Yet Another Real-life Mod [beta][UPDATED May 29 2013][DL][version 130]

[meowcat]

A few early/alpha screen shots of a CTF map taking place along a shoreline and boat graveyard. Hopefully a version ready for some beta testing will be ready to go by the end of this week!

-> ->

->

[Whitsel]

Hey, meow...

The link to your mod is down, can I get a new one?

[meowcat]

hmm, looks like FileFront moved YARM to the deletion queue. It should be fixed now, also i submitted it to FileFront so hopefully it won't disappear anymore. My mods can be seen here: http://hosted.filefront.com/meowcatbuf

[Whitsel]

I just tried the mod and I wanted to say its really good! I love playing it, but I was wondering if you are still working on these:

-Animations are pretty plane(really only need one good animation for each weapon type)
-weapon sounds are pretty plane
-will the air/heli strikes be in the next version?(perhaps you can add the support options to the chat menu?)
-bots still do crazy 'leap for their life' jumps off of ledges(maybe just code them to use the rope? and do it half as often?)
-bots dont really keep enough distance from enemies when attacking(maybe get them to crouch/hold still if the target is too far -off? and get them to run away when reloading or taking too much damage?)
-Will their be an option to turn off the switch to 3rd person and roadie run next version(just regular lower-weapon & sprint?)
-Maybe make bots/you able to revive others when down and using the not dead yet perk?
-Bots seem to respond to silenced weapons the same as normal ones.
-Prolly should limit the number of items one can carry to one main weapon, one pistol and make a drop/pickup option to weapons on the ground.

Other than these few things(that I can think of off-hand), I think the mod is an amazing concept and so far well done. Good job

[TurdDrive]

-Bots seem to respond to silenced weapons the same as normal ones.

i dont think there's anything you can do about that
there bots.
just stupid bot sadly

[meowcat]

Hi Whitsel, thank you for trying the latest version and posting the feedback! Here are my answers!
1. Animations are pretty plane(really only need one good animation for each weapon type)
-> Agreed. I'd like to start redoing some of these (pistols and ARs being first) to include better (and perhaps multiple) select and put down animations. I may tweak the reload anims a bit, but I will not be making them into the fancy COD/L4D style anims. What animations would you suggest working on first?

2. weapon sounds are pretty plane
-> Agreed. I have not had much time to work on them, and making weapon sounds is not a skill I have really learned yet. Most of the custom sounds I made were using older weapon sounds from game demos (R6, HL, Unreal) that I remixed/tweaked in Audacity (freeware sound editing tool). I'm not sure how much time I will be able to devote to this effort yet (and I need to learn how to make/record sounds in general).

3. will the air/heli strikes be in the next version?(perhaps you can add the support options to the chat menu?)
-> I'm still not sure about this one. I've got some rough Helicopter models and anims, but without special path nodes I don't think I will be able to get them to work all that well. (Gasbags in invasion are a bit different as they are small enough to use existing pathnodes).

4. bots still do crazy 'leap for their life' jumps off of ledges(maybe just code them to use the rope? and do it half as often?)
-> I can probably tackle this one

5. bots dont really keep enough distance from enemies when attacking(maybe get them to crouch/hold still if the target is too far -off? and get them to run away when reloading or taking too much damage?)
-> Agreed, hopefully I can tackle this one, may be as simple as just adjusting the weapon properties (suggested attack and defense style). In objective type games though the bot code will sometimes force the bot to keep moving in one direction while firing...

6. Will their be an option to turn off the switch to 3rd person and roadie run next version(just regular lower-weapon & sprint?)
-> Yes, but only once I've either added the lower weapon animation, or just use a specific rotation or anim frame for the first person view. The reson this had originally been left out was that I was trying to limit the amount of yarm weapon<->yarm pawn code coupling (but since implementing freeaim, that goal is "tossed out the window" anyways).

7. Maybe make bots/you able to revive others when down and using the not dead yet perk?
-> I'll have to think about this one. Its very doable (DickyB had a very well made "Bot responds to medical backup request" bot support in his Colossians mod) but from a gameplay/fairness position I may need to make that into a general option applicable to everyone.

8. Bots seem to respond to silenced weapons the same as normal ones.
-> I actually tried to fix this, and with dumber bots (or my SP AI bots) this is completely accomplish able (I changed the parameter passed into makNoise when suppressed weapons were fired from 1.0 to 0.15). The default UT2k4 bots have a very wide hearing radius and, from what I can tell, do not distinguish the "loudness" of sounds. I did some experiments a while back while working on an MGS mod to check both hearing radius and sight radius. I'll look into those numbers again and see if i can fix this for the bots.

9. Probably should limit the number of items one can carry to one main weapon, one pistol and make a drop/pickup option to weapons on the ground.
-> Yeah, this has been on my hit list. I would like to make it an option for all the different YARM weapon's mutators. Only difficulty has been deciding where to include the code (mutator, yarm weapon class itself, or in the pawns).

If you have any other suggestions please feel free to post (especially any level ideas).

[Whitsel]

Thats all really good news. I can link you to a soundpack for BF2(you would prolly have to convert the sound formats to w/e the UE reads). Just let me know about that one

As far as animations go... I would suggest getting some basic reload animations, nothing fancy, as you said, but something a little more interesting...

You can arguably use the same reload animation for weapon classes like this:
M4/M16
MP5/SDvariant
All bolt action rifles
M60/M249
just make sure the charging lever pulls(cocking it) match somewhat well and the magazine wells are in the same standard position. You already have a 'lower weapon' animation(the reload animation for guns like the M249). Its not terribly beautiful, but it suits fine for now :P

As for airstrikes: UT04 already has the one airstrike painter. Perhaps you could develop on that coding and use your model/animations with a pre-defined path.
Not sure if you have ever played BF2, but when you call in a UAV on there the model just spins in a circle above the battlefield. Maybe the helicopter could spin in a wide radius fairy high. This would help is avoid collision with most map objects. Basically from there on it just attacks enemy players/bots wondering out in the open. Vehicle targets = missile attacks, infantry targets = machine gun attacks.
The actual cluster strike from a jet would basically use a modified version of the target painter from the vanilla game. Just use a jet model, lower the height, increase the speed and change the bombs to something a little more 'fitting' to the theme of YARM.

I have never worked with the UE, so forgive me if some of this seems non-doable. If I have any more suggestions I will post them ASAP. Thanks!

[TurdDrive]

you could make the helicopter appear in the Sky zone as it will be infinitely far away?

[meowcat]

@TurdDrive: I thought about that, the only problem comes from trying to determine where to spawn/trace when doing the shooting.

@Whitsel: I could do the circle thing (and had considered it) but I would also have to make map specific setting (looking up data from a config file for instance) and I was not prepared to spend the time on just that feature yet.

Also. do you have any example maps where the bots were doing the "leap for their life" jumping thing? If so I could use them (or make a test level containing the same setup) to test the bot's use of the grapple/rappel line.

[Whitsel]

Junkyard is a good example of their 'base jumping without a parachute' :P

I am not sure if this is possible, but perhaps you could try spawning an AI-controlled chopper that fly's above the battlefield and fly's off upon timing-out(would know how to avoid collision by itself?). This might also be a plausible way to get bots to attack it if they can.

[meowcat]

Here is an alpha version of my new CTF level. The battle for the flags takes place among the rusting hulks of fishing boats. Each flag base is situated in the partial hull of a large boat. Each team must navigate through the shallows, hulks, and switch grass to retrieve the flags. Map is suitable for 8-14 players. It was specifically scaled for YARM. It is at roughly 80 percent complete. Gameplay issues aside, I still need to take care of proper blocking volumes, texture work, a few small botplay issues (defense points), and adding some more cover here and there on some flag routes.

[TurdDrive]

could you make it so the bots dont notice you as easily in the gillie suit

[Whitsel]

That seems fairly un-logical since most UT04 maps are urban/indoors and a ghillie suit would really stick-out in an urban surrounding :P

If there was a way to check for the suit/in a grassy areas... then it would be really cool.

[TurdDrive]

there are a couple of ONS maps that have very grassy areas

[meowcat]

Hiding from bots with camo could be done fairly easily, and if I had more custom maps I would consider doing it. You can already adjust the visibility of pawns to AI characters easily, but determining when to do so would really require custom map actors (as it would require custom "color/camo" volumes and an additional variable or two in the yarmpawn class). I had almost added this feature to my MGS test mod, but got bored of the mod before implementing it.