Hello there.

With some swift assistance from these forums, I have been able to overcome certain obstacles that stopped me from making and playing my own (Well, not really mine.. but an editted hangemhigh) map.

Though I have encountered some odd behaviour from the AI. I have found elites to be.. generally suicidal in a fire fight. I will explain..

Elites will engage in ranged combat against a team of marines, yet when their shield is low/drops they will occassionally just remain out in the open combat field and just do that weaving action. As one imagines, their death is the eventual result.

(I am wondering if this is just the case for Elite Minors, because Majors seem to be a bit more cautious).

Observing this issue, I attempted to set defensive firing positions aligned with the letter "B". I imagined that when elites reach low\dropped shield, they begin to perform the defensive actions that are displayed within the squad properties, for example the following..

- Defending
- Defending Search
- Defending Guard

So I set these options as "B" and I found the elites completely ignored my firing position altogether. I even tried to do this for "Attacking Guard", yet to no avail.
I have found that the only "settings" (for lack of a better term) engaged by the elites is "Attacking" and "Attacking Search".

Only once I placed the "B" in those settings did the elites use those firing postions.
So to cut to the chase, how can I make elites actually use these functions.. do they even use them at all?

The next issue I have observed is that.. well. The marines actually run out of Assault Rifle amunition, yet seem to have a wealth of grenades (even though in guerilla I have their grenade number set at 1-2). I actually never suspected this to ever occur, but it has. The marines will be firing away until all of a sudden, no more bullets come out of the ARs, yet they perform the firing animations and a "clicking" can be heard when they "fire".

Any suggestions\ideas? Because even though this is a bit of a laugh, if this "mis-firing" (If you can even call it that) issue occurs in a multi-player map, I do wonder if it can occur in attempts I make to create a single-player map.
Edited by Agoodusername on Nov 14, 2015 at 05:45 AM
Edited by Agoodusername on Nov 14, 2015 at 05:46 AM

For whatever reason, AI run out of ammo in multiplayer maps when given default weapons. I don't know too much about this as I haven't really messed about with AI in a multiplayer map, however editing the AI's weapon tag to using 0 rounds per shot should stop them from running out of ammo. As for the elites, in sapien try creating platoons and adding your elite AI to them. I think they deal with the AI's defensive/attacking actions.

It seems the editting of the AR tags solved the marine ammunition issue. I am yet to tinker around with platoons, I wasn't aware that it even done anything.

Thanks for the suggestions.

>>UPDATE<<

I got around to toying around with the Platoon properties for the elites. I'll be honest I found the settings a little confusing for when an AI moves to defensive positions, I'll explain..

Within the positioning setting, you are given the options of strength percentages (25, 50, 75, ect). I imagine that this would be for the strength of the squad. Interestingly, I decided to get a single elite to have the 75% setting on. When his shield dropped and he took a bit of body vitality damage, he decided to move to the defensive position. Issue is, he never decided to move away from it. He just stared in the direction that he could hear enemy AI firing from.

So considering a single entity responded to the 75% setting, I am now wondering if the number has more to do with the body vitality of members of the platoon, rather than numbers within the squad.

Could anyone clear this up for me?
Edited by Agoodusername on Nov 15, 2015 at 06:43 AM

I'm away from my PC at the current time so I'm unable to try this out. As far as I'm aware, once an AI platoon with a single actor goes into the defensive state, it will stay there. However I think there is a script to set/change the AI's state. Assuming you have a basic understanding of scripting, have a look at the AI related scripts. Also try messing about with squad migration by creating additional squads with different firing positions and behaviours (guarding, searching ect) in the same encounter as the elite. Leave the actor count to 0 and don't place any starting positions. Then check the automatic migration box is on in all the encounters. This means your elite ai will migrate between squads and change its state and firing positions, in theory.

That actually sounds like it could work, some solid thinking outside of the box.

I am going to toy around with a few ideas first, then I will see about giving this a shot.

As I understand, it's 75% of the average HP, though I may be wrong. I do not believe they return to combat by default without scripting, but again, I may be wrong. I more tinker with the AI than anything, and I've not touched them as far as MP maps, but in SP maps, I've never seen them run out of ammo. In sapien, after awhile, it does stop playing hte efffects, but that's not what your issue sounds like, as I assume yours is in-game.

As far as the elites, I'll look into the AI of them and play around with that at some point in the future, see what I can clear up. There's probably an AI tutorial floating around this site somewhere.

Thank you all for posting.
Cheers for all the assistance.

I realized that if I added more nearby defensive positions, that the ai would atleast most around in those positions (which is not a great mystery). Though I am still looking for a way to get them to leave the defensive positions and return to attacking positions.

I think the only way to pull this off is through scripting, I'll need to devote my time to some guides.