Ai markers acting up

[DDDX]

Hi guys. (And an occasional girl :p
So...made a cliff-based map. Basically a Thermo-style with buildable cliffs + a middle no-man's zone, heavily chokepointed. The idea was to have a mutual choke point that would be also defended from starting area base's cliffs.
And the Ai does not like it. Does not expand, will not build anything outside it's starting area other than defences (funny thing - EXP marker seems to be working, wherever placed).
With proper waypoints (or with no waypoints at all) the ai can find its way around the cliffs easily enough, and sends ground units to the enemy, even t4 have no problem walking all the way up the cliffs. Rush type AIX'es even send acus to the front line to just walk, never build anything outside the starting area, into enemy territory for no reason and get t1 bomber sniped (turtle and air aix stay at home). But factories in valleys? None whatsoever. WHYYYY???? Tried every possible combo of defences, rally points, small/large exp, drop points...never a single factory outside of their starting area. Nothing other than defences and t4 (in their markers). Also tried with just vanilla SC markers, and no markers at all...nada. Niente. zero. Zip! :/

Also did a test map of same proportions (20/10km), empty flat with 4v4 aix's and several outpost locations. Ai never expanded there either (but in same 5/5km maps it does). What am I missing?
Would like to attach it here, but it is "too large", even ZIPped...

Ever hear of this? tried googling it but came out empty - as far as I see the ai always builds on the apropriate markers...except on my map :p Help.

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[TheKoopa]

What is even going on in that map

[speed2]

No one will help you with markers looking at some screenshots, upload the map somewhere and give us a link.

[DDDX]

Sure thing. Didn't have time earlier, sorry
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=980 ... 8419968710

[Lionhardt]

I have not looked at the map, but I can tell you that I have been issues with the AI not doing any thing at all or only building 1 fac and a few pgens and that's it in my last two maps. Dunno if something was updated that broke the AI in some weird way.

[Sprouto]

I'm going to bet you see units getting hung up at either the cliff edges or the base of cliffs quite a bit. The AI doesn't understand cliffs very well and any movement markers close to cliffs will often confuse a platoon that wants to travel someplace. Generally speaking - the AI works best with markers that are about 1 - 2 km apart.

When building a path, the AI looks first for the best starting point -- and the best destination point - then it builds a path between them. If the platoon (or engineer) is in a valley - and the best starting point is up on a cliff - the unit will build a path from there - and it will first try to get up the cliff to start its trip. You can see how this might be very wasteful. This same problem also often manifests itself when passes are only separated by a thin barrier and the movement markers are too close to that. General rule - don't put movement markers very close to cliff edges.

The placement of build markers (DP, Expansion bases, etc.) is not so critical - AND - more importantly - the AI will find those points if they are within about 1.5km of a movement marker. So, if you want the AI to path up a cliff to some mass points on a plateau - you don't need to guide him to each mass point - or other markers - you just need to get him up the cliff - and often a single point will do.

Rally points are often overlooked -- especially when bases are on plateaus - don't be stingy with them - give the AI choices that will allow him to find a movement marker nearby when he does form platoons, and you'll find he gets out of his base much better. Ideally - you should give him 3 or 4 - dispersed around his base, since factory output will go to the closest rally point - and you don't want a huge traffic jam.

Having a lot of movement markers will greatly impair the overall performance of a map - since the path building code of the AI is perhaps THE most computationally expensive part of what it does. That's not to say you should be totally minimalist in laying down movement markers, but there are tricks to making it both efficient and effective.

[Lionhardt]

Good insight you provide there. But what explains the AI just standing there after spawn doing jack shit? For the entire game? like it was just the ACU model standing there without an AI attached.

[biass]

Maybe ai is secretly telling you to fix dat heightmap ;P

[Lionhardt]

Nah^^ The heightmap is incredibly simple on one of the maps (the one with the river)

[Sprouto]

Oh yeah - it's got some extreme heightmap differences