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@Orfelius there are two ways to make units smart. The first is to change their unit AI to better take advantage of the active abilities available to them. The second is to remove active abilities which they are currently using sub-optimally. A unit with no active abilities is, by definition, always behaving optimally. Solar used to have the abilities:
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@Orfelius there are two ways to make units smart. The first is to change their unit AI to better take advantage of the active abilities available to them. The second is to remove active abilities which they are currently using sub-optimally. A unit with no active abilities is, by definition, always behaving optimally. Solar used to have the abilities:
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* Active: Can be turned off. Can be turned on if it has not taken damage in the last 7 seconds.
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* Active: Can be turned off. Can be turned on if it has not taken damage in the last 7 seconds.
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* Passive: Turns itself off upon taking damage and then turns back on 7 seconds later.
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* Passive: Turns itself off upon taking damage and then turns back on 7 seconds later.
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The active ability was removed. Some issue related to the ability was bought up, I pointed out that it could be removed, and @Sprung removed it. I've never been happy enough with a solution to take action myself.
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The active ability was removed. Some issue related to the ability was bought up, I pointed out that it could be removed, and @Sprung removed it. I've never been happy enough with a solution to take action myself.
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I've always been in two minds about the active ability. These facts point to it having poor AI:
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I've always been in two minds about the active ability. These facts point to it having poor AI:
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* Solars instantly gain armour when they begin to close. I've been unable to a Scalpel (622 damage) to 1-shot kill a Solar (500 health), the bonus is that instant.
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* Solars instantly gain armour when they begin to close. I've been unable to a Scalpel (622 damage) to 1-shot kill a Solar (500 health), the bonus is that instant.
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* Closing a slightly early is likely to have no economic impact but can gain the Solar a lot of survivability.
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* Closing a slightly early is likely to have no economic impact but can gain the Solar a lot of survivability.
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* Technically, it is often straightforward to predict when a Solar is a split second away from taking damage (with some edge cases such as Scythe and Moderator).
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* Technically, it is often straightforward to predict when a Solar is a split second away from taking damage (with some edge cases such as Scythe and Moderator).
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The
straightforward
improvement
Solar
unit
AI
would
be
to
give
it
2000
health,
remove
its
armour
bonus,
and
remove
its
active
ability
(
since
it
is
now
useless)
.
This
change
would
be
effectively
equivalent
to
creating
perfect
Solar
AI
and
bypasses
all
the
hassle
of
tracking
projectiles
in
flight
and
watching
where
Moderators
are
aiming.
With
some
hax
in
the
UI
people
wouldn't
even
know
that
Solar
doesn't
technically
have
an
armour
bonus.
The
issue
with
perfect
Solar
AI
is
that
few
people
ever
micro
their
Solars
so
they
would
become
a
lot
tankier
and
removes
their
practical
weakness
to
burst
damage.
This
is
why
their
active
ability
was
removed
instead.
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11 |
The
straightforward
improvement
for
Solar
unit
AI
would
be
to
give
it
2000
health,
remove
its
armour
bonus,
and
remove
its
active
ability
(
since
it
is
now
useless)
.
This
change
would
be
effectively
equivalent
to
creating
perfect
Solar
AI
and
bypasses
all
the
hassle
of
tracking
projectiles
in
flight
and
watching
where
Moderators
are
aiming.
With
some
hax
in
the
UI
people
wouldn't
even
know
that
Solar
doesn't
technically
have
an
armour
bonus.
The
issue
with
perfect
Solar
AI
is
that
few
people
ever
micro
their
Solars
so
they
would
become
a
lot
tankier
and
removes
their
practical
weakness
to
burst
damage.
This
is
why
their
active
ability
was
removed
instead.
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13 |
Personally I dislike both of these solutions (most of the time). Microing Solars is very rarely effective and when it does come up it can make you feel clever. My solution would be to make Solars gain armour once they are closed, making the unit AI much less trivial to write. However this would effectively be a reduction in tackiness, which I would rather not do. So Solars would need some health buff to compensate and the whole issue has become too hard to justify looking into while there are important things to do.
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13 |
Personally I dislike both of these solutions (most of the time). Microing Solars is very rarely effective and when it does come up it can make you feel clever. My solution would be to make Solars gain armour once they are closed, making the unit AI much less trivial to write. However this would effectively be a reduction in tackiness, which I would rather not do. So Solars would need some health buff to compensate and the whole issue has become too hard to justify looking into while there are important things to do.
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