Natural Selection 2

Natural Selection 2

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Shiro 11 Nov, 2019 @ 10:02am
Seriously, bots can and really should have improvements
As I was lone player on server, I decided to go as infantry marine, with both commanders being bots (as well as everyone else). So, what I've noticed in bots' behavior:
- Marines com responded very well to med/ammo requests. However, "requesting order" while standing near RT is not perceived by him - he will mind his own bysiness and spend res instantly onto whatever he wants
- Speaking of bysiness, his main program seem to be just "spam all avalaible upgrades for Arms Lab and Armory (and then Proto Lab), get all RTs, have 1 armory and 1 obs on main base". Issues:
-- Rank-and-File bots seem to not use grenades, jetpacks or exos. In fact when I went com and dropped some jets and weapons, they picked up weapons but not jets
-- No research of advanced support, or phase tech. RaF bots know how to use phase but com doesn't try making one. No robotics factory either
- When a skulk got into marine's base, I could entertain myself with view of endelss cycle: MCom places observatory blueprint, skulk runs towards it and breaks, repeat... apparently MCom really want to have at least 1 obs on the base, and skulk really wants economical damage, it didn't even noticed me :)
- When I went into chair and got robotics factor and phase gates done, when I left commander bots was broken and stopped doing anything at all; soon he disappeared completely (alien com bot was still active). Guess his scripts got BSoD
- Alien commander spams cysts like crazy. I pop a cysts near harvester, he drops 2-3 (each next popping previous, so all but last dying instantly). Apparently "need to drop a cyst there" stops too slowly after realisation "there is a cyst already"
-- UPD marine commander do the same with medkits, they ignore 0.3 sec time between medkit pickup completely, as well as the fact it gives 25 regen aside instaheal. So at less than 75hp I get 3 medkits, one of which just lies without use
- No care for drifters/hive. I found building hive with driffter. Kill drifter, start shooting at the hive. Soon new drifter comes. Kill him, new comes... and only few random skulks try to stop me.

so, what should be fixed for sure:
- High priority: bot algoritm should be more resilent to restarts and starts from non-starting positions, as well as to having unfamiliar structures (so bot com doesn't break upon realising I did something weird, or they don't know what to do with robotics factory I made)
- Fix bots spam of structures, medkits and cysts; perhaps make there a very small delay at least
- Make commander bots ping important locations, and rank-and-file bots go to pinged location. So if hive is attacked, ACom just sends all king's skulks and rushes intruder, instead of spamming drifters
Secondary tasks: teach bots to make tunnels and phase gates; teach robotics factory (sentries and MACs would be very helpful with res advantage marines had because of me clearing terrain). Perhaps teach bot skulks to not run towards sentries
Last edited by Shiro; 11 Nov, 2019 @ 12:41pm