Shotgun AI help

[Melkor]

So, right now I'm at about 1375 elo. However, I have gotten this far by not using shotgun outside of the circular maps like meeting point. So when I'm doing something like Seven Wonders, I'll end up getting destroyed by everyone above 1450, since their shotguns just end up drawing a bunch of fire and running off, which lets their assaults and MG take out my front line.

Anyway, right now I just have my shotgun advance to medium range and start shooting until its shield is below 50%, and then run off. It comes back when its shield is up or its no longer being targeted. On the circular maps it advances to close range before shooting, since most of the time it can get there without being targeted.

I've tested it and that shotgun beats my old layout of having two assaults, but it isn't helping much, if at all, in career. Any advice?

[TheKidPunisher]

Hey, welcome on the forum.

Sorry but i am not really good with special class (i do not play them a lot) but if 2 of your assault cant win against your shotgun (alone) i think your assault needs to have their AI reworked.

For shotgun, for the moment i try to get ressources and if i cant i try to get targeted to let other bot come closer to enemy.

Hope, better shotgun pkayer will give you more usefull advice than me.

[Melkor]

I meant that if I matched a team with one of each bot against a team with a second assault in place of the shotgun, the team with the shotgun would win. I guess I wasn't very clear.

[pier4r]

Tip. Send private matches against 1800 players and analyze how their shotgun behave

[Jeffrey Harpen]

Anyway, right now I just have my shotgun advance to medium range and start shooting until its shield is below 50%, and then run off. It comes back when its shield is up or its no longer being targeted.

Try to run away earlier. Shotguns tend to be killed by a massive enemy attack while being too brave. And don't worry if your shotgun cannot get close to the enemy and doesn't shoot at all. Distracting enemy is also useful, gives allies some time to attack or run away safely.

[Kanishka]

Feel free to send matches to Kanishka_RN3 to test ^^

[Ritter Runkel]

My SG often retreats with full shield. It's more about distracting the Enemy and let the other bots do the damage. If you can get to medium or even closer, use the momentum to be as lethal as you can be. But retreat if you sense focused fire.

The SG is one of the most powerful bots. With the SG you gain ground and you save your Allies from heavy fire.

[Kanishka]

...

Holy shit you're GOOD!!!

[Melkor]

Well, so far I've changed it so I flee from snipers and MGs if I'm below 75%, and I'll start grabbing resources if enemies are all out of range.

...

Holy shit you're GOOD!!!

I can't be that good, I can't even get out of platinum league.

EDIT:And less than an hour after I post this, without editing my AI much, I finally get to diamond. Perfect timing.

EDIT 2: Demoted again, now at 1320

[Kanishka]

Mmh you beat me, can't be that bad

[TheKidPunisher]

i dont know ow you play but maybe you must begin to playing only by fightning and then recolting after all ennemies are dead.

It may improve our "attack behavour" and then you will be able to secure resources during fight

[Melkor]

i dont know ow you play but maybe you must begin to playing only by fightning and then recolting after all ennemies are dead.

It may improve our "attack behavour" and then you will be able to secure resources during fight

Well, I think I've solved most of my problems, and I'm back in diamond again. Right now my shotgun will collect resources only if all enemies are out of range, or if he's retreating from low shield but not being attacked. I don't want to be more aggressive with grabbing resources than that, since I've won quite a few matches by letting the enemy grab 2 resources at the start, while I just sit back and kill half his bots. So far I haven't lost to someone who stole resources from me in the middle of the fight, unless they were going to kill me anyway.

[pier4r]

now that you have counting, you can collect resources with you shotgun only when the enemy shotgun is well damaged, if you have at least one bot more, or if you detect that you have some sort of advantage somehow.

[Melkor]

now that you have counting, you can collect resources with you shotgun only when the enemy shotgun is well damaged, if you have at least one bot more, or if you detect that you have some sort of advantage somehow.

Yeah, I just spent a few hours on counting based subroutines. Now my shotgun grabs resources if I'm winning, and my assaults become more aggressive as well. I've also got something to make my shotgun more aggressive if it has an, advantage but I'd seen that done against me before this update.

[eleazr]

@Melkor, is that you with the IGN of "Melkor___"? (I've been playing as "eleazr02".) Good to see you in the Master league.

I haven't played with this new counting stuff but I've seen more matches lost by poor resource handling than most anything else except poor target handling, so it's good to see you working on that (I'm no expert there).

Judging by our two matches a while ago, I would finger your other bots and not your shotgun. Specifically concerning our match on "Rushtown", Your Sniper tended to switch targets frequently. That thing needs to be shooting all the time, not searching for an "optimal" target. Your target focus left a lot to be desired (it was rare to see more than two bots focusing on a single one of mine). Finally, your bots didn't share armor worth beans. The MG stopped early and let the Assaults get beat up (even the Sniper took hits before the MG.) Then the damaged assaults hung back and let me hit your Sniper. I got the Shotgun because it was the only bot holding the line, and it was all downhill from there.

[Melkor]

@Melkor, is that you with the IGN of "Melkor___"? (I've been playing as "eleazr02".) Good to see you in the Master league.

I haven't played with this new counting stuff but I've seen more matches lost by poor resource handling than most anything else except poor target handling, so it's good to see you working on that (I'm no expert there).

Judging by our two matches a while ago, I would finger your other bots and not your shotgun. Specifically concerning our match on "Rushtown", Your Sniper tended to switch targets frequently. That thing needs to be shooting all the time, not searching for an "optimal" target. Your target focus left a lot to be desired (it was rare to see more than two bots focusing on a single one of mine). Finally, your bots didn't share armor worth beans. The MG stopped early and let the Assaults get beat up (even the Sniper took hits before the MG.) Then the damaged assaults hung back and let me hit your Sniper. I got the Shotgun because it was the only bot holding the line, and it was all downhill from there.

Yeah, that's me.

That is a good point about my sniper. I haven't messed with his targeting AI in forever, so he's probably focusing on the weakest target, not realizing it'll be out of range before he gets a shot off.

Also, I don't think I had a team tag system during our first couple matches, since I'd been focused on retreat and resources AIs, along with shotgun in general. and was still using my targeting AI from platinum, and I just kept winning without it. I've put one in now, but its not perfect yet. I guess targeting AI requires you to look at it harder if you want to find its errors, so I just ignored it improved the rest of my AI.

Also, how do you get them to share armor? I just have them check if they're about to lose their shield, and then fall back until they aren't being shot at anymore. I guess you could have them check if an ally is retreating, but wouldn't that let you get pushed really easily?

Thanks for the advice, I think I still need to fix quite a bit before I'll be able to get all the way to GM.

[eleazr]

Also, I don't think I had a team tag system during our first couple matches, since I'd been focused on retreat and resources AIs, along with shotgun in general. and was still using my targeting AI from platinum, and I just kept winning without it. I've put one in now, but its not perfect yet. I guess targeting AI requires you to look at it harder if you want to find its errors, so I just ignored it improved the rest of my AI.

I've never gotten much success with team tags to focus fire. Sometimes bots end up pushing too far to get the "priority" target, and some times it just seems too slow. So, here's what I do with the quick bots. (For MG and sniper, I tend to let the little bots focus on what the big boys are shooting, with a nod to shooting enemies engaged by allies.)

Screenshot-(11).png (18.4 KiB) Viewed 2880 times

Also, how do you get them to share armor? I just have them check if they're about to lose their shield, and then fall back until they aren't being shot at anymore. I guess you could have them check if an ally is retreating, but wouldn't that let you get pushed really easily?

My MGs are behaving very badly right now (it's been a while since I've been fighting with a full squad), so don't pay too much attention to them, but how it's supposed to work is that aggressive placement with the quick bots searching for those effective medium range engagements tends to get them shot. when they are focused (detected using counting), I have them immediately step back just a bit to long range. There are very few occasions where I let my bots engage at long range, this forces them quickly back to the skirmish line to share armor and get those effective medium range hits.

Incidentally, this is the problem I'm having with my MGs. If I let them engage at long range more often, they spend more time shooting (good) but they don't soak up very much damage (bad) making the little and more fragile bots take more damage. When it gets really bad, my MGs barely have an opportunity to send rounds down range before the target steps out of range, which is where my MGs are at right now.

Ideally, the MG should be placed just behind the little bots so that it can spend more time shooting while the little bots dance around the big boy. The MG should take some hits, but it shouldn't spend too much time dancing. It needs to spend it's time shooting as much as possible.

[Melkor]

I've never gotten much success with team tags to focus fire. Sometimes bots end up pushing too far to get the "priority" target, and some times it just seems too slow. So, here's what I do with the quick bots. (For MG and sniper, I tend to let the little bots focus on what the big boys are shooting, with a nod to shooting enemies engaged by allies.)
Screenshot-(11).png
[/quote]

I thought about doing that, but ultimately just made them pick their own targets if they can't shoot the priority one. I guess your way would be better, and I'll probably try something similar once I get all the bugs worked out of my current system and recover my lost elo.

My MGs are behaving very badly right now (it's been a while since I've been fighting with a full squad), so don't pay too much attention to them, but how it's supposed to work is that aggressive placement with the quick bots searching for those effective medium range engagements tends to get them shot. when they are focused (detected using counting), I have them immediately step back just a bit to long range. There are very few occasions where I let my bots engage at long range, this forces them quickly back to the skirmish line to share armor and get those effective medium range hits.

Incidentally, this is the problem I'm having with my MGs. If I let them engage at long range more often, they spend more time shooting (good) but they don't soak up very much damage (bad) making the little and more fragile bots take more damage. When it gets really bad, my MGs barely have an opportunity to send rounds down range before the target steps out of range, which is where my MGs are at right now.

Ideally, the MG should be placed just behind the little bots so that it can spend more time shooting while the little bots dance around the big boy. The MG should take some hits, but it shouldn't spend too much time dancing. It needs to spend it's time shooting as much as possible.

Yeah, that seems effective, but again I'm just going to try to get my current AI stabilized for now. If I got this many bugs just from reworking the targeting subroutine and sniper, I don't want to try that for a while.

Also, thanks for this advice and for taking my private matches, its definitely been extremely useful.

[Ritter Runkel]

Eleazar, that's a nice approach with the forward movement when nearby Allie is shooting. How does it work in multiplayer matches?

I do something close, but it's more about push under weak conditions when close Allies are pushing or retreat later when allies are close. But I like this one more step idea. With that information you know that the enemie is far range but close to medium

[eleazr]

Eleazar, that's a nice approach with the forward movement when nearby Allie is shooting. How does it work in multiplayer matches?

It works quite well with masses of quick bots (I was playing all assaults as I developed that trick) It provides quick and effective target focus and a limited but effective push effect. Haven't taken it to GM League yet.

Adding in the sniper and MG to the team seem to be causing issues, but I think my tree is starting to get bloated and disorganized.