Go Back   Novahq.net Forum > Games > Delta Force

Delta Force Anything to do with the Delta Force series of games, DF1, DF2, LW, TFD, BHD, DFX, AF etc.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
  #1  
Old 06-15-2021, 12:54 AM
TrSniper is offline TrSniper
Registered User

Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 41

Teammate AI issue

I know that in the past this question is frequently asked already. I hope to find a solution. Perhaps Baldo can help . As we all know you can make your teammates follow you by giving them order to follow nearest waypoint for player and use automonous behavior etc. But the main problem excist which is that if you move to fast, they get stuck between objects, or keep running against a wall instead of finding a way around the object, to reach you again. Just like in the stock missions. Since there isn't any program to create or edit the .AIN file, which I assume is the solution for this, what is left? How can you make your teammates follow you properly? If the AIN file isn't editable, why do some mappers include them in their zip file?

I've also noticed that my teammate AI, doesn't matter if I make them green or yellow alert, they run into a room like idiots. How can I influence their behavior, so that they keep kalm? I've noticed only cinematic Rangers and 10th mountain have a slow/kalm walk, but Rangers and Delta's usually don't do this.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 06-15-2021, 08:47 PM
Baldo_the_Don is offline Baldo_the_Don
Baldo_the_Don's Avatar
Registered User

Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 529

And there you go, Snipes: The Ultimate Riddle of the DFBHD(TS) SP mapper... If you can't make teammates follow you, then why bother?

Yeah. I don't know, man. I don't know.

No, okay, pulling back on the stick, leveling off, making an effort...

AIs do need serious amounts of kiting and babysitting, and we all wish custom .ain files were a thing, but they aren't so you have to get creative, clever, and find overblown, Rube-Goldbergian, sisyphean, over-designed work-arounds to get something so seemingly simple as getting someone to follow you done.

Suggestions:
• Just one teammate in group 1, waypoint 126 (Go to Group). They take orders this way.
• Set up area triggers and events to redirect teammates to predetermined positions thoughout the map.
• Teleports?
• Make maps in a different game that isn't mostly ****?

I edited a map once (Troubled Paradise 1.3 by Leon AKA Eater) where two dozen teammates Little Bird in after you clear a few obstacles. I had the idea of changing two guys to group 1, WP 126, and redirected the rest of them to follow one of those two teammates. Makes things slightly more manageable, 'til one of these guys gets killed and you have to add trees of branching triggers and actions reassigning teammate after teammate as what I'll call fireteam leaders.

Hardly seems the effort.

And I've seen so many maps including .ifl and .log files, I can only conclude many mappers haven't reached a level of expertise high enough to know which files do what, so they just include everything that seems like it might be important. They don't know what an .ain file does, but maybe it'll help?

Or they actually edited an extracted and bms2missed stock mission. As long as they didn't move any items from where the .ain file tells the AIs those items are, or add any new items that they can't edit the .ain file to include, it might work.

Contentious statement: I doubt that "Autonomous Behavior" does anything in DFBHD(TS). I'm not convinced the "Advanced Ammo" check box does anything, either. My limited testing has never been conclusive.

As for the eager teammates, well, I think certain behaviors are hard-coded into some AIs assigned to group 1, WP 126, and they double-time it all the time 'cause the programmers knew the only thing worse than over eager teammates is a teammate that walks too slowly. Go ahead and force a player wait on an AI to catch up, see how quickly friendly-fire gets tested.

The limitations of the MED separate the wheat from the chaff. Come up with workarounds and amaze players even if they're barely functional. Fool around with it. Fail, and fail quickly, 'cause the sooner you learn what doesn't work, the sooner you learn what does.

And keep ever in mind: some things just can't be done in DFBHD(TS).
__________________
/////////////////////- SIGNATURE STARTS -//////////////////////
The NSO Deadline Mod at NovaHQ.net:
//////////////////////- SIGNATURE ENDS -///////////////////////

Last edited by Baldo_the_Don; 06-15-2021 at 08:52 PM. Reason: Typos give me the sweats. They shouldn't, but they do.
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 06-16-2021, 01:01 AM
TrSniper is offline TrSniper
Registered User

Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 41

Thanks Baldo, this is the answer I was expecting . I know for now that there isn't any solution for this and I will continue with "Set up area triggers and events to redirect teammates to predetermined positions thoughout the map.", which does work. Not the most beautifull looking way of doing it, but it is the most effective.

Now that you've mentioned it I'm wondering; what is the difference between Go to group (126) and Go to player (127)?

I've also tested this Autonomous behavior because I saw an old post from Dave Snow 2 days ago, before the barracks went down again. This should as he mentioned trigger the ability to give your teammates commands. So I've opend the editor, empty map, 3 AI Delta's and 1 area trigger. If player is in area trigger 1 then change AI ssn to Autonomous behavior. Exported and started the map, I step into Area trigger 1, and suddenly the 3 AI started running in a straight line perfectly toward the WEST of the map .

So yeah, as for Autonomous behavior, 'Foget about it...'
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 06-16-2021, 06:55 AM
Baldo_the_Don is offline Baldo_the_Don
Baldo_the_Don's Avatar
Registered User

Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 529

I honestly think Autonomous Behavior requires an .ain file, and that's why it doesn't work. Might also be exclusively for aircraft, like the AI State actions. I don't know.

WP 127 just sends AIs to the player. If they're on green alert, they walk, and they always stay really close.

If you put an AI on team Blue in group 1 (note: ALL players in DFBHD(TS) are automatically assigned to group 1, even in multiplayer maps, even if they are on different teams.) and redirect them to waypoint 126 (Go to Group), they will always run to keep up, and they will follow player's orders.

I've tested redirecting AIs in different groups to WP 126, and I doubt anything obviously useful happened 'cause I remember nothing much about it, but more importantly, I don't remember making notes about it, and I always make notes about cool things. Sometimes, even if they are not game related.

WP 127 make AIs follow close, and annoyingly so. WP 126 makes AIs in group 1 follow as loosly as you order them to, and they become short-range artillery if you like. I have used them that way. (not all AIs throw grenades, do test them beforehand.)

Again, for you lovers making out in the back: In SP maps, if you want a teammate to follow the player's orders, put that teammate in group 1 and direct him to waypoint 126 (Go to Group).

And you know, maybe someday, a clever modder will figure out how to make .ain files. They figured out how to .mis a .bms, .bin editors are available, reverse engineering is possible, it's just a question of getting a clever programmer that like DFBHD(TS) angry about stupid AI behavior in this game.

Then we get the bullet source glitch fixed and the sniper scope crosshairs centered and we're done [strike]modding[/strike] repairing DFBHD(TS)!
__________________
/////////////////////- SIGNATURE STARTS -//////////////////////
The NSO Deadline Mod at NovaHQ.net:
//////////////////////- SIGNATURE ENDS -///////////////////////
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 06-18-2021, 03:49 AM
TrSniper is offline TrSniper
Registered User

Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 41

Alright then. Thank you for your detailed explanation. I will do some testing with the go to group. Never done it before.

Actually, there is 1 guy which we all know, that could pull off all these programming stuff, but he and a lot has gone dark unfortunatly. I wish he was around, VLAD! But they must be old and grumpy by now .

Last week I've checked up on the profile of some old members. Jesus I never knew that Eagle Eye was in his 60's already. And I'm here, 32 still thinking to keep this community alive!

Last edited by TrSniper; 06-19-2021 at 02:53 AM.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 06-18-2021, 05:07 PM
Creator is offline Creator
Registered User

Join Date: Mar 2017
Posts: 90

This file is the key to build custom missions perfectly. I've been trying to open ain. files for years. I've never been able to.
I think it can only be opened with a special editor for this file which unfortunately has never been released.
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 06-19-2021, 03:08 PM
Baldo_the_Don is offline Baldo_the_Don
Baldo_the_Don's Avatar
Registered User

Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 529

A century or so ago, I used to enjoy me some Mechwarrior IV: Mercenaries. Mercs came with a mission editor that was a bit too complicated for my taste, at the time. What tripped me up was the terrain editing, which was possible on the fly with the editor. But one thing that stood out to me, the pertinent reason for this reply, was that the Mercs mission editor had a tool called the node creator. I remember the manual explaining that once your misson is complete, everything in place and ready for events, you start the node creator and let it run. It analyzed the mission, the terrain, the inserted items, and basically lay a network connected lines, unobstructed by buildings, trees, oversteep slopes, or anything that'd block an AIs movement, and this lattice of what I'll call sub-waypoints are what the AIs would use to navigate their way along their main waypoints to your face and fill it missiles, lasers, and autocannon fire.

I don't remember ever building an entire mission, but I loved messing around with a thing or two.

And I remember the node creator. It was the most time-consuming part of making a mission in Mercs. I imagine NeverLogic's .ain creator was just as slow, so they figured no player would even bother with it. I think Battlefield 2's mission editor was like this, too.

I wish I knew something about programming. I struggle with HTML, and I don't think HTML is even a thing anymore.

I'm not well enough aquainted with NL's games beyond DFBHD(TS), but I'm wondering now... The AIs can get around in those games, right? How do those mission editors deal with AI navigation?
__________________
/////////////////////- SIGNATURE STARTS -//////////////////////
The NSO Deadline Mod at NovaHQ.net:
//////////////////////- SIGNATURE ENDS -///////////////////////

Last edited by Baldo_the_Don; 06-20-2021 at 01:54 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 06-22-2021, 12:58 AM
TrSniper is offline TrSniper
Registered User

Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 41

Jesus Mechwarrior..I remember playing it on my windows millenium. Aah good old times, when everything was very simple, the F-16 and F-22 game of Novalogic etc etc.

Now you've mentioned it I do remember this Node creator, but very less of it somewhere in the back of my brain, a dark room which hasn't been entered for years. Too much time has passed.

But you know to reply on how those mission editors deal with AI Navigation, I just simply think the AI built in some games are just more intelligent then the AI from DF.

Back in the day when the editor of COD4 was released, I tried doing something but it was way to difficult for me because I was out of it for to long and you had to know scripting(which I don't). But the AI in COD I believe automaticly avoids every obstacle and follows the group. And not to forget is when you have a bigger platoon, AI keeps spawning so that even if your teammates die you won't face the enemy alone. I think it's the game engine that arranges everything.

I guess I'll just accept DF this way. I miss the old days, this game really needs a remaster.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 06-22-2021, 07:24 AM
Baldo_the_Don is offline Baldo_the_Don
Baldo_the_Don's Avatar
Registered User

Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 529

NovaLogic's F-16 Fighting Falcon is literally the first video game I ever got obssessed with. We bought a Windows 98 upgrade for our Compaq Armada 1700 laptop (my first computer) mainly to gain USB support for a joystick.

External fuel tanks, thirty or forty thousand feet (I misremember), hundred-five percent thrust (103%?), and my heathen gods, that plane moved. I miss that game so much, don't get me started...

The CD came with the DF1 demo on it. Then I got the BHD demo. Hooked like a fish.

Now, I mod DFBHD. I made the hammer on the .45 shiny by editing the bump map last weekend. See if this link works: https://novahq.net/forum/showpost.ph...72&postcount=7

And I dump so much energy into the stupidest little tweaks in these mods, try to imagine the missions I could produce if the frigging AI worked! I made a map once with six four-man teams on each side, all kinds of rerouting and redeploying tricks, I had one AI that would, under circumstances, redirect to a building, climb the ladder, move to a corner facing the player team's spawn, and trigger a teleport target marker to start lobbing M203 rounds if anyone in group 1 was in a specific area trigger. "Sounds like a lot of work for nothing, Baldo," you think, and you're not wrong! But you would've also been flabbergasted if you were playing this mission and found a nifty little corner to cover enemy routes from, and you get naded to death, for the first time ever, by an enemy AI.

I had gotten well over two hundred events set up in that map, and without fail, fifteen, twenty minutes into playing, the game would start glitching out. The HUD would disappear and I think sounds would play weird, stuff like that.

But I learned during that map's construction that the "Reset has visited flags" actions only work for waypoint lists 1 to 31. I spent days of map editing time trying to figure out why the Little Bird I had landing after reaching waypoint 41-2 would not take off again.

I learned a lot of things about stuff that works fine in SP and Host and Play coop that do not work in MP: .wac driven day-night cycles, weather effects, fake artillery strikes, you know?

That map was intended to by played by only one player in a host and play LAN session, inspired by all the fun I had fighting bots in BF2 and CS:CZ. It might've been neat.
__________________
/////////////////////- SIGNATURE STARTS -//////////////////////
The NSO Deadline Mod at NovaHQ.net:
//////////////////////- SIGNATURE ENDS -///////////////////////
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 06-24-2021, 01:29 AM
TrSniper is offline TrSniper
Registered User

Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 41

You do mod and test alot for sure. I think we all should be happy with that

Can you give me a link to your weapons sight mod by the way (I think baldo'
s Foly it's called, cant find it)?

And what I always wanted is why didn't anyone ever build a mod, with desert/middle eastern style buildings, enemies, vehicles, trees.

Every mod we have is a mod with items that are taken over from older Nova games. Even the Iran campaign of team sabre uses mogadishu buildings. I mean the developers where making an expansion pack, why not putting more time in it to fill the game with new buildings, stand alone, or groups etc.

Shock and Awe has a lot of usefull items, but some buildings have skins that ruines your setting.

Would love it to still see that happening. Where is our modding guys??????
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old 06-26-2021, 08:28 PM
Baldo_the_Don is offline Baldo_the_Don
Baldo_the_Don's Avatar
Registered User

Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 529

Baldo's Folly is not my best work. I've got... just counted twelve different mods for DFBHD on my crate right now, I'm actively editing three or four of them at any given time, and it's pretty much weapon tweaks, new sight targas, edited sight targas, DFVGame.lwf balances, that tiny bit of reskinning with the sidearms, and my latest tricks are a Beretta edited into a Raffica, and destroyable walls, barricades, and fences.

Oh, and editing .wavs in Audacity. Gun sounds mostly. So many mods have almost good weapon sounds that are terribly implemented, and I'm trying all kinds of things to improve them. I'm not unhappy with my results.

It's all suffering under the same thing that caused this reply to take so long: I'm a bit scatterbrained these days.

As far as I can tell at the moment, none of the sites that have the Baldo's Folly mod are up.

Making new items for DFBHD is tricky 'cause the vanilla game actually has an item limit. The TIO Coop team edited .exes increasing that limit for game and MED alike (it's one on my favorite mods, by the way). A modder quickly hits that limit and has then to decide: stop there or replace vanilla items. That would make campaign and MP maps from the original unplayable, so new maps would need to be made. That's a lot of work.

That brings us to the next problem: installing mods for DHBHD is a bit of a process, and a lot of players hate the complication. If it was just install/click play, that'd be great, but most players trip up at adding the /d tag to the shortcut target line. That why I'm convinced that only modders play mods, 'cause if I may paraphrase either Eagle_Eye or TedSmelly, I misremember who said it, but we can't make DFBHD mods numpty-proof.

Modding DFBHD is a real waste of time on so many levels. I do it 'cause I can't not do it, but it's an art doomed to be lost, no chance of profit, and little appreciation.

I make beautiful sight targas, though.
__________________
/////////////////////- SIGNATURE STARTS -//////////////////////
The NSO Deadline Mod at NovaHQ.net:
//////////////////////- SIGNATURE ENDS -///////////////////////
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 06-29-2021, 12:42 AM
TrSniper is offline TrSniper
Registered User

Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 41

Man, I didn't knew this information. Guess I'll stop dreaming for better and new mods for bhd with better textures. Now that I know that building a mod for bhd is such an 'ass' thing to do, I've build up more respect for all of our modders out there (keep making the targas).

I'm still waiting for the SP version of the TIO mod tough. It hasn't been released so far. I once tried to build some mission then stopped and deleted it half way, because I have only 1 hour every week to even get behind my PC to start building something, I have to little girls who need attention . And yeah, 1 hour, is just enough to choose a terrain, arrange your environment, etc etc and by the time you start building something, 'shut down the pc please'! So...getting back on the TIO coop mod, I've noticed that when you build a SP map, 1 bullet is enough to blow up a truck. Feels not in balance for a SP map.

But in terms of items and weather environments, usable effects for a desert or snow climate...1 word, outstanding.
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old 08-11-2021, 09:50 PM
Maverick_Y is offline Maverick_Y
Registered User

Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 59

Back to AIN file
ilT.Nickle, the author of Assault Of Infantry && Eye of Hurricane, use AIN file in his map. He use the offical mission's AIN, and drop the buildings in the exactly the same coordinate as offical mission in his custom mission, and set teammastes to group 1
Sounds stupid, but it works.
Reply With Quote
  #14  
Old 09-07-2021, 07:33 AM
TrSniper is offline TrSniper
Registered User

Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 41

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maverick_Y View Post
Back to AIN file
ilT.Nickle, the author of Assault Of Infantry && Eye of Hurricane, use AIN file in his map. He use the offical mission's AIN, and drop the buildings in the exactly the same coordinate as offical mission in his custom mission, and set teammastes to group 1
Sounds stupid, but it works.
Thx Maverick, I think it was one of the suggestions before. I've played that map also, it has been put together very well! I guess that's the only way to get your teammates follow you perfectly then

Thanks again for the advice
Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 04:36 PM.




Powered by vBulletin®