Robots, re-visited

[Bryan Jarvis]

I saw the thread about robots.  Since I'm playing against robots, and actually
am using the suggested moves mostly - I'm a robot...

It would be interesting if there was a slider that would allow the robot a range of
aggressiveness.
Or that could be randomly assigned at game instantiation, or when a player
position was dropped.

I know this isn't trivial by any means. I don't know exactly what decisions would
have to be made to make a robot more or less aggressive.

[Davin Church]

We're planning some changes in the robot system...

First of all, we're going to quit using robots for dropped positions altogether.  We haven't yet decided what we're going to DO with those dropped positions, though.

Secondly, if the robots are only going to be used for solo games, then I can make them less defensive-oriented and at least a little more aggressive. That takes programming time, though, and I don't have lots to spare these days, so it'll probably come slowly.  Given that they'll only be used for direct personal competition, I don't see much point in giving them a slider.  They should probably be as good as they're able, given the resources at their disposal.  One day we may be able to add random "personalities", but if so that'll be well into the future.

Thirdly, I don't know what to do about the "suggested moves" option in general.  I don't really want people playing robot-logic in a human game by just continually copying suggested orders - I really want them doing their own thing.  But so many people these days are just relying on the suggested orders because they don't have time to do their own turns, and I don't much like that.  I don't know how to approach that problem.

[Bryan Jarvis]

Hi, Davin -
I get that you want me to use these as "training wheels", and I am.  I'm not even finished
with my second game yet.  I migh consider making the robots and generated turns a little
more aggressive - It seems that he only "combat" I've been subjected to is from scout ships
so far.
I wouldn't fret over changes for now.

[Davin Church]

Yeah, I had expected that the "training wheels" time would be a matter of 2-3 turns the first time you sat down to play, after which you'd take over on your own.  (It used to be that people had to pay for a game in order to practice in the old PBM days and there weren't any suggested orders at all.)  I never expected you to play two entire games to completion that way.  But to each his own - maybe there's a place for that.  I guessed that once people started putting in their own turns, they'd just peek at the suggested orders from time to time to see if it mentioned anything that they should also be considering.

As for aggressiveness, these robots were designed to be purely (and heavily) defensive and not aggressive at all.  Hopefully that will be changing when they switch to solo-only play.  But for now, if you want to see real combats you're going to have to start them yourself.