Scripting: Guide entity - How can I stop an AI patrolling?

[Fidcal]

I'm trying to develop a guide entity. Guide is a team 5 commoner patrolling. When he goes out of range I want him to stop, face the player, make some random comments like 'come on'. I can't get him to stop when I remove his path target. I can't test if that works anyway because I can't figure out how to sys.print an entity name...

 

void main()
{
entity GuidesNextTarget;

while (1)
{
	if ($Guide.distanceTo($player1) >= 128)
	{
		sys.print("\nOUTSIDE OF RANGE!\n");
		GuidesNextTarget = $Guide.getEntityKey( "target");
		$Guide.removeTarget(GuidesNextTarget);
//			sys.print("\nGuidesNextTarget = " + GuidesNextTarget + "\n");  // THIS GIVES MISMATCH ERROR
	}
	else
	{
		sys.print("\nWITHIN RANGE!\n");
		if(GuidesNextTarget  != $null_entity)
		{
			$Guide.addTarget(GuidesNextTarget);
			GuidesNextTarget = $null_entity;
		}
	}

	sys.wait(1);
}
}

[Sotha]

Don't give targets to the AI, they cannot be removed anymore. You must use a solution where the AI never targets anything, but moves to the next entity.

 

I would use the script command $ai.moveToEntity($destination);

 

You place a lot of path_corners in the AI's guiding path. You never give the AI a TARGET to those path_corners, but you tell the ai to moveToEntity to those nodes. You can use any entities to mark the path.

 

Then at each path_node the AI checks the distance to player. If the player is close, move to next node. It might be even possible to have the AI to walk to the previous node if the player is too far away.

 

I hope this helps.

[Fidcal]

Soon as I posted of course I found to sys.print an entity name you do:

 

GuidesNextTarget.getName()

 

So now that gives the original path target so clearly the remove is not working.

[Fidcal]

Sorry Sotha - I've only just seen your post because I was reposting at the same time I guess. I'll check this out later. Thanks.

[Fidcal]

Got this working reasonably well but needs refining which I'll do later on. He waits at the start point till you're within range then goes to the next path point. If you go astray he turns to face your direction and waits until you get closer then off he goes to the next point and so on. Speech with a conversation screwed up the pathing and he even went back to the start for some reason. I disabled that. I think there is script event for speech anyway hopefully.