Battle Tanks 8.57

[Exodus]

Hey guys,
ok this version took a while. Lets hope the next one will be faster ;) As you can see, I took the opertunity to work on the AI. I'm still not finished yet, so expect some further changes there. I hope you like the new version.


v 8.57

• AI: Improved CP-Teleport-usage
  
• AI: Improved pathfinding on side lanes a little
  
• AI: Now also buys weapons of the middle shop, but stays in base for this
  
• AI: Now also buys and combines some items (Teleporter, Speed, Hulls, etc)
  
• AI: Is little less vulnerable for Exploders now
  
• Added cooldown info for items and skills
  
• Added a colored hero glow for Infernal and Frost Robot
  
• Low-bounty-creeps now also provide XP
  
• Lowered the overall XP-gain a bit
  
• Increased the area of the Mine Defuser Pack
  
• Increased the Only Building weapon bonus from 50% to 75%
  
• Bombs and AA-Guns are now also 25% stronger
  
• Cooldown of Roots (Guard) now decreases faster
  
• Rooted Guards now really won't heal each other
  
• Natural Healing (Guard) now heals 50% more HP per second
  
• You can now longer random a tank when you have less than 1900 gold
  
• Building a Barricade won't make the Artillery Factory invulnerable again
  
• Disabled -afkai and -afk before a mode has been chosen
  
• Changed Death Magic a bit (same DPS)
  
• TCC will now be sold, when it's owner leaves
  
• Spawning and Healing Factories will be properly sold when the owner leaves
  
• Pilots now always have the Teleport-Ability (to prevent getting stuck in No Tinker mode)
  
• Buying Aura-Upgrades now also counts towards your end game stats
  
• Decreased the target area of the CP-Teleport a little bit to prevent teleporting issues
  
• Fixed the 6-Factory-Limit for the own base in combination with the Spawning Factory
  
• Fixed the Bounty Hunter (Hunter) level requirements
  
• Fixed a spawn-check on the buttom right side of the Dark Force base

[the truth]

Cool, new version.

"AI: Is little less vulnerable for Exploders now"

So they wont be totally obliterated by exploders?

"Cooldown of Roots (Guard) now decreases faster"

So guard is actually useful? nice!

"Changed Death Magic a bit (same DPS)"

If it's the same dps at the same range and price, it's still gonna be OP.

[Exodus]

So they wont be totally obliterated by exploders?

Well ... it's only a little improvement, but that's better than nothing, right? ;) One problem of the AI is still, that they still won't split up properly over the lanes and drive around together. If I get this to work, we'd get a more fluent game, they'd be a lot better at creeping and, of course, a worse target for exploders. Like I said, I'm still working on this.


As for the Death Magic, overall it's slower. Doubled cooldown and a slower projectile. Maybe it's not much, but an improvement.

[Morkardar]

Just yesterday I tried AA Gun again and was horribly owned by Death Magic User.
This was really needed.
A Laser without upgrade was better than AA Gun

[ChronicStoned]

a laser costs 7k while aa gun is only 6k... so if you fight 1on1 without any creeps or other players, it's normal..

[the truth]

I must say that the ai has vastly improved. Good work on that. AI's are still weak to exploders though.

Here's an idea to make them less vulnerable. Howabout, after a computer has reached a certain bounty and after the computer has died several times to explosives, they get tp breakers. But of course programming them to get a tp breaker from base, drop an item, go to the spot they want to deploy it, then go back to base for an item could be a bit difficult. So how about, instead you create a list of points on the map that are good places to put tp breakers and are spaced away from each other (these points would be off of the main lanes and to the side, out of the way). If a computer dies a few times to explosives in the same spot (ex. they die in the middle lane infront of the laser towers) then the computer will select one of the spots near where they died and place a tp breaker there automatically (i.e. they dont have to buy one, it just appears there under comp player control). There could be a limit of the number of tp breakers the computer player deploys at once (maybe 1-2) so the comp player wont mass them everywhere.

Also, on death magic, I just played a game and it is still OP.

[Exodus]

Spam deleted, keep it down guys.

[thenellt]

Just had to register to say this, I have enjoyed this game for a year or two, but this is the biggest improvement in AI that I remember. They actually properly use some semi-complex strategies, and hulls and speed packs. I actually lost my first game vs AI with this version. Keep up the good work!

[ChronicStoned]

still some creepy ai behaviour:

1.
yesterday i played a game, only hb:
there was one guy with:
light tank
fireball
ice cannon
light hull
plasma cannon

then he left and was controlled by ai, the ai sold all weapons and bought light fantastic,
so there was an ai controlled light tank with only light fantastic >.<

2. also yesterday same game

the player had:
zeppelin
2x basic magic
1x lightning magic
1x goldhull

he left and ai sold the goldhull and bought a teleporter instead

well the ai used the teleporter quite well, but i think the hull had been more useful for the zeppelin

[BENNIE.FM]

hmm death magic way to strong no diffrence from last version really just as good for your money compared to acid

[Exodus]

still some creepy ai behaviour:

1.
yesterday i played a game, only hb:
there was one guy with:
light tank
fireball
ice cannon
light hull
plasma cannon

then he left and was controlled by ai, the ai sold all weapons and bought light fantastic,
so there was an ai controlled light tank with only light fantastic >.<

2. also yesterday same game

the player had:
zeppelin
2x basic magic
1x lightning magic
1x goldhull

he left and ai sold the goldhull and bought a teleporter instead

well the ai used the teleporter quite well, but i think the hull had been more useful for the zeppelin

Hm, seems like a bug to me. I'll take a look at this.

[horselance]

Some AI play good (in fact long range abusers). But most of them plays strange. In a game 5v5 all bots: my team was very lacked of skill. some enemy had lacked of skill also. But there was 1 bot that I couldnt even handle had a stats of smth 96-23 where I had 160-30..
It bought a scout and bombarding rocket at start, then:
Bombarding rocket
Steel Hull
Death Magic
Sky Tank
Acid Cannon
I didnt need much hp becase it used all long range.
It was a nightmare after acid because in that time my team still had 2 antigrav and a helli in 50-60 min.....
They spend too much money on weapons and little money for hp.

[ChronicStoned]

most new players do this mistake, it's a bship behaviour (well i call it this..)
because in bships the empire ships(creeps) have way more hp compared to the dmg done by weapons then in btanks.
nearly every new player who played bships befor does this.

[[RAF]JozinPL]

I Played today games where was 1 player unbalance
Then we decided to kick him. He was kicked and part of his inventory was in middle map where no one from ally team can't took this items. Is this a bug? Second issue i have full inventory i drop one item to buy teleport breaker then i must drop next item to buy next breakers . This is same problem for me in every version of btanks. This will be fixed?

[ChronicStoned]

He was kicked and part of his inventory was in middle map where no one from ally team can't took this items. Is this a bug?

No, you cannot take items or receive gold from allied or enemy players in btanks except the host enables gold and item pooling by entering -share

I Played today games where was 1 player unbalance
Then we decided to kick him.

what do you mean? how can a player be unbalanced?

[Morkardar]

1 player unbalance means 1 player difference.

[[RAF]JozinPL]

yes exactly one player difference. If this problem will repeat then i will make screenshot.

[the truth]

Yeah, there is a serious issue with lai where if a comp takes over a human, they sell all their stuff and buy new stuff, which basically gives them tanks that have half the health and half the weapons. Hopefully this can be fixed, cause for example i just played a 10K game where a player bought stuff and left so the computer sold everything and got the airship, but couldn't afford weapons, so was useless and fed the enemy.


Also, I know that I was advocating to make the mine defuser better, but it might be a bit overpowered now. I mean it's just 1-2K and it pretty much negates all mines, which are more expensive. Perhaps you could have upgraded versions of the diffuser with the better aoe. Alternatively, you could make it so that the current version doesn't kill large or huge mines and that you would have to upgrade the defuser so that it can kill these types (because as it is, large or huge mines aren't worth the cost because they are negated just as easily as the small mines). Also, the ability to combine with an item (such as a hull), would be nice with the defuser.

[thenellt]

One bug I found is that if the AI has a troop pack or command pack, whatever that item is that spawns a small army of assorted guys, It won't order them to do anything and they just sit there. The real bug is that if it's late game and you have most of the map, and the AI spawns them in a place where they will just sit there and not get killed, after 5 minuets they are detected as afk, even if the AI's main tank is still doing stuff. Then that AI can't buy anything for the rest of the game. Just ask if a replay is needed, I have one.

[Althend]

One bug I found is that if the AI has a troop pack or command pack, whatever that item is that spawns a small army of assorted guys, It won't order them to do anything and they just sit there. The real bug is that if it's late game and you have most of the map, and the AI spawns them in a place where they will just sit there and not get killed, after 5 minuets they are detected as afk, even if the AI's main tank is still doing stuff. Then that AI can't buy anything for the rest of the game. Just ask if a replay is needed, I have one.

Right.