AI netgame teams

[vinylrake]

...http://www.memecenter.com/fun/2817879/i ... ultiplayer

Nice.

[Jon God]

http://tain.totalcodex.net/items/show/w ... the-gimble

Not sure if this was mentioned before...

[fildred13]

JG, I was shown Wabe in the Gimble years ago when I first started looking into this project. And, jason, he's right - that's a good place to look at the very basics of setting up multiplayer myth.

My only complaint is how mind-numbingly simple it is. The "AI" is only intelligent in the most academic sense of the word, and the gameplay is chaotic and without thought. I'm trying to promote interesting tactical choices and a dynamic battlefield.

As a skeleton for starting your own project though, this has a lot of the basics.

[jason_ac]

that's a good place to look at the very basics of setting up multiplayer myth.

Although I'd still be stuck with no f7, or teams/flags/scores displaying? If I can't match netgame play "reasonably" close enough, it would fail in my main goal.

[fildred13]

Although I'd still be stuck with no f7, or teams/flags/scores displaying? If I can't match netgame play "reasonably" close enough, it would fail in my main goal.

As of now, there are only 2 ways to "play netgames" with the AI.

Option 1 is the only real option: make it a SOLO map, which means you forfeit f7, netgame scoring, everything. You can script "fakes" in. Like a polygon that test to see if someone has captured a CTF flag, and another to test if the flag is contested by its owner. That is what I do in MY solo as it stands. It works for veterans because they know the basics and I've scripted in the announcer for important parts, like time remaining and flag captured and what not.

Option 2 is to make the map a multiplayer map with the real territories flags or whatever. The only way to get the enemy team to appear, though, is to run a second copy of myth and just not play on that copy. I have 2 myth installations on this computer, so to I ran one, ignored it, and played the AI that I had scripted and it worked like a charm. That is why I think my feature request is doable. I just need a fear checkbox or, more likely, a loathing MA that would allow me to "insert" AI players and their name/teamname/colors. Myth does the rest already.

So jason, if you're willing to run a second copy of myth, as I have, then yeah it works. But a newbie would never do that, nor would anybody really, hence the need for the feature.

[Graydon]

Pure speculation, and I have the expectation that the monsters would just get deleted/killed off....... but have you tried spawning the enemy team on team 0, and then charming them to team 1/2/3 after the multi match starts? Might be a way to fool multiplayer's test if a player has dropped out. Not sure how that would wreak havoc on your current script setup pointing to specific monster containers though. Just an idea that popped into mind.

[fildred13]

I played around with similar things, but it never seemed to work.

I tried "Unit Control -- Team Index to Detach {1}" but that didn't seem to do anything? What map action are you suggesting that would move the unit from team0 to team1?

I want to try it, but it won't create a team in the F7 menu, not to mention I don't think it would inherit team colors. Plus, if they don't show up as a team, then how will you know who won at the end? Most importantly, if they don't register as active teams, it will never go into sudden death, for example, in an lmoth or when equal numbers of flags are held in flag games.

[Pyro]

I don't think you can detach a unit to a team that is not on the map (was not created). Did you try having the AI units in team -1? It can be quite messy as team -1 tends to be group with team 0 or whatever the host player team is in that round. If done right, it will at least let you have enemies in a team not dependent on a human without being marked as being part of team 0 for scoring.

It isn't perfect, but there aren't many options as I'm sure you know. You could always make use of the Custom Gametype so that the game doesn't follow the rules of a gametype that may be limiting you in some way. Again, it won't give you a different team without a human but maybe it helps in other ways.

[fildred13]

I did use -1 in my first attempts. And yeah, it has a bunch of limitations. It works fine for, say, fetch that fuck with anybody that gets near their little hill or something. But it doesn't even begin to fit the bill for a true AI team, replete with the ability to capture flags etc.

And yes, custom gametype is obviously not what I'm looking for. I want the versatility (and MA conservation) of the actual netgames, just utilized by AI teams.

I want to stress how close I am, and why I THINK it is a doable feature request. If I just run a second instance of Myth, join my own game, and don't do ANYTHING - I am playing against the computer in a netgame. The AI fights perfectly for both me and the enemy, they capture flags and balls and they get a score and everything. They even carry over their vets like champions. All I need is a map action that takes the place of that second instance of myth. Let me declare Team 0 undeletable, and provide it with a Team Name and Color Pair that is used if a player doesn't sit in that seat. BOOM, awesome coop/netgame fusions. I know it isn't quite so simple, but I really think I'm on to something awesome here and I want it to come to life. I'm curious what the programmers think about this possibility.