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Artificial Intelligence


Malcolm Ryan

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I've talked about it before, but on the topic of what AI improvements I'd like to see... I liked when we were talking about a vocation system for AI, so AI could have different tasks they did in their idle states beyond just patrolling... So like cooks that procedurally cooked stuff in designated kitchen areas, maids that went room by room (as designated) cleaning them, etc.

 

Then there's a "branch extension" I was interested in -- if only in pipe-dream terms -- which goes one step beyond this into a new kind of gameplay, that is, economic gameplay, so AI aren't just acting out different vocations, they're actually "doing" the vocations and trying to maximize their position in the game... So one set of AI go out and get basic resources (minerals, wood, farm goods, game) to sell in markets; another set of AI buy them to process them (metalworkers, carpenters, cooks) for consumers to buy the finished goods; and other AI like police collect taxes from everyone to pay city workers & nobility buying art that thieves try to steal that the police go after... So in the end you have a whole working economy in the world (or dysfunctional as the case may be, as long as you & the AI can play it), which the player can participate in.

 

I thought about this kind of gameplay going back and playing games like Elite & Hardwar, where the player was a free-agent and could be a trader, scavenger, or pirate... And then I thought it could fit as a branch-version of Darkmod where it's an open world with these economic things going on, and the player could be a freelance thief in the world, but also he could save up money to buy warehouses and be a trader and compete with other AI too, trading in legit goods and contraband.

 

Then I liked to think of an even *further* extension where the player can interact with AI in more ways than just sneaking around & attacking -- with things like bribing, gift-giving, sex, threaten and coerce, etc... All of this adds up to a kind of sandbox medieval open-world simulation, and Darkmod is just the base. Anyway, that's some of the pipe-dream. It's running about neck-and-neck with my other favorite pipe-dream idea, a near-future Cyberpunk branch for Darkmod. (Edit: Though a better platform might be a game that procedurally generates its world, so it's sandbox to the core, like the engine Serpentine posted about few days ago)

 

But getting back to just vanilla Darkmod, lol, of course it doesn't need all that but still would be nice to have a general vocation system for AI.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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some of my fantasies about AI, i guess most of them are not even possible but well:

 

Arrest(not prison or anything, just end game without violence):

Ai could be set to allow arrests: Not all would kill a thief on site,with so much thievery,conspiracy etc in this world, they atleast would like to get out some information...

how i imagine: If the player is caught and has no weapon in hand, Ai could just point their sword at the player and shout 'surrender yourself'..then a button could be pressed and the mission would end without the so annoying moment of swords and hammers bashing you to death everyone screaming 'Hyyahhh' 'Whhhhahhh'

While you just stand there thinking 'come on ...i give up..'

 

If however the player would draw a weapon they would become aggressive.and the show would go on..

 

Magicians and haunts:

Would be cool if lights turned pale or dimmed when a haunt is around..Also would be great if mages could increase the radius of lights for their search instead of poking around in the darkness..

 

personality:

Some Ai could be frightened by what might be happening in the shadows..slowly backing towards well lit areas and scouting from there being anxious..Some would be brave rushing ahead..

Some would be tricky..acting like he didnt notice anything just putting his hand on his sword, and close nearby doors..

It would also be good if they could utilise multiple paths.. so if they patrol by default from the kitchen to a valuable artifact.. they would switch to another path that only carefully guards the valuable artifact after for example another guard informs him about a possible intruder.

Edited by _Atti_
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Also would be great if mages could increase the radius of lights for their search instead of poking around in the darkness..

 

You haven't had a mage search for you yet, have you. ;)

 

It would also be good if they could utilise multiple paths.. so if they patrol by default from the kitchen to a valuable artifact.. they would switch to another path that only carefully guards the valuable artifact after for example another guard informs him about a possible intruder.

 

This is already possible to some degree, though it would be nice to make it even more versatile.

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"Lights dim when haunt is around"

 

Remember, the haunts needs that light to see you. It would be silly for it to make its own life difficult.

 

On the other hand the game could use an ai that makes the player fear the shadows. It would change the gameplay in an interesting way. At present, darkness is always safe.

 

I'm not sure what it could be though.. a monster that sees the player only in the dark, not in light? Or a creature that is totally invisible in the darkness, but visible in light, and it cannot enter lit areas.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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"Remember, the haunts needs that light to see you. It would be silly for it to make its own life difficult."

 

True, then back to original thought of lights getting pale..(if a light turns colder in color that doesnt affect visibility afaik..)

 

or it could make flames flicker..but that could be kept for ghosts, like how superstition holds in RL that when candles flicker a ghost is around..

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back to this thought again :

 

"Remember, the haunts needs that light to see you. It would be silly for it to make its own life difficult."

 

Thinking from the other side.. A haunt is not a guard, its life is not about catching thieves in the dark.

His life is a curse. Also most Ai spot you from further..and dont forget that an AI with a designed weakness is a not a bad ai..

 

Imagine that you could use the haunts slightly darker surroundings for your advantage..but for that to happen you would need to get close to it..which is a difficulty on its own..think about how Amnesia forced you to fear for a bit of safety..

 

 

"You haven't had a mage search for you yet, have you. ;)"

 

Yeah but hopefully one day they will..or an elemental spirit or something like that. :)

Edited by _Atti_
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Or a creature that is totally invisible in the darkness, but visible in light, and it cannot enter lit areas.

 

Yes, we've talked from time to time about an AI that avoids light. Probably some kind of undead. I really like the idea, and apparently it's feasible to code something like that. Just an issue of time/motivation.

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That would be awesome. Maybe some day there will be an FM where you are tasked to work with another Thief to achieve a common goal. The other thief could be AI controlled and sneak through the shadows. At the start, you could tell them to take X route or Y route and you would take the other. The thief could have path data so it could go either way and meet up with you later.

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

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The guy that posted earlier in this thread was talking about making a Thief-bot. If he actually follows through on it, that would lay the groundwork for Thief AI. He has a mountain to climb, and even then a Thief-bot by itself would be sort of limited; it might hide & run from guards & steal but still doesn't know the player is there. It would still take even MORE coding on top of that, a mountain on top of the mountain, to have it make sense in the game, like as a team-Thief (that coordinates with you) or in some other way addresses your existence (competes with you, steals from you, etc), without which you'd have a cool bot but not much to do with it in the game. That said, it'd be an awesome bot, thinking about what'd be involved in thievery AI.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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The AI avoiding light is also relevant to the accomplice type of AI including, but not limited to, guide and follower types. This is because an accomplice AI might otherwise blunder stupidly into a well lit area and get attacked by other AI.

 

Related to this is the need to only alert if attacked. An accomplice AI should not attack every enemy AI it sees nor should it ignore/be ignored. Possibly something like what we have now might work...

 

I was testing the other day with a no-curfew scenario and the city watch team relationship set neutral to the player. The player can then walk freely in the streets. If you attacked them however then they alerted so I had an invisible objective to then switch the relationship to normal if any city watch alerted to level 4 (seen) or higher. This works great and I have city watch patrolling the streets but ignoring the player who is just another pedestrian in the city (need to inform the player in the readme/briefing.) But if the player breaks into a house and is spotted by a noble or commoner (who have normal enemy relations from the start) and if they run out and alert a city watch then the same applies and after that the streets are not safe for the player. Commoners who are exclusively walking the streets would need to be on another team I think so they can be neutral to the player. The only problem here is you cannot easily have commoners patrolling indoors and outdoors (except possibly a team trigger switch) also a problem if they are indoors and look through a door and see the player passing by in the street. Likely this can be got round by careful positioning of AI at the start.

 

Another thing that worked great by default was that if when neutral a city watch found a KO'd (or dead?) city watch they low alerted but that was not enough to trigger the alert objective so the player was still safe. This makes sense because they never saw the player do it so no reason to attack the player. But if they actually see you do the KO then they full alert and thereafter they will attack you.

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The AI can already handle trespassing right? If there's a guard in a building looking out a window, can he avoid attacking the player UNLESS the player walks on that guard's property? This happened a lot in Thief. Lots of AIs wouldn't attack unless you were in a forbidden zone.

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

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Yes it can be done in Dark Mod. In my test map I had an area. If the player went into this it triggered the relationship to make the city watch enemies. So they could easily be guards like at the start of Bafford where they ignore the playing passing by but if he goes in the courtyard they get annoyed.

 

In fact in Bafford they first warn the player to go away but if he persists then they attack. That could be done with a counter brush or a timer brush or both maybe so they don't immediately attack but will if you persist.

 

Yes, maybe I should document some of this stuff when I've done more testing for unforeseen problems.

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  • 1 month later...

Fidcal, that is brilliant, the way you managed to make the guards act in such a believable way! I really wish the AI team would actually contemplate that behaviour as a built in mechanics, to be able to make the guards neutral (or any passer by, for that matter), but able to spot criminal acts from the player and target him accordingly - the only thing I would suggest is that things like creeping, stealing keys or purses in front of people (not the unsuspecting victim, but other people around, guards or not), climbing (tagged) objects like pipes or vines, or trying to pick a lock , should all raise their alertness level in different degrees, when spotted by neutral AI - not just attacking someone.

 

One thing that I was thinking about while playing is that the guards ability to spot if a valuable item that has been stolen, or a light source extinguished, is brilliant, but I would definetly suggest it could be the same towards (tagged) companions. Right now it is easy to exploit (not the usual way of playing, sure, but it is possible) their lack of memory of one another, by just taking them out one by one, as long as they don't see you actually doing it, they will not mind all their friends disappeared in minutes. So, if there was a way of "tagging" guards that are supposed to form a "team" (all guarding the same entrance, for example) with a shared function which will make them "notice" the other is not there all of a sudden (meaning, got KOed or Killed, even if the other didn't see it happening (on patrol, or looking away), he will notice the "change of state" of his friend when he is back). Hmmm... Sorry if I'm being too confusing/redundant, I'm a zero at coding. If guards were to be alerted when certain companions are not where they should be, it would effectively make it much harder to kill them with abandon, as long as you do it quietly.

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You mean Joe and Fred standing guarding a bank vault and Bill is patrolling around about once a minute. Suddenly Harry doesn't come around anymore. Uh-oh! Where's Bill got to?

 

It's probably possible for the mapper to implement. One way might be to get the patroller to trigger a timer to reset every time he comes around. If he fails to turn up then the timer counts down and triggers an alert.

 

As always, the smarter the game the more likely there might be gameplay issues of unexpected behaviour. In the above scenario I think I'd make a (possibly optional) objective "Find a way into the vault. Alphonso says the two sentries will alert if their buddy stops patrolling so keep that in mind."

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You mean Joe and Fred standing guarding a bank vault and Bill is patrolling around about once a minute. Suddenly Harry doesn't come around anymore. Uh-oh! Where's Bill got to?

 

It's probably possible for the mapper to implement. One way might be to get the patroller to trigger a timer to reset every time he comes around. If he fails to turn up then the timer counts down and triggers an alert.

 

As always, the smarter the game the more likely there might be gameplay issues of unexpected behaviour. In the above scenario I think I'd make a (possibly optional) objective "Find a way into the vault. Alphonso says the two sentries will alert if their buddy stops patrolling so keep that in mind."

 

Hahaha, yes, that's actually exactly what I was thinking - like in the valuable item mechanics, you could link a certain guard to a spot on the map, and if he is absent from it for a determined amount of time (instant for a static guard, X time for a patrolling one, depending on the duration of the route) it would emit an invisible sign to his companions that he is "missing", which they would notice whenever they "saw" it (when back from their own patrol, or immediatly, if Joe was standing there and just got dragged into the darkness a second ago). Maybe I'm completely off, but isn't this very similar to what already happens with valuable items, from what I read? Anyway, I think something like this would definetly make it more challenging to clean out the maps defense one at a time, when they would actually notice people is missing and that could make them go on search mode or even raise the alarm.

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