Mystifying bot camp problems

[the bindlestiff]

I have a sniper camp on the top of a roof. My sniper bots climb the ladder to the roof, run to the sniper camp action and immediately jump off the roof. Then they cluster at the wall below the action and jump around apparently trying to get back to the camp action. Eventually they'll get back on the path, go the ladder and repeat. Changing the radius didn't help -- it is currently set at 45. The action is not very close to the edge of the roof, either. I made the close node a walking node, but it didn't make any difference. As a test, I placed another sniper camp on a small hill on the ground nearby. Here the sniper ran up and crouched as he should.

On another roof, I have a regular camp action. Bots will gather at the foot of the wall below the action and try to climb the wall. There is a valid path without breaks leading up to the roof nearby but they don't use it.

I'm testing with just a few bots and no enemies to confuse the issue. There are several roam actions and a spawn flag around to keep them happy.

Does anyone have any idea about how to control these behaviours?

One other question: the tutorial mentions the panzer camp as being flaky. Is this still true or can it now be used as advertised?

[Maleficus]

Panzer camps should be working fine - I wasn't aware they were flaky.

[the bindlestiff]

Originally Posted by Maleficus

Panzer camps should be working fine - I wasn't aware they were flaky.

They were cautioned about in the tutorial, along with the "jump" node flag #16.

I just solved the second problem mentioned in my post -- the action had a wrong close node.

No such luck with the first problem -- the bots reach the action and then begin jumping wildly about, ending up with a -50 health jump to the ground below. Then they cluster at the bottom and try to get back up the wall to the action. 'Tis a puzzlement!

[CrapShoot]

If you post or email the nav, I'll take a look at it. I had similar issues with sniper actions on assault. They were solved by changing the angle of approach towards the action.

[the bindlestiff]

Originally Posted by CrapShoot

If you post or email the nav, I'll take a look at it. I had similar issues with sniper actions on assault. They were solved by changing the angle of approach towards the action.

Thanks to Crapshoot, the problem is solved! It seems that the bots are very touchy about railings and if they get too close to one they will start their wild trampoline jumping until they fall off the roof. Crapshoot positioned the action and path nodes such that the bots encounter them before spotting the railing. I managed to scooch them up a little further to a better sniper shooting position to the point just before the bots lose control. Works consistently now.

They'll never made it back down the ladder, though. It has railings on each side and a guard railing around the entry to the ladder. The bots cannot be persuaded to enter the cavity above the ladder -- they get close and begin their jumping. I guess I'll just path a jump back down and let the bots take a 50-point hit on their health. Looks better than frantic jumping around the rooftop.

[Maleficus]

When I get the chance, I'll add a no_jump node flag, but its going to be a while - really busy with ET demo ATM.

I'm surprised they can't use the ladder tho - mp_dam has the same setup you describe, and they work fine.

[the bindlestiff]

Originally Posted by Maleficus

I'm surprised they can't use the ladder tho - mp_dam has the same setup you describe, and they work fine.

I fixed it! Your statement inspired me to try again. I had tried several methods of placing the top ladder node, including the ladder from mp_dam. I went back and looked at it again. The only noticeable difference is that the dam ladder entry is surrounded by a chain link fence and the island one isn't. I tried to copy the node placement exactly. After some tweaking, I got my bot to make an attempt to descend -- he'd jump into the ladder entry then bounce out onto the ladder guard, then repeat until he missed and fell. But once in a while he'd spin down the ladder. When he bounced out of the ladder entry it seemed like he was jumping on thin air -- what could he be hitting? I figured that the bounding box was bigger than the actual animation and that he must be hitting the edge of the ladder.

Then I viewed from a different angle. The path to the ladder from the camp is in the form of a "J" with the ladder at the short end. I used "/timescale 0.3" to run the bot in slow motion so I could see exactly what was happening. I noticed he would make the turn around the curve and swing wide at the final node before encountering the ladder top node. Although he didn't look like he hit anything, he must have been just grazing the sidepost of the railing which sent him into his obstacle-avoidance maneuvers. The swing around the final node also left him going into the ladder entry at a slight angle.

So I dropped the node radii from 15 to 10 to make him follow a more accurate path. That helped a little. Then I made him walk to the turning node so he'd make a tighter turn. That helped a lot. Finally, I adjusted the node position to the right a little to compensate for the bot's turn. Now he whisks down the ladder like a spider into a vacuum cleaner. Was worth the three hours of observation and tweaking it took to figure it out!

[Maleficus]

Originally Posted by the bindlestiff

I figured that the bounding box was bigger than the actual animation and that he must be hitting the edge of the ladder.

This is correct.

Heres a great example to see how the game works (type the following cmds in console when at the main menu):

devmap mp_beach
g_debugBullets 2
g_friendlyfire 0
cg_thirdperson 1
god


Now run around shooting teammates or enemies, and let them shoot you. Crouch, swim, whatever - you'll see exactly what the bbox looks like compared to the animation, and you'll see how its bigger than your model.

That bbox is what is used for collisions against map geometry, detects bullet hits, etc, etc.


Cheers!