A simple push...

[Springheel]

I have re-examined my position on this issue over the last few years, and I now think a certain limited pushing ability would be useful.

 

There have been many times where I have been caught by an AI, thrown a flashbomb down, blinded him, but have been unable to escape because the AI is standing somewhere that blocks my route. In some cases, I'm literally immobilized against a wall...two blinded AI are on either side of me, helpless, but I can't get out of the corner because the AI are completely immovable. So I just have to sit there until the flash wears off and they start attacking me again.

 

In situations like that, being able to push the AI out of the way would be a useful feature.

 

I'm not suggesting an "AI goes stumbling" response, just a simple "slide the AI model along the ground" effect, the same way you can move a crate by walking/running into it. I don't think this has a lot of potential for exploits, because you would alert an AI the moment you bumped into him, so you'd be unlikely to be able to push him very far before he starts attacking you.

[Destined]

Maybe, it could be limited to blinded AIs? This would limit exploits of any kind even more...

[Springheel]

You can't sustain a push for very long or the AI will attack you. You might be able to push an AI off a ledge if they're really close to it, but that would be rare and not really an exploit, IMO.

 

There are only two possible problems I can see. One is pushing AI into monsterclip. While that seems unlikely, if AI get stuck in monsterclip they won't be able to pathfind anymore (and may actually freeze in place). However, this is also a potential problem when AI get pushed by doors, mines or fire arrows, and I've never noticed this happen.

 

The other is the possibility that running into an AI during combat might somehow make them act weird, though you can do that now and it doesn't affect anything. It's not obvious that being able to slide the AI along a bit would create an problems, but you never know.

 

Question is, is this even feasible? AI can already be pushed by doors and damage effects, but I have no idea how much work it would be to set them so that they can be pushed by the player.

[demagogue]

I'm thinking about repeat pushing effectively disabling it, depending on how it reacts. But I could imagine a simple delay between it registering pushes could mitigate that.

[Springheel]

For the record, the issue was brought up here: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/16392-ai-in-freefall/?hl=%2Bfalling+%2Bragdoll

 

during the discussion about falling AI.

 

Grayman also appears to be in favour of the idea, and there is a bugtracker entry here: http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=3773

 

Just hasn't made it high enough on anyone's radar yet.

 

I was looking through the ai scripts last night and I noticed there is an AI_PUSH listed in the possible movement types, but that's all I could figure out.

[Obsttorte]

https://youtu.be/zzQKcSLEiiA

 

Played around a bit and the approach of using a radial damage (that doesn't deal any damage, but pushes the ai) seems to work.

 

Pros:

• easy to implement
• it is not possible to push the ai into worldspawn or monsterclip using this method

Cons:

• needs adjusting (you see that in the video)
• it will affect other moveables as well, which is not neccessarely bad, but not intented

[Agent Jones]

Very nice. Maybe you could add an additional check to idActor::CrashLand to play the "failed knockout" animation for short falls.