I'm discussing the next big phase of this mod on Reddit -- based on feedback and polls, users will decide how to proceed with a new AI Framework for ALL OF SKYRIM, including enemies AND allies. Your reflections and feedback welcome! Link below:
How can this interact with mods of follower and script of the main game ? Is this compatible or only ovveriding without vanilla or overwritten alternative to works with / without / withandwithout ?
Just wanted to give a big shout out regarding things to come! These include:
* A new video which brings together all the elements of game design discussed in prior releases. * New additions to the mod! Including new locations, dungeons, and enemies. * A general framework for AI to be shared with other modders, including the Skywind crew.
Stay tuned! Feedback and questions welcome, as always.
Its the ai framework that has me extremely interested. I am the one to blame for Sands of Time, my encountrer mod.I have never been happy with Skyrim ai and while there have been some valiant attempts by other mothers to supply better ai, they still are working withinthe confines of what Bethesda provides. But not you. I looked at the source code of one of your key scripts. You provide scripted ai and this new ai not in game. (I wished you supplied source code though, royal pain to decompile them).
The question is though, how soon will the framework be avaialable as a modders resource?
Hey, nice!! I caught Sands of Time on Broudal, and was very impressed by the breadth and depth of changes to the vanilla game. All aspects were well-thought-out, and desperately needed, ESPECIALLY the fast-travel challenge. Why give players essentially a “free teleport” to any known spot on the map WITHOUT consequences?
I’m flattered you took the time to try and de-compile some of my stuff – everything I have out now is just considered “sketch work”, the result of iterative tinkering instead of a complete re-build from the ground up. The AI framework will be more of the latter, and much better organized.
As I’m sketching it out, the AI framework would include the following abilities, all of which would NOT require them to be hard-coded into each Actor:
* Check on the status of local teammates. For healers or controllers, this would allow them to judge when to apply spells. * Check for local bodies to loot. * Check for the relative local strength of allies vs. enemies – if grossly outnumbered or outclassed, this would give Actors the option to flee instead of ALWAYS fighting to the death. * Better tactical positioning – e.g. mages would know if the player has “broken through” the front lines, and is now closer to them than a designated “tank” ally. * Better self-preservation using potions, healing, and controller spells. * Preventing all members of a given faction to instantly know the player is an enemy without either line-of-sight, hearing cries of help, or hearing a general alarm (e.g. war-horn) from allies.
It’ll be a little tricky, for two main reasons -- Skyrim is freaking weird and doesn’t allow for:
1. Abstract class extensions. 2. Scripts over about 1,000 lines.
BTW, what of your mod uses SKSE? I can see plenty of opportunities to use that stuff, I’m just trying to avoid as many dependencies as possible.
I use skse for detection of fast travel, though even then it is very tricky. Unlike sleep, there is no native register for fast travel event. The other one I use is the register for mod event. Have not needed the rest.
I suck at ai. I have a npc in sot who appears in the dungeon called "obsessed adventurer". His job us to loot bodies. I tried by using packages, never was successful. So he pops in in dungeons and just annoys the player who just use him to practice offensive spells. Very embarrassing.
Would you be willing if I beg pitifully enough to write him a script do he can wonder the dungeon looting bodies and if possible potions laying around? You would get mega credit .
Anyhows, looking forward to your framework resource. Sot npcs really need it.
In the meantime I am developing squad leaders that while alive give surrounding Npcs specific abilities, like invisibility, flame cloak, super speed , etc. This results in a more strategic game since it forces the player to switch gears.
edit: My main script is over 7,000 lines long. By using states I avoid it running over itself, but runs great.
Just found your videos on youtube, and very impressed so far.
Were you considering creating a menu for SkyUI where different options of your mod can be turned off or adjusted? I personally am more interested in just the AI improvements, and things like the spells or quest line are mostly unimportant to me.
@TonyCubed2: Sweet, I look forward to seeing your final product!
I've been experimenting for the looting stuff -- it's a big pain in some ways, because unlike just about every other game engine, there's no simple way for Actors to just "survey" all the Objects or Actors in their vicinity. I'll share the results in the Framework if my experiments all work out.
The one trick to watch out for is if a dead body isn't on the Navmesh. The NPC might try to walk forever towards a body on a ledge, which requires extra duration checks and all that. It's a pain, and I need to re-write quite a bit of my current body-looting behavior.
@catseye528: Thanks for the compliments! I hadn't thought about SkyUI yet, since the coding thus far is pretty specific -- but once the Framework goes up, I'd be happy to give that a shot. Great idea, thanks for the suggestion!
BTW, are there any other tweaks you'd like to see to the general Skyrim AI?
Not enough people know about this mod, I personally just found out about it through Skywind. In away this turns Skyrim into Aion or Guild Wars 1; from what I've seen in the videos the addition of priest that heal there buddy's can make life a living hell or just simply cause you not to be living. Which in those games made things very annoying yet extremely challenging.
But I just got the mod today so I haven't gotten a chance to try it out, but I'm looking forward to it; I hope this mod gets more exposure in the future.
I know I may not be commentating in the right place, but.... Regarding your idea of adding npcs with different IA packages, and with perk related variations:
To ensure maximum compatibility with other mods, I would advise you to stay away from perks, since many mods change that (Skyre,Perma,Requiem), and that will lead eventually to incompatibilities.
As much as the idea of roles is a good one, I would love a major package that would be adaptable based on the resources available, meaning that would check what spells/skills are available and the skills it has and work with that. I am aware of the colossal task, so it is more daydreaming and giving you feedback, I understand the environment is hard to work, only if you had a way to dynamically "map" the environment around the intelligent actors..., maybe using the navmeshs... or vision ranges... I know some enemies in a IA packaged I used hided from my vision when they could not reach me... but I wonder if this would be too costly and performance issues would probably appear.
Also, are you using something like neural networks or genetic algorithms? or it is a rule based system? I did not check your code, I know a bit of IA, but pretty minimal, my codding skills are really basic...
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I'm discussing the next big phase of this mod on Reddit -- based on feedback and polls, users will decide how to proceed with a new AI Framework for ALL OF SKYRIM, including enemies AND allies. Your reflections and feedback welcome! Link below:
http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/3117h8/ai_framework_mod_discussion/
Is this compatible or only ovveriding without vanilla or overwritten alternative to works with / without / withandwithout ?
Just wanted to give a big shout out regarding things to come! These include:
* A new video which brings together all the elements of game design discussed in prior releases.
* New additions to the mod! Including new locations, dungeons, and enemies.
* A general framework for AI to be shared with other modders, including the Skywind crew.
Stay tuned! Feedback and questions welcome, as always.
The question is though, how soon will the framework be avaialable as a modders resource?
I’m flattered you took the time to try and de-compile some of my stuff – everything I have out now is just considered “sketch work”, the result of iterative tinkering instead of a complete re-build from the ground up. The AI framework will be more of the latter, and much better organized.
As I’m sketching it out, the AI framework would include the following abilities, all of which would NOT require them to be hard-coded into each Actor:
* Check on the status of local teammates. For healers or controllers, this would allow them to judge when to apply spells.
* Check for local bodies to loot.
* Check for the relative local strength of allies vs. enemies – if grossly outnumbered or outclassed, this would give Actors the option to flee instead of ALWAYS fighting to the death.
* Better tactical positioning – e.g. mages would know if the player has “broken through” the front lines, and is now closer to them than a designated “tank” ally.
* Better self-preservation using potions, healing, and controller spells.
* Preventing all members of a given faction to instantly know the player is an enemy without either line-of-sight, hearing cries of help, or hearing a general alarm (e.g. war-horn) from allies.
It’ll be a little tricky, for two main reasons -- Skyrim is freaking weird and doesn’t allow for:
1. Abstract class extensions.
2. Scripts over about 1,000 lines.
BTW, what of your mod uses SKSE? I can see plenty of opportunities to use that stuff, I’m just trying to avoid as many dependencies as possible.
Thanks for sharing!
I suck at ai. I have a npc in sot who appears in the dungeon called "obsessed adventurer". His job us to loot bodies. I tried by using packages, never was successful. So he pops in in dungeons and just annoys the player who just use him to practice offensive spells. Very embarrassing.
Would you be willing if I beg pitifully enough to write him a script do he can wonder the dungeon looting bodies and if possible potions laying around? You would get mega credit .
Anyhows, looking forward to your framework resource. Sot npcs really need it.
In the meantime I am developing squad leaders that while alive give surrounding Npcs specific abilities, like invisibility, flame cloak, super speed , etc. This results in a more strategic game since it forces the player to switch gears.
edit: My main script is over 7,000 lines long. By using states I avoid it running over itself, but runs great.
Were you considering creating a menu for SkyUI where different options of your mod can be turned off or adjusted?
I personally am more interested in just the AI improvements, and things like the spells or quest line are mostly unimportant to me.
Again, I love what I see so far.
I've been experimenting for the looting stuff -- it's a big pain in some ways, because unlike just about every other game engine, there's no simple way for Actors to just "survey" all the Objects or Actors in their vicinity. I'll share the results in the Framework if my experiments all work out.
The one trick to watch out for is if a dead body isn't on the Navmesh. The NPC might try to walk forever towards a body on a ledge, which requires extra duration checks and all that. It's a pain, and I need to re-write quite a bit of my current body-looting behavior.
@catseye528: Thanks for the compliments!
BTW, are there any other tweaks you'd like to see to the general Skyrim AI?
But I just got the mod today so I haven't gotten a chance to try it out, but I'm looking forward to it; I hope this mod gets more exposure in the future.
It truly deserves it for all the effort alone!!!!
it's a huge project...
Regarding your idea of adding npcs with different IA packages, and with perk related variations:
To ensure maximum compatibility with other mods, I would advise you to stay away from perks, since many mods change that (Skyre,Perma,Requiem), and that will lead eventually to incompatibilities.
As much as the idea of roles is a good one, I would love a major package that would be adaptable based on the resources available, meaning that would check what spells/skills are available and the skills it has and work with that. I am aware of the colossal task, so it is more daydreaming and giving you feedback, I understand the environment is hard to work, only if you had a way to dynamically "map" the environment around the intelligent actors..., maybe using the navmeshs... or vision ranges... I know some enemies in a IA packaged I used hided from my vision when they could not reach me... but I wonder if this would be too costly and performance issues would probably appear.
Also, are you using something like neural networks or genetic algorithms? or it is a rule based system?
I did not check your code, I know a bit of IA, but pretty minimal, my codding skills are really basic...