My Squad AI Thing

[Wazat]

This is cool. They probably need some run while firing animations (forward, backward, strafe). That's where I killed them most often. They would try to run past me or run away, etc. I think I managed to clear both stages, but the enemies don't register as monsters so I can't hold TAB to tell. I really like how they managed to keep flanking me -- I'd be gunning down one around a corner, and his buddy has made it to my other side somehow and is killing me fast.

To up the ante, I recommend you make all soldiers aware of the player when he first spawns, so he isn't able to get into a good position first. Have them start hunting him right from the get-go.

BTW, the teleporters appear to be broken in the industrial map, and that makes the lava impossible (it seems) to escape without dousing oneself in the lava for a second. The crates are also hovering, among other graphical oddities on that level. Also work to improve the sound if you can. The weapon's sound is probably a bit quiet compared to, say, the player jump sound, and it's not terribly good sounding anyway. Otherwise the weapon works fine.

What I missed having was a Left4Dead style melee attack so I could blaze past one of them or temporarily stun him before I shoot... but if you give me that, next I'll ask for a shotgun and hand grenades. Plus, the enemies could use a melee attack too against the player.

It would be really cool to unleash some of the Quake monsters with this AI too. Imagine fiends, ogres and scrags etc hunting you through the level, flanking you, taking cover... That could be awesome. Kind of like what I was trying with Monster Swarm (which I still need to get back to btw).

All in all this is very cool, MauveBib!

[MauveBib]

This is cool. They probably need some run while firing animations (forward, backward, strafe). That's where I killed them most often. They would try to run past me or run away, etc.

This is somewhere where I'm limited by the model I have. It doesn't have any running while firing animations, apart from the two strafing ones which are already used. If I could find a similar model with a wider set of animations I'd use it.

I think I managed to clear both stages, but the enemies don't register as monsters so I can't hold TAB to tell.

I'll fix this in the next version.

I really like how they managed to keep flanking me -- I'd be gunning down one around a corner, and his buddy has made it to my other side somehow and is killing me fast.

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with how that works. It's quite simple but has a big effect. The A-Star navigation algorithm gives a "cost" to each waypoint, and they tag waypoints they are moving to with a high cost, so other guys automatically take a different route and so end up attacking from all different directions.

To up the ante, I recommend you make all soldiers aware of the player when he first spawns, so he isn't able to get into a good position first. Have them start hunting him right from the get-go.

That would certainly make things harder

BTW, the teleporters appear to be broken in the industrial map, and that makes the lava impossible (it seems) to escape without dousing oneself in the lava for a second. The crates are also hovering, among other graphical oddities on that level.

Yeah, I'm aware of the graphical oddities and the teleporter problem, but I'm not hugely bothered. It's a techdemo after all, and I did just lift that map from elsewhere. I put more effort into polishing the city map though, so maybe I should at least fix the floating crates.

I only really added the crates so I could add the "He's behind that crate!" line of dialogue.

Also work to improve the sound if you can. The weapon's sound is probably a bit quiet compared to, say, the player jump sound, and it's not terribly good sounding anyway. Otherwise the weapon works fine.

Yeah, the sounds are pretty poor atm. I think I made that weapon sound at least 10 years ago

What I missed having was a Left4Dead style melee attack so I could blaze past one of them or temporarily stun him before I shoot... but if you give me that, next I'll ask for a shotgun and hand grenades. Plus, the enemies could use a melee attack too against the player.

The enemy model does actually have a melee attack animation which I keep meaning to code up.

[Team Xlink]

This seems really really nice!


It makes going trough quake less of a kill room!


I am in the process of changing this to not required Dark Places.

Dark Places doesn't run on my PC, so it saddens me that I can't use any of the mods that require dark places, which is well, a lot.

I do think this is a really good idea!

[JasonX]

MauveBib, do you have plans of updating this? Also, can you make a list of the required DP extensions and such? I'm planning to port it to a Vanilla Quake engine. Or the extensions.

[MauveBib]

I posted a partial list of used extensions earlier in the thead:


Q3BSP (variable hull sizes for crouching, HLBSP could work too I guess).
Frik_file (for the waypoint file loading)
External model/map textures including _luma
EF_ADDITIVE (barrel fire)
EF_NOSHADOW (barrel fire)
.ent files
md3 models
a couple of shaders
findchainfloat
cl_prydoncursor (not directly used by the player, but there is a half working prydon cursor based waypoint editor in the code that could probably be stripped out no problem).
.scale (used by the waypoint editor again).
te_lightning1 (used by the waypoint editor).
.alpha (not in relased version, but in the new version i'm working on)
.glow_size
.glow_color
EF_LOWPRECISION (not in relased version, but in the new version i'm working on)
EF_NOMODELFLAGS (to get rid of grenade smoke)
effectinfo.txt (not in relased version, but in the new version i'm working on)
SOLID_BSP on models (crates, lamp posts, barrels)
tracebox (for waypoint autolinking)

There are definitely others too, but I've not looked at the source for a while.


As to updating it, I actually have an updated version ready to release that I really should get around to letting out there.

I'd like to find a few more suitable maps too, any suggestions?

[JasonX]

Apart from the bells and whistles (effects and graphics), it shouldn't be very hard to create a Vanilla-compatible version of it.

I'll be waiting for your new version so i can start messing around with the "downgrade".

[MauveBib]

The only things I'd regard as essential are:

q3bsp (though if you get rid of crouching it's not needed)

frik_file (unless you hardcode the waypoints into either the map or the qc)

tracebox (without which you'll have to manually link the waypoints)

[JasonX]

Exactly what i had in mind. Losing crouch sucks, but i believe we can live without that.

[Urre]

You can still have crouching just fine, if you don't need being able to crouch under stuff. Crouching behind crates and that sort of thing still works in q1bsp, which is what crouching in this Squad AI thing is used for as I understand, so you wouldn't need to lose that.

[MauveBib]

Hmm, I really should get around to releasing the improved version of this.

[xaGe]

..That would be good.

[leileilol]

Funny bug if you play it in Engoo - the soldiers halt when they fire. then unfreeze when you distance from them. it's like playing statue sort of, at least in 1.1. It should support the sufficient extensions necessary for Squad AI including Tracebox so...

haven't tried (and should) 1.3 yet, can't play q3bsp on it anyway...

[qbism]

The sheer anticipation of a coordinated enemy attack after being detected by just one AI almost equals the anticipation of an updated release.

q3bsp (though if you get rid of crouching it's not needed)

F.E.A.R. is probably the last 'next gen' game that I tried. It has something in common with Q2: If you've mastered crouching, and the opponent has mastered crouching, it zeros out as a benefit and becomes an annoyance. Crouching has a place in true strategy simulation FPS games like America's Army.

An AI that can use alcoves and corners effectively and get into defensive formation with it's mates is incredible enough w/o crouching.

If you've already implemented crouching please disregard, I'm still going to play it

[MauveBib]

Funny bug if you play it in Engoo - the soldiers halt when they fire. then unfreeze when you distance from them. it's like playing statue sort of, at least in 1.1. It should support the sufficient extensions necessary for Squad AI including Tracebox so...

haven't tried (and should) 1.3 yet, can't play q3bsp on it anyway...

As far as I'm concerned, DP is the supported engine. If it works with anything else, great, but I'm not concerned if it doesn't.

[MauveBib]

New Version!

New second enemy, armed with a pistol
New sound and graphical effects
lots of AI tweaks.
Fixed ammo bug
model-based hit detection for guns.


It's split into two files thanks to quaketastic's 50mb limit:

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/single_player/mods/squad14a.zip
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/single_player/mods/squad14b.zip