LAN Team Play

[Klofkac]

Is there some way how to play Team game in LAN play without hacking?

[Gruntlord6]

Is there some way how to play Team game in LAN play without hacking?

Its not hacking, and you need special files unless you are running windows 2000 or lower.

[Klofkac]

Its not hacking

With that hacking I mean editing "_PRAC.mis"

you need special files unless you are running windows 2000 or lower.

Where these files can be found? I looked to forum and I didn't find anything like that...

[Gruntlord6]

With that hacking I mean editing "_PRAC.mis"

Where these files can be found? I looked to forum and I didn't find anything like that...

Prac.mis is for skirmish, it doesn't affect lan other then how the AI acts if enabled.

[Shaokhan]

Prac.mis is for skirmish, it doesn't affect lan other then how the AI acts if enabled.

This is interesting, I noticed that AI builds much more units when playing over LAN than in Practice. Can you tell us what exactly is set up differently for LAN AI?

[Gruntlord6]

This is interesting, I noticed that AI builds much more units when playing over LAN than in Practice. Can you tell us what exactly is set up differently for LAN AI?

AI is something we are still looking into at the moment.

[Feda]

I noticed that, at least for practice, there are different AI`s. If I`m wrong, correct me. So I used MVI's .MIS File Editor to modify some things in _PRAC.MIS and I noticed that: Player 1 is always human and the rest are computers. Player 2 and Player 3 are the best AI's from (at least) a skirmish match. They build very fast and make strong attacks (this include that big infantry rush: Light Inf + Troopers) that I always saw in a LAN game with AI. The rest of AI players (4,5,6) build slower that the first 2. They stop for a while after they have 3 or 4 Wind Traps (not sure), 2 Refineries, 1 Barracks and 1 Gun Turret (they continue to launch infantry attacks: Light Inf + Trooper + Engineer, but never do the big infantry rush). After a while they begin again to build. They build a heavy Factory and after that I think the Outpost. If they are not destroyed, they will do everything that AI 2 and 3 (the good ones) do, but very slow. Well, I think that could be the reason that we see AI better in multiplayer, because we probably play against 1 or 2 AI's and if we play against more it's hard to notice that one is weaker than another. I say again, that if for skirmish, in _PRAC.MIS, I'm not sure if it works in LAN.

I am not 100% sure about the information above, If i'm wrong correct me. Idk if this helped, I hope yes xD

[Shaokhan]

AI is something we are still looking into at the moment.

Good, I will share my input here. I think that it can possibly have something to do with the handicap settings in multiplayer games. When we play on easy in practice, the cost of units/buildings is reduced, build speed also reduced. The AI sends very little amount of units. When we play hard practice, units/buildings cost more and take longer to produce, but the AI also sends much more units.

Now how does that apply to LAN/Internet? There we set handicap for players, and what it does is one star gives the reduced build cost/speed, 3 stars do the opposite. But there is no such setting for AI, so maybe the AI gets automatically 1 star and that would explain the excessive amount of units compared to easy practice.

BTW, Gruntlord could you possibly make practice so AI is allied and only attack the player and make them build more harvesters and 3 factories of each?

As for Fedaykin's post this is interesting, I can tell that some AI's are easier to kill, some are harder. I would notice that when I rush them quickly, one of them I have to kill very long, and then the next one is very easy, less units and buildings.... was wondering why, now this explains it a bit.

There is one more thing to add here. As Rotorz told me long time ago - you can determine where the opponent is on the map if you are host (in practice always) - should apply to practice, LAN and Internet. Host gets a random spot on the map I suppose. The second player (in this case second AI) gets a spot furthest from the host's spot, then it goes down the player list and picks a spot that is always further from the others, so if you play 3 players - it makes a triangle. That would mean the hardest AI's would be in this triangle and never the closest ones. Maybe that's why they made them hardest in the first place, would make sense.

[Gruntlord6]

BTW, Gruntlord could you possibly make practice so AI is allied and only attack the player and make them build more harvesters and 3 factories of each?

Entirely possible, once we figure out the specifics of AI. We can already make all the AI ally against you though.

[Shaokhan]

We can already make all the AI ally against you though.

That's cool, more than enough for now, but how do I enable this? I could try that on hard and see if it is manageable.