AI

AI, short for artificial intelligence, refers to the behavior of animals in the Carnivores series. In Carnivores, this behavior is completely hardcoded, but Carnivores 2 and Carnivores Ice Age allow a very limited amount of customization of animal behavior via _RES.TXT. Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunter and Carnivores: Ice Age, being mobile games, cannot be modded and so, like the first game, don't allow for any AI customization.

In the context of the Carnivores series, "AI" usually refers specifically to the numbers found in _RES.TXT in the "ai" field of an animal's data block. The hunter has an AI value of 0, ambient animals have AI values between 1 and 9, and pointable animals have AI values between 10 and 18. Each value corresponds to a routine in the source code that determines the order of animations and sounds in the animal's CAR file, which animations and sounds correspond with each other, and what behaviors correspond with each pair and what triggers them. Despite the fact that several of the animations and sounds are common to nearly all the animals found in the games (such as those for walking, running, and idling), their order often differs between animals, meaning different AI routines are not usually compatible. As a result, messing with AI values can in the best cases result in humorous effects in-game, such as an animal repeatedly dying in-place, or in the worst case potentially cause the game to crash.