Does AI still move for no reason and waste AP?

[galneon]

I'm nearly through Dead Man's Switch and haven't played Dragonfall or Hong Kong yet. I'm playing on Hard and am handicapping myself with pistols and small parties, but have only experienced one difficult battle (the optional one-on-one hellhound fight which was all about luck).

Ranged enemies, without fail (no exceptions), run around like morons and waste half their AP. They fires once and move, often away from cover, or sometimes from out in the open to another spot out in the open. They never simply unload on me, so I never take much damage. The idea seems to be "well, moving around in a panicked state is realistic!" but it also makes the game trivial. Just once, I'd love to see an enemy with an assault rifle mow me down from full health in a single turn.

Please tell me this has been improved in Dragonfall or Hong Kong. Shadowrun for me is about the setting and narrative, not the combat--if that wasn't the case, I wouldn't be playing at all. However, I'd still like to know if this has been corrected, because in Dead Man's Switch it results in very easy battles.

[McCrabby]

I don't quite know what triggers it, but yes this does happen. I noticed it more on my first play through, I was a melee cyberware samurai. I'm on my second playthrough as a mage, and I don't see that as much anymore. Don't quite remember what it was like in DMS but they usually only do that for the first round. Occasionally they'll make some questionable repositions, but generally they try to stay in cover.

[galneon]

Glad to hear this. If they mostly move around in the first round in recent campaigns, that's a marked improvement over what I observe in DMS. I'm not exaggerating when I say an enemy has never simply unloaded on me with all his AP.

[Honzou]

Enemies cannot Unload all their AP in attacks cause of how the are programmed.

Only enemies that have the "Boss" box active can use more than 1 AP to attack.

[galneon]

Incredible. The AI isn't poor then, it's deliberately crippled? Why? Why doesn't hard mode override this? This makes the game trivial, and apparently it's deliberate.

[Honzou]

Apparently it was made like this to maje sure some of the enemies that DO have the ability to cause teamwipes don't get out of hand. Enemies that have bountiful -AP 'nades or AoE.

Also this "crippled" thing has been going since SR:Returns.

[galneon]

Like I said in the topic, I've only played DMS and was curious as to if this AI strategy was changed in Dragonfall or HK. I appreciate the information, though. It seems this bizarre decision was counter-balanced by upping the enemy count dramatically, which certainly helps, but I think I would have preferred 6 elite, aggressive enemies in a battle rather than 12 pensive geriatrics afraid to pull the trigger.

Anyway, this is not going to prevent me from having a great time with the two campaigns I've yet to play. Shadowrun is about the narrative and game world.

[agris]

It does, though I think I read that for DF:DC and, I'm assuming HK, they changed how their AI was coded so that target selection should be improved.

Anyway, it's possible to modify the game's AI packages to enable both APs used in attacking. From here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/shadowrun-hong-kong-released.102256/page-43#post-4099507

A note about difficulty: apparently all AI scripts were rewritten in Gumbo for HK -- this means only the core AI files have to be changed to make all enemies somewhat less braindead. Depending on the restrictions of the gumboscript API, it may be possible to create AI on par with, say, SCS: identify mages and go after them first, coordinate attacks, try to drain AP and use crowd control / defensive abilities intelligently, etc.

For a quick-fix, just change the MAX_ATTACKS and DEFAULT_LOOPS values in each non-IC script to 2 (unless DEFAULT_LOOPS is higher than that already). I tried it out and stuff got actually somewhat challenging: enemies could throw a grenade and fire or just straight-up fire twice per turn, etc. Should probably replay the game and see how it shakes out, but :effort:

They're text files in gamedir\SRHK_Data\StreamingAssets\ContentPacks\HongKong\data\ai\gumbo_*.gumbo.bytes
I just modified the human non-caster AIs (gumbo_adept, gumbo_meleesoldier, gumbo_sniper, gumbo_soldier, gumbo_suicideattacker), since mages can already cast a buff and an attack spell in the same turn -- I have a hunch that just increasing their attack# allowance would be wasted without rewriting part of their attack logic as well.

I haven't tried it myself, but it looks like the poster modified normal ranged and melee enemies and it worked well for him.

[galneon]

That sounds like exactly what I need. Thanks for posting it!