Artificial Intelligence

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To my knowledge there are currently no mods which add scripted actions to uncontrolled Kerbals. They just stand there. This drives me ballistic.

I am not a programmer but I have formally studied logic up to and including 500 level courses, just not in a programming context.

Does anyone know what it would take to add AI? Where would I want to start? Why hasn't it been done yet?

I have created small modifications in other games where I manipulated the AI, but this was within an existing framework. I'd like to create something for KSP, and I have confidence that if I am able to figure out how to get started I can solve most of the obstacles I might encounter. Any advice from experienced modders would be greatly appreciated.

Edited October 7, 2014 by [email protected]

[Mitchz95]

I don't think it's so much "they can't make the Kerbals move" as it is "they don't want Kerbals to accidentally wander off a cliff or EVA away from the ship mid-burn".

They probably could make it work, but there's no real reason to.

EDIT: D'oh, just realized this is in the add-on section. Thought it was an official request.

[LitaAlto]

If you can use EVA Follower to make Kerbals follow a leader, and set up waypoints along the way, that suggests one could go one step further and set up waypoints without a leader to establish them--at least in theory.

[crystalkalem]

i think adding a kinda personal function coder into the game. with action groups or some kind of timed/situational stageing would be easy enough.

example:

if= alt=250k

action: ActivateEngine

time: =40s [aka 40 seconds]

im not really accustomed to action groups or basic action coding or really anything XD but you get the point right.

it would be really awesome to have this in game because even if you arent a coder you could still put in pre made actions that would have easy to edit peramitors. like activating the enging for a timed burn or if you make enough edits you could make a module put itself into a perfect orbit.

i know that there is a mod very much like this already called mechjeb but that one is a little restrictive.

the example i gave does not mean it would be limited to in flight but also to kerbals and other mechanics as well. such as telling a kerbal to walk a specific distance from the command module. collect science data. then return to the module.

again im not a coder or anything like that but i do know this is a very simple task to do considering the amazing things people have made, like mechjeb.

[sarbian]

again im not a coder or anything like that but i do know this is a very simple task to do considering the amazing things people have made, like mechjeb.

It's not a simple task at all. Just because we wrote lot of code before does not allow us to magically do new things no one did before.

Edited October 7, 2014 by sarbian

[CalculusWarrior]

I know the kerbals actually get up if they've been knocked down and you're not switched to them. You may be able to expand that bit of coding out into randomly moving around.

[crystalkalem]

well if you want to know i was just being humble. i do have a history in coding however that was years ago. i also have many friends who are coders and modders and they could do this in a single sitting. less than 5 hours. however they are at the top of their game so i cant say that just any coder could do this. so i generalize and say it should be simple. i don't give a time frame.

and before you ask. no i cant ask them to do it because they charge everyone including their friends and family for their time. they aren't cheap.

[Guest]

well if you want to know i was just being humble. i do have a history in coding however that was years ago. i also have many friends who are coders and modders and they could do this in a single sitting. less than 5 hours. however they are at the top of their game so i cant say that just any coder could do this. so i generalize and say it should be simple. i don't give a time frame.

Hrm, yeah, those people are at the "top of the game", I'd estimate a cool 12~20 hours for this. Too bad they're not into KSP, it'd be great to have such experienced people around to show the rest of us how things are done!

[crystalkalem]

sorry if you took offence.

and yeah you're probably right about the 10-20 hour mark.

[weeble]

Being condescending and insinuating that modders here aren't top notch or that good, isn't the best way to get your ideas into the game. You come off rude and snobby

And if you've done that much IT work you'd know its called programming not coding.

[*Aqua*]

I had a few courses about AI while studying computer science.

Does anyone know what it would take to add AI?

It would take to know how to efficently solve optimization problems. That's all AI is about. And that's the reason there why nobody succeeded in creating a good AI.

And what kind of AI do you want to have?

A weak one? This one can only solve simple problems which solving algorithms are coded by a programmer before. It can't react to problems the programmer didn't think of.

A strong one? This one can solve all possible problems except one: it needs massive amounts of processing power. We are talking about super computers here.

Where would I want to start?

First learn about logic (classical logic, propositional calculus, predicate logic and may be lambda calculus), then knowledge-based systems ("rule-based system"), then learn about ontologies (Bayesian network, what is information?, concepts, relations, etc. basically how to structure parts of information in a meaningful way and how to process them to learn new things) and after that learn about "advanced" AIs (neuronal networks, evolutionary algorithms, data mining, etc.) and finally it is good to learn about theoretical computer sciences (automata theory, Chomsky hierarchy, Turing machines, P and NP complexity classes). *gasp*

This is heavy stuff!

When you know all about these you'll have a good understanding what (and how) an AI can do (stuff).

Why hasn't it been done yet?

AI is such a difficult topic that there was almost no progress the last 30(!) years. Today our so-called AIs pretty much work the same way they did back then. Ok, sematic webs evolved a bit because of the internet. But essentially that's it.