Thief AI Notes

[Chocolate Kitty]

I got bored and decided to figure out where all of the thieves escape in FE7. However, that would take way too long because no one has that stuff documented.

I found one location, in 7x, which made me wonder about the thief AI once again.

As I thought, the thief AIs are not the same in every chapter, they are slightly different. The 3rd byte seems to be the byte of interest, but I can't figure out it's link to the location. This is all I have for now, bear with me. The chapters are by Hector Mode, and byte 17 is the 17th byte in the chapter in the chapter data editor module. My initial hunch was that it was related, but I don't think so anymore.

BYTE 17 THIEF AI CHAPTER ESCAPE POINT
0x01 [0x06,0x05,0x01,0x00] 7x [01,01]
0x01 [0x06,0x05,0x01,0x00] 15 Unknown
0x11 [0x00,0x05,0x0A,0x00] 19xx Unknown*
0x0D [0x06,0x05,0x09,0x00] 20 Unknown
0x0B [0x06,0x05,0x0A,0x00] 22 Unknown
0x09 [0x06,0x05,0x0A,0x00] 28 Unknown
0x05 [0x06,0x05,0x0A,0x00] 30 [00,05]
0x10 [0x06,0x05,0x02,0x00] 31 [13,27]
* - AI not tested

If you can't make any sense out of this either, join the club.

Edited August 2, 2013 by Kitty of Time

[Klokinator]

If you remove all enemies on the chapter, leave just the thief with default AI (or just remove enemy weapons), allow the thief to steal from you, and watch where they escape to, then plot out those points, you might be able to correlate it with the 3rd bit in that AI section that you have bolded. I once spent a whole week with Zahlman going over FE7 and 8 AI and thief AI was one of the things we didn't get to finish. Hope it works out for you.

[Vennobennu]

On Chapter 30H, the thieves escape at [0,5], going west out of the map. Maybe their third AI byte determines which side of the map they escape (are there only four different values used for the third AI byte?) and byte 17 determines how far from the corner of the map their escape point is?

Edit: But, no, don't the Chapter 20 thieves escape out of the western edge of the map?

Edited August 2, 2013 by Vennobennu

[Crimson Red]

Someone needs to document all the points, meh thinkz. Too lazy to do it myself, of course that's grunt work *impaled*

[Vennobennu]

Okay, I've done a bit of testing with the thieves in 30H, and this is what I've found:

• Changing Byte 17 to 3 from 5 has no effect on where the thieves exit the map.
• Similarly, changing AI Byte 3 (I tried 0x01 and 0x02) has no discernible effect on the thieves' behaviour.
• The thieves' AI Byte 1 is 0x10, not 0x06. Changing it from 0x10 to 0x06 ('do not attack') stops them from stealing from your units - they just beeline the chests.

[Chocolate Kitty]

0x06 0x05 0xZZ 0xZZ is stealing from chests while 0x10 0x05 0xZZ 0xZZ is stealing from units.

Also I have no idea if Byte 17 is actually relevant, I just thought it might be because of 7x(the first one I looked at).

Edited August 2, 2013 by Kitty of Time

[dondon151]

thieves also steal from units if they are set to noAI

[Crimson Red]

^which for sake of clarification for anyone who may not know (not saying YOU don't know), is not actually "no AI" but more like a default AI lol (which for most units is "attack randomly" but changes depending on other possible actions, like healing and opening stuff).

so evidence still suggests this is all hard-coded, if we could get more values to work with it might help lead to something that can help us actually figure this out, right now we just have [01,01] as co-ordinates, any other co-ordinates around? also has someone tested trying the thief AI and seeing how it acts on a new map where said co-ordinate is blocked etc.?

[Vennobennu]

Oops, internet bailed out on me.

Edited August 2, 2013 by Vennobennu

[Vennobennu]

also has someone tested trying the thief AI and seeing how it acts on a new map where said co-ordinate is blocked etc.?

When their escape point is unreachable and they have no other targets (doors, stealable items), Thieves stop moving entirely. I set Floors to be impassable to Thieves in C30H, and once a Thief looted a chest, he became completely immobile; putting Hector with stealable items in his range gave no reaction.

I also put Thieves in Light. Thieves with AI[06,05,0A,00] and Door Keys will try to unlock doors,becoming immobile once all doors are open. A Thief with AI[10,05,0A,00] and only a sword stole from Bartre and then attacked Athos, to his loss.

Edited August 2, 2013 by Vennobennu

[Crimson Red]

so yeah there's definitely some factor of hard-coding and I'm betting the "trigger" to make the AI work (assuming it's hard-coded to) is more like a certain bit in the AI as opposed to a certain byte

so I guess the next step would be to see which bits are the same throughout every single one... 0x06 0x05, yeah, 0x00 is already part of other AI I know so I'm ruling that out, and there's the exception of 19xx as it doesn't have 0x06 and apparently the AI hasn't been tested...

[Vennobennu]

Something interesting to note: in Sands of Time, the Thieves can escapae the map from any one of the stair tiles at the bottom of the map, from [13,27] to [17,27]. So it looks like you could set an entire region of escape tiles...if you knew how.

Through this testing I've also realized that all units, including Other units, will counter attacks made by Berserked Other units.

EditL You don't hae it on your list, but the Thief in 11H Hard Mode escapes at [01,11]. He might also escape at [00,11] or [02,11] if that space is blocked.

Edited August 5, 2013 by Vennobennu