OpenArena Message Boards

Hi again!!! I wanna try making some sort of simple monsters implementation, because we know the FOSS fps scene has a shortage of singleplayer/coop games and it's probably possible to have OA fill this gap somewhat a little more without altering the core arena gameplay.

but here's my catch
- no The Dark Conjuction code, even though that's open source, it's under the restrictive Q3A SDK license
- no hacked up bot code

Monsters I want to make:

- a weak punch monster
- a weak projectile monster
- a weak explode monster or barrel
- a medium projectile monster
- a strong big smash monster
- a weak flying monster
- a weak swimming monster

AI i want to make:
- run to player
- no "smart AI" like strafing and crouching.
- pretty much Quake AI, which is literally "see/hear/get damaged by enemy, then run to enemy fire at enemy in range"

Gametypes:
- Singleplayer
- coop
- DMSP (like Cube etc. uses any map as an invasion waves kind of thing)

Interesting... will it be a Mod?

Will it have a "story" to follow, like "the dark conjunction" (DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/ModCompat/The_Dark_Conjunction or will it be something more similar to the two extra modes of "hunt" q3 mod (DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/ModCompat/Hunt ?
That "dmsp" thing seems something similar to the "stu" mode of "hunt".

Gig from cell phone.

It sounds great.

I am not completly sure about the bot code. I believe a little roaming would be a good thing.

I would recommend starting with a proof of concept with just "a weak punch monster" to see how it works.

So far i've:

- imitating quake behavior, made doors with wait -1 stay open, for doors that are opened switches (or potential other uses......like breaking glass :) )
- converted a few Open Quartz monster MDLs to MD3 to serve as placeholders
- made monster_puncher just an entity that displays models/monster/puncher/tris.md3
- made monster_army, monster_dog, monster_knight alias monster_puncher to get my broken oblige test map useful

Cool!  :) Please provide us a test mod when possible!

They can be shot and gibbed now


Monsters are being devved here btw
https://github.com/OpenArena/leixperimental/commits/master


I think it could be data driven, with the server defining the monsters by reading .cfg files i.e. scripts/zombietree.monster or models/monsters/zombietree/monster.cfg where health/score/size/variousmovementspeeds/behavior can be defined

Can't seem to have function pointers in structs on QVMs so far,, so can't  make the typical sight/melee/attack/walk/death/etc pointers quake and quake2 monsters use, so i'll have to figure out some workaround

Maybe taking a look to The Dark Conjunction code may give you some hint?
I'm not saying to copy-paste their source code... just to figure out how they managed this thing, in general.

What happen if the swimming monster try to follow you outside from water or if an other monster try to follow you in water ?

This evoke me several monster ideas I had for a game (to exploit this idea (http://cubeengine.com/forum.php?action=display_thread&thread_id=2706)) :
- a monster that run at an average speed but swim twice faster
- several monsters that can't swim but can walk in water as if there were no water (except they can have an other speed in water)
- a monster able to fly but not swim (if it go in water, it sink but can walk in, like the previous ones)
- other flying monsters, that can swim or can't enter in the water
- a floating monster (a boat robot or something like)
- a monster that alway jump when it move
- monsters that can't move (mainly turrets but also a boss; some of them can be pushed an others can't move at all)
- swimming monsters (they can't leave water)


I suggest also add DMcoop.