[MOD 0.13.17+] Rampant

[Veden]

Hey, just wanted to say great mod! great code too, I had a look at how you had such responsive movement in your unitgroups for the retreat mechanic (which looks great in-game btw, very responsive and realistic)

It seems you tackled it by making a new unit group and adding all the members back into that new group and issuing the order to the new group, yes?

Pretty much, the new unit group has a countdown to when it gets the ability to attack again.
The reassigning group members to a new group was the only way I could get the units to disengage when attacking.

I'm not saying I hate this wonderful mod. But the enemy just knows where you are even if there is no an enemy miles away from the player. You can do whatever you want, even delete all the enemy units and they still know where you are. The "pheromones" should let the aliens allow to call backup but not just show up out of nowhere. This just makes the game tedious and annoying to play.

Another thing. Create a config file for your mod to enable and disable some of your planned features. I don't like the idea of tunnels and fire spitters so I would like the implementation of configs.

I hope you take my suggestions into consideration and improve the general gameplay of your amazing mod. Appreciate your work.

I had planned on adding the config options already. TheSAguy had mentioned that earlier I believe on the mod portal.

As to the knowing where you are, I'm not quite sure what you mean.
Is the behavior you are talking about present in Vanilla without Rampant?

I'll be back to doing some coding on this mod this week.

[Veden]

This mod doesn't do anything. No retreat, no nothing. I have disabled all mods and created a new world. I would really like this to work but it doesn't. If I can help in any way please tell me.
Note: Installed from mods.factorio.com(Ingame).

Seems to be something with your 0.0.5 version of the mod. I just updated factorio to 0.14.3 and installed your latest version of your mod from mods.factorio.com and it is fully working. You may want to take fixing the old mod into consideration.
Thanks for this amazing mod!

The old mod should potentially just require having the version number switched back to 0.13. I will probably do this later in the week.

[kyranzor]

Veden, Oxyd has said in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=32171 that the members of the unit_group are bugged and are not updating their orders. This will be fixed in 0.14.4 so we shouldn't need to do as much black-magic to get them to do what we want. In theory if the distraction method is set to "none" then they should break off contact and do as commanded (in your case, retreat).

[Veden]

That is awesome, I was noticing that alot when trying to do anything really.

That should clean up some of the logic and make for snappier actions.

[Adil]

Hey, are you completely adamant, that defines.distraction.by_anything is the one that must be in the AI_attack?
I'm generally okay with them cutting down your power lines from time to time but, man, they're constantly gobbling up a fraction of a railway when they wander around.
That's too much even for me.
I've tried altering rail tags to no avail. The only things that work are changing the force that owns rails or setting them indestructible. However, the former comes at the cost of them disappearing from the map. (Wait, maybe there's something that can be done with their prototypes in this case.) The latter method is kind of meh, although the discrepancy from vanilla rail then would not come into play much anyway,

I believe the default attacks use defines.distraction.by_enemy when going in.

[doktorstick]

I would also like to see a change. Random poles and tracks out in the wild get nommed on and it's a bit of a hassle unless you cover every square inch with construction bots.

I did like a bit of emergent gameplay where my laser tower push was cut-off because of the high-death-retreat-logic. They circled around and took out a pole that was fueling my push.

It would nice to have the best of both worlds. Instead, I would suggest defines.distraction.by_enemy as their default (if that is indeed the proper define) and when they encounter attacks/death, they will enter random-attack-mode within some predetermined radius from the source of the event. Eventually they go back to normal distraction logic (either by time or exiting the area or my personal favorite--death).

[TheSAguy]

Hey, are you completely adamant, that defines.distraction.by_anything is the one that must be in the AI_attack?
I'm generally okay with them cutting down your power lines from time to time but, man, they're constantly gobbling up a fraction of a railway when they wander around.
That's too much even for me.
I've tried altering rail tags to no avail. The only things that work are changing the force that owns rails or setting them indestructible. However, the former comes at the cost of them disappearing from the map. (Wait, maybe there's something that can be done with their prototypes in this case.) The latter method is kind of meh, although the discrepancy from vanilla rail then would not come into play much anyway,

I believe the default attacks use defines.distraction.by_enemy when going in.

NE Enemies has a good solution to rail being destroyed and Bio Industries big wood pole acts the same.
Only way for me to make outposts worth while

This is a great mod but cant do large expansive bases without these tweaks for me.

[Veden]

I'm not against making some adjustments, I appreciate feedback.

I'm thinking that the default becoming by_enemy with a small chance of being a by_anything.
For combat they switch over to the by_anything.

The idea being that roaming bands will occasionally destroy everything in there path and while in combat they will frenzy destroying anything around them.

[_ImPat]

Please take a look at my discussions post on mods.factorio.com I explain what could be changed about the mod. As of right now, I don't enjoy a specific mechanic in your wonderful mod wich kind of ruins it for me.

Why not just discuss it here... Much easier than the portal.

Okay, I'll just copy paste it.

I'm not saying I hate this wonderful mod. But the enemy just knows where you are even if there is no an enemy miles away from the player. You can do whatever you want, even delete all the enemy units and they still know where you are. The "pheromones" should let the aliens allow to call backup but not just show up out of nowhere. This just makes the game tedious and annoying to play.

Another thing. Create a config file for your mod to enable and disable some of your planned features. I don't like the idea of tunnels and fire spitters so I would like the implementation of configs.

I hope you take my suggestions into consideration and improve the general gameplay of your amazing mod. Appreciate your work.

[_ImPat]

Forget what I said... After more testing and a click in my mind, I realised that they are tracking the player's scent. Just going far enough away makes them lose you.
Sorry for being completely stupid.
Have a nice day everyone!

[doktorstick]

I can't say if Rampant is causing this or not, but it feels like it is. I'm using Rampant + NE.

After large death areas happen, enemies will congregate at various places and hang out. If I run up to them, they will despawn a row at a time. I had an area with hundreds of enemies (if not a thousand+) and running at it despawned all of the mobs. It made what I thought was a very dangerous area a stroll in the park--there wasn't even a base nearby (relatively).

The spawner base directly NNW of the wall will attack, back-off, migrate to an intermediate location (the clump on the western edge of the desert) for a few minutes, and then move where I drew the blue arrow.

[Adil]

Did you actually seen them disappear when you've approached? The fog of war is peculiar thing that can lead to appearance of overly large red blobs when coverage area is moved with player.

The game wasn't tailored to handle the epic scale armies. When the pathfinder algorithm hiccups, it starts eliminating those, who burden it. If they've disappeared when they saw you, then this would be because of they've impacted each other's path through dense forest at the location.

[doktorstick]

Did you actually seen them disappear when you've approached? The fog of war is peculiar thing that can lead to appearance of overly large red blobs when coverage area is moved with player.

Yes, each mob, row-by-vertical-row (columns, heh) popped out of existence when I approached. As you say, it was likely the engine that eliminated the mobs, but perhaps Rampant's back-off algorithm is causing the blobs, which in turn gets into this state.

[kyranzor]

The de-spawning is a known technique used by the devs to remove (de-spawn) any unit that attempts to find a path (especially if in a unit_group) but cannot, within a very short period of time, in order to save frame-rate. I reported this issue (because it causes my Robot Army units to de-spawn) but the devs do not want to remove this mechanism. viewtopic.php?f=58&t=29459

[Veden]

So the changes to the attacking is as follows:

The default attack is by_enemy.
I've removed both electric poles and railroads as primary targets. (These can be still secondary targets)
When a squad is formed there is a 3% chance of always using by_anything attack.
When a group retreats or attacks a primary target (i.e. Assemblers, Turrets, Boilers...) they switch over to by_anything.
A group that is by_anything has a set radius around the target that they can attack anything before they revert to by_enemy.
If the group is within a certain radius of the player they switch over to by_anything.

[Ranakastrasz]

Would it be possible for the mod to not send attacks without pollution first triggering it?
I got my first waves before pollution reached any base, and it is already getting problematic.


Also, Aliens probably should be more reluctant to retreat near spawners, since they are mainly there to defend it.

Edit:
Looking at the code, which is to say I ran a search through all files for the keyword "Pollution", looks like you are using that, but it isn't working. I am getting waves from enemy bases that are not touched by pollution. And I got waves before ANY base was touched by pollution, so its not like they are asking each other for help or something.

[Veden]

Would it be possible for the mod to not send attacks without pollution first triggering it?
I got my first waves before pollution reached any base, and it is already getting problematic.


Also, Aliens probably should be more reluctant to retreat near spawners, since they are mainly there to defend it.

On the pollution part, how close are you building to the biter nests? Are you standing near them? What is your game playtime?
Anything else you think would be relevant?

I have thought about trying to add to the minimap something similar to the pollution cloud for rampant clouds.

On the aliens retreating near spawners. If I increase the threshold for retreat it leads to more biters just throwing themselves at the player, which is usually knee deep in turrets, is that what you have in mind?

[Ranakastrasz]

Would it be possible for the mod to not send attacks without pollution first triggering it?
I got my first waves before pollution reached any base, and it is already getting problematic.


Also, Aliens probably should be more reluctant to retreat near spawners, since they are mainly there to defend it.

On the pollution part, how close are you building to the biter nests? Are you standing near them? What is your game playtime?
Anything else you think would be relevant?

I have thought about trying to add to the minimap something similar to the pollution cloud for rampant clouds.

On the aliens retreating near spawners. If I increase the threshold for retreat it leads to more biters just throwing themselves at the player, which is usually knee deep in turrets, is that what you have in mind?

Nowhere near them. As in, I started the game, and far before the first vanilla wave would arrive, small waves of biters would start attacking. Not instantly, but I had barely any pollution, and never went near any enemy base.

Screenshot. I am getting waves from all directions, north, south, but barely any east or west. South is fine, since pollution is there, but where are the north waves coming from? Its not even like they were circling around, since they attacked before any pollution reached an enemy base.

ye

Rampent Map.png

[Veden]

Nowhere near them. As in, I started the game, and far before the first vanilla wave would arrive, small waves of biters would start attacking. Not instantly, but I had barely any pollution, and never went near any enemy base.

Screenshot. I am getting waves from all directions, north, south, but barely any east or west. South is fine, since pollution is there, but where are the north waves coming from? Its not even like they were circling around, since they attacked before any pollution reached an enemy base.

At the moment, I'm using more than just the pollution mechanic to generate attack waves.
Attack groups are formed at biter nests when the pollution + player + player base proximity reaches a certain threshold.

Playing green will cause the evolution factor to increase slower, but wont stop attack waves.

Switching over to just pure pollution would be fairly easy.

[Ranakastrasz]

A config option for that would be nice, yea.

I can live with it as is, mostly, but I kinda wanted the smarter AI without signifciantly increased attack count. As it is, you get attacks way earlier, and they never let up, even if you clear the area around your base of enemy spawners.

Edit: Scratch that. At this point, me and my friend are still stuck trying to get more turrets up to defend the entire walloff, and we keep losing walls and turrets, and the attacks are continous. So the increased waves is infact a problem, at least for weak players like myself.