Mach-Arena: Artificial Intelligence

     One of the trickiest things we'll have to do for Mach-Arena is the pathfinding and other AI behavior. We are torn between making the AI adaptable and have set difficulties and have decided to create a system that allows us to easily change our minds later when we find out which one is more fun. Take a peek at my group project's brains by clicking on "More"!

Mach-Arena

Artificial Intelligence

AI will follow a basic three difficulty settings. This is first toggled from the main menu and then adapts during gameplay based on its personal kill/death (K/D) ratio and the player’s K/D ratio. The more kills the player has the harder the AI. AIs are meant to balance each other out by having the dominant ones flux with the weak ones.

AI behavior will be dictated by several main notes:

• Can move the same as the player, in terms or speed and maneuverability
• They “see” obstacles and players with raycasts in a cone formation simulating player sight
• AI reticles are at the center of their vision cones
• Have the ability to pick up and use power ups and can fly in tunnels
• Randomly pick a spawn point on death
• Do not specifically target the player over AI
• Each AI has a K/D that determines it’s difficulty
• AI kills make the individual easier, being killed makes it harder

The main three difficulty levels:

Easy:

• Randomly fly around
• Will target whatever is directly in front of them using raycasts
• Will not use power ups
• Fires at a slightly reduced rate

Normal:

• Randomly fly around
• Will target anything in front of itself using raycasts but also searches for targets
• Use power ups as soon as collected
• Fires at normal rate

Hard

• Actively seek others
• Target whatever it can see using raycasts but prioritizes whatever killed it last
• Uses power ups when appropriate
• Fires at normal rate
• Uses info from minimap to determine enemy locations
• Will attempt to dodge incoming fire