New AI

Death · Post by **Death** » 19 Aug 2005 15:27

Hi,
In the "Configure Patches" there is a switch which called "Enable new AI (alpha). Road vehicles are only work as I see. I whant to know if anybody
works on new AI for trains, aircrafts and ships. and when it will be ready for downloud (I can't stand the old AI any more

).

gkirilov · Post by **gkirilov** » 19 Aug 2005 15:44

the answer is clear ... it will be ready when it is.

http://wiki.openttd.org/index.php/Development:Main_Page

SirkoZ · Post by **SirkoZ** » 19 Aug 2005 17:36

I agree with gkirilov, althought the old AI is ridiculously jaded.

By the way you should have written "I want a new one".

Death · Post by **Death** » 20 Aug 2005 17:52

gkirilov wrote:the answer is clear ... it will be ready when it is.

It was a rhetoric question.

And SirokZ your right, I should have written "want"...

Anyway, why did Chris Sawyer make so stupid AI?
It so boring to play with the computer,
I want a new AI NOW!!!

(I'm just kidden')

How will the new AI build railroads?
I hate those "snakes" on my map.

Who's voted "I like the old AI"?
Are you OK man, or maybe the old AI took control on your mind?

SirkoZ · Post by **SirkoZ** » 20 Aug 2005 20:27

Well - I, for one, woted for the new AI, but you should know it's not that easy to write a new AI, at best it's quite time consuming, that's why Chris Sawyer didn't improve it...

Born Acorn · Post by **Born Acorn** » 20 Aug 2005 20:30

AI's are a hard thing to make. Its not as easy as any old feature. You have to tell it how to behave in all situations.

Death · Post by **Death** » 20 Aug 2005 20:42

Did I say it's easy?

magnato · Post by **magnato** » 20 Aug 2005 21:12

to write a new AI, at best it's quite time consuming, that's why Chris Sawyer didn't improve it...

... and actually he told in the lauch of TT he DID work a lot with the AI to add depth to the game. But please take in the challenge here. Chess computers software have been worked on for more than 40 years and up to now and only recently they were able to compete with the best chess players. Though I hope the new AI will take less than 40 years.

SirkoZ · Post by **SirkoZ** » 20 Aug 2005 23:43

I know what Chris said about adding the depth to the game, although - did anyone ever notice, how AI in TTOriginal and in TTD builds railways very often with and "S" in it? They like the S so much, it's kinda ridiculous.
If the AI only made a more straight way, it would be a lot better - and no long bridges.

CobraA1 · Post by **CobraA1** » 21 Aug 2005 01:22

IMHO he chose a poor algorithm in the first place - I'm surprised he chose something that degenerated so quickly as the recursion factor increased.

Death · Post by **Death** » 21 Aug 2005 05:17

If he chose a poor algorithm, why did he work a lot with the AI, as Magneto said? and how do you know it, Magneto?

magnato · Post by **magnato** » 21 Aug 2005 07:52

He said so in interviews when he was introducing the first game Transport Tycoon before Christmas 1993.

did anyone ever notice, how AI in TTOriginal and in TTD builds railways very often with and "S" in it?

This is why I suggest only a small improvement in the AI would have great impact. In fact it seems to me the AI stops working on one line as soon as he has made connection. This is a bad mistake. He should continue to work on the track a few seconds more just to cansel out the wellknown "S"! May be this could did not have to be so complecated:

If the AI just measure up the distance in squares and compare this to the number of squares of his new track like this: Q = Y/X
where:
X = Squares in distance from A to B"
Y= "Numbers of Squares in New Track"/Distance,

He would get a number bigger than 1, as the distance "Y" divided on numbers of tracks "X" always has to be bigger than 1. (how to make the AI make diagonal track structure, I dont know, because even though diagonal tracks makes the track shorter, it does not cut down on the no of tracks)

We should just give AI 10 seconds extra eg to improve his new track after he has made de connection to get the value "Q" as low as possible. This is how Chess computers work all the time.

Death · Post by **Death** » 21 Aug 2005 08:23

I see you like chess games...
Anyway, AI works slowly, I don't know if it's good to give
the AI more time. We need to try it.

magnato · Post by **magnato** » 21 Aug 2005 21:47

Yes I had had a look at development of chessgames software for the last 15 years or so, and changes have been just incredible!
If the OTTD was nearly as perfect as some of these software it would have finished the whole OTTD within a year, giving us humans no chance to compete whatsoever! I am glad its not that perfect!

BUT, a little more perfect than it is now, would make us all more happy. May be we should invite a chess programmer to look into the problem?

If the AI just went on thinking AFTER the connection was made a lot of the flaws could been canceled out. The AI could just buy trains and set them to do business, but he should at the same time look after his new connections to see if any improvements could be done. May be the above formula could help us on the way?

Bjarni · Post by **Bjarni** » 21 Aug 2005 22:25

I read that Chris wanted to make a non-cheating AI player, so it could only build one tile at a time. Since it should also take into account that human players would cut it off, it would have to look ahead each time a new tile was build. It also had to run on the hardware we used more than 10 years ago. He also wanted it to make mistakes once in a while since humans do that too

TrueLight started work on a new AI and added the road part of it to the source. He started working on the train part, but before he got any useful results, he decided to rewrite the network part instead. He managed to remove most desyncs so we actually got a game, which is stable enough to play over the internet. That's another way of getting an oppenent, which aren't braindead

One of the problems with a new AI is that it needs constant updating. It will not use the features that was added after it was updated the last time, like multiple road vehicle stops or replace vehicles

magnato · Post by **magnato** » 22 Aug 2005 11:29

the network part is one of the coolest things since i started playing OTTD again, so i am happy he made that choice!

then, I dont think its all that important to have the AI fully up to date to use all kinds of new features/viechles. If it just works in a conservative but logical way, it will mean a lot.

Two things I think is of most importance:
* do you think it would be possible to make the AI improve its own tracks? So as to rule out the famous S track curves?
* do you think it would be possible to have the AI use more of its piled up money in the mid-game? If the AI were able to utilize their money reserve better, a more aggressive attitude could be reflected.

magnato · Post by **magnato** » 22 Aug 2005 12:32

... and also one more thing. Can you give the AI a penalty (negative value) for making those extremly sharp curves and also going up and downhill?

I think if there were some value on the track as i mentioned above, a lot of improvements could have been made on the tracklayout after finishing the connection from A to B.

Bjarni · Post by **Bjarni** » 22 Aug 2005 14:00

magnato wrote:... and also one more thing. Can you give the AI a penalty (negative value) for making those extremly sharp curves and also going up and downhill?

I think if there were some value on the track as i mentioned above, a lot of improvements could have been made on the tracklayout after finishing the connection from A to B.

it's possible. The new AI already do that with roads. It even look at what roads are already in place and tries to figure out if it can use some of it

magnato · Post by **magnato** » 22 Aug 2005 22:11

this is very good news!

Would be very fun to see these changes also in the AI train system!

Just normal A to B connections

Bjarni · Post by **Bjarni** » 22 Aug 2005 22:56

magnato wrote:this is very good news!

Would be very fun to see these changes also in the AI train system!

Just normal A to B connections

hehe.... who will code it? AI stuff is pretty hard to do. I think we have to wait a while to see this

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