Teleporters

[the bindlestiff]

There was some discussion on another thread about pathing teleporter devices. The general concensus seemed to be to place connected nodes at each teleporter so the bots would see a continuous path. I have found a way to do it with one node and one action and no connections.

Egypt Team Temple (CP) uses teleporters to get to a couple of inaccessible flags. At the entry teleporter, I imbed a control-point node with its flag and entity number set for the far-off flag. At the actual flag, I place a normal flag action BUT I set it's closest node number to that of the one at the teleporter. Normally, when Joe Bot sees that he has a flag to raise, he'll head for the node closest to the flag, then search for the nearby action and the flag. In the case of the teleporter, when he goes up to kiss the node, he is suddenly whisked away to points unknown. When he pops out, he finds the action he was looking for right next to him. So far, so good. But he is confused by the sudden dislocation and spends a few seconds with his face to the wall, trying to return to his original location. Eventually he gives up on that, checks his GPS to find out where he is now, and determines what he can do at that location.

At the return teleporter by the flag, I embed a regular node. I put a roam action at the teleporter exit and, again, set its closest node to the one in the teleporter. As Joe goes up to the node, "poof," he's back to where he started from and there in front of him is the roam action he was heading for. The same short interval of confusion ensues and then he runs off to join his fellows for the remainder of the battle.

I have not found out how to eliminate the few seconds of confusion when the bot exits from a teleporter. I suspect that it's part of his navigation system and probably is normal. It does leave him vunerable to enemy fire, though.

Beam me up, Scotty!

[Maleficus]

Interesting adaption.

Yes, the confusion is there because the bots weren't coded with teleporters in mind, so he doesn't "understand" how he moved so far off his path all of the sudden. I'd have to code in teleporter logic for it to go away.

[the bindlestiff]

Originally Posted by Maleficus

Interesting adaption.

Yes, the confusion is there because the bots weren't coded with teleporters in mind, so he doesn't "understand" how he moved so far off his path all of the sudden. I'd have to code in teleporter logic for it to go away.

There are so few Wolfenstein maps with teleporters that it probably wouldn't be worth the effort. The current coding works well enough as it is -- the confusion only lasts a few seconds before the bots regain their bearings.