Legacy:Developer Journals/Enigmatic

Intro

Basicly, I am the type of person who likes to see the latest info at the top, so I'm just going to insert the latest and greatest entry at the top of the page, so to start at the beginning, you'll have to go to the bottom and work your way up. No, I don't top post in usenet, I'm just used to this format in blogs, news sites, and various other web pages and I don't think you should have to scroll to ge the latest info. Does this make me evil? maybe, but that's ok in my book.

Enigmatic

Current Projects:

• Unnamed Assault mod
• Mod_Ideas/Semigib_Onslaught - I'm going to call it "Instagib Onslaught" for simplicity's sake.

Entries

5/18/2004 - It is finished!

I waited for the patch to come out, and wouldn't you know it', E3 hits...hard. So no place has it up yet. Fortunatly, I have unlimited transfer webspace though Fileshack's Mercury program, so I'll just use it for now.

Link - http://enigmatic.shackspace.com/ut2k4/OnsInstagib.zip

Also, the 4/22 verson JUST got posted on Fileplanet today, so don't touch that...it's the old & busted version, the above link is the new hotness

4/28/2004 - AI?!?! Artificial Stupidity more like it!

Unfortunatly, I broke the AI in UT2k4 nice and hard in OnsInstagib. They didn't know that there was a secondary fire, or that they couldn't do jack to anything but each other. So I fixed that.

Now, I've stuck with a bot trying to shoot a node from 300 feet with a beam that only goes 50 feet. So the next goal is to try and get it into the artificial head of the bot that it needs to move a littlte bit closer to the node to do anything...of course, it's the same with weapons. I also need to figure out how to explain to the bot that the AVRiL is the best weapon to shoot vehicles. Those bots have the 'Linkgun only" mentality and don't like big missles it seems. I'm sure there's a way to take care of that as well.

My real wish was that there was an AI section on the Wiki that involved weapon creation, and how to "tell" the bots in UT2k3/4 how to use them.

Tarquin: Just start one :) Bots seem to know the biorifle has a shorter range than the shock rifle, for eg.

Enigmatic: I think I will once I figure it out. Unfortunatly, I think I broke that distance thing, so I've got to fix that. Otherwise, the BestMode is all I know right now :)

Enigmatic: OK, created How UT2003 Weapons Work/Teaching Bots To Use Your Weapon. Hopefully I'll start filling it out as I figure stuff out

4/21/2004 - 30 minutes til tomorrow

It's done! check it: http://www.fileshack.com/file.x?fid=4897

Opinions are welcome. Bots aren't to sure about it but it works over a network as long as it's in the ServerPrograms= group

4/21/2004 - Semigib Onslaught, Go!

I choose this mutator because it'll be a nice change of pace from my current mod project, and I doubt it'll take any longer than a night or two of coding to get it working. Nothing to fancy here, and I think there's some stuff I've used in the mod that I can pull over into this project.

Here's how I'm going to pull it off:

• Change primary fire on link gun to instagib shot
• Make InstaGibLink & InstaGibAVRiL default weapons
• Remove all non-InstaGib weaponry
• Remove all ammo
• Remove or Alter all Weapon Lockers

Possible options for Ammo usage:

• Unlimited
• Limited
• Limited w/recharge (don't use it for X amount of time, ammo begins to recharge)

I think the ammo for both weapons needs to operate in the same way. That means one less thing for players to worry about and less confusing ammo operations in general. I'm partial to the recharge right now, because it puts a damper on the spammers who'll just hold down fire and hope to hit someone, but it shouldn't effect anyone using the gun in a smart manner. It also means building bases will be a tactical decision as well, because it uses valuable ammunition.

The one problem is damage to bases. If the primary fire does loads of damage, then destroying bases will be simple. Perhaps creating an armor object that magnifies instagib damage while nullifying beam damage is the way to go. Then, you'll have to use the beam to build/destroy bases, the AVRiL for vehicles, and instagib for players. Vehicles will be the real tricky thing to contend with. Basicly, does the instagib beam hurt them at all? or is it AVRiL only? if I remember correctly, the bean needs a minimum amount of damage to be registered as a "hit", at least for the pawns. The idea is to create as few classes as possible.

OK, classes to create:

• ONSIG_Link.uc - The primary gun
• ONSIG_LinkFire.uc - Instagib beam
• ONSIG_AVRiL.uc - The modified AVRiL (for ammo recharge)
• ONSIG_Armor.uc - To modify "hits" to the player
• ONSIG_Mutator.uc - The file that makes the magic happen