thoughts on LOUD AI

[CarolusMagnus]

Been some time since I got led to this nice mod. I can't post on FAF because I forgot my login, altho I can still access the program itself because of the auto login. I'll just hope that the devs find this and also find my thoughts helpful.

LOUD is basically something that you install when you get tired of Sorian, which you also installed when you got tired of the normal AI. I believe I can judge it given that I've played nothing but singleplayer for the past three years, so here we go.

It's really good, as an increase in difficulty from Sorian. It's also really less laggy. I don't know the full details, but basically your thousands of units, along with the other AI's thousands of units, can move with very little lag.

In tactics and strategy, it's also really good. One thing that Sorian and Normal can't do properly is exploit weaknesses in enemy defenses. They ♥♥♥♥ ass in it. They really do. They send you waves of units with less than 20 on each, which turns the whole game into a meat grinder. That's why you'll get tired of playing with them eventually. But LOUD is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ satan. If it spots an area with less AA, it will land a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of units there, complete with artillery, mobile AA, and shields. You have a completely protected base? Watch as a sea of T3 bots walk towards your base. Placed your anti-nuke somewhere outside? A flock of Strat bombers will bomb it to hell, including the defenses nearby, and then nuke you. There's a lot more neat stuff that the AI can do. You'll never be complacent with defences.

As already mentioned, you'll see swarms of units. This might not be shocking to online players, because as I've heard, all they do is flood each other with t3 bots, but when you play single, you'll only ever see small groups of units being sent as waves, each one really easy to take down. With LOUD, you'll see a large patch of [AI color] in the map. And that's not just T3 bots. Inside are mobile AA, shields, and if cybran, deceivers. It will be tough to halt them, and when you try using strat bombers or gunships, you're in bad luck because they also have swarms of ASF. Only simple solution is to build a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of t2 artillery, which is, fortunately, really accurate now. And as also mentioned, there's really little lag while all of this is happening.

It's defences are okay. I can't say it's epic when I can break it with some degree of ease, but there certainly are improvements over other AIs. the defensive units are spaced wider, so that they don't get taken out along with one unit when hit. The whole base is a square, with everything arranged so that only a few will get hit with AoE attacks, nukes and such, which is nice. You can see that their base building is planned, compared to Sorian/Normal, which just places everything everywhere like a teenager leaving clothes in the open. But it's slow at building AA, a point where it loses to Sorian and Normal, but midgame, it's there, ample. I'd say there's a severe lack of T2 arty and missiles, another point it loses to Sorian and Normal, which is why it isn't too tedious to break through its defences. Unlike Sorian and Normal, which builds two layers of block defenses (1 block ≈ 1 T3 AA, 1 T2 AA, 2 T2 PD, 1 MD, 1 Arty, 1 missile arranged in a square) LOUD builds only one layer of defense, arranged like broken lines, and really close to the main base. At least, they make it hard for your units to land and perform clean-up.

And as the description I read somewhere describes, this AI aims to make the game more "strategic" rather than rushing/overwhelming each other. This proved to be really true. It's not a dumb ♥♥♥ anymore, sending waves after waves of units into a single spot in your defenses. You'll see the AI flood your defences at one side, while it tries to land units in your backdoor. If it finds out that you don't have anti-nuke, it will nuke you. If it spots your acu in really light shields, it will send lots of bombers. It doesn't repeat the same thing, if it proves to be fruitless. It will try other methods to break through your defence. This isn't an absolute thing-it's still an AI. You'll see a few repeating patterns at some point. But it's certainly significantly fewer than other AIs.

Overall, LOUD is a really good replacement for the other AI's, perhaps to the whole game itself, but still has room for improvements. If you've been tired of stale games with Sorian/Normal, then you'll be thrilled with this one.

[ZaidusRecon]

LOUD AI sounds fantastic, and I have been meaning to give it a go. However, until compatability with the FAForever lobby (where the maps and mods and players are) appears, LOUD may very well continue to see little action.

[CarolusMagnus]

Diposting pertama kali oleh ZaidusRecon:

LOUD AI sounds fantastic, and I have been meaning to give it a go. However, until compatability with the FAForever lobby (where the maps and mods and players are) appears, LOUD may very well continue to see little action.

Sucks for you, I only play solo!

i_i

[Xeonzs]

So this works outside of FAF (with vanilla FA)?
I steer clear of FAF because it won't work with many of my preferred mods that aren't updated anymore and only work with the latest retail update.

[ZaidusRecon]

Yes, according to https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=14136, FAForever and LOUD AI are incompatible
"we will be unable to integrate our project into the FAF environment"
However, I have not read all 23 pages of that particular forum topic, so it could possibly have changed (unlikely, 'twas only three months ago).

While we are at it though, do share your favourite mods ^^

[CarolusMagnus]

Diposting pertama kali oleh ❦Xeonzsღ💕:

So this works outside of FAF (with vanilla FA)?
I steer clear of FAF because it won't work with many of my preferred mods that aren't updated anymore and only work with the latest retail update.

Just to direct you to:

Diposting pertama kali oleh ZaidusRecon:

Yes, according to https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=14136, FAForever and LOUD AI are incompatible
"we will be unable to integrate our project into the FAF environment"
However, I have not read all 23 pages of that particular forum topic, so it could possibly have changed (unlikely, 'twas only three months ago).

While we are at it though, do share your favourite mods ^^

[loudman2]

I've only just found these comments, so I want to thank you for your kind review. You can find the LOUD AI Project at the following link;

http://www.moddb.com/company/loud-supreme-commander-forged-alliance

and on the FAF forums as posted above. We welcome all comments.

[Terminator]

You can also download the updater program from the link below:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AtavRlY9f0iyhOZkP7DGqikxA0gDoQ