Bots don't capture tech buildings & General AI behaviour

[Nuker77]

Hello,

the first thing I noticed is that the bots never capture tech buildings.

The second thing is that the AI playing with NOD seems much weaker in skirmish than the AI playing with GDI. In every match NOD is put to the defensive and is overwhelmed by GDI, so that everything plays in front of NOD's base. (Maybe this is not a problem with AI itself, but with gamebalance in general)

In my opinion the AI plays really good. You can have some fine matches against them, but the bots need more coordination when attacking bases (Stealth actions and planting beacons in buildings are completely missing) to create more surprising changes during the match.

[zocom7]

There's one other thing to add with general AI. If you try to command them to "attack a structure", "cover me", "defend a structure", and so on, the bots still do nothing.

[iovandrake]

GDI bots dominate Nod bots because of vehicle balance. Human Nod players know how to use Nod's advantages. The AI tends to only brute force, which doesn't work with Nod's vehicles very well (they rarely build flametanks either). This is why GDI does better, because they by default have higher HP vehicles which can be used effectively without thinking.

[Nuker77]

Yes, you're right. NOD AI really needs some tweaking here (don't know if this is possible, but it would be cool to see some fixes here and a different style of play of NOD AI)

[Handepsilon]

Hmmm... really? I do have problem playing as Nod, but there was one time in Lakeside where Nod almost took out my Weapon Factory out (24% left) and took out the watch towers

But yes, the AI never bothered to capture tech buildings, and also they never managed to disarm the superweapon beacons I planted on their buildings

[Nuker77]

I think the AI needs priority to target buildings first, when attacking the base. On maps without Obelisk and AGT the bots are attacking very well. But on maps with full base defenses, these buildings should be attacked first, because the AI always gets disturbed by harvesters or respawning players/vehicles and is destroyed quickly.

[omega79]

The funny thing is that these Dumb bots are still brainiacs compared to the classic renegade bots

but it is true, they need some polish ... but that should (and probably is) very low priority

[iovandrake]

What they need is to have objectives written to them each spawn. Like a certain percentage of the attackers get the same building target and that is only interrupted if they face significant resistance (i.e. they don't stop to fight every enemy along the way). Give them a list of preferred targets and they will engage those in order. This makes it easy for the bots to react more to the situation.

Bot Classes

--------------

Building Defender:

1-Repairs buildings that are attacked (prioritizing power and defense)

2-Places mines at scripted points (including bad positions at lower chances)

3-Patrols for infantry infiltration

Base Defender:

1-Engages infantry infiltrators

2-Engages vehicles attacking the base

Attacker:

1-Prioritizes target building upon spawn and moves out to attack (favoring a target if one is already selected by other bots)

2-Engages enemies in the field if it has a reasonable chance to damage the vehicle. Not plinking at a tank with any weapon like currently.

3-If spawned in base while a building is below 70% it engages any present enemies

That's the basic reasoning I think would solve bots. I'm not sure what it would take to script that though. Pathfinding seems to be down pretty well and that's the hardest part of bots.

[Nuker77]

This would be great. I'm looking forward to see this in one of the next patches, if these changes are possible.