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AI don't care about violent deaths


Tels

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Thinking about this a bit more ...

 

1 - Add a spawnarg to the button entity, say "is_alarmbutton".

 

2 - The code registers these buttons, which are found in whatever design the mapper has laid out.

 

3 - Allow one AI to find the closest one and run to it and press it.

 

4 - Let the alarm sound. The mapper controls whether it's a silent alarm (a bank?) or a noisy one.

 

5 - Let the alarm run for a certain amount of time (will sound_alarm do this now?) or let an AI turn it off once all nearby alert levels have dropped below some threshold

 

6 - Would need to understand how this would fit into a security zone design (demagogue has a long-standing proposal)

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6 - An armed witness will draw his weapon and begin searching. He will not bark about the event, or kneel by the body.

 

 

Apart from the absence of barks on this situation (there should definitely be some vocal reaction to witnessing the murder, though as you already pointed out that would require a custom voice shader excluding any contradictory remarks), the list seem quite reasonable and thorough. Great work.

 

EDIT: The above proposal also sounds very interesting, but I cant remember if there is any supported system for alarms in TDM? (Will have to check on that, dont think I ever played a mission with one, what would happen, would all gaurds everywhere get alerted, or would they run towards the alarm activation area? Or maybe a separate areawhere the valuables actually are?). Anyway, I also like the idea of someone shutting the alarm off "after the danger is passed", though that might be difficult to account for, it depends on what the "area" means, as it is possible for the player to be interacting with an isolated AI that is alerted while all others are already at rest, but they would still wait for the AI they cant see to calm down before the area is considered secured again (which wouldnt really work).

Edited by RPGista
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I once built a test map for the alarm entity, but I couldn't get it to get switched on by the ai. Only if I used the switch, the ai was alarmed. Would be nice to have it working like your proposal, grayman - this reminds me so much of Cragscleft Prison! :wub:

"Einen giftigen Trank aus Kräutern und Wurzeln für die närrischen Städter wollen wir brauen." - Text aus einem verlassenen Heidenlager

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A Score to Settle uses an alarm entity to trigger the AI at the end of the map. It's been a while though; I'd have to go back and examine the entity to remind myself of exactly how it works.

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Apart from the absence of barks on this situation (there should definitely be some vocal reaction to witnessing the murder, though as you already pointed out that would require a custom voice shader excluding any contradictory remarks)

 

What about the "raise the alarm" bark? It's not used thus far, and has barks like:

 

"Raise the alarm!"

"To arms! To arms!"

"Guards! Everyone!"

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Ok, I've created a new soundshader called "snd_to_flee_event" for all human vocal sets. It's appropriate for civilians finding an alarming 'event' yet not necessarily seeing who is responsible.

 

The majority of the snd_flee ones are applicable to fleeing after seeing a body, and the ones that aren't can be explained by the panic of the AI.

 

Btw, I also added "snd_response_warning" to all the human vocal sets as well...I made the barks some time ago but forget to add them to the vocal defs. The barks are for AI responding to warnings about intruders or other suspicious events from other AI, mostly generic "Got it," or "I'll be ready" comments.

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Springheel - awesome news...

 

If you have two neutral npcs, and you kill one in full view of the other, right now the witness would investigate the body and search for a threat, ignoring you completely, right? What would happen in this proposal? Would the neutral become hostile immediately? Would any searching witness become hostile to the player (murderer) on sight? A neutral npc that witnessed the death of a neutral character should investigate, but would he attack the player upon discovery? What if the witness is actually friendly to the player? What would happen if the witness is friendly both to the victim and the player, whose side would he defend?

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Just on the alarm topic & security level (zones), my thinking was it vetoes going-into-alert-state in lower-security areas unless a specified crime is witnessed (or condition met, like getting attacked, etc), then it vetoes-the-veto, bringing it back to the default team behavior. So it's supposed to be agnostic on any actual alert behavior (once they do go into alert) that other system may set up or the player custom sets up, like ringing alarms. I gotta run to class; I'll think about it some more later.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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If you have two neutral npcs, and you kill one in full view of the other, right now the witness would investigate the body and search for a threat, ignoring you completely, right? What would happen in this proposal? Would the neutral become hostile immediately? Would any searching witness become hostile to the player (murderer) on sight? A neutral npc that witnessed the death of a neutral character should investigate, but would he attack the player upon discovery? What if the witness is actually friendly to the player? What would happen if the witness is friendly both to the victim and the player, whose side would he defend?

 

There is no change in relations in this proposal. If everyone is neutral to each other, then the player is just another witness to the murder, because we have no way for a witness to tie the death back to the player. We would need a mechanism that says the witness saw the bow drawn, saw the arrow fly, and saw it kill the victim. We have none of this. The witness doesn't become aware of anything until the dead body stims those around it, and they react. They don't have enough evidence to prove player did the deed.

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The objectives system has the player responisble mark. So it can differ between things done by the player and not. Shouldn't it be possible to adopt that mechanism over in this case?

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Yes, the objective system knows. The arrow knows. The corpse knows. Mission statistics knows. But the witnesses don't know, nor can they prove anything. In a room full of archers with raised bows, a witness only knows of the corpse. If we let a witness interrogate the objective system or the arrow or the corpse or missions statistics, he can come to a conclusion and attack a specific archer, including the player. But an observer would scratch his head and wonder how the witness came to this conclusion w/o observing who shot the arrow.

 

Now, if each archer (including the player) had unique arrows, perhaps with different markings or feathers, an observer could accept the witness's conclusion that "the yellow-flocked arrow belongs to Benny, so Benny must be the murderer".

 

We use a lot of tricks behind the scenes to make information available to these blind/deaf/mute characters, but in the end, what we observe needs to make sense.

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You got a point there, although I think that in a "normal" TDM mission scenario this kind of situations may not occour that often.

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Btw, I also added "snd_response_warning" to all the human vocal sets as well...I made the barks some time ago but forget to add them to the vocal defs. The barks are for AI responding to warnings about intruders or other suspicious events from other AI, mostly generic "Got it," or "I'll be ready" comments.

 

Could you reconcile the new "snd_response_warning" with the existing "snd_warn_response"? Both exist in the def files, but the code only uses "snd_warn_response".

 

Thanks.

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Could you reconcile the new "snd_response_warning" with the existing "snd_warn_response"? Both exist in the def files, but the code only uses "snd_warn_response".

 

What the---did I add it before and forget about it??

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Well damn, I completely forgot I already added it. snd_response_warning is completely superfluous then...I'll delete it.

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I just updated and tried the new code. The armed AI reacted as expected, but the unarmed AI did not flee. They apparently were in agitated searching state, though they just stood there and turned in place. Shouldn't AI run off even if there is no flee point designated?

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Unarmaed AI behaviour is not really consistent in my experience, they will sometimes run from you to random places once your on sight, but will often just stand there too, alarmed and shouting. Maybe thats what happened?

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I just deleted the .cm file and dmapped again, and they're definitely searching. I have a group of pagans and a group of beggars. I shot a beggar dead and everyone ran over to the body (no kneeling), then spread out to search, even in the unarmed beggars.

 

How many AI run to the body, and how many just start searching, appears to be random, but the unarmed beggars are definitely searching.

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I actually added a flee point, but they still don't flee; they go straight to agitated search mode. Now, these AI are on the same team as the player, if that affects anything.

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