Bots Leap of faith

[Muttley]

Can someone please help me. I have almost finished pathnoding my latest AS map but for effective bot defence on the final objective they have to jump quite a height, roughly 400 units i think, into water. They are unfortunately not too willing to jump and just run about on the edge of the platform.

I have tried jumpspots and liftexits etc but am unsure on how to use these properly. I have it set out like so...

Liftexit at the top-->the big drop-->Liftcenter and Liftexit at the bottom (just below the water surface). Do I need to adjust the properties of these actors?

B4 u ask the pathnodes are connected (in pathnode view) from the top ledge to the water and the bots know it's the shortest route to take.

I know I could do a trick with putting a brush over the edge path noding then delete the brush and rebuild it etc but its not very tidy and the map has a long rebuild time.

Also I have included jumper triggers and kickers to try and force them over but they're having none of it lol. Please can someone help me cos theyre doing my head in.

 

[Muttley]

heres a screeny...they have to jump from the red railings....pathnodes work on the railings btw.

 

[bobtheking]

you might try puting one liftExit on the railing, one in the water, and the jumpSpot just a little ways out and below the railing. i am not sure though..

 

[StoneViper]

yeah i read somewhere that you may have to place a pathnode very close to the top of the cliff but out a ways hovering in mid-air to trick the bots to think the jump isn't so high

 

[Muttley]

Thanks I'll go try both ure suggestions now

 

[Muttley]

argh theyre not even going to the edge now and r using the long route.....i think the only reason they were before is because i placed all those kickers on the railing. The pathnode over the edge wont link with all the other pathnodes as is the problem with mid air pathnodes. The lift exits are being ignored, they are linked in the path view so are in sight of each other so should work I have placed the jumpspot aswell but its not happening.

Any clues or other suggestions please?

Can someone tell me the command to see what the bots are thinking as well please cos this would help me identify exactly what they r doing, it may not help in this case but would be useful to know anyway.

Thanks,
Rich aka Muttley>]SaW[<

 

[Laff]

verbose is the command...do in spectator mode

 

[Muttley]

thnx mate

For the jump I've built a tall cube and am experimenting with the bots mwahahahaha they will jump to their deaths by the time i have finished with them!!!

 

[Bot_40]

Use liftexit at the top of the drop, then lift center and another lift exit at the bottom. Link them all useing the lift tag field in each of them. The bots will be more than willing to fhrow themselves off the cliff. Especially if you set the extra cost of the lift center to 0. You can easily get the bots to sucide this way too

 

[Muttley]

Bot_40 mate you little beauty!!!!!!!!! I could kiss you.....but I wont

They leap effortlessly to their deaths now, nice. I didnt have the extra cost turned to 0 such a little detail but so important.

Cheers everyone for the help

 

[Muttley]

now the bots just run on the spot at the edge of the railing and refuse to jump or walk off. Could someone give me a reason for them doing this please. The lift exits and center are setup properly, i know this because they work on the cube level i built.
The only way I could get them onto the railing was by placing kickers and jumpers on it could that contribute towards them getting stuck?

Also the map has developed a few bugs with the lighting ie coronas have stopped working for a couple of lights and some actors refuse to be lit up....they are lighted up until after I build lighting and they are pitch black again is this bug fixable? Does it effect the map if i add one extra light after I have built....I know its bad practice to do this but it shouldnt make a difference should it?

 

[Bot_40]

Try moving the lift-exit at the top as close to the edge as possible. When I did some experimenting, if the lift exit was not close to the edge, the bot's sot of slid alonf the ground before falling off the edge. In my case, the ground was sloped towards the edge, if the ground is flat then the bots might just run on the spot.

If all else fails, add a kicker, set kicked classes to BOT and then set the kick velocies so that it kicks the bots over the edge, this will not affect players.

 

[Muttley]

Thanks mate I'll try that now

 

[Muttley]

nice 1 mate u know your stuff ....they use the lift exit perfectly now

Cheers,

Rich aka Muttley>]SaW[<

Visit us at www.clansaw.co.uk

 

[Evil_Cope]

didnt bot make a whole map pack around making bots kill themselves in nasty horrible ways?


i must go find it...lol

 

[Varpu]

One lift exit over the railing.
One lift center under the water.
One lift exit under the water next to the lift center.

This works if You have their lift tags set properly (same) and if there is no
other object around having the same tag. This is important, there shall be NO OTHER object having the same tag. You can check this by using always CAPS on Your own tags (which are easy to keep track of). If the letters go lowercase then this tag is already taken.

Now, the bots will jump into the water. The lift center must be there (under water) so that they can reach it barefoot. Another anomaly is that the bots believe they can go back the same route they jumped down. This can be inhibitted by setting the OneWayPath to true, bDirectional to true (to show the arrow) and directioning ALL THREE of them so that the bots don't see the nodes they left behind (180 degree view angle) if using any of them.

It is easy to set up but takes some tweaking.

Now, the bots should have something to go after into the water. A defense point for example.

 

[Muttley]

Thanks Varpu nice tips as always

they dont attempt to go back up though, I have spectated them alot and the pathnoding is fine they get into their positions very efficiently, however better safe than sorry bah.