Monster AI V0.40

[Lunever]

Now that the limited perception range of the monsters is working properly, what do monsters do if the party moves out of their perception range? Do they firmly proceed toward the last position where they had spotted the party? Or do they immediately resume random wandering?

I think it should be the former, but I got the impression that it's been rather the latter, for I had repeatedly monsters suddenly wander off after already having engaged them (and no, they were not subject to fear and not heavily injured).

[Daecon]

Would that mean the monsters have to "remember" where you were when they can no longer see you?

I forget if something like this has been asked, but can monsters follow footprints trails?

[George Gilbert]

Now that the limited perception range of the monsters is working properly, what do monsters do if the party moves out of their perception range? Do they firmly proceed toward the last position where they had spotted the party? Or do they immediately resume random wandering?

I think it should be the former, but I got the impression that it's been rather the latter, for I had repeatedly monsters suddenly wander off after already having engaged them (and no, they were not subject to fear and not heavily injured).

It's the latter (random wandering).

Having said that, monsters have a preference to wander in the same direction they are facing rather than spinning about on the spot, so they'll start wandering in the direction the party was last spotted so have a better than average chance of randomly stumbling into view range of the party again.

[Lunever]

Hmm, maybe this can be improved a bit in some future release. Situations that seem a bit bewildering are as following: You go round a corner, walk a couple of tiles, encounter a swamp slime in 3 tiles distance, fire something at it, and retreat behind the corner. Now you are out of its perception range, and the swamp slime just behaves as if nothing had happened and you can repeat the process until it's dead.

And even if it conincidentally approaches the party position, if such an encounter is happening on a crossroads, the chance is rather limitied that it will actually pursue the party. Pursuit would be a great addition to some future monster AI.

[beowuuf]

Except if you are out of its perception range then how does it know what happened : ) I thin kthe 'walking in the same direction' idea is fine, perhaps if a creature receives damage and there is nothing in it's perception range it knows about, there is an automatic short lived fear effect generated (so it will run away) or have it move forward (investigate)

How can a monster such as a slime actually persue a party is there is no real evidence which way they went' You can always have monster attractors that the party trip if you wsh this, so that monsters can hear a party coming or even chase after where they have been

[Daecon]

With the run away thing, how will it know in which direction to run if it doesn't know which direction the party is in? After all, the monster could have been attacked from behind, which would send it running towards the party...

Maybe an invisible foorprints effect, so the monster could be hunting by "smell" or some such? In a dungeon without light, how else would a monster find prey?

[Lunever]

Beo: Well, I''m speaking of course of situations where the monster actually has SEEN where the party went. More clear example: Imagine a big, rectangular hall. You sidestep along a wall, a monster comes into your angle of view, you sidestep once more, shoot at it and sidestep back several steps back where you come from, that is outside the monster's perception range. If the monster was facing your direction and has seen you, it will proceed towards the wall you've been following. Once there however, it will randomly either go in your direction, or in the opposite direction. I think it'd be better if it investigated the direction you disappeared in.

[Lunever]

After observing monster behaviour more closely I found that the main problem is that monsters with a rather short perception range do not react at all if attacked from outside that range. So if you let rain fire and death from 3 tiles ditance upon a screamer's or purple worm's sides or back, they will just pretend that nothing is happening and behave as if they were making a nice walk on the beach on a sunny day, until they die without doing anything for their survival.

I think most oddities would disappear if monsters would turn toward the direction of an incoming spell or missile if it's source (i.e. the party) is not within their range of perception.

[Lunever]

Aside from that I think it to be important making monsters turn towards incoming ragned attacks, I think I found another part of the problem:

As far as I can tell currently the perception ranges of the monsters in RTC are identical to those known from FTL, but in RTC they are NOT increased by the light level modifier as in FTL according to the Encyclopaedia. Now that monsters do have distinct perception ranges, I think the light level modifier for perception should also be considered. I assume it wouldn't be that difficult to implement that. Otherwise the RTC monsters are a bit crippled in their actions compared to the original. Of course you could just increase the range for all monsters by 1 to emulate a similar effect, but that would not be half as interesting as the possibilities a light level modifier would allow (after all you could use a darkness spell then to sneak past monsters with a low perception).

Another matter that is also somewhat related to monster perception is the invisibility spell. Currently it is all super-powerful, even despite its very short duration, because as long as you keep casting invisibility, you can stand right before a monster and slay it without any resistance on part of the monster. With a fighter and a wizard with sufficient Mana you can slay pratically everything almost everwhere easily, be it dragon or demon. While it might be difficult to make monsters attack the last source of attacks they've seen, I think it would be not too difficult to implement to have monsters attack if the tile they would like to move into is occupied by an invisible party.

[George Gilbert]

I think it to be important making monsters turn towards incoming ragned attacks

You could easily argue that they should do the exact opposite. I mean, if it was the party being hit by a volley of fireballs from an unknown source, the *last* thing you would do would be turn into them and slowly walk towards the source!

As far as I can tell currently the perception ranges of the monsters in RTC are identical to those known from FTL, but in RTC they are NOT increased by the light level modifier as in FTL according to the Encyclopaedia. Now that monsters do have distinct perception ranges, I think the light level modifier for perception should also be considered.

Why?

The monsters all live in the dark already...it's not that great a leap to say that they should be able to hunt in it too.

Another matter that is also somewhat related to monster perception is the invisibility spell. Currently it is all super-powerful, even despite its very short duration, because as long as you keep casting invisibility, you can stand right before a monster and slay it without any resistance on part of the monster. With a fighter and a wizard with sufficient Mana you can slay pratically everything almost everwhere easily, be it dragon or demon. While it might be difficult to make monsters attack the last source of attacks they've seen, I think it would be not too difficult to implement to have monsters attack if the tile they would like to move into is occupied by an invisible party.

Good point about the invisibility - I'll modify the behaviour to be the same as it is for the party.

[Lunever]

1) Ok, then let's rather say monsters should REACT in some way when it's raining missiles - maybe based on a similar idea like their nehaviour when standing in a poison cloud - if the incoming ranged attack's strength is rather weak compared to their own resilience, make them turn toward it to investigate (the investigating part would probably automatically happen due to the monster turned into the attack source's direction and moving normally), and if it's a rather strong incoming ranged attack compared to their own resilience, let them move out of the way, that is, turn to a 90 degree angle compared to the incoming missiles flight path.

2) Why? Maybe I did not describe exactly enough what I mean: I do not mean that monsters should be dependend on light - you are right, they ARE living in the dark and should be accustomed to it. I mean, imagine you're a monster living in the dark, of a species that still does have eyes (your species has not lived without light all evolution, or you have fantasy-like infrared or dark sight eyes or whatever). Suddenly down the corridor a troupe of 4 torch bearing and light spell casting adventurers is coming toward your habitat. Wouldn't you notice them earlier than some sneaking thief who deliberately foregoes announcing his presence by igniting the only light in vincinity? I think you would.

The point is - with an UNMODIFIED sight range some monsters like screamers and worms with a range of 1 tile have started to behave very strangely in V0.40 (no misunderstanding - having distinct sight ranges IS a good feature). So I suggest that you either consider the example above about the only light source moving about in a dungeon being noticeable, or just increase all monster's sight range by 1 tile to compensate for deliberately foregoing light level modifiers. Otherwise players doing one of the most usual DM tactics might feel enstranged: Hah, a screamer, step forward stabstab step backward. What's the screamer doing if you did not hit it frontally by mere coinicidence (since screamers do not have a distinguishable facing)? Exactly, it's doing nothing at all. But it should react by some means to such an attack. In FTL-DM it would, because adventurers usually do use light.

3) Invisibility: So that means, in V0.41 being invisible you can stand unnoticed in a tile adjacent to a monster, but if it tries to move into your space it will notice you and attack, preferably with a short delay, right?