Joshua

[martin]

What rus|Mike suggested about placing maybe one carrier for radar in sea, and one battleship to block any ships from approaching your coast too fast would be good to do at game_start.

I considered that, but at the moment it's not exactly highest priority, also if I remember correctly radar doesn't reveal enemy units until later anyway?

I think picking city targets in order of closest to furthest should be the priority. Some better players than I might disagree though.

That's why I left it deliberately fuzzy, probably ranked by Ascending How many silos cover it and descending distance from me.

Will this scan include where would be the best location for silos, to include the prediction of nuke flight paths? I have seen the best silo setups in the wrong place, thus splitting the launch in two directions which kills the "nuke cluster"

The scan is literally what is says on the tin, it goes through every point on the globe, and checks if it's land/water/what territory it's in etc
This way I have all the information to hand, which is useful.

Most skilled players now hold all of their subs back, to hold off the timer. Then when the player wins the naval battle moves subs from hiding into a striking position. Usually the hiding position for subs vary for each territory, just as long as you have some fleet around them for protection should be enough.

I'm not in the skilled players group unfortunately
When I attack I usually send half my subs (I always have my subs in fleets of one) spread around my fleet, as soon as the enemy attack the ocean underneath them lights up with active sonar
That's how the bot will work for now, unless I find that this doesn't work

Yes, I would be happy to help.
I would fit into the 'newbie programmer' section

Awesome, welcome aboard, I dunno exactly how we're going to do this :/

How much programming/lua do you know?
What bits of Joshua would you be interested in coding?
If you need programming help, do you have MSN/steam/IRC so I can chat to you and give you a hand (if you want)?

[sfericz]

How much programming/lua do you know?
What bits of Joshua would you be interested in coding?
If you need programming help, do you have MSN/steam/IRC so I can chat to you and give you a hand (if you want)?

Not much at all, I have tinkered with the Uplink source awhile back but that was in C++ and I use to work a great deal with WinSck in VB. I am willing to read till the wee hours though to learn a new language. I've been reading up on Lua just recently.

I would be interested in the parts that aren't on the priority list. So I could tinker and research on while I work. ( I also have a friend that is a profressor in Computer Science that can help me when time is good for him.)

I have MSN, IRC, Yahoo and Skype

crazyc0de@live.com
sfericz
sfericz
sfericz

In respective order.

[martin]

Well it wounds like you have programming experience, once you have that learning a new language is trivial

Well the "priority" list isn't really, it's just a list of tasks I can think of, if you write one task and do it well - then great, if you do one and do it badly - no problem, I'll get around to it myself eventually
Of course, the same applies the other way, if you think you can do better than me that's great too

Also, I added you on MSN

[sfericz]

Great, if you would like to e-mail or PM me a first task, I will get to working on it tonight. I find learning a new language is best when I have set tasks ahead.

Thanks for offering your help too and I doubt I would be able to top anything you would do, as of yet

[Ace Rimmer]

Well, too much to digest at the moment, but I got a couple of ideas for videos.

I'd agree that most players (even the good ones) waste way too many resources by "setting and forgetting". The AI should instant autotarget, massively. It should also be able to naval nuke. I would much rather have a super extra hard near impossible AI to defeat than one that's difficult at first, but then to predictable and static to not eventually overcome with ease.

As for naval nukes being born out of inferiority, perhaps but I've always prided myself on being above average in naval fights and see that as a another tool in my chest rather than a crutch.

[sfericz]

As for naval nukes being born out of inferiority, perhaps but I've always prided myself on being above average in naval fights and see that as a another tool in my chest rather than a crutch.

Can I take a look into that chest? Please and thank you.

[martin]

I learn like that too, tis a good way.

I've just emailed you the Joshua source code. If you complete anything send the changes back to me and I'll add them to the main thing.
Maybe I should see about an svn server :/

Also, a tip, get Notepad++ if you don't already have it - tis great for lua

[Ace Rimmer]

As for naval nukes being born out of inferiority, perhaps but I've always prided myself on being above average in naval fights and see that as a another tool in my chest rather than a crutch.

Can I take a look into that chest? Please and thank you.

Sure, just look here for frequent updates.

I'm sure there'll be a whole series of naval ones. I'll do a proper targeting one next and probably a sub launch after that. The sub video will be the first to implement the whiteboard, which is great for faster/tighter targeting.

Also, general rule of thumb is closer cities/targets first, working outwards. Second rule of thumb, if two cites (you want to hit) are close together and they are heavily protected, go for the smaller one first, giving the second set of nukes more time to hit the bigger city.

[martin]

I may be being somewhat dim here, but I can't work out how the hell to launch planes from air bases to arbitrary points :/

airBase1:SetActionTarget(airBase2)

works, but it launches a plane from this airbase straight to another airbase, I just want to launch to random pieces of land

airBase1:SetActionTarget(nil, 0, 0)

Does not work, as advertised. It throws an exception that number data was received, where userdata was expected. :/

[xander]

If you want to make the AI more human (and not necessarily any better -- probably worse, really), you might implement some kind of "distraction." When a human plays, it is quite likely that concentrating on one group of units means that other groups of units are more likely to be ignored. So, if the AI is engaged in combat in one region of the world, it is more likely that it will lose track of other units. You could probably keep track of a "distraction level" by looking at how many orders are being issued. If the AI is issuing only one or two orders a minute, it is pretty unlikely that anything sneaky will work. However, if the AI is issuing orders every second to fight off a bad guy, it is likely that they distracted, and that a sneak attack could work. ;)

xander

[Ace Rimmer]

Interesting idea. I like it.

I know that many times I'll forget completely about units on the other side of the world because of that very reason. Although I have made it a habit to zoom out and get a look at the world scene (even during heavy battles), sometimes I just plain forget.

[rus|Mike]

Noooo We're doing uber-bots, not sucks-as-human bots

[martin]

Nice ideas xander, but I'm afraid Mike is correct, I'm aiming to build the best bot possible not the most human bot possible.

Also, I guess no one has any ideas with launching planes? :/

[Ace Rimmer]

I have no idea.

[xander]

Nice ideas xander, but I'm afraid Mike is correct, I'm aiming to build the best bot possible not the most human bot possible./

That was why I prefaced the statement with a disclaimer about making bots more human.

xander