Lanternbot relations

[grayman]

(No, I don't mean bots begetting more bots.)

 

The lanternbot is way cool. Thanks for adding it.

 

He's been added to the AI Relations wiki on team 16, but there's no discussion of how he relates to the other teams. I put one in my map, and he ignores me, so I guess he's not an enemy of team 0. However, I do have a test guard near him also on team 0, and I discovered that they'd gotten into a rumble in one session. The bot was crumpled over and the guard was nearby brandishing his sword and mumbling nasty 'enemy' barks. My guess is that they bumped into each other somehow and some words were said and the situation escalated. I restarted the map and went and watched them for a while, and they passed by each other twice w/o a problem.

 

I'm planning to put the bot on team 3 with the guards. I've got him guarding a bank, so this seems appropriate.

 

Any forthcoming discussion on how bots relate to the other groups?

 

Thanks.

[greebo]

IIRC, Fidcal was the one who set up the initial slew of relations spawnargs, so maybe he can give you more insight.

[Fidcal]

I can't remember the thinking at the time but they were left as enemies of all. I'll fix this in the next update but for the time being the safest fix is to put them on Team 2 with guards. But I believe they are unarmed(?) so I'm not sure. I'll get back to you if that needs changing when we decide exactly.

[Fidcal]

I confirm this will be in the next update with team 16 with the same relations as team 2 so for now everyone should just put their steambot on team 2 until update 1.03

[grayman]

I confirm this will be in the next update with team 16 with the same relations as team 2 so for now everyone should just put their steambot on team 2 until update 1.03

 

 

Thanks! Team 2 it is.

[stgatilov]

I have found issue 5053 and have a question about lantern bot.

1. Is it OK that it can be knocked out with blackjack?
2. Should a knocked-out lantern bot look the same way as dead lantern bot?

 

[Springheel]

I don't think it was ever part of the plan that bots could be knocked out with the blackjack.  I think the bj does a small amount of damage though, so you could beat one to death with enough time.

 

[OrbWeaver]

I don't think you should be able to knock out a bot, but I think the blackjack should do more damage than the sword (because it's easier to bludgeon metal than to attack it with a sharpened blade). I seem to remember this was the case in Thief 2.

[demagogue]

The mechanic in Thief2 was the big bots were ko'd by a waterarrow to the boiler, for logic and gameplay. (I can't recall the small and child bots.) We can do something different but in that vein. We might make a kind of "command" widget for our bot and have it ko'd by blackjack only to that. It's a challenge but has a gameplay logic and it explains why one bj hit could work. So that's my candidate proposal. 

[stgatilov]

I think it takes me two sword hits to "kill" a bot, and one blackjack hit from behind to "knockout" it.

[Springheel]

I wouldn't think a bag of lead would do more damage than a sword, even against metal.  It should be noticeably quieter than a sword though.

[stgatilov]

I found that steambots were intended to be immune to KO, but "ko_zone" "" did not work because damage zones were not defined.

I have added "ko_immune" "1". So now it is impossible to knockout a steambot, only destroy it with a sword.

[duzenko]

I have zero real world experience with steam bots but my imagination suggests that

• swords should be pretty useless against thick metal structures
• if bots have vulnerable circuitry in outside parts they should be knocked out pretty easy
• do bots make any use of electricity? I'd think electric contacts are susceptible to short-term disruption when kicked

[stgatilov]

1 hour ago, duzenko said:

if bots have vulnerable circuitry in outside parts they should be knocked out pretty easy

Maybe it makes sense to define damage zones then. And significantly reduce damage on non-vulnerable bones.

Quote

swords should be pretty useless against thick metal structures

I agree, but I don't see any indication that creators of steambots wanted them to be invulnerable to ordinary weapons.

Quote

do bots make any use of electricity? I'd think electric contacts are susceptible to short-term disruption when kicked

I think not. They are "steam bots" , so they somehow work purely on steam.

[Springheel]

Steambots aren't supposed to be immune to swords.  It's one of the few ways players have of disabling them, and it comes with the penalty of being rather loud.

I didn't realize that, without damage zones, the ko_zone spawnarg wouldn't work.  Now that that issue is fixed, they're working as intended.

[stumpy]

thief 2 golden child bot couldn't be disabled as far as I remember, the two other bots could be disabled with water, gas, fire arrows, you could also whack them with the blackjack but it was noisy and the bigger bot had a really good chance of one shotting you if you didn't move away from the cannons it had.

think the camera's could be destroyed with fire arrows but it was very noisy.

Edited December 31, 2019 by stumpy

[VanishedOne]

I remember being surprised when I noticed in DR's AI tab that lanternbots weren't KO-immune, but thinking it made some sense given the spindly look that they'd have some delicate external machinery that could be disabled with a precise whack.

I'm not familiar with the workings of the soundprop defs, but at a glance the relevant ones seem to be sprgs_blackjack_hit_hard ("alert_factor" "0.55", "vol" "40") and sprgs_sword_hit_hard ("vol" "48"). So my guess is that as things stand the sword is noisier.

[kano]

I think the old retaliation code from Doom3 is still in TDM, so if two AI's are on the same team, and one accidentally damages the other (thrown rock/projectile), the other will initiate a fight. Maybe that is what happened?

[esme]

On 12/30/2019 at 5:20 PM, demagogue said:

The mechanic in Thief2 was the big bots were ko'd by a waterarrow to the boiler, for logic and gameplay. (I can't recall the small and child bots.) We can do something different but in that vein. We might make a kind of "command" widget for our bot and have it ko'd by blackjack only to that. It's a challenge but has a gameplay logic and it explains why one bj hit could work. So that's my candidate proposal. 

It's possible to take out a big bot with a blackjack in T2, you need to get one to chase you into a confined area like a doorway, & stand so it can see you but it's projectiles are blocked & bounce away, then you lean in & whack it repeatedly with the BJ, eventually it sustains enough damage to fall apart

[VanishedOne]

Was there any resolution on this? In the 2.08 beta lanternbots have acquired "ko_immune" "1" (and I haven't seen this noted in any changelogs, so it's going to confuse anyone expecting the established behaviour).

[stgatilov]

5 hours ago, VanishedOne said:

Was there any resolution on this? In the 2.08 beta lanternbots have acquired "ko_immune" "1" (and I haven't seen this noted in any changelogs, so it's going to confuse anyone expecting the established behaviour).

As I wrote here.

Changelog does not include everything. Even bugtracker does not, unfortunately.

[VanishedOne]

Yes, I know about that. Since it changes long established (albeit unintended) behaviour, I'm noting that if it stays and isn't in release notes it's going to perplex anyone who was used to being able to blackjack lanternbots.

On the other hand, some of the discussion above seems to favour introducing a KO zone, so I'm asking whether the question was ever resolved.

(At some point I need to check whether a one-hit 'backstab' on a lanternbot is possible; if it has time to whistle before it can be killed, that'll increase the difficulty of dealing with one over and above whatever noise the sword makes.)

[VanishedOne]

Right, test results:

• You can't 'backstab' a lanternbot; steambots have a sneak_attack_mult of 1.0.
• However, it doesn't immediately blow the whistle on being damaged (I'm not quite sure why it doesn't react more: its only senses are auditory, but according to the console it enters a pain state on taking damage), so you can probably get in the second blow right away, though it may have time to turn around and light you up.
• The sword is louder than the blackjack: with a human AI about 340 units away, knocking out the lanternbot provoked no barks, 'killing' it provoked a bark and on higher auditory acuity settings he became more likely to turn around.
• Lanternbots shed blood and sometimes make fleshy noises when slain.

Not as drastic as I feared, but not a trivial change from when maps with it were designed, tested and released either. The last point makes me wonder how extensively attacking lanternbots has been tested by anybody.

[Oktokolo]

When i first saw one, i soaked that lantern bot from all sides using water arrows. I somehow associated its energy source with water arrows and expected it to be extinguishable...

Not sure, whether waterarrows or the blackjack actually should disable bots. But there should be some way to take them out silently.

[wesp5]

3 hours ago, Abusimplea said:

When i first saw one, i soaked that lantern bot from all sides using water arrows. I somehow associated its energy source with water arrows and expected it to be extinguishable...

That sounds more reasonable to me than whaking it with a leather blackjack, it's based on a small steam motor, isn't it?