Author Topic: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4  (Read 219837 times)

Snimm

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Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« on: 08 April 2015, 21:49:17 »
Restarting this thread for the Against the Bot (AtB) campaign ruleset using MekHQ and its bundled programs (MegaMekLab [MML] and MegaMek [MM]) and questions ideally regarding the Against the Bot campaign in general.

Please refrain from asking general MHQ or MM questions that don't pertain to the AtB campaign rules.  Those should go in a general MHQ or MM thread (and I will admit to being guilty a few times of violating this guideline).

Finally, please remember the forum rules.  We (the players and developers involved) would appreciate not having another thread locked because of flared tempers and language.  Keep it cordial and friendly while debating, and remember that it's easy to misread a poster's tone when you're just reading text.

Link to the 2.31 AtB rules here:
http://bg.battletech.com/forums/megamek-games/campaign-rules-against-the-bot-thread-4/?action=dlattach;attach=29623
« Last Edit: 20 April 2015, 08:02:34 by Snimm »
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pfarland

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #1 on: 11 April 2015, 12:13:05 »
Say, anyone know why I only get a maximum of one recruit a week even though I'm playing a combined arms regiment?
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scJazz

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #2 on: 11 April 2015, 13:08:26 »
Say, anyone know why I only get a maximum of one recruit a week even though I'm playing a combined arms regiment?

Infantry recruits are the entire platoon so there is that. Vee Crews are 1d6 of them according to 2.29 rules.

2.29 specifies 1 (None) recruits a week with the above modifiers. Seems like everything is working correctly.

Dogstar34

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #3 on: 12 April 2015, 04:58:06 »
Will AtB scenarios end on their own or do I have to input the /victory or /defeat command?

I have a Probe scenario where I must destroy 1/4 of enemy forces and keep 1/4 of starting forces operational.  It is Turn 13, I have killed 5 vehicles out of 16 and all 4 of my mechs are alive.  However, 8 vees are from one opponent and 8 vees are from a separate player on the same team (reinforcements).  Do I have to destroy 1/4 of each opponents?  Should I end it manually?  First time using AtB rules with the new MHQ version, really impressing how most everything is automated!

Thanks in advance

HerrFlex

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #4 on: 12 April 2015, 05:35:02 »
You have to do /victory and /defeat manually, since using the victory conditions mechanic of Megamek puts both forces on the same conditions, which becomes problematic when one force has to destroy half of the enemy and the other only needs a 3rd destroyed.

So your scenario would be a win at this point, it's a total force amount on map if i'm not mistaken, at least that's how i do it when reinforcements are involved, i try to get the necessary amount of destruction done before reinforcements arrive.

Snimm

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #5 on: 12 April 2015, 07:09:56 »
When you meet victory conditions, you CAN declare /victory (and yes, you'll have to do it manually).  You can also push your luck and try to wreck more stuff if you dare, though of course you can risk stupid crits that you wouldn't otherwise have gained had you ended immediately when you won. :)

The AtB rules do assume you're looking at unit count, but if you feel it's more realistic, you can use BV destroyed instead.  That might make for some interesting results in terms of how many units actually survive, albeit barely.
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pfarland

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #6 on: 12 April 2015, 10:18:54 »
What I do is /kick the bot (or bot's) and replace with another one set for Escape.  I find it MUCH more realistic as no battle ends with both sides just suddenly calling it quits and walking away from each other.  The Escape bot is usually pretty good (at least the new version of Princess that Ral has) at making tactical withdraws. 

You can push your luck and fight it till the map edge, picking off any units along the way or pull back yourself and just pot shot at each other until you're out of range or map edge reached.
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Vampire_Seraphin

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #7 on: 12 April 2015, 12:01:42 »
Chase maps are where you deploy your longtoms.

krazzyharry

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #8 on: 12 April 2015, 12:54:43 »
What I do is /kick the bot (or bot's) and replace with another one set for Escape.  I find it MUCH more realistic as no battle ends with both sides just suddenly calling it quits and walking away from each other.  The Escape bot is usually pretty good (at least the new version of Princess that Ral has) at making tactical withdraws. 

You can push your luck and fight it till the map edge, picking off any units along the way or pull back yourself and just pot shot at each other until you're out of range or map edge reached.

How do you set the new bot for escape?

pfarland

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #9 on: 13 April 2015, 01:44:38 »
/who (gives you the list of players including bots).
/kick (The player number, most likely 1, it'll be the number right after 'Server')
'File' (top left corner)  - Game - Replace player

That'll bring up the dialog for what ever players you've kicked.  You can adjust the settings there or just choose predetermined settings in the drop down dialog.

If the bot has reinforcements, those are a separate bot client.  You'll have to replace that one as well.
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krazzyharry

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #10 on: 13 April 2015, 17:58:00 »
Thanks!  Here I have been typing commands in all this time

arlith

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #11 on: 13 April 2015, 18:49:43 »
Thanks!  Here I have been typing commands in all this time

The GUI part is fairly new.
Member of the MegaMek Team.

pfarland

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #12 on: 13 April 2015, 19:27:05 »
The GUI part is fairly new.

Can a GUI have a FIRM update?

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

EDIT:  This was meant as a coding joke, not in the more vulgar way that my fiance just let me know about.
« Last Edit: 13 April 2015, 19:29:37 by pfarland »
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Snimm

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #13 on: 13 April 2015, 19:38:55 »
You should have played dumb and asked her to demonstrate what she meant. ;)
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pfarland

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #14 on: 13 April 2015, 20:33:23 »
You should have played dumb and asked her to demonstrate what she meant. ;)

 O0
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scJazz

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #15 on: 14 April 2015, 11:38:45 »
What I do is /kick the bot (or bot's) and replace with another one set for Escape.  I find it MUCH more realistic as no battle ends with both sides just suddenly calling it quits and walking away from each other.  The Escape bot is usually pretty good (at least the new version of Princess that Ral has) at making tactical withdraws. 

You can push your luck and fight it till the map edge, picking off any units along the way or pull back yourself and just pot shot at each other until you're out of range or map edge reached.

While it is more realistic to play this way it feels like it unbalances things, at least in my Campaigns. The typical result is a situation where I'm just racking up extra kills and salvage. I use the BV method as well as killing off a Locust and leaving a Warhammer undamaged is just too easy. I calculate the full BV of the enemy so main plus reinforcements.

pfarland

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #16 on: 16 April 2015, 01:43:48 »
While it is more realistic to play this way it feels like it unbalances things, at least in my Campaigns. The typical result is a situation where I'm just racking up extra kills and salvage. I use the BV method as well as killing off a Locust and leaving a Warhammer undamaged is just too easy. I calculate the full BV of the enemy so main plus reinforcements.

It does unbalance things a bit, but like you said, more realistic.  I strive for as much realism as possible (why I have vehicles and crews that never see combat).

As for when to do it, I usually stick around the listed number, though BV does have a play in my head about it.  If it was a matter of just taking out Lights and the other half being Heavies, I wouldn't make that call.  Balanced is probably the best case to use.  I've had 'sandpaper' battles where both sides had severely reduced BV's but few actual kills.  I've also had battles where I was bull rushed by hovers and paper-armored lights who died in droves yet barely made a dent in the enemy BV.  Obviously, battles like those skew the system.

I also tend to 'put myself in the enemies head'.  Would I be worried about accomplishing the mission if that were my force?  If you take them down to 49% but you're at 51% and in a bad spot (out of ammo, blew initiative, etc) Would they just automatically give up?  Don't shackle yourself with one hard, fast rule.  Look at each one separately.
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elf25s

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #17 on: 16 April 2015, 02:48:15 »
quick question atb using mq 3.12 i do not have a problem with the hq but come across a problem during missions
MM portion on occasion forces me to use /skip command during deployment. as game progresses i am forced to repeat /skip for units that had been used on during deployment.
funny enough i can finish the game with no problem and the goals for the mission and collect whatever reward i get.
it mostly occurs during time when i have an allied forces present during mission and enemy is deploying its forces problem usually starts after the allied force is deployed
and yes i am using latest java problem seems to travel to different machines as well also regardless of windows build (i use 7)
i was able to reproduce same problem with different machines 2 laptops running win 7 ultimate on quad pentium processors 2 with 4gbram desktop machines using i3 and additional machines using i5 and i7 processors with 12 gb of ram on all desktop machines all machines have latest updates of java. as a bonus i ran some of the games not only off the machines themselves but from usb mem sticks same results and each machine has different campaign on them
the problem does not impact the outcome as far as i can tell but it is annoying

or had i set the atb settings wrong that cause this?
you sure cannot out run death...but sure as hell you can make that bastard work for it!

Southernskies

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #18 on: 16 April 2015, 07:22:04 »
Using Individual Initiative can make a big difference to the processing times.

Ironboot

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #19 on: 16 April 2015, 07:37:52 »
quick question atb using mq 3.12 i do not have a problem with the hq but come across a problem during missions
MM portion on occasion forces me to use /skip command during deployment. as game progresses i am forced to repeat /skip for units that had been used on during deployment.
funny enough i can finish the game with no problem and the goals for the mission and collect whatever reward i get.
it mostly occurs during time when i have an allied forces present during mission and enemy is deploying its forces problem usually starts after the allied force is deployed
and yes i am using latest java problem seems to travel to different machines as well also regardless of windows build (i use 7)
i was able to reproduce same problem with different machines 2 laptops running win 7 ultimate on quad pentium processors 2 with 4gbram desktop machines using i3 and additional machines using i5 and i7 processors with 12 gb of ram on all desktop machines all machines have latest updates of java. as a bonus i ran some of the games not only off the machines themselves but from usb mem sticks same results and each machine has different campaign on them
the problem does not impact the outcome as far as i can tell but it is annoying

or had i set the atb settings wrong that cause this?

1) Be very careful using the latest java.  The latest java does not mean it will work better.

2) Look at the *.l4j files for Megamek and MekHQ.  Open them in text editor.  How much memory is allocated to them?  By default its -Xmx512m.  I use -Xmx1400m which seems to help speed up the games faster.

3) I do notice a slow down when reinforcements get deployed later in the game.  It takes the computer several minutes to deploy them.

elf25s

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #20 on: 16 April 2015, 07:50:09 »
.l4j uses 1024m or all versions and copies
its the very first thing i do
you sure cannot out run death...but sure as hell you can make that bastard work for it!

elf25s

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #21 on: 16 April 2015, 21:08:34 »
another question how many mechs can a mech tech handle in their maintanance rotation?
you sure cannot out run death...but sure as hell you can make that bastard work for it!

Snimm

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #22 on: 17 April 2015, 16:19:07 »
All techs have up to 480 minutes they can spend.  You CAN burn all that up on Mech maintenance for as many Mechs as you wish.  It just means that tech will not be performing any repairs, ever.
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calamity

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #23 on: 17 April 2015, 17:21:49 »
I just got into my first contract against the clans, and the number of vehicles seems to be doubled, despite the "Double enemy vehicles" option being disabled.  Does this not apply to clan forces? (I do have the "Clan OpFors use vehicles" option selected.)

neoancient

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #24 on: 17 April 2015, 18:55:33 »
A star is five points, and there are two points in a star. So a Clan vehicle star has ten vehicles without any doubling.

calamity

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #25 on: 17 April 2015, 19:07:51 »
You mean two vehicles or one mech makes a point, and each star has five points?  That's probably what was confusing me.

Miekael

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #26 on: 17 April 2015, 19:09:55 »
A star is five points, and there are two points in a star. So a Clan vehicle star has ten vehicles without any doubling.

I think what neoancient meant to say is a star is five points, and it takes two vehicles to form a point.

neoancient

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #27 on: 17 April 2015, 19:18:04 »
Yes, that's what I meant. I'm not sure how it came out like that. There is a separate option to disable vehicle use for Clans, but you probably knew that since Clan vehicle use is not enabled by default.

elf25s

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #28 on: 19 April 2015, 15:39:37 »
can not figure out why the maintnance techs cause more damadge than a mission...
it seems that every day some twit wrecks more equipment and mechs between missions than the mission itself any way to change that?
you sure cannot out run death...but sure as hell you can make that bastard work for it!

Snimm

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Re: Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4
« Reply #29 on: 19 April 2015, 17:16:40 »
You can play without maintenance.  If you do play with maintenance, take a -1 modifier, set maintenance cycle to 30 days, and only damage parts at "A" quality.  Do not play with era mods.  You will still often find that your Veteran and Elite techs are the only ones that maintain fairly well.
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