Scripting Engine

[guncrasher]

Nay-Saying ninnies are as inevitable as death and taxes. 

just be aware, you are one of them too 


semp

[CptTrips]

There is always a possibility. It would take very careful testing. Small steps.....

Hitech has always struck me as fairly methodical.

[The Fugitive]

And they will continue to complain if you do or don't add more.

I'm sure there were people throwing a fit about the idea bomber drones.  "We don't play to shoot down drones by golly!  It'll be the end of aces High!  You're trying to change something!  Ahhhhhg!"

They were added, the world didn't end.

I didnt mention to drones because technically they are NOT AI. They  are controlled by the player flying the lead buff. Hitech gave the community a choice in the old days, either we could have multible gunners on a single buff, OR we could have 3 plane formations controlled by a player. I guess most people spoke up for formations because that is what we have.

Were there complaints, maybe, I dont remember, but the complaints about them died off because you dont hear about players complaining about formations shooting them down. The AI acks however are still complained about even after 20 years. Those that play AH dont want to fight AI. If they did "Online: Pacific" would be running like gang busters.

I know you put a lot of work into the mission play, but how often are those missions run these days?

[Shuffler]

Hitech has always struck me as fairly methodical.

In a business that deals with people, one must be methodical.

[CptTrips]

I know you put a lot of work into the mission play, but how often are those missions run these days?

Last time I guesstimated a count a month or so ago the 4x4 missions I made had about 2400 sorties flown cumulative since release in Jan.  And I haven't flown them (I have some other local missions I've been working on), so somebody is flying them.

[CptTrips]

Greebo on the reasonable use of AI augmentation:

Because its better than fighting no one at all. For my time zone there are not enough players in the MA to make it worth me logging in except late at night when I am too tired to play, so I just don't bother any more. I am sure there are others in the same boat as me, but if we had something to do in the MA more engaging than bombing static targets it would encourage us to log in. With more players showing on the MA roster it encourages even more to log in and it becomes a benign circle.

I'd much rather have some AI planes protecting bases than the fun killing 88s we have now. This is something that would start dogfights rather than end them as they would make it a less of a suicide mission to up from a base with enemy fighters around.

To make things fairer a side with a higher than average numbers of human players could get fewer and/or worse replacement AI pilots and planes or longer respawn times until numbers evened out. I'd also like to see AI bomber raids heading to strats every now and then. Just seeds to get human players logging in to the MA during off peak times.

[Haskell]

There is always a possibility. It would take very careful testing. Small steps.....

This "wish" is more about the infrastructure to actually interface with the game and develop the AI.

[CptTrips]

This "wish" is more about the infrastructure to actually interface with the game and develop the AI.

Sorry for the hijack.

I sorta get what you are saying.  I've seen systems that allowed user scripting in Python or some proprietary scripting language to build custom AI behaviors. 

I guess I would see that more as something that would be written into a mission at the mission design time in the Mission Editor to give AI decision tree behavior based on runtime variables instead of statically defined and compiled behavior based only on segment time duration.

Are you talking about trying to write behavior code realtime during gameplay?  Have you tried making some AI missions with the editor? 

Currently, in the MA the AI is limited to things like auto ack and bomber drones and such.  So there would be limited applications.  To some extent you could call a ranking player defining a task force path as a form of very high level AI scripting.

Perhaps you could give a concrete use-case example of what you would like to be able to do?