Imp AI

[Bartos]

Hi,

Since I was unable to find this topic on the forum, here is my query:

I am having trouble with Imp AI to follow through on their tasks in the most recent KeeperFX build (installed and played a few days ago, July 2023).

In a way, Imps' AI seems to be more dysfunctional than the original game and I would like to request your advice on how to ease the flow of the game.

Right now, all the improvements made in KeeperFX are fantastic, except for the necessity to micromanage Imps harder than I ever had to.

They seem to claim a few random tiles at a time and then run away. They do not bother to reinforce the walls when not placed near them, and at that they never finish the task on the dungeon as a whole.

Even their manager, the Horned Reaper doesn't seem to be able to motivate them to work, they just run from their jobs even more explicitly when he tries to point out the areas that need improvement. That is not too surprising, as I noticed similar dynamic at a real workplace, but this is a game so some idealism could be introduced

Thanks in advance!

[jomalin]

This reminds me to a post i wrote in 2014 about imps priorities, i think is basically the same thing and problem.
Please take a look:
https://keeperklan.com/threads/4743-...g-imp-priority

In those times, mefistotelis (the only user that can do source code changes i think) didn't say anything about having solving it in the forum thread...

I have not read the source code for this yet so i don't know how it works, but i can imagine a solution like having 2 kind of imps priorities: the default one when imps act at their own (when the campaign level starts for example and every imp must do something by their own) and when imps are dropped specifically by hand by the player (so here the behaviour should be to do the task closer in distance: so if the player drop the imp close to a wall, it should reinforce the wall, if the player drop the imp close to an unclaimed area, the imp should try to conquer it, if the player drop the imp close to a dead body, the imp should take it, etc).

[YourMaster]

I could change imp behavior,...or at least try to. But it's hard to tell if something is different, what is different, what exactly should change and how. If people provide some videos of imp behavior in the original game, then the exact same location and imp locations in keeperfx and when we see imps behave different I can modify the behavior until it's like it was originally.
What would help a lot too would be knowing which exact alpha version broke the relevant behavior.

And jomalin,... tasks already work like that. There's the 'stack' of imp jobs that imp take a task from if they are looking for work. And there's the job they do when you drop them someplace.

[Bartos]

Thank you so much for the responses!

What I noticed is that imp behavior is much closer to expectations in the first two levels of the main campaign (as tested on the latest release of Keeper FX).

When I would increase the frame skip/game speed with pressing CTRL & Num+ Imps would reinforce the walls by themselves without micromanaging them, and I would see the map fill in with walls like clockwork.

Then on the level three this pattern broke and I was back to dropping Imps by hand to do those basic tasks like claiming, stealing rooms, reinforcing walls. They still place traps, drag spells, curiosities, corpses and prisoners by themselves still.

I doubt it has anything to do with using the console command menu (Enter key) to spawn level 10 Imps, as I did those on the first two levels as well.

[YourMaster]

well, be very specific, send a screenshot or a video of something you do in lvl3 where imps go wrong. Then compare with the dosbox version in level 3, what do the imps differently there?