New forumite here. Love the idea and execution so far, loved the original game back when etc etc...
I've tried my hand at (very little) coding and in some project ideas for games we've kicked around with my game-industry friends I've put some thought into implementing AI rulesets. I'd like to contribute something to this discussion if I possibly can. As it currently stands, if the latest release were as stable as 2.4 was for me and had less predictable AI, it would already be a true gem of an open source game, or a game in general.
Currently two things break the immersion/realism:
- AI getting stuck
- predictability
To fix this we don't need super intelligent code, but something that makes users believe it's intelligent. Randomness is a big help here. If the AI has a list of reasonable actions and chooses randomly from them it will appear smarter.
I strongly agree with this. This game most definitely is not chess, and coding should not or at least need not IMHO be bogged down by overly ambitious goals like aliens actually "thinking" about their situation. I think a few RNG-determined behavioral options and just perhaps some very basic tactical awareness might make for some surprisingly immersive moments, and it really might take surprisingly little to improve gameplay by leaps and bounds.
That having been said, I'd like to know a few things about the scope that might be possible. For instance, is it possible to implement...
..different rulesets for different species? (Or at least, bloodspiders do the kamikaze run that all aliens currently do, and all the more tactically versatile ones do something else?)
..different rulesets for attacking and defending missions? (Aliens roughly hunt you in base attack, and seek to ambush when you attack them.)
..rulesets depending on weapon characteristics? (Mainly range, just maybe, possibly area of effect?)
..rules about the alien's current surroundings? (Partial cover / good field of fire in one direction, good cover behind = great place to camp.)
..multiple random choices for behavior, where the likelihood of each is affected by certain parameters (distance to enemy, whether in good position currently, whether things have been going well up to this etc)?
..situationally assigned, temporary or permanent flags for actors, locations, objects, etc? ("Don't return to this area until enemy is there", "Since I'm unarmored, RUN from this guy / type of gun that mauled my friend!", "Hmm.. that dude seems to be out of ammo, maybe I'll eat him...")
As I said, I'd like to pitch in with silly ideas if I can.