improvements anyone?

cheats

from Sins Forums

I have just played a few speculative games to see if there were any improvements in the way the AI plays and I cannot find any.

These games were 1v1 TEC v (random) TEC. on normal aggression. I had two planets in my possession as did the AI both with minimal, though different, fleets and units in the early part of the game. I had a Corbet on each of the enemy's planet showing the information I wanted. I calculated roughly that the enemy would lose one of its planets if I invaded both its home planet and its only supporting planet. How naive can I be? First, there was a long delay before my fleets and units team jumped onto each of the enemy's planets and one invaded long before the other, even though I had ordered them to jump at the same time. (Isn't one element in war to strike while the iron is hot and take the enemy by surprise?) Then magically the enemy produced a starbase and a second capital ship within 5 to 8 seconds and instantly transferred fleets and units, while my own had to crawl along the phase lines. Any supporting units sent to the enemy's planet would also have long delays, making them almost redundant by the time they arrived. Cheats like this make the game unplayable as a strategy game. It's a lottery not a strategy game. Improvements anyone?

11,321 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Odd, I have not seen this behavior. I do know that at unfair and above the AI gets cheats to income and research plus xp for capital ships but normal should not be getting any cheats.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

How long into the game were you? Are you sure the AI didn't have units mid phase jump already?

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks for your replies.

Ryat : I have played SOASE for some time and in all the games what I reported happens. Have a close look. The official line is that only above normal difficulty do cheats occur. What I have outlined may not be normally conceived of as cheating, but gives a huge advantage to the enemy AI by reinventing the rules. There are many other ways it does this. For example, when I team jumped (in middle game) the program sent in a few strong units without any support and only when these were considerably weakened did the rest of the support team jump. Another example, a rather ubiquitous one, is when I order my units to team jump, an enemy scout instantly pops up from nowhere to delay the jump. When I moused over my units, all of them were occupied in defeating the humble scout. I could not choose one unit to fight the scout and jump with the rest of my team. In some cases it took some considerable time for my massive fleet to defeat the single scout or send it on its way.

SOASE is a good game, but like many games that claim to be strategic, they deceive you its strategic by giving the player and the AI a set of rules and then going on to break the rules and give the AI the advantage. I have never played human v human and I doubt these cheats would actually apply. I just find it exasperating in the single player game for the player to be deliberately thwarted in his efforts by such cheats.

 

Scudhawk : It was very early on in the game (about 10 mins ) with only two developed planets each. If any units were in mid-phase jump there was no red line to show such. In my experience the enemy AI can appear instantly, almost anywhere, especially on the player's planets. I found it incredible that the enemy AI could build a starbase and a second cap ship in 5 to 8 seconds and have the credits and resources to do this so early in the game.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Well, if you watch the AI in the dev.exe, you may notice some surprising cheats...for one, the AI just gets random free technologies periodically, even if they don't have the necessary labs...part of the "AI improvement" that rebellion promised to bring us....

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks Seleuceia for your reply. I am not sure how to watch the AI dev.exe. Presumably I need to get into the console?

I am not sure this game is any longer playable against the AI unless improvements are made, for the simple reason I am wasting my time pretending it is strategic when the program does what it likes. I tried a Diplomatic game in Trinity which resulted in a catch 22 situation. If I tried a mission given by one faction I would be jumped by the other. If I didn't take a mission I would be jumped by both factions. When I fortified the exposed planets and strengthened my fleet the time was up or only a few minutes were left to destroy 3 to 5 ships. Anyone playing this game knows how long battles can take. The pirates in Rebellion attacked me en masse even though the price I put on the head of the enemy faction was greater by far than what the enemy faction had placed on mine. If the pirates had attacked the other faction there was no information about what harm it did. which might have been useful.

I wonder if the developers have given up improving the single player mode in respect of the cheats, in favor of refining the multiplayer option?

Thanks again.

 

 

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

The dev.exe is a separate .exe that is released with the normal Sins .exe....it is in the same diretory and has more or less the same name (though dev will appear somewhere in the name)...

The dev.exe is the same as the normal one but with one key difference: during games, you can bring up a debugging menu that let's you do "magic" stuff...this menu came be brought up any time during a game by pressing three buttons at the same time: ctrl, shift, and "." (the period button)....

A black window should pop up in the top left corner...you move through it by selecting letters on the keyboard (IIRC, you use the "<" key to go back)...

If you press e, then c, you'll go to rendering and end up making everything visible independent of what player you are...go back to the highest level menu of this popup, and then press a, then d....now, you are in the player info section...each time you press a will change which player you are...while playing  a given player, you can press b to change whether that player is managed by the AI or not...

Please note that running the dev.exe clears your settings files...

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Still stands that I have not seen this kind of behavior in Normal or higher settings.

Are you making sure to research the tech that allows you to see what is coming down the phase lane? I usually know exactly what the AI is doing (especially with Vasari and 8 civilian techs) thanks to this research and I don't see any magical ship production. at any AI level. I do see the credit bump, random research trick, and XP increase for settings at unfair and up (I rarely play at hard so that may be the disconnect there. Its either normal for game test or unfair for fun.) but not what you are describing.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

I swear the AI can rebuild Titans for FREE. At hard+ difficulties.

This is verry aggrevating.

Just check credits available, they never have the 8-9k required to build one.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Wouldn't surprise me they also get discounts.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks again for your replies.

Seleuceia : Not much luck here. Ctrl\shift\"." only showed a temporary lock symbol on the zoom to cursor icon. I tried Ctrl\Tilda with the same effect. ( I am using a UK English keyboard). I looked in the game files, but could only find one dev.exe that simply started the game.

Ryat & Black-Ni : I have only used normal difficulty and other players have confirmed my findings on the original SOASE and these cheats have been carried forward into Trinity and Rebellion. I have used the upgrade (only once I recall) to see what is coming, but this did stop the scout instantly appearing from nowhere, sometimes every 2 to 3 seconds in the middle and late game. It's notable also that the AI can jump without difficulty, even when I have placed a scout or or low grade unit on his planet. These units are usually eliminated with seconds, whereas with the AI scout it takes my massive fleet much longer to eliminate it before I can jump. If my home planet has more than one phase line and the enemy has immediate access to these, then the scout will land at the furthest point from my fleet so they have to crawl towards the scout, eventually eliminate it, and then crawl back to the point where I want to jump. Even leaving fleets at all points of access, the whole fleet is moving and occupied to eliminate the humble scout.  Once this is done, mousing over the fleet reveals it's 'gathering information' and takes ages to jump. Not so with the enemy.

When I checked the statistics after the game, I was shown to have a few more credits than the enemy, which would not have bought me a cap ship and a starbase, still less would they be produced in 5 to 8 seconds.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Here is a thread that may be useful for you in regards to the dev.exe...

Ctrl, shift, and "." have to be pressed at the same time....I would be surprised if the keyboard was the issue and I'm sorry to say I have no further suggestions on how to bring up the debugging window if this doesn't work...

As for the greater issue at hand...

I have noticed since sometime in diplomacy that the AI seems to "magically" get units at my planets...I'll be playing, and suddenly an enemy ship will appear at an interior world (one that is completely surrounded by planets I've colonized) despite having no notifications of them ever entering my border worlds...

The most memorable time this occured was when an AI had 2 Marzas and several siege frigates that kept harassing me...it would seem like out of nowhere I'd have a marza bombing a planet very close to my HW even though that marza would have had to go through another one of my border worlds to get there (yet I never saw it go through a border world)....

This phenomenon has seemed to happen quite a bit to me and was extremely frustrating...even with psidar technologies (and the like) and no nearby wormholes, enemy units would manage to catch me off guard and somehow be at interior worlds (capital ships and siege frigates were the most common)...it got to the point where I would watch replays just to see if I really was that oblivious, but I have never once been able to see this phenomonen in a recorded game as how I witnessed it in an actual game....as such, I have just always assumed I was mistaken...

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks again Saluceia. I looked at the thread you provided, but I still need to access the game console to take advantage of it. I did add - console to the shortcut, but pressing CTRL\SHIFT\"." or Tilda keys simultaneously in-game had the same effect - lock symbol on the Zoom to Cursor icon.

The game is replete with advantages given to the AI even on easy or normal difficulty. Here is one I recently discovered. I wanted to send a fleet to a planet and there were two routes available, one through the enemy lines and the other not. I could r click the planet, but this showed only the route through the enemy's lines, so I would be guaranteed not to arrive. I can, of course, click each planet on the other route, but this wastes time. And guess what? When I did move onto the first planet, the pesky little scout turned up from nowhere and delayed the jump to the next planet and when I finally arrived at the destination planet the scout was already there waving to me.