Silence fills the void…

[Typheron]

Silence fills the void…

Ok as before, it’s been quiet, seriously quiet for about 3 months now, there are very good reasons for this, which I will now detail to you in an attempt to explain what been going down.

Basically the Brood system is, thanks to the way AI has been coded, not possible at this time. We based it off Valves code and the result is that only one person could actually use a brood and the NPC termigaunts were becoming heavily confused and thus useless as a weapon.

We have had to pull them from the feature list for initial public release, they are just not useable and far too bug ridden.

So for the last 3 months Chromeangel has been coding like a ninja to get them working, but as valve built the AI to only identify in friend or foe terms (which is fine) and only one player. The Broods basically think that it’s a single player game and take whoever is near them as the player. You can imagine how messed up they get when there is more than one player in range of them.

Thus there gone, but its took chrome 3 months to reach this point. Its not a waste as they work if your on your own, or 1 marine Vs 1 nid, but that’s not the plan.

So now we balance this mod with what we have and start polishing it, tidying maps and generally making it look pritty instead.

We will return to the Broods later when things are working better, it’s not fun but its this or give up, and there is far too much time invested now to do that.

[Fythbro]

I was playing UT40k today, and remembered Exterminatus! When can we expect a release?

[ChromeAngel]

When it's ready.  I expected to have it done by now, but a few road blocks have slowed down the development.  Right now even I don't have a good idea of when that will be.

[Storm-wolf]

Isn't there a way to modify the way brood AI works?
By overridding some methods or else.

I suppose that it is not just that easy, if chromeangels has spent 3 month on that, without succeeding.

But really, isn't there a way to modify this stuff?

Isn't there a way to give a distinct ID to players and make the brood follow a specific player, based on his ID, instead of just following the nearest guy?

What if you divide the tyranid team in as many sub teams as there are players. So each sub team would be composed of only one player. So you would have only one brood master per sub teams and the brood wouldn't be confused.

But as i understand, they are coded in a way to be only able to recognize friends or foes.

Isn't there a way to add a third state? Friends, foes, and neutral. Each group of AI tyranids would follow only one person, and that person would be the "friend"?
So the tyranid player A would have a brood. The brood would be set in such a way to obey the friends players (but there would be only one), to do nothing against neutral players (who would be everyone in tyranid team, minus the particular player who is "the friend") and to attack enemies.
The brood of player B would be set the same way, and so on.

I may be talking nonsense, as i know nothing about mod programming.

[ChromeAngel]

What you say is all possible Storm-wolf.  It's just not practical though, the AI code has turned out to be hideously complicated.  Now I know why Valve with their large team of professional full-time developers only ever added 2 new NPCs in the episodic content, it's because the AI code is such a bitch to work through and debug.

Given several months of full time development i'm sure I could get them working beautifully.  As it stands they are just holding back the rest of the mod.  Hence giving the broods a back seat, wile I get on with the rest of the code that needs my attention.

[Typheron]

Chrome speaks the truth, its totally possable but would require chrome to grind code for several months as he stated.

So there shelved till later when chrome is boried and possably in Hell. Jury is out on that one.

The game still works, and plays well, but other things take priority. Maps and polish mainly.

[Bahl]

Hejsan (Swedish Hi) to all :-).

I'm currently still in Sweden, hacking away on my Master's thesis. But ... my offer concerning teamed AI still stands Chrome! I do have full control over my own AI code and I will work it into a brood style code anyways to bring on RS1.5 . So what I'm still offering is to take over that problem and provide you with a solution for it once I'm done with my Master's thesis. Which is drawing nearer! (17th of June).

I know you've invested a lot of time to find out how and why it works, but from what I read and from what I know about valve code, I'm pretty sure, I can solve this in a better and easier way.

So... well, I hope I'm not writing this in a too blunt style... but well, it's an offer and I would like to work with you guys again.

[zammE-]

Hey Bahl, and the rest of the heap!

Just got this strange urge to check up on you rascals and see how you're doing. I'm impressed beyond my ears that you're still going at it!

Oh so you're in my homeland now Bahl? That's kind of cool, what city? Uppsala?

[Bahl]

Hej ZammE :-). Well, you've been one of our most productive mappers ^^.  There must've been something to it *g*. Anyhow, nice to see you here and yeah, I'm in Göteborg right now ^^. So where are you located? Near Uppsala?

[zammE-]

If I could ever get off my ass I would love to go back to the business but it seems currently that my somewhat tighter life habits are getting the best of me :/
Actually I kinda live up north, in a city called Umeå, I just took a guess with Uppsala since it sports our biggest university and thus contains the
most students :P

[Bahl]

well, naaa, Göteborg is much easier for me ^^. Just one night travel by ferry and I'm there (or back). That's unbeatably nice :-). Umea... well lots of distance till there.. would we want to meet, it'd have to bee Stockholm or something I guess ^^.

[zammE-]

Ahh, I see, hope you're enjoying your stay then here up in the cold north :)

*Impationately tries to get his hammer settings to work properly*

[Maltesefalcon]

Ze Germans are coming and they are learning

Anyways nice to see the team active, sometimes waiting for this forum to be updated is like watching paint grow (yes i said grow).