1.3 Enhanced Scout

[Zero Angel]

Sorry for the long'ish delay. I've been busy with more things that I can keep up with at the moment.

By popular demand, heres the freekin' enhanced scout for 1.3

www.bzuniverse.com/~zeroangel/misc_files/ivenhscout.odf

Just place it in your addon folder, and place it in the editor, and you will see how dangerous these can be in pairs.

I did some last minute tweaks (after several weeks of not touching the ODF) and i'm still not fully satisfied with my result. Some of the parameters have also been added in just for the sake of letting you know that they exist.

Enjoy.


(Avatar, that other topic didnt need to be locked. There was a lot of good discussion in there. I've seen threads which were nothing more then flame-fests, but that one wasnt. Now that info is going to be buried. )

[Zero Angel]

Note that MorphTank and RocketTank AIs have slightly different fighting styles, but I didnt have time to re-study them to find the best combo. Feel free to use any of combination to suit your whims.

I re-read the other thread and noticed that some people want single AIs that can whoop their ass. They should note:

AI inaccuracy has been set to a reasonable level, but can be tweaked to be far better through the proper settings of: steerScatter, pitchScatter, alphaScale and omegaScale.

[Aegeis]

ZA u do some splendid work with bz2 ai odfs.

Some people want the AI to "kick their ass".  My question is why?  No matter what its still going to be predictable.  Fun, but predictable.  Am I wrong or what?  Hows about some of you join some "strats" with vets(if they wanna humor you that is) and see how unpredictable a human is when fighting.  THAT is the true form of BZ2 dogfighting.

But did I mention how great ZA is at making units fight spectacularly?  

[Wingflier]

heh heh

Adam

[Wingflier]

Cheese and Rice!!

You made these not as good as possible?!

Lol ZA I love you!!

It is a freaking blast playing with those AI!

I owe you one dude!

This is hilarious.

I think the AI being hard freaking rocks.

This is just was BZ2 needs.

Thanks alot for all your hard work.

Adam

(I figured out how to get them to work...sorry about that *wasted* post.
Now if I could only get them in a mod )

Thanks again man.
       

[Bull Dog]

What's a Five letter word for pain?




ARRRG

Deleted becuase I didn't read an above post carefully enough.

Edited Again,

Hey ZA if a human was to pilot one of these things, would it be like a normal scout, or would it be hyper?

And no I'm sorry I havn't had time to download these files yet.  My bz2 comp is haven problems.

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

I bet that scout freakin owned you

anyways, if it was in a strat and you were on my team, I'd keep it AI for sure

[Wingflier]

anyways, if it was in a strat and you were on my team, I'd keep it AI for sure

Are you talking to me Phoenix Flame?

I hope not...

lol this is funny, I hear a war coming on...

I owned those scouts 1v1 Phoenix...

It was only when it was 3v1 when they basically raped me.

...and even if they could rape me 1v1...what about extractor killing?  Do you really have time to tell all your AI scouts to destroy the enemy extractors while trying to build and defend your base?  Can your AI scouts plant scavengers while you are busy building your base?  What if I decide to mortar your AI scouts while they are defending something?  Will they come and attack me?  I think not.

It would be foolish to let the AI keep those scouts because even with ZA's current .odfs humans are still superior...

By the way...
Has anybody else noted that when you first fire upon enemy ships (hover ones only, but of all types)...that they seem to retreat, do a 360* turn, and only after that come back to attack you?
Is this a pathfinding issue?

Adam

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

what about extractor killing? Do you really have time to tell all your AI scouts to destroy the enemy extractors while trying to build and defend your base? Can your AI scouts plant scavengers while you are busy building your base? What if I decide to mortar your AI scouts while they are defending something? Will they come and attack me? I think not.

what about it?
yes
no, but I rarly give scavs to thugs anyway
lol, most people aint even smart to relize that anyways, so ya - the AI will act better
think again

It would be foolish to let the AI keep those scouts because even with ZA's current .odfs humans are still superior

nah, those scouts do better then alot of people ive seen play
overall - yes, humans are superior - but not many

[Wingflier]

how hard is it to plant a scav and destroy extractors without being told to?

[Spawn]

well, quite hard for idots who just want to fight against the odds

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

wing, seriously, put more thinking before you post

I, as the commander want loose scarp, and I already got 3 pools, I dont wanna deploy 4th pool cause I wanna keep it for loose, while giving it to someone else I cant control it
or a difrent situation, I got tons of scarp and I realy dont need any loose - I just want the pool to be capped (harder for them to kill)

I like to control my scavs and I dont like giving them to other people unless I can tell them EXACTLY (need ventrilo for that) what I want with the scav or I just dont care and 2 far to do it myself

and as spawn said, some people will just go to kill etc'

[Commando]

I'll give the scouts a try shortly.  Zero Angel, if you can modify the units for both races, a new recycler variant could be added that uses your enhanced ai.  I have one question though.  Do your tweaks affect the ship's handling characteristics or only the ai?

[Zero Angel]

My tweaks do not touch any aspect of the ship, except for what happens when an AI is piloting it.

A human-piloted ivenhscout is exactly the same as a human-piloted ivscout, there is no difference.

Commando, Re: me tuning all AIs for a new recy variant. I can do this, however I'm not exactly comfortable with some of the 'hacks' I am using right now, especially when it comes to iv/fvtanks and weapons switching.

If I allow an ivTank to fire his cannons and guns at the same time, this creates odd situations with some weapon combos where the tank will fire weapon types that humans would NEVER switch since the delay is so low. One example is chainguns and sp-stabs. The AI tank would be able to fire both at once, so would be more effective then a human at killing buildings, because the sp-stabs fire delay is so low that a human would never be able to cycle efficiently between that and chains.

To me, that is a disturbing hack. Yet if I set the tank up to ONLY fire its cannon, then it will have the same stupid behavior that its always had (ie: blast vs. extractors). One thing I can do is give the tank its normal AI (or one that uses normal weapon choosing logic) and set the mortar hardpoints to assault. Therefore the Tank would be able to mortar GTs and Asstanks, while using its cannon on combat craft. This has another drawback, it doesnt fit into the BZ2 weapon system. Sure we can make duplicate versions of all mortars so that normal mortars can fit on an assault hardpoint, but a problem would appear should another MOD choose to use the assault/mortar hardpoint for some special weapon like bombs.

Someone said that they would ask Ken to implement combatWMask and assaultWMask vars, I hope they are still up to that task.

[DarkFox]

because the sp-stabs fire delay is so low that a human would never be able to cycle efficiently between that and chains.

I may not be able to do it as well as your scouts, but I feel I must inform you that I often cycle SP/chain. Hell, I cycle SP/chain/mortar when I'm hitting a pool. I even switch iongun/plasma cannon in a warrior. It's nothing completely extraordinary.