For Alpha 8.0, we are developing a new AI technology, which will be used mainly for the AI of animals and other NPCs on the planets. 1. Technology We will be using a new Behaviour Tree technology for the animals. It is a visual tool, in which we can design the behaviour from small AI modules. This helps us to easily create prototypes and reuse the modules between animals. To make the animal behaviour more natural we are using some new tools. - Vision sensor - it will simulate vision of the animal. If you get in range and field of view, it will inform other systems of your presence - Noise system - similar to vision sensor. This system is gathering some of the noises in game and feeding them in to the AI - Alert level - If the animal can hear or see you, it can get alerted - it can be just a slight disturbance or a strong rage, depends on the alert source strength, was it just a rustle, or a shot in the back? You can now try to go stealthy, slowly and not using items. You can see the animals react by changing their behaviour. Learn to read the posture ;-) - Fear sensor - similar to alert level, animal has also a fear level. The fear is increased with noises or damage, and decreased by time (as time heals everything) and friends. So if you see aggressive creature in big group, be careful! Example: Alien Bug 03 View attachment 41520 - will attack a player when he can see him - it will shoot 1-3 times then move "towards" (not directly, but at an angle) to the player - will try to keep minimal distance from the player - 10 meters - will remember where it was spawned and will try to return back when he wanders too far - if player runs away, the bug will not chase him but return "home" 2. New behaviours Friendly herbivore: A friendly herbivore will be eating grass (or maybe rocks, depends on their taste) and roam around the world peacefully. But if it is alerted, it will get cautions and eventually try to run to safety Hungry predator: This predator will roam the land, and when it sees a potential prey, it will attack! But if you scare it, it will run to his friends. Beware, it will come back for another bite! And possibly bringing that friends to the party! If it scares you, maybe you can get out of his vision...(sensor). Curios fellow: When you come close, it will be interested in you. As you are not on his daily menu, it will just watch, not bite. If you scare him, he will probably just run away... probably! All behaviours are work-in-progress and more mechanics will follow past Alpha 8.0 public release! === More AI Improvements: - Added Zirax Patrols - Added mixed groups with eg Zirax Laser and Mechanoids (or Zirax and Crawlers etc): - Added Zirax Sniper - Added TurretRobotV2 - New spawning system for animals (eg hotspots on planets around important POI or resources) - Animals slow down in curves and have max rotation speed - Animals react to player in water - special behavior for triceratops and spider: they will do some random movement and angry noises, when you are in water. When you go out of water, they will continue the attack if they are still alerted. - Animals react to vessels and noise generation by turrets
CURRENT BEHAVIORAL ADDITIONS Parasaur - group States Calm - walk slowly around, grazing Low alert - stop walking, raise up (whole group) High alert - run away from danger together Alerting factors Noise - shooting a weapon / using items (drill) (max 50 meters) Damage Vision if they can see the player, and the player is moving. (max 90 meters) not moving player is not a threat, only if he gets too close to the animals (20m) Death of group member >> the closer the alerting factor is, the more will the animal react Spider - group For testing: Spawn with F10, spiderBAI01 - with “group” option on Spiders will be spawned as a group, but they act more individually, they will share fear, and the more spiders is there together, the faster they will recover from fear States: - calm - walks around - low alert - angry gestures, walks towards player - hi alert - attacks player - alerted, but target not accessible(in water) When player is in water > angry gestures, random walk Variants when they see the player, they will attack him they can get scared and run away, they will come back, once they "shake off the fear" the more spiders there is together, the less they fear Fear factors proximity to player noises (shooting, drilling) damage - damage to one spider will create fear in the whole group fear from death of a group member NOTE: Spiders can be alerted, but without seeing the player, in this case it will run around "searching" the source of the alert The ability to scare the spider is to make the fight more dynamic, to give the player more breathing room and something interesting. The spider should not run away completely. Alien bug 01 - group Has vision and fear Acts as individual, shares fear in group States Calm - walks around Low alert + player nearby - keeps distance from player, but rotates towards him and maked gestures Scared High probability of running away Low probability of attacking the player - one attempt to hit, then run away Alien bug 03 - single Has vision and alert States Calm - walks around Alerted - attacks the player with a projectile If the player is far, he will walk towards him If he is too far from spawn position, it will return back to it If the player is too close, it will keep distance During the attack he will fire 1 - 3 projectiles, then change position Triceratops - single Has vision, alert, fear States Calm, no player around - walks randomly Calm, player around - walks around player, makes small roar animation After small damage - goes to Rage If far from player, will make big roar and charge the player After the start of the charge, he will not make any turns, so it is possible to avoid. If the charge is not avoided, the damage is deadly! As he is running he is giving damage periodically - so it is possible that he will damage the player multiple times If the player is close, he will make close range attacks with probability of roars If he is in rage and player goes to water, trice will stay out and mage angry roars Zirax - Group States calm: wanders with random idle animations (new use of layers in animation system) alerted: attacks player with random movement between shots (aim transition) Hit reaction - 4 hit animations (also uses animation layer) Search action: uses approximate target position. It is used for example when the Zirax did hear you but did not see you. He will know where you are only approximately and search for you there. Improved target selection Different idle animations when alerted and when calm Please report any observations and feedback right here!
AI Update 8.1 - Updated Mechanoid (2-leg robot) behavior to new AI framework - Updated Cave Worms behavior to new AI framework: It is now similar to spiders, but without the fear component - Added Cave Worm White and Green Herds (tweaked several playfield to take into account new herds) - Updated Spider 01 behavior - Updated Spider 02 and 03 to new AI framework - For all spiders: added hit animations, added search behavior: when spider does not see the target, it will search around his last position; added rotation animation: when rotation is detected, spider will play walk animation in place - Threat selection update: Player > HV/SV with player > empty HV/SV - Deactivated troop transporter if no Marker2/DroneSpawner2 block placed on the drone base Adapted Spider Spawning: - reduced size of spider group - reduced number of spider spawn points by around 25% - slightly larger safe zone around starter biome
Alien Bug 01- Is this guy supposed to be in the predator group? My sentry guns attack a random member of their group. Even the same individual- the guns will shoot at them, then stop and start again. It seems like their fear or attack status is changing when my sentry guns attack.
In my experience these guys are...unpredictable. Whenever I've wander up to one, it and the entire group haven't been aggressive at all, they even do that little dance thing when I get close. However, several times in the various v8 Experimental Phases I'd be innocently mining, chopping down trees or simply collecting plants and I'd be suddenly be attacked. Turning around - the attacks were always from behind - I'd see one of these dudes running off...the only critter near by. I see from the behaviour tree for this critter that they might attack if scared, but what about my actions is scaring them? The noise of my Drill? My Chainsaw perhaps? Or maybe it was me ruthlessly plucking those plants I was harvesting somehow triggering the critter. Regardless, I'm still having them attack me from time to time, though it is rare. Also, once I've built them, I have observed my Sentry Turrets taking the odd shot of them. This is also inconsistent in that I might see my Turret shot one individual in a group of these guys a couple of times, then stop and ignore them the entire time I continue to watch. Most odd. It's funny, these mostly passive critters have likely done more damage to me that pure hostile groups like Spiders of late. Purely because they seem so passive most of the time. The Alien Bug 03 - AKA spitting critter - is still the most damaging of the bunch though with its homing, and sometimes rapid-fire, balls of spit which still occasionally pass through blocks. Scoob.
Thanks for the reply. Yeah, that's what I was assuming...well, certainly when I'm Drilling or using the Chainsaw. I still wonder what might have triggered them when I was simply picking plants though...that was sort of my query. I'll have to re-examine that once I get a chance to play again & see if I can recreate and confirm that behaviour. On a related note, spiders are total gits lol. However, when a group bunched under a Titan Wreck Section while I was inside - evidently they knew I was there, guess I was noisy - they piled up and their attacks managed to kill some of their fellows. Quite funny Note: they do tend to bunch up under HV's - which is cool - but when it's at full hover height they tend to just attack air & not make contact. The only exceptions being if they pile up. Scoob.
Not sure I should advocate for the spiders to be more dangerous, but I have found they are very easy to outrun, I have not tried since RC2 of alpha 8 but I could walk backward and keep out of their reach while regaining stamina to use on the survival tool I didnt even need to use sprint. It would be much more realistic is the spiders had a territory they would follow you in and stop once outside a certain range, spider web covered trees in the area would be cool. Make them a bit faster so you at least have to use sprint to escape, but not have them follow you forever. Make them able to climb, they are spiders one block of height should not be complete safety. It would be cool seeing them pile in a hole in the roof or other ways as you are trying to hide if you had an opening. If not faster make them approach from multiple directions, the current flanking maneuver is neat but doesn't really work, i just keep back peddling in a circle and i can kill even a group of 10 with a survival tool and no stamina letting it slowly build as I back pedal. I dont want them to be instant death, but I want them to be something to avoid not trivial, having trees with webs could give warning before its too late for people and people who run or have better weapons should be able to be fine. Night Raptors I have only seen these in singles or maybe a pair at most since playing around with the alpha 8 rc 1-3 releases, they should be found in packs just like raptors during the day. Does anyone know what the behavior of the normal day time raptors is now? I have not been able to get on since alpha 8 was released, it would be nice to see them attack on spook, or even attack other food animals from time to time, or talon aliens, or the talon aliens hunt some of the animals.
I know only one issue - ziracs soldiers very very fear elevators. Elevators is most safe cover from them if you know how to use it. Between stages on elevator you can reload, eat, self heal safely.
Not seeing enough animals. Few and far between on these huge planets. When I do come across a heard/group/pack they are very small. It seems to me the 8expermiental had higher animal densities. Which made the Jurassic park affect outstanding, riding through a heard on the open plains. Also, I appreciate the survival aspects of the game, but when it takes 15 headshots to a scorpion, or 10 to a spider spitting pink homing goo at you, which also takes out the tree you were hiding behind, seems to be a balance issue. That double or triple shot homing goo is deadly. First one takes out the tree, the next two nail you plus Dermal Burn over time. Talk about triple kick to the ego. This was with a T2 Assault Rifle and mobs set to easy. Absolutely love the roaming Alien patrols around their bases now. Makes it much more entertaining.
So the most annoying thing with the AI for both spiders and zirax is that they get fixated on my HV. I leave the HV and can kill both at will. IMHO they need to be able to switch targets without taking personal damage!! Here I amuse myself using bombs on with my HV holding their attention on the roof of the POI. The second video shows the results of the first bomb before another is exploded. I've always wanted to get a group of zirax with a bomb. I can't say i'm real impressed with the results...
Already lookin into this. If you walk up the NPC and pull their aggro and then escape in a hv and exit afterwards you will be attacked right away.
The Alien Bug 01 is really unpredictable. In my opinion, I think the new AI is brilliant! It's almost real. As a new player you run from everything. I never feared these critters because I thought I had no reason to. They'd come up to me, dance a bit, maybe sniffing me, I don't know... Then walk off chirping. I was chainsawing trees and one came around the tree and bit me then ran off chirping. The little sucker threw me for a second it looked so real. After we had guns, I kept my trusty shotgun ready. The next time it happened, I chased him down and blew his brains out. My buddy asked me what I was doing and he said all I kept saying was "..that little SOB bit me and ran, he dies now". This truly adds a new level of play to an already cool game. EGS has always been my favorite game.
OK... so, is Empyrion a survival crafting game- or a spider simulator? It's not that the spiders are overly difficult- and as a WIP, I love the new AI behavior and so forth. But does there have to be so frakking many of them? It's nearly impossible to go out and do any scouting or resource gathering because you're either getting interrupted every ten seconds by a new swarm, or you're dragging 20 after you as you travel. On medium spawn settings, my group has stacks of uncooked meat because we haven't yet eaten the stacks of cooked meat... The problem is you just can't get anything else done because you're spending all your time fighting spiders. Maybe tone down on the number of spawns since they come as a group? I'd be more than happy to see each swarm be individually more dangerous if there just weren't as many total...
Haven't played long enough to reflect substantively on these updates/changes/improvements, but . . . as a strong proponent of "HIGH QUALITY SINGLEPLAYER MODE!" (and having been away from the game for several months), I just wanted to jump in here and say: HUZZAH! Thanks for tackling computer opponent improvements!
Is there any type of limit on animal respawns. Playing on a MP server i have circled the planet a few times trying to find one parasaur to kill and not found a single pack of them. I am wondering if they are limited by being near buildings or dont respawn at and have been made extinct by the 20 people on the planet. Need to be able to find animals for the AI to do anything.
AI Update 8.1 - Updated Mechanoid (2-leg robot) behavior to new AI framework - Updated Cave Worms behavior to new AI framework: It is now similar to spiders, but without the fear component - Added Cave Worm White and Green Herds (tweaked several playfield to take into account new herds) - Updated Spider 01 behavior - Updated Spider 02 and 03 to new AI framework - For all spiders: added hit animations, added search behavior: when spider does not see the target, it will search around his last position; added rotation animation: when rotation is detected, spider will play walk animation in place - Threat selection update: Player > HV/SV with player > empty HV/SV - Deactivated troop transporter if no Marker2/DroneSpawner2 block placed on the drone base Adapted Spider Spawning: - reduced size of spider group - reduced number of spider spawn points by around 25% - slightly larger safe zone around starter biome
Im having problems with night raptors, when Im standing on 2 high platform (when 1 high is one L steel block) raptors are still hitting me. Even if Im 2 steel blocks in width away from them. Is it normal behaviour or bug?
