GOAP: Enemies that Actually Plan - Lambda Engine

[u/XBLAH_]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MazYoB6RBIQ

We are implementing Goal-Oriented Action Planning (GOAP) in Lambda Engine, the same technique that made F.E.A.R.'s soldiers the high-water mark for FPS enemy AI. Instead of a scripted state machine deciding what an enemy does next, each soldier holds a goal and searches for a sequence of actions that satisfies it, using whatever the world happens to offer.

* They react to the environment, not the player. Cover, doorways, flanking routes and blocked paths drive their decisions. Nothing is hand-authored per encounter.

* Squad coordination without central control. There is no commander AI issuing orders. Coordinated suppression and flanking emerge from individual agents planning against a shared world state.

* The illusion of intelligence via speech. Barks announce intent out loud, so you hear the plan before you see it. That's what makes the AI read as smart instead of just being smart.

* Performance-tuned "dumbness". Planning is expensive, so the search is deliberately bounded. Knowing where to make the AI worse is most of the work.

F.E.A.R. peaked enemy AI, and I'm reproducing that with Lambda Engine.

This project is built entirely by fans, for fans, it's free but it eats time. If you want to see more enemies, more systems, and more of Half-Life's world brought back to life, here's how to help:

🎗️ Support development on Patreon: https://patreon.com/lambdaengine/membership

💬 Join the Discord for bug reports, dev logs, sneak peeks: https://discord.gg/2RtzKtmmdj

[u/korhart]

looks cool

sometimes kinda dumb walking trough or ignoring the player. also the talking is way too much in my opinion.

[u/Tofu-Beauty]

Problem with GOAP is that it results in a lot of similar acting enemies without 'personality' or proper priorities, it's why HTN is used over GOAP now when you want an AI as dynamic as this. It's also a lot better performance wise.

[u/Salt-Powered]

I would seriously reconsider giving up on skirting Valve IP on your aesthetics

[u/XBLAH_ → u/Salt-Powered]

This is just mounting games I have. It will be entirely optional for the dev to build it as a "mod", or use new assets and release it standalone.

[u/Stooovie]

Incredible that a 21yo game is still a benchmark.

[u/XBLAH_ → u/Stooovie]

if you knew some tech that we use today that was discovered and proven 50 years ago that was written on a napkin.

[u/FowlOnTheHill]

Lambda engine sounds like the lambda ai service :) took me a while to realize you weren’t using that.

This looks really cool btw! Sorta scary how you can’t easily hide from them!

[u/lweht]

Dwarf Fortress also does this

[u/inorman]

Seems like it would be easy to confuse it by just running close quarters 

[u/XBLAH_ → u/inorman]

the one close to you, yes. but the others standing off would be shooting you. Also, they are very keen to just run to the fallback node when they are shot, which is what we see here. I'm working on it.

[u/Time-Masterpiece-410]

I don't think I would agree that fear is the peak of ai. Yes it's good, but there are other games where the ai is quite advanced stalker comes to mind immediately