ai – GROUND BRANCH

Small update

We would like to try posting regular updates in between the more major news items, giving you all a feel of where we’re at. So here is a small update!

Phil (zoombapup) is currently busy with the cover system for AI as some of you might have read in the dedicated AI discussion forums. It’s on the edge of being usable at the moment. Next step is implementing a cover spot reservation system, to make sure several NPCs don’t try to take cover in the same spot and start arguing about who was first. This cover system is an important milestone as it’s needed to further develop the squad code.

So when the basics of the cover system are implemented Phil will focus on squad behaviors and give them some love soon. Right now the squads have no concept of actually being in cover. An NPC for instance doesn’t know if the guy he is firing at is in the open or not. Hopefully we will see some interesting squad behavior in the next months. Phil hopes to get additional squad code written and have the first pass terrorist hunt ready for the New Year, but we’ll have to see how it goes. The day job is demanding so Phil’s slammed for the coming weeks with Uni related work and development is mostly done during the weekends.

Kris has been hammering away at multiplayer issues in order to create a smoother MP experience. Improving the Steam integration, providing a better server browser and better loadout & appearance replication. So yeah, lots to do on the multiplayer side of things!

The new UI developed by Costa (Scopey) is being implemented step-by-step and is coming along nicely. Besides the technical challenges, real life catches up as well, so Kris might go back to his system of waking up at 2-4am to work on Ground Branch before the day starts *shudders*. Plans for next weeks are to get some good night’s sleep, fixing that annoying bug causing client side items to detach from dying players and debugging everything else like crazy. And shoot at John some more.

That’s it for today. We’ll try to give you a new update soonish, thanks for reading!

– Zoog

Odd tests are odd…

Customization, Gameplay, Programming

New UE3 build this week, which delayed work in other areas a bit, but no matter.

After finishing an update of this kind, I like to check things by making a quick map in the editor, chucking in random stuff and running it with multiple players. I was already in the process (before the update) of more tests involving loadouts, so I thought I’d combine the two.

Basic bot code has been sitting there for ages. I just created a nav mesh, told them to use a loadout and let em’ rip. Considering the level of asset optimisation (none) and the age of the machine (2008), I’m happy with the results.