Hostages

(Dawnlight) #1

Has anyone attempted this? It looks to be possible, but before I dig into it has anyone attempted it and failed? If so why? And would anyone actually be interested in this?

(kamikazee) #2

If you want to make NPC’s which should follow the guy who saves them… It won’t be done yet, I presume.

The hostages being players, look at the jail-mod for Quake 3.

(Dawnlight) #3

Going to work on it tonight. If anyone has any suggestions let me know, if not I’ll begin ripping stuff apart tonight and post anything I come up with if I don’t get too tired and fall asleep.

(carnage) #4

well u want surgestion, how are u intending to implemnt it

heres what i see

-there and NPC that u can take hostage
-u take other players hostgae (this will take a load of changes to the game, not easy)
-an alternative to gibing wounded players that gives more xp to the capturer

(Dawnlight) #5

I meant NPC hostages. As in an escort mission, add something new to the game instead of the same-old blow the bank grab the gold stuff.

(carnage) #6

well it almost done already,

open the rtcw player moddles, make them into the hostage u want, now animatet it for the running stage, dying stage and maby some cowering or something

then set up the moddle in the same way as a tank, course thre would be issues like no bullet damage and why would the anamey just not kill the hostages instead of capture?

(Dawnlight) #7

NPCs of course. Trying to add some more objectives to the game basically.

(Zenix) #8

Personally, I find hostages in games pretty frickin’ annoying. Maybe I’m alone on this one though.

(IneQuation) #9

Carnage, I think he means CS-style hostages. You walk to them, press use and they start following you. Oh, and please, mind your spelling, I find your posts hardly readable.

(Dawnlight) #10

Rookie One has the idea. The reason I wanted to do something like this is too add some more flavor. Something new, I took a look at the source last night and it wouldn’t be hard to do. I have decided to do things slightly different:

  1. Hostages will have a certain amount of life
  2. On death only medics can revive (hostages can’t be given health)
  3. To win the map you must move the single hostage into the “safe zone”

Should have this done within a week (working on other things currently). Will keep you guys posted.

(IneQuation) #11

Good luck on coding an AI for this…

(Dawnlight) #12

Lucks not needed. Finished it last night, had a friend make a map with a single hostage. Only having a few minor problems:

a. Hostage randomly refuses to follow after a medic revive (completely random).
b. Sometimes hostage must be brought out and back into safe-zone to trigger map win (I believe this to be a map issue, might be an issue on my end though)
c. If a vehicle stops hostage from moving the hostage goes completely nuts (has even caused server crashes) – I know what the problem is here and will work on it tonight (if I don’t play Wolf/CS:S instead hehehe)
d. Hostage disappeared one time out of 2 hours of testing, thats right just completely disappeared (I think he fell through a hole in the world)
e. Artillery, support fire, nades can cause hostage to blown across the map to points unreachable (I haven’t come up with a solution for this yet, except maybe not allowing them to be moved off the ground).
f. Pathing issues - if you jump over something and the hostage can’t immediately find a way to you it is not smart enough to find a path around (sigh…this is going to be the toughest part of all).

Upcoming changes:
a. Maps will be played for x amount of minutes
b. Each cycle will be divided into rounds
c. Total rounds won will determine who was won the map.
e. Each round will be LMS type play style.

Edit: for the pathing issues, if anyone is knowledgable in the area of how the engine handles maps, paths, etc…or how this can be handled please contact me…the help would be greatly appreciated as I have never dealt with this part of the engine and am not sure where to begin. I will start digging tonight and see what I can come up with :confused:

(carnage) #13

f. Pathing issues - if you jump over something and the hostage can’t immediately find a way to you it is not smart enough to find a path around (sigh…this is going to be the toughest part of all).

if you want npc to navigate your map then u need something like a waypoint system or other means for ur npc to see the map, this is no small task

but it can be avoided if the mapper is carefull and builds the map around the objective anyway. it could even be used to the mappers advatage alowing several routes to get the hostage but only one or two are able to get the hostage out

Artillery, support fire, nades can cause hostage to blown across the map to points unreachable (I haven’t come up with a solution for this yet, except maybe not allowing them to be moved off the ground).

maby your solution is best otherwise you could eaily rescue a hostage buy using a panzer and blowing them to the safe zone (with a bit of practice)

(IneQuation) #14

That’s what I meant by AI for the hostage. They always get stuck, in each and every game.

(kamikazee) #15

Maybe you could group up with a bot-mod-team.

The NPC would then be a bot which doesn’t take actions on itself, but has just 2 tasks, toggled by a player using the bot.
The jobs would be “stay” and “follow” where the player who used the bot is the objective to manoeuver to. (in the bot’s eyes) This implies that if the player guarding the bot would need to know the way to the safe wone.

As a solution to the hostage-blasting: you could make them gib-able. Letting them respawn in the “prison-zone” is then an option, when not in LMS.

(carnage) #16

As a solution to the hostage-blasting: you could make them gib-able. Letting them respawn in the “prison-zone” is then an option, when not in LMS.

a good idea but that could make it extreamly difficult to rescue the hostage, esspecaily if it just runs pretty much blindly everywhere not looking for cover etc

i got another question, is the hostage moving a two way system can the defence bring back the hostage? and if they can how to they bring him back without reviving him? is he dragable to the defence but the asult need him revived to move him

one more thing, you may have read the thread about the mds mdm/mdx converter, this alows you to creat new bone animations easily that can easily be aplied to the existing character moddles. perhaps some hands up animation would look good when he is taken buy the defence? any plans visualy to make them look like hostages?

(Dawnlight) #17

Right now I’m just testing with standard player modules. My original plan was to allow the hostage to be revived. I would eventually need new models, yes. However, getting that imo is much easier than the actual AI of the hostage.

I have been mulling this over for days now and am struggling in finding an effecient way to do this. Every angle I seem to want to take presents 20 more problems than the last solution.

I think I may just force the hostage to follow and if he gets stuck then the player has to pay attention and bring him a ‘better’ route, because at this point I’m pretty much running dry on ideas.