Bloody Omaha

[TomTom]

TNR360 (who I believe has wandered these forums) has a new realistic beach map Bloody_omaha_b1 (mapname is bloody_omaha). So I have thrown together a playable WIP to show off how shooter_mortars can be used to give a battlefield ambiance. Don't think I will take these waypoints very far, there are already omnibot waypoints available and it is a big map with just 3 objectives. Anyway the FritzBot waypoints are here. If you want to take them over just post a request in this thread.

[TNR360]

always liked fritzbot the best I just wish it was more compatible with other mods. I'll give the waypoint a try .

[TomTom]

Yes they are the most faithful to the original ET magic. Saw a couple of minor things to fix so their will be a 0.02 (with a shift in the axis spawns too). I'll post it after some more testing.

[TNR360]

it works great

a few things

Axis bots prefer running on the beach than using MG42s
Axis dont start shooting until the allies are 1/2 to 3/4s up the beach

although maybe if the axis did the above it may be too hard for allies?

and will the shooter mortars scripted work on any mod other than fritzbot?

I think it looks great and plan to use it, Id like it if I didnt have to map it and could use your script

[TomTom]

Just Posted 0.02. A bad connect and a bad node placement are fixed, lots tweaked some additions. Axis now split the initial spawn half and half between the two rooms.

The running on the beach is due to two reasons. One they are preprogrammed to run towards the opponent when fighting (sniper camps and field op camps may differ from this). Two, I have 2 classes programmed to try to capture the flag. Why the other classes especially the engineers go on the beach I am not sure. There is only one camp open to the engineers (I think) behind the barb wire thingies. One thing that would help slightly would be ladders out of the trench that do not expose the bots to fire from the beach.

The bots do not see the opponent beyond their bot sight limit. Snipers and field ops can see further I think but the field ops need a reason to do so
like being hit by bullets from beyond the bot sight distance. (and the snipers are camping on the upper ridge.) Low Xp bots also do not see the full distance. I used 3450 instead of the expected >4000 for bot_SightDist. It proved to be good enough for the panzers to attack the mg nests. The beach is maybe 7000+, and you might find getting killed by an unseen enemy frustrating (though some weapons give only 20% damage >2500). Feel free to open the aiscript and try any bot_SightDist value you like (use sv_pure 0 for unpacked waypoints).

2- The scripted shooter_mortars should work in ET Pro which also supports scripted entities. Of course you can compile them into the map so they would appear in any variety. How much they cost in fps terms I don't know. I test on 1GB these days with a modest window size and don't worry about fps until this single CPU gets overtaxed from being on too long (Thank you Microsoft for that).

[TNR360]

thats a good point about the mortars, with omni bots I had to play on lowest settings and still lagged but with fritzbots I played with highest plus the mortars, it may be due to me having 2gb, 3ghz processor and nvidia 7300 but man the omnibots use alot of memory and dont really do much.

I think I may add a few mortars just for testing...

[TNR360]

While playing allies I could easily run up and get the flag with the standard bot view distance. After messing with it a bit I set it to 7300, I noticed a small fps drop but nothing near as bad as with omni bot

but at 7300 it felt more realistic and simulated online play better, making it harder to get the flag.

[TomTom]

Tried your 7300 on 2 rounds. Did not see any long range artillery. Did see bots wasting ammo at the waters edge and a few panzers half way up. The flag was taken in under 3 1/2 minutes both rounds. (did you see blowfishie's complaint on filefront about the omnibots on mg nests?)

Now if realism is what you want, the Allies would not waste Thompson bullets nor panzerfausts at a distance of over 700 feet. The Thompson was considered effective in distances of less than 250 feet with double that being its max range. The panzerfaust 30 was good for about 100 feet (the 60's 200 foot range was only available a few months later.) Note the bazooka M1A1 was effective at up to 450 feet. That leaves the M1 garand which could do double the 700 feet (though would you use your limited ammo supply without a scope???) and the rifle grenade (no specific specs but some rifle grenades had a max range of 600 feet). So as I remember it a different Tom as Captain Miller rallied his men to "move up the beach" and that is just what IMO the bots should do. So I would think 4500 might be a realistic value especially if the map was played in a campaign. (BTW bullet damage is max at <1500 and min at >2500 see g_weapon.c)

Now it would be nice if the mg42s in the game were better because they did have the range and the Axis would have zero'd their artillery and mortars to near the waters edge. One thing that could be tried is instead of using the mapname.bots file, use a cfg file to add the bots. That way the fieldops could be given better skill than the others.
Another thing I might try is adding a fake-steal under the flag. The allied bots might ignore more damage and focus better on the flag thinking it was a steal.
- - -

On another note, I find it easy to go along the left flank and fast into the trench. That is where I would put a mine field (say 8 mines zig zag from the small tower) to force the player to cross to the right and maybe expose himself to mg fire. A few mines on the far right and some Achtung! plaques and barbwire could explain why the flanks outside the play area are no-go zones. I think I could script some misc_landmines if the map allowed landmines.

[TNR360]

thanks for all the ideas, I will be replacing the clips with minefields on beta2

I also like the idea of making selectable boats and distributing the spawns among them.

[TomTom]

Now that I think about it in reality the mines placed between the shingle and the sea would likely only have been anti-tank versions. Anti personnel mines would have been placed at the top of the shingle to avoid being washed out by tides. I suppose they could have anchored some or maybe used stake mines but not trip wires. You could also add the achtung signs on the flanks at the top of the cliff as they would likely be mined. Anyway the barb wire on the clips sounds good.

Looking at the wiki the beach length to the shingle bank is very real. The distance from the shingle bank to the cliff I don't know, as only the max distance of 200yds is given. Not having anything more than top view to go on I am guessing maybe someplace from sector Fox Red to Fox Green is possible. BTW if you want to add a DD Tank for eye candy the wiki has a picture on one on the beach with its 2 snorkels on the back and another one is here. Not many polygons to add to the already static Sherman models that have appeared in a few maps (e.g. 2bit's tiger_110 map) if the fps allows.

As to the waypoints I am going to try to get the axis engrs to use the upper trench route to an engr camp by the far gun ("East anti-tank gun"). I think the axis bots are losing because they needed to be in the east sector to have time to defuse and don't have time to fight inside between the 2 spawns.