mr.devolver
New member
Is this intended?
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A19 NPCs DMT Mod
- Thread starter xyth
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sphereii
Well-known member
Yes. In the latest release, I tied the dialog to only display relevant responses based on their AI Task. So the NPC Baker and the like, do not have the Guard AI task, which also gives the Stay option.Is this intended?
The options always display previously, but they wouldn't do anything when you selected them to Stay, because they were missing that task.
mr.devolver
New member
I understand that guard command may not be appropriate for all types of NPCs, but stay? No stay means they will always follow you. You can't prevent them from being eaten by cannibal Joel, you can't leave them at the base while you drive to pick up some loot and let's be honest, this is annoying because they can't keep up with a vehicle and they get lost fighting zombies very often, so they won't really follow you that far and you always have to go back and try to find them if you don't want to lose them. Right now, it's not convenient to take them on missions that are far away. I would love to, but they can't get into a vehicle with us and they can't keep up with the vehicle either. That means you are very likely to lose some NPCs and the tokens you invested into them, one way or another, simply because you can't babysit them all the time.
Couple of suggestions:
1. Right now, NPCs have no collision with vehicles. What if they just kept teleporting to their leader when he drives and would strictly follow him without trying to attack enemies until the leader gets out of vehicle? That way at least they wouldn't get lost.
2. NPCs always seem to put their own priorities higher than the priorities of the leader. This is perfectly visible when you run through the city thinking that your NPC is right behind you, but then you stop at the end of the city and look behind and your NPC is gone. When you check your map, he's far away, trying to break into one of the houses in the city, because there's a zombie he wants to kill and he takes no prisoners and cuts everything and everyone with his sickle. Not that it would be a bad thing, especially in crowded situations, but I think that he shouldn't run that far away from his leader just to test his awesome sickle on a poor zombie behind barricades.
I think that if they attacked only enemies that get close, that would be another way to prevent them from getting lost.
Basically when they are following their leader, they would only attack enemies that get close and when they guard or stay, they would be allowed to run as far as needed to kill the enemies, so that they could cover bigger area.
Right now it's kinda funny, because while they often run far away to kill a zombie somewhere in the barricaded house, they aren't smart enough to react early when a zombie slowly creeps upon them directly from behind and hits them. I mean, they should be able to hear the creepy sounds of a zombie behind them and smell him, even before he gets close, so they could react early enough, turn around and bam.
sphereii
Well-known member
Stay and Guard are the same AI Task, other than a slight adjustment in position. Stay will force them to stand still. I can try to remove that from the AI task, and see if Stay keeps them in position without the guard AI task. It may make them vulnerable to being attacked.
I played around with a few things with the vehicle and nothing has worked yet. I'll keep playing with it.
The sight and detection range is too generous now. If they follow you, their aggro range should be a lot smaller. Maybe have some kind of escape if your leader gets too far away, that it'll ignore its attack target and just run.
mr.devolver
New member
Ok, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions too quickly here, so what's the plan with the NPCs that don't have guard or stay options? Because right now, once hired, the only way to get rid of them is to let them die and I imagine that's not really the goal lol
Also, I would love to know something. I installed UMA zombies mod (Khelldon - Bad Company UMA Zombies) which I believe creates a set of zombies using the game character system and that's very cool, but naturally as a fan of your NPC mod, it made me wonder - would it be possible to throw in some of these UMA characters to the sets of wandering traders / bandits and NPCs?
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mr.devolver
New member
Well, I would like to test, but I'm not really good at modding. Perhaps a more experienced person could take a look at what can be done in that part. The more NPCs, the better.
I have lots of ideas for cool mods and quests, but unfortunately I have no idea how I could create them.
I was thinking about Xyth's bandits and traders using UMA set of characters and various quests which could be random encounters that would perfectly fit to different overhauls because they are generic.
For example, you find random airdrop supply crates that contain better loot, but they are guarded by bandits who attack you as soon as you come close. You may encounter injured NPCs running away from zombies or bandits where you can decide who you want to help - will you help the NPC by killing bandits / zombies, will you help the bandits by killing the NPC? Or will you just ignore the event and leave them to their fate or perhaps kill them all? Each decision could have different consequences. Helping NPCs may unlock better stuff in trader's inventory, grant better prices or bonus of extra first aid kits you would receive for free in form of a supply crate, helping bandits may unlock special supply crates with powerful drugs and potions, you could receive casino tokens as reward for helping them and maybe bandits could offer help during the horde nights, because they have better gear, can take more damage and given their courage boosted by drugs, they just like some extra action anyway and don't care that much who they help and you wouldn't feel bad for losing them at horde nights either.
sphereii
Well-known member
The best time to start learning how to mod is yesterday.Well, I would like to test, but I'm not really good at modding. Perhaps a more experienced person could take a look at what can be done in that part. The more NPCs, the better.
I have lots of ideas for cool mods and quests, but unfortunately I have no idea how I could create them.
I was thinking about Xyth's bandits and traders using UMA set of characters and various quests which could be random encounters that would perfectly fit to different overhauls because they are generic.
For example, you find random airdrop supply crates that contain better loot, but they are guarded by bandits who attack you as soon as you come close. You may encounter injured NPCs running away from zombies or bandits where you can decide who you want to help - will you help the NPC by killing bandits / zombies, will you help the bandits by killing the NPC? Or will you just ignore the event and leave them to their fate or perhaps kill them all? Each decision could have different consequences. Helping NPCs may unlock better stuff in trader's inventory, grant better prices or bonus of extra first aid kits you would receive for free in form of a supply crate, helping bandits may unlock special supply crates with powerful drugs and potions, you could receive casino tokens as reward for helping them and maybe bandits could offer help during the horde nights, because they have better gear, can take more damage and given their courage boosted by drugs, they just like some extra action anyway and don't care that much who they help and you wouldn't feel bad for losing them at horde nights either.
The next best time is to start learning today.
mr.devolver
New member
Yes, that sounds very nice, but we both know that reality is harder than that.
I mean, how many of those things I mentioned earlier could be done with just xml modding alone? I bet that most of what I described would have to be done by using scripts and while there's very limited information about xml modding, there is even less for scripts and there's a quite obvious reason behind that, because those who created SDX, they worked on it in their free time and we all appreciate that, but no one can really expect them to make some kind of exhaustive documentation presenting and describing each and every little function that is available for modders to do this or that and learn how things work behind the scenes and you know well that one thing is to learn how to code, another is to understand how to apply that knowledge here in order to code some scripts for a mod, because even when you learn how to code in C#, you're still missing the knowledge on how to communicate with the game through scripts to make the game do exactly what you want it to do. Without documentation, you're missing exactly that one piece of knowledge you really need to make this or that happen in this game and therefore it becomes out of reach for regular people.
xyth
Community Moderator
All true, but both Sphereii and I started at near zero almost 2 years ago, with no understanding of the game design or modding. yet here we are. I taught myself xml, then Unity, with no background in programming or either of those. Sphereii knows how to code in C#, but had no knowledge of how the game worked. Thousands of modding hours later, we have some clue now how to mod. So pick a day and start experimenting!
mr.devolver
New member
But how would you experiment if you don't know how to tell the game "do this", "do that". I mean, C# seems close enough to what I used to work with, but even if I was good at C#, I still have zero knowledge of the internal functionality of the game, so even if I knew the language, there are still some magic words that I have no idea about and the game just wouldn't understand me.
Darkstardragon
New member
yea, i just learned how to import npcs a few weeks ago was brutal to learn but had a good coach lolBut how would you experiment if you don't know how to tell the game "do this", "do that". I mean, C# seems close enough to what I used to work with, but even if I was good at C#, I still have zero knowledge of the internal functionality of the game, so even if I knew the language, there are still some magic words that I have no idea about and the game just wouldn't understand me.
still havin some probs with some of my npcs but gettin help to sort em
take this guy for example, he loves to shoot low now where he was shootin up 45 degrees before
sphereii
Well-known member
New update available.
SDX_EAITask, EntityAliveSDX, aXUi_Dialog updated.
Fixes include:
- Stay Command available regardless of Guard AI Task
- NPCs will walk away from you a bit if you get too close, letting you get out of tight jams
- EyeHeight exposed to XML for aiming
- NPCs will now teleport to you if they lose track of you.
SDX_EAITask, EntityAliveSDX, aXUi_Dialog updated.
Fixes include:
- Stay Command available regardless of Guard AI Task
- NPCs will walk away from you a bit if you get too close, letting you get out of tight jams
- EyeHeight exposed to XML for aiming
- NPCs will now teleport to you if they lose track of you.
Darkstardragon
New member
Dang bro, nice work again and again!
mr.devolver
New member
Testing before going to bed, thank you for the update!
Teleport seems to work pretty well and believe it or not, it actually starts to feel like Skyrim or Fallout companions and I do mean that in very positive way! I haven't noticed anything wrong about the teleport, it feels natural. I mean, you can give him freedom to go wherever he wants, because he will eventually get to you once you get far away and that's pretty cool. You know, he wandered off into a hill and I kept moving the opposite way on the road. Soon I met a snow zombie, but I had no weapons, just a torch and of course that zombie started to move towards me wanting to attack me and then... out of sudden Mickey D, my old friend, the baker guy showed up from behind me and went straight ahead to that zombie and attacked him even before he reached me, so overall now they actually seem to care about their leader lol, that's more like it!
Of course, there are still some small funny issues here and there, but they are surely nothing you couldn't handle. This is probably unrelated to the update, but I just noticed NPCBaker was trying to break the door into a POI I wanted him to help me loot and when I came close behind him, I noticed the door was unlocked lol it was funny.
But I do believe they used to be able to open unlocked doors?
Darkstardragon
New member
Man, thanks for doing so much testing on the mod really appreciate it as im sure the authors xyth and sphere do. I havent been testing it as much as i would like but seems as though youre hitting all the major issues. As far as them breaking blocks and doors etc, thats hit or miss as far as ive noticed. A solution to them wrecking your base could be to decrease the amt of block damage they do drastically.Testing before going to bed, thank you for the update!
Teleport seems to work pretty well and believe it or not, it actually starts to feel like Skyrim or Fallout companions and I do mean that in very positive way! I haven't noticed anything wrong about the teleport, it feels natural. I mean, you can give him freedom to go wherever he wants, because he will eventually get to you once you get far away and that's pretty cool. You know, he wandered off into a hill and I kept moving the opposite way on the road. Soon I met a snow zombie, but I had no weapons, just a torch and of course that zombie started to move towards me wanting to attack me and then... out of sudden Mickey D, my old friend, the baker guy showed up from behind me and went straight ahead to that zombie and attacked him even before he reached me, so overall now they actually seem to care about their leader lol, that's more like it!
Of course, there are still some small funny issues here and there, but they are surely nothing you couldn't handle. This is probably unrelated to the update, but I just noticed NPCBaker was trying to break the door into a POI I wanted him to help me loot and when I came close behind him, I noticed the door was unlocked lol it was funny.
mr.devolver
New member
Speaking of cows, I've never seen a single animal I could tame with Animal husbandry installed. If it works, they are probably very rare to spawn.
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