Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2023 3:12 am Post subject:
When skirmish games don't end
Subject description: Non-Short Game Option
Hello, I'm making a post regarding this situation because I haven't come across a single one about it.
Sometimes, an AI player stays alive for no apparent reason. This is something I've always been curious about, and it's something I've experienced for as long as I can remember happening playing even base RA2 some 18 years ago.
The Map Snapshot feature in Ares has been extraordinarily helpful in at least unraveling this mystery. As it turns out, when a match doesn't end, the AI indeed has a unit present, but if you look at its coordinates, it's at some unreachable position, and thus that player will never die. This not only causes games to not end, but can disable an AI player who was attacking them from building, because they won't be able to find them.
In my experience, it's an aircraft 95% of the time. Usually a Spy Plane or some fast fighter unit, and sometimes paradrop planes. The common denominator I found is speed. It seems that if it an air unit goes too fast, the AI somehow loses them occasionally, and I'm sure in the case of spy planes it happens with their spawn points. It doesn't happen with the slower bomber types.
Here's two examples from a map snapshot of lost aircraft. You can tell because there's always a crazy high coordinate. It's like they never stop flying in a certain direction.
There is an outlier unit that has been doing this since RA2 - the terror drone. I don't have an example to show, but their situation is always that they're in Hunt mode, and their coordinate is at 0,0. I don't understand how that happens.
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All that said, here are my questions:
1) What actually causes said aircraft to fly off the map indefinitely (or whatever they're doing)? And what can I do to help prevent it?
2) If anyone using the KeepAlive feature in Ares, did I misunderstand how it works? I added it to aircraft so that if their last unit alive was a random aircraft, it would automatically die. But that doesn't occur. Obviously all these issues are for a non-short game situation. If they're going to disappear off the map, I'd like to make it a nonfactor by making it so they won't count as a valid unit and just die.
3) What happens to terror drones that cause them to disappear from the map? Do some modders just disable them because this is a known issue?
As far as just playing with short game on instead. Nah, I like AI fire sales or I as a player being able to make last ditch efforts with jumpjet units or something _________________ Tiberium Uprising (a few missions for TS): http://www.ppmsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31029 QUICK_EDIT
Known problem. Keep aircraft's ROT of 3 or higher. Give more space between inner and outer boundary in maps (13 cells or more). Can use the MapResize tool to add more cells to edges (Use Maintain LocalSize position option).
In TS, I use hunter seeker that applies damage to objects to clear out of map units. First hunter seekers were made to behave similar in Ares but later it was changed to attack objects only within visible map.
If terror drones are not getting destroyed, check if you have changed its values. Otherwise, it should be a game bug. QUICK_EDIT
Wonderful, thank you both! Two simple methods I will certainly apply. I did have some aircraft with ludicrous speeds (up to 30, which even ROT 5 won't cut, so I jumped up to 12 for some of them). I also just went through a bunch of my maps and applied the boundary adjustment. I notice it hasn't happened on a couple maps that I already added extra space to in the past, so I feel confident that this will solve the issue.
Interesting about Hunter Seekers being changed in Ares. I just added them to the mod only in the last year, and I had figured they would be able to find these off map units. If no enemies are present, they'll pick neutral targets, thankfully bridge repair huts being one they can endlessly target. But if there are zero attack options such as on a blank, open map, the HS simply spawns next to the building and never moves, despite an enemy technically still being alive. _________________ Tiberium Uprising (a few missions for TS): http://www.ppmsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31029 QUICK_EDIT
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When skirmish games don't end
