its own log, sadly.

I (at the front line) was just building my second T3 power plant when it let go, I think about 40-50mins in.

Has anyone experienced crashes on LAN play? We didn't have time to try another game so I don't know if it was a freak incident or not. If there is any extra logging or debugging I can run while playing to try and catch it in the act I'm happy to do that.

-Ian

[Sprouto]

Thanks Ian -- I'll look at your replay shortly.

Regarding your initial game, which map did you use ? Other settings ? We're still chasing some map related issues, especially with markers, so that would be very helpful.

Setons is a difficult map, and it demonstrates LOUD's current weakness in utilizing it's naval component as part of an overall strategy. In our experience, Setons' almost always devolves into a late game nuke and artillery exchange, primarily due to it's narrow choke point making it quite difficult to execute and support a general offensive on land. I hope that once we get some progress on the naval behaviors, we'll make it a more challenging experience for the humans. Also, some marker changes were posted for Setons 40 on Saturday, when we discovered that one of the start positions on the right was poorly positioned, and some mass points were redistributed.

If you're looking for a difficult scenario, you might try Painted Desert 40, Burial Mounds, Hills of Havoc or Kazam. These four have routinely hammered some of our best players. We generally play at a 1.125 cheat level and in some scenarios, we find that LOUD actually performs better with less AI's than humans. In any case, I look forward to hearing about your experiences.

With regards to crashing, stability has rarely been an issue, but with 10 AIx, and over 2 hours in, it's possible you may have hit the 2GB memory limit. I'll know better when I run the replay.

Thanks again for your contribution.

[swaaye]

Is there a bug with the Unit Manager? I played a game with a friend last night, with 2 AIx. I disabled Nukes and Game Enders. We humans could not build them, nor could we build any experimentals whatsoever. The AIx players however built game enders and experimentals.

We were Aeon and UEF while the AIx were both Cybran.

[Sprouto]

If you can attach a replay, I'll certainly look at it. As far as I know, the AI functions under the same unit restrictions as you do, so it's possible that certain units are not being classified properly -- and thus not getting properly restricted.

I should point out that LOUD will only function properly without unit restrictions. You may find that with some of the changes in LOUD, Nukes and 'Game Enders' are not quite the same. In particular, the nukes have been pushed much deeper into the game, and are more carefully positioned against other experimentals. Likewise, some of the old 'game enders' are not quite so 'game ending' as they may have been, being that there is a very wide array of additional units, structures and experimentals.

[swaaye]

If you can attach a replay, I'll certainly look at it. As far as I know, the AI functions under the same unit restrictions as you do, so it's possible that certain units are not being classified properly -- and thus not getting properly restricted.

I should point out that LOUD will only function properly without unit restrictions. You may find that with some of the changes in LOUD, Nukes and 'Game Enders' are not quite the same. In particular, the nukes have been pushed much deeper into the game, and are more carefully positioned against other experimentals. Likewise, some of the old 'game enders' are not quite so 'game ending' as they may have been, being that there is a very wide array of additional units, structures and experimentals.

I've never worked with replays but I didn't specifically save anything....

They didn't launch any nukes so those may have been disabled for them. But they had all experimentals including Scathis artillery.

Oh and I had none of the game mods enabled.

It was a thrilling game. The AIx is an exciting opponent that adapts well. I just wasn't expecting several Scathis artilleries. I wasn't even sure what was hitting us at first. It looked like fast tactical missiles were coming in.

[Sprouto]

Thanks Swaaye. I'll see if I can recreate the issue. I should have enough to go on with what you described.

One of the revisions to the unit database that assisted with some of the performance gains with LOUD was a complete review of 'categories' and how the game (and the AI) uses them. Every unit used in LOUD has had some amount of revision, whether it was the removal or change of a category, the threat levels generated by every unit, or some of the visual effects. It's one of the primary reasons that LOUD is not a mod, but a near total revision -- and why the initial download is so large.

It's entirely possible that the unit restrictions may not be functioning correctly, or as intended. I'll get to the bottom of it.

We all look forward to hearing about your experiences with LOUD, which maps, which configurations, stunning victories and humiliating defeats included. If you'd ever like to talk directly with other users of LOUD, including myself, we do have a Teamspeak server that makes that possible. Drop me a PM if you'd like to say hello, and I'll pass along the credentials.

[DrSys]

No Nukes or Game Enders does not disable Experimentals. Because Scathis is an experimental and mobile rather than a "hardpoint" artillery piece, it would not be disabled by either option.

Moving to AIx is definitely a different animal than LOUD without an advantage. Also note that LOUD plays significantly tougher at higher unit caps.

[paxton676]

Even though music slider is back in game no music plays. I still have the music.xsb and music.xwb files in sound folder, I never did delete them. Any ideas?

Also, game freezes at start of match with the gazui mod enabled.

[Sprouto]

Thanks -- Tanksy should have that resolved shortly and we'll post it up as soon as it's ready. I re-enabled the slider, but not the hooks in gamemain.lua.

With GAZUI, at which stage does it freeze ? After or before the ACU spawns --- does it even get that far ?

Thanks DrSys for the rundown on restricted units. The game-enders and the nukes are not categories at all -- but specific unit IDs. And as suspected, units from other mods are not part of that list. Scathis is not coded as a game-ender, but certainly could be.