I just made a personal breakthrough in my AI modding. For the first time - after many, many, many painful runs of coding and packaging - I taught a monster (non-humaoid) a ranged attack:
My ants have the ability to spit posion now over a distance . It's still a little buggy, but what matters for me the most: We can "swap" (that's actually not correct, but hits it near enough) states (call sates the creature did not have before) and animations (create "new" animations with replacments by using other animations the cretaure knows) between the creatures - in the end it's very likely that we even can teach all cretaures spells (which in turn are customizable via TwoWorlds.par).
Now I see a heapload of work in front of me -but knowing that all these testing hours weren't in vain is very motivating.
Any cool ideas concenrig which creature should get new abilities you saw at other creatures ? I will start by assigning posion spit (or other ranged) to: Spider, Scorpio, Ant and maybe Tailer. Especially the first two will benefit much from it as it keeps them dangerous even if they get stuck in narrow tunnels. I think it also fits as I can imagine such creatures having nasty spit attacks (think spitting cobra or arrow frogs).
Hmmpf, well I will be working on this nonetheless, cause this is excactly what I want to do. If you don't like it that's perfectly fine, but I couldn't care the less .
Well I'm with you on that one Youngneil. The poison spit sounds very promising. I think some of the undead in the swamp of Ch. 3 should also get some kind of poison spit or poison ranged attack, it's a tad boring at the moment that they only melee. In a similar vein I think the vespines, especially the queens would benefit from shooting spikes or stingers like the stinger alphas in the swallows. I would also like to see mummies and some of the demons/demonic-ish types have more varied abilities, possibly some fire-based attacks like for the tuloks and centurions, not sure what and what is possible there though. Besides the 2-3 different ranged attacks RP seem to have mainly stuck to just making some opponents casters or archers to vary the opponents.
Thank you for the ideas, Alnamus. I felt too that the zombies, mummies and similar need an ace more in their sleeve. If everything worksout like I imagine it should be possible to maintain all those creatures as melee types that will charge you, but still allow them to sometimes suprisingly shoot from a certain distance or even use retreat moves to gain distance. Combined with a certain randomization of behaviour patterns (like - simplified - 80% stay melee, 20% go for the distance and shoot, but also shoot at 100% if not possible to get closer to target) this should break some of the combat routines the player develops over the time and keep the player more on his toes. A surpise special for the vespine queen would be welcome indeed - I will see if I can get her shooting stings.
At he moment it's just the ranged combat ability, but I am optimistic that we will get spells transferable, too. By then e.g. demonic opponents can be taught to bath the player in a rain of fire, even more than some already do right now .
The randomized behaviour sounds good.
What kind of pool of abilities do the opponents draw from? Another good way to mix up combat more, if it it can be done, would be to simply allow some of them the same abilities the player gets. For instance Varns being jackal-like and somewhat intelligent might be able to counterattack if you hit against their block, necris and dead knights use mostly axes, so shield pull would make sense for them and give a defensive player a nasty surprise. Given their brutish nature, the vidons could possibly receive block breaker and/or battlecry.
Also, since most of these enemies always have a caster in the group, it would be sensible to have them casting more buffs on their allies.
I am still figuring that pool out. The attack possibilities (actually every action like move or call for help) are expressed as "states" within TM.smt files. There are states like "attack_block", "attack_jump", "attack_thrust", "attck_combo" etc. and many more. They are spread through the whole array of monsters, but luckily can also be called by monsters that in vanilla have no access to them (like that ranged attack for the ant).
These states don't call the animations directly though. Instead they pass values to a second file, an SM.smt file (I like to call it puppetmaster) - that's what I imagine at least. SM.smt files are much harder decipherable (It would help a lot if I knew the meaning of accronyms like "td", "pe" or "pf", which are conditions for a switch of SM-states).
That SM.smt file contains various SM-States like Fight1_3_2. The first number can range from 1 to 5. 1 is one-hand-weapon style, 2 is dualwielding, 3 two-handed, 4 is halberd (all staffs i assume, too, i.e. magic, too) and 5 bow/non-magic ranged. Now the other numbers are still a mystery to me - perhaps they are the differnet animations for the use of our special combat skills. Concerning magic the 3 subnumbers of magic (4-1, 4-2 and 4-3), which is fight4_X_shoot, refer to the "atype" of the spell, meaning targeted on hostile (missile), targeted on area (ring) and targeted on self (eg. self-heal) - at least that's what I guess atm.
Deciphering these things is the key to switching special attacks between monsters. Some special attack properties, like ragdoll attack, are also stored in the .act of each cretaure. In these .act files each SM.state has entries, which define how the animation connected with that state shall be played (e.g. how fast or ignroing gravity).
When giving a cretaure a new sm-state, it therefore will also need a new entry in its .act file. For ant I just reused (a manually shortened) attack animation and labeled it like the ranged attack (actually three animations as each ranged attck and magic, too, call: tighten, tightened and finally shoot - these represent the casting process in different stages).
Ah, one day I am gonna write this down in an ordered manner .
Last edited by youngneil1; 16. January 2011 at 14:47..
Hmmpf, well I will be working on this nonetheless, cause this is excactly what I want to do. If you don't like it that's perfectly fine, but I couldn't care the less .
I wasn't being derogatory about your work youngneil1, I was highlighting your unintentional pun....ants and buggy. I like the idea of having ranged ants.
.... Excuse me gentlemen, But I think I need to find someone to help me pick up the pieces of my brain as it has just exploded from the massive amount of data it has just taken in. *Walks away from Desk*
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.... Excuse me gentlemen, But I think I need to find someone to help me pick up the pieces of my brain as it has just exploded from the massive amount of data it has just taken in. *Walks away from Desk*
I know what you mean after many years of playing and modding Beth's Elder Scrolls Games and then FO3 plus NV I find how this is all done totally mind boggling. I can upack a WD and re-pack it, I can open a par but what I do or have done to it I have no real idea, He He.
I actually just sit here in total awe and confusionment (not sure if thats a real word but I like it?) as I read all what youngneil1 and the others are doing, have been doing or are contemplating doing. I really thought Beth was Modding to the extreme and that I was a clever little chappie because I had released a few Mods but I was so, so, so wrong.
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. It's still a little buggy, but what matters for me the most: We can "swap" (that's actually not correct, but hits it near enough) states (call sates the creature did not have before) and animations (create "new" animations with replacments by using other animations the cretaure knows) between the creatures - in the end it's very likely that we even can teach all cretaures spells (which in turn are customizable via TwoWorlds.par). 
Of course it is....they're bloody ANTS! 
