#1 Request to improve the AI: Fix Automated Explorers

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Darkspire

ORIGINAL: Lucian

After they have explored the galaxy, explorers on auto, just stop and do nothing en-masse so I generally just end up with 60 or more sitting at my homeworld doing absolutely nothing. Is that intended behavior as many people seem to think? If so, its pretty sub-optimal.

It would be better if they continued to explore, particularly since several people have reported that it's possible to miss some ruins and therefore fail to ever trigger the Shakturi. If the explorers kept re-exploring, then they would eventually find those ruins. Not to mention that having them idle is a complete waste of an entire ship class.

Edit: We suspect that some ruins are not explored because of map trading and events that reveal system maps. Since those systems are then flagged as "explored", explorers never go there and thus never explore the ruins contained in those systems. If explorers were set to re-explore again and again once they have done the entire galaxy, they would eventually come back and find anything that was missed.

+1

Darkspire

+2!

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Explorers actually got a lot of attention for Shadows. Are the issues reported still happening for you all in the latest Shadows version?

Regards,

- Erik

This is great to hear. What was changed? Maybe the changes were accidentally missed from the release?

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka
They go flying off willy nilly to the far reaches of the galaxy! What good does this do at all? They should start as close to the home planet and continue exploring from there. Why? Because freighters and constructors and colony ships can actually reach these explored systems. The AI can then actually colonize and mine reachable systems. Its what we players do and one reason we get so much farther ahead. Please fix this I never automate my explorers because of this.

I also never automate explorers.

The fastest way to explore the galaxy and quickly find goodies is the "move to" command.

Early game for nearby systems I'll explore whole systems (approximately 1-1.5 sectors in a circle around my homeworld) until strategic supplies are completely in hand (the search for Chromium sometimes needs a little more effort) and a good chunk of luxuries.

However, after that, once an unexplored system is reached using "move to", I would only explore:
(a) Planets with Ruins
(b) Debris Fields (repairable ships, world destroyers)
(c) Planets that could have Super Luxuries (i.e. always certain types)

If nothing interesting then "move to" the next system.

Some may explore Colonisable Planets but I tend to leave them until a second wave (unless they are nearby).

This massively decreases the time required to find targets of strategic interest, which provide significant benefits to a growing empire ... as compared to exploring every useless ball of rock and gas giant in existence etc. A large fleet is far faster in achieving this than a small fleet.

The problem with this is that it's really intensive on the micro to the point where I have not played the game in a while now as it dominates the mid-game ... and I have no interest in playing the game with the current Explorer Automation.

One option for the developer would be adding an "Explore Specials" type command which would focus on (a), (b) and (c) above only. This would decrease the micro on manual a lot.

Ideally though an improved AI adopting some of these principles would be beneficial i.e. once more than a certain distance from your territory, Explorer Automation would focus on Specials ... and explore the rest later.

With the approach above I almost always find the most interesting goodies first even on Extreme Difficulty. An improved Explorer AI would lead to a feeling of competition for the galaxies spoils. However, to be effective, all AI's should also build more explorers.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Lucian
Edit: We suspect that some ruins are not explored because of map trading and events that reveal system maps. Since those systems are then flagged as "explored", explorers never go there and thus never explore the ruins contained in those systems. If explorers were set to re-explore again and again once they have done the entire galaxy, they would eventually come back and find anything that was missed.

As it stands, I suspect every planet has a single boolean value for your race's "explored" status. If it's set, you can see it's resources. The status of ruins is set separately. As such, if you get sector maps as a result of map trading/theft/discovery, all the planets with ruins are marked as "explored" and your explorers never go to them to check out the ruins. So, you're left with a situation of idle explorers late in the game, when there are still ruins to check out. Exploration needs to check TWO flags - both "explored" and "investigated". Not ONE as it stands.

Additionally, the "explored" flag is still not set correctly when an explorer visits a planet. Occasionally, planets resources are revealed but the ruins are ignored. This could be a logic issue - such as the "explore" function called when it's a certain distance from the planet but "investigate ruins" done from a closer range - which the explorer may not achieve in that one pass (eg: chased off by a monster or hostile ship). Or possibly the explorer needs to be close to the planet for a period of time - again missed occasionally because of being chased off, or perhaps faulty logic (decision to move off to next target made before investigation time has elapsed).

Regardless of how it's happening, it's never been fixed.

[Mad Igor]

if no1 noticed,ruins also have "explored" flag,but they are ignored,duh.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Mad Igor

if no1 noticed,ruins also have "explored" flag,but they are ignored,duh.

For the purpose of explorer targeting, there is only one flag that matters.

[Mad Igor]

that's lame

[Darkspire]

A possible idea.

When the map is generated each system has everything needing exploring within it given a point, be it ruins, planets, 'roids etc that would then give an overall score for that system, a default value as it were. Each time an explorer on auto is choosing a new destination it reads that value if it is less than the default value or equal to but greater than zero than go explore the system. Every time an explorer uncovers something in that system reduce the point value till it reaches zero, once zero is reached the system would be fully explored and then could be ignored when scanning for the next destination. If a creature is there then add a counter so that when scanning for a destination it would check the 'explore score' and the creature counter, if it does retreat from the system after finding a creature then the 'explore score' would cause another explorer to continue there if the creature counter is showing clear, if the creature(s) is wiped out then the creature counter would be cleared.

Darkspire

[Lucian]

Sounds like what you are suggesting would work and work very well. Unfortunately it also sounds like a lot of code to re-write at this late stage of development.

I strongly suspect that any fix for this quite serious problem would have to come in the form of a relatively simple alteration to the existing explorer behavior code, not as an - admittedly far superior - rewrite of their logic. Maybe Distant World 2 could use this idea which is clearly much better than the way their current behavior is coded.

Of course all this assumes that the devs are actually reading this thread...... The only hint of that is a single post, which is a week old......

[elliotg]

Thanks for the feedback. In the next update exploration ships will check for uninvestigated ruins or galaxy locations once they have explored the entire galaxy.

Elliot

[Lucian]

That's great news Elliot! It should also fix the problem where the Shakturi occasionally fail to show up because the beacon is never found.

Thanks very much. The fact that you guys are so good about listening to and acting on player feedback is what makes this game so great!


Edit: Just wondering, after they have explored the entire galaxy, will explorers still just sit around and do nothing? Because they might be better used in some sort of automated intel gathering role (especially in wartime) once exploration is no longer an issue. Might be too much of a change for a patch though...... I realize that.

[hewwo]

Yes! Thanks Elliot, this was one was one that regularly annoyed me during playing

+1 on the automated intel gathering of explorers as well.

[ASHBERY76]

The policy file has a tick box for intel gathering with explorers but it does not seem to work.

UseExplorationShipsToScoutEnemySystems

I do wonder how explorers get a free pass to spy anyway.I would class them a military ship.

[Plant]

Very nice change!

Btw Ashbery76, if you tick that option, it works. They hyperdrive into enemy systems, thus revealing the entire system.

Sometimes several at the same time, into the same system as explorer ships have a tedency to gather on the top right corner of the map.

They don't get a free pass either. They get shot at, just like every other ship. They try to escape and go back for another go, ad infinitum.

I untick it personally as the sheer number of "your ships is under attack!" messages drowns out any other messages.

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: Lucian

Edit: Just wondering, after they have explored the entire galaxy, will explorers still just sit around and do nothing? Because they might be better used in some sort of automated intel gathering role (especially in wartime) once exploration is no longer an issue. Might be too much of a change for a patch though...... I realize that.

Hi Lucian;

Normally in my games, I turn the explorers into a form of AWAC-type ship. I add an area weapon like the
Devastator Pulse and add the Long Range sensor component, Trace scanner and enough Energy Collectors to
power it all when stationary. I then strategically place them around my empire and near enemy systems
to be an extended early warning system.
[:)]

[ASHBERY76]

When at war they get shot at but not at any other time.With an empire you have no treaty with they get a free pass spying.

[Darkspire]

I add an area weapon like the Devastator Pulse

Not worth the Dilithium to build them since the naysayers on here got them nerfed due to a total lack of game experience and knowledge to operate them with optimum efficiency. That goes for all the AOE weapons now, totally useless and not worth the resources to build them.

Darkspire

[King Doom]

I would kill for a drag and tag option when telling explorers where to check. Just paint the sections of the map you want them to scan and off they go, no selecting them one by one and telling them to scan this sector, waiting for them to finish, setting them to scan again and hoping you notice when they refuel and cancel their mission halfway through.

[Lucian]

ORIGINAL: ehsumrell1

ORIGINAL: Lucian

Edit: Just wondering, after they have explored the entire galaxy, will explorers still just sit around and do nothing? Because they might be better used in some sort of automated intel gathering role (especially in wartime) once exploration is no longer an issue. Might be too much of a change for a patch though...... I realize that.

Hi Lucian;

Normally in my games, I turn the explorers into a form of AWAC-type ship. I add an area weapon like the
Devastator Pulse and add the Long Range sensor component, Trace scanner and enough Energy Collectors to
power it all when stationary. I then strategically place them around my empire and near enemy systems
to be an extended early warning system.
[:)]

That's a great strategy and one that I'm going to use myself, thanks

ORIGINAL: Plant

Very nice change!

Btw Ashbery76, if you tick that option, it works. They hyperdrive into enemy systems, thus revealing the entire system.

Sometimes several at the same time, into the same system as explorer ships have a tedency to gather on the top right corner of the map.

They don't get a free pass either. They get shot at, just like every other ship. They try to escape and go back for another go, ad infinitum.

I untick it personally as the sheer number of "your ships is under attack!" messages drowns out any other messages.

I didn't know about this. Question is though, once the entire galaxy is explored and the explorers go into their "sit around and do nothing" mode, do they *still* try to gather intelligence if the option is ticked or do they just do nothing?

If they don't sit around then there's no problem.

[drmario89]

ORIGINAL: Lucian

I didn't know about this. Question is though, once the entire galaxy is explored and the explorers go into their "sit around and do nothing" mode, do they *still* try to gather intelligence if the option is ticked or do they just do nothing?

If they don't sit around then there's no problem.

Unfortunately, it has been my experience that they continue to sit around and do nothing after the galaxy is explored. I have the option checked, but during a war they will still do nothing but sit there instead of scouting enemy systems for me. Maybe my explorers are just lazy or scared of getting shot at, I don't know.