NPCs using Bats and Bots

You know what - ignore my last post, my grey matter must have reduced to less than 30 kilos recently and I didn’t even notice:-

Here is the tutorial I wrote about NPCs using botts and batts:-

http://forums.seriouszone.com/showthread.php?58770

Make NPC using bats and bots looks not lead problem to crash.

If you got lot’s of AI warnning, just give NPC a “Dead Immediately” fuse. This will helpful to reduce those warnning.

StarTrader wrote:
You know what - ignore my last post, my grey matter must have reduced to less than 30 kilos recently and I didn’t even notice:-

Here is the tutorial I wrote about NPCs using botts and batts:-

http://forums.seriouszone.com/showthread.php?58770

[RepairBlock]
nickname = repair_fighter_both
use_shield_repair_pre_delay = 0.200000
use_shield_repair_post_delay = 3
use_shield_repair_at_damage_percent = 2
use_hull_repair_pre_delay = 2
use_hull_repair_post_delay = 5
use_hull_repair_at_damage_percent = 20

StarTrader, are you really sure this is right? i believe the value should be 1.000-0.000.

Well caught, NexOse, yes you are right, thanks.

I will fix the tutorial.

This is one from my mod:-

[RepairBlock]
nickname = repair_fighter_both
use_shield_repair_pre_delay = 0.200000
use_shield_repair_post_delay = 3
use_shield_repair_at_damage_percent = 0.400000
use_hull_repair_pre_delay = 0.200000
use_hull_repair_post_delay = 1.500000
use_hull_repair_at_damage_percent = 0.600000

I’d better get some sleep to recover!

You are welcome StarTrader.

I also have a question about bats and bots usage.

I want to make NPC completely repaired their ship when be hit, not just step by step.

How can i do?

The crash comes from Battleships and large ships (again, 2003 memory) trying to use nanobots whilst the ships death fuse is playing out (Battleships take a while to explode by default) and the AI tries to restore the hull strength during this with nanobots (or players, if using the same fuse).

Instant fuse sounds good… but then ships disappear quickly for huge ships.

I don’t know, but could also make them use nanobots when they’ve got bits of damage rather than tons (theory being they’ll use the bots before they’re reaching a point where they’ll get killed before they can use them.

Moonhead wrote:

a “Dead Immediately” fuse?? :-?

The AI warning message mainly show up when NPC dying, and whooping “Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr….”. I think that’s because NPC trying to use bats and bots when they dead. If you made NPC “Dead Immediately” without “Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…”, they will have no time to use bats and bots and avoid the problem.

[fuse]
name = dead_quietly_fuse
lifetime = 0.0
death_fuse = true

[destroy_root]
at_t = 0.000000

[start_effect]
at_t = 1.000000
effect = gf_whiteflash
hardpoint = HpMount
pos_offset = 0, 0, 0

Maybe the problem could be also solved
with a drop_cargo fuse, initiated a bit before
the ship dies (while I m not sure if it also drops bats/bots).

Than you could have impressive FX,
when the ship dies and there would be not
bats, to use and disturb the death process.

I’d honestly test before implementing things widely. If the issue of warnings is NPC’s trying to use something they do not have, then unless they try as they’re about to die (and therefore a flurry of fire may prevent this as you kill them before they can) you’ll still get error surely if they have no bats/bots? (seriously, my memory is awful, so I don’t know!).

As for the crash issue with capships - I do not thinking playing a death fuse early is going to solve anything. Destroying a ship before it’s dead won’t stop them using a bot during the death sequence will it (if they have one to use)…

Last point to consider. It sounds fun to have bats/bots being used by NPC’s, coupled with regenerating shields etc. Truth is it can actually lead to tedium. We found it INCREDIBLY boring to fully load the NPC’s with stuff and then fight them - the fights go on and on and on (especially when you’re low level) as they won’t die. Missions at the start just go on for ages as you whittle their shield down (if it has regenerating capability) and hull only to find them repairing several times over. At higher levels (and if you give them armour to make them last as they’re tougher) you get issues of missiles/torps stripping all their equipment off, making them lame sitting ducks/

If you want to make things more challenging then my personal advice is that you should look at improving the pilots to make them fire better, more accurately, and for far longer. NPC’s using the bots, i found, made game play horrifically tedious.

Make them more dangerous, not more tedious Bonus is no errors or potential instabilities.

Amen to that ,Chips. When you load a new mod, create your new character and then spend half an hour trying to kill your first wave of enemy fighters in a mission, you quickly get pissed off with it!

Moonhead wrote:
And indeed: endless fights are boring. An idea I had/have to overcome this. is to see if I can equip the NPC with just a fraction of their max capacity with bots ‘n’ bats and maybe other ammo. I’d even like to give them a little damage, to suggest they have had theirmown history before you meet them, but I don’t think that’s possible (besides, it would bea bit lame that every randomly spawned e.g. lvl 14 Outcast has the same number of bats ‘n’ bots and the same damage to his ship, so if I’d do it that way, it means I’d have to expand the NPC ships a lot!)

I only mentioned it as I myself got bored playing my own mod.

It was a face palm moment, one which I never actually fixed

In my opinion this nanobot and battery thing is rather bad, as it hides the actual hitpoints a ship has. It would be much better to enlare the hitpoints or shield capacity in general. Or to make them regenerate the hitpoints over time so that they are only useful after the battle has ended to repair your ship.

Well yes you can go back to no repairs for the NPCs.

But then that was not good, which is why we all changed it - to give NPCs the realism of being able to do the same as the players can.

One thing I have always had a wish for is to have to buy fuel for the ships.

Dilithium Crystals!

This might be manageable by modding, by setting power drain to not recharge and have to buy a power cell that discharges from the engine, then remove or reduce the power drain from all equipment?

But a buyable non-recharging limited fuel cell that must be mounted for the ship to launch, like the scanner or tractor, would be cool.

That would also mean you will have the risk of getting stranded in space!

Then you would need to call a SpaceWays Corp. Recovery Vehicle or mobile fuel cell shop ship - Paddy O’Shea’s Flea Market to the rescue!

Or - Fuel scoops, to recharge from a sun corolla like Elite? Wow! Cooler and Cooler!

Anyone else like this suggestion?

I have played around with the fuel idea, what i did was use a powerplant with not regeneration but high capacity, also setting the engines to drain energy as well as sheilds and other auxillary equipment (i don’t think i managed to get tractors or scanners to drain energy though) to you have to watch you energy and not let it drop to 0 or your engines die and you are stranded. Probably a little too ‘hardcore’ for the average player in terms of realism so im only introdusing it as a separate class of ship.

Ozed

Give npc bats and bots will not NPC become invincible. I actually tried to increase the rate of the usage to make NPC hardly dead in NPC vs NPC combat, but sadly i got fail and have to decrease the gun accuracy for NPC to 0.0X.

NeXoSE wrote:
Give npc bats and bots will not NPC become invincible. I actually tried to increase the rate of the usage to make NPC hardly dead in NPC vs NPC combat, but sadly i got fail and have to decrease the gun accuracy for NPC to 0.0X.

The point isn’t that they’re invincible… it is that if you can beat them, then giving them bats/bots makes beating them tedious rather than more of a challenge. I’m urging caution based on experience if you think players will enjoy repeatedly regenerating opposition (give them a full compliment of bats/bots and they will have a regen of at least 3 or 4 times).

I’d definitely urge caution in making anything less than lvl 8 have any ability to use bat’s / bots as new players will find it incredibly tedious to keep shooting the same guys over and over again as their loadouts/ships aren’t sufficient. Initial missions can take 20-25 minutes instead of 5…

When testing your changes, I’d definitely recommend trying to play your mod as a new player by doing missions to earn money etc, and seeing how you fair. Don’t forget to try as a trader. It is very easy to overlook how increasing NPC’s fighting ability can seriously screw traders (of course you may already do all this, but when I modded, I tended to check things worked more than experience how they affected the game play! )