Bot Paths for Makhnovo Village and Berezina - Deal!

[Helmut_AUT]

Hi Guys.

I'm willing to sponsor two small gifts from amazon.com (about 25$ each) to the mapper(s) who would be able and interested to add bot pathing for RO-Makhnovo Village and RO-Berezina.

Both are very great maps for infantry combat (and combined arms for Berezina) but too many people keep voting for Arad, Kaukasus and Odessa - too many servers never run these maps. So I want them to play at least somewhat decently offline, which requires some basic bot pathing.

In case of Berezina, Slyk is currently stuck with problems in his path network, and Nestor has already moved on to his next project. So these maps need someone to help with pathing.

Obviously in both cases, permission from the original mapper would be required for anyone adding bot paths.

Since I can't do this stuff myself, I'll put my money where my mouth is - I don't want to send small cash payments trough snailmail or paypal, but if a guy shows up with permission to add bots, and does so successfully, he can pick a book, DVD...whatever from his nearest Amazon Website and I'll order it on my CC, have it delivered directly to the mapper.

Best deal I'm able to offer. Would be nice if something comes off it.

[Nestor Makhno]

If anyone wants to do bot pathing for Makhnovo Village I will happily allow them to do it (as long as I can have a look at it before release).

Anyone who wishes to add tanks will do so against my express wishes.

Thanks for this, Helmut. I am too busy with RL/next map to deal with learning pathing at the moment and that is not likely to change for a while.

[Helmut_AUT]

Thanks for being generous and allowing someone else to take on the work under very modest conditions from your side. In some ways I think it's unfair that only the "pather" gets a price, so I will find one for you too when this comes to life

[Nestor Makhno]

Originally Posted by *7GA* Nestor Makhno

I am too busy with my next map to deal with learning pathing at the moment

If ever a sentence was specifically designed to put Lruce Bee into intensive care with a fit of apoplexy, it is that one

"Mrs Bee, I'm afraid I have some bad news about your son"

"What is it, Doctor?"

"Even after three months of therapy, he's still frothing at the mouth and gibbering incoherently about, 'bastard, bloody n00b mappers!' and how things were much better back in the day; all this despite heavy doses of thorazine and electroshock - we may have to institutionalise him permanently."

[Helmut_AUT]

Lets write him a PM and make sure he reads this!

Seriously, I know pathing takes a monstrous amount of time and the bots can be very stupid - but without bots, you basically leave it to the public crowd who likes standard boring maps if your creation will ever see the light of servers.

Personally I find that when I try to play with "one life" (map reload after getting killed) against bots, as commanding squad leader or tank leader, it IS very hard to stay alive AND manage the objectives. It's not Operation Flashpoint single player, but it is acceptable when I just want a quick game, no need to find a server or pick a boring class.

So, all the great maps need bot paths. Lets hope some mappers here accept my offer and can help you guys get bots on your two excellent maps.

[Grobut]

I've said long ago that im willing to help path, and the offer still stands, just fire me a PM and a D/L link to the latest version of the map and i'll see what i can do (with authors permission, and within his wishes, i dont like messing with others work unless they are ok with it).

[Helmut_AUT]

Okay, Grobut has taken up the task of pathing Maknovo. Still would be nice to have a second mapper for helping Slyk out with his pathnodes problem at Berezina.

[Heinz]

Originally Posted by *7GA* Nestor Makhno

Anyone who wishes to add tanks will do so against my express wishes.

.

that's rather odd, no?

[Heinz]

Originally Posted by Helmut_AUT

Okay, Grobut has taken up the task of pathing Maknovo. Still would be nice to have a second mapper for helping Slyk out with his pathnodes problem at Berezina.

I thought he said he was doing that for B2?

[Nestor Makhno]

Originally Posted by Heinz

that's rather odd, no?

Not really, the terrain was specifically developed for HT/inf action. I went to a lot of trouble getting it like that and I have no desire to see tanks driving around on it.

To me, personally, it seems like this:

Raspberry ripple ice cream is good for dessert, tanks are good for big maps with not many fences.
T-bone steak is great, I hope my map is good for hedgeleaping and various other bits of c/mqb.

I would never put raspberry ripple topping on a T-Bone.

[Dusty]

don't need bot paths...Squad leader...V-5-4-1

[Slyk]

You do need them if you want an opponent that doesn't offer anything more than meandering turkeys in their spawn. It's one thing to lead one of the teams, no problem, but the opponent is a bunch of blind idiots.

[Helmut_AUT]

Last I checked bots even have a hard time getting out of spawn when you order that command. I think the "follow me" command has them moving on pathnodes near you, but if there are none they still don't know what to do.

And of course you have no opposition at all then.

[Helmut_AUT]

Okay, from the looks of it Slyk gave up on bot pathing for now. So I really would hope someone takes up bot pathing for the Berezina map.

My offer still stands.

[Lefnut59]

A question on Bot Pathing. I have created a path node network and it seems to be fine. However, when I test the map and add the bots only 3 bots follow the path the other bots that spawn still just stand there and moop around the spawn area.

I have moved the playerstart actors around to make they are not being blocked or something, but I get the same results only 2 or 3 bots will follow the path. Is there and limit on how many bots will follow a path?

[Drecks]

Originally Posted by Lefnut59

A question on Bot Pathing. I have created a path node network and it seems to be fine. However, when I test the map and add the bots only 3 bots follow the path the other bots that spawn still just stand there and moop around the spawn area.

I have moved the playerstart actors around to make they are not being blocked or something, but I get the same results only 2 or 3 bots will follow the path. Is there and limit on how many bots will follow a path?

All of them should follow... Maybe it's their roletype which make them stay.
Or they are just traitors of the Motherland....

[Grobut]

Im sad to say that my pathing efforts on Makhnovo have fallen on hard times, the map is very unsuited for pathing im afraid, problem is that spawnzones and objectives are inside buildings, where space is so limited that bots wont follow the paths, and worse, pathing in some places has led to fatal crashes of RO and i dont know how to get around that, im not even sure why it crashes the game in the first place..

Even outside its impossible to avoid blue paths in many places, especially leading to the last objective, but i dont even know if that poses a problem yet, as i can't make them navigate the buildings containing the first two objectives, or crash the game trying..


Its a great map, i can see why you want it pathed, but its also very clear that it was not build with bots in mind, its filled with traps for them, i was hoping some clever path work could pull it off, but it seems less likely every time i try, and im on the verge of giving up.

Nestor, in case you are wondering whats going wrong here, bots need space to work, so if you want to path future maps, its important to keep space in mind, narrow corridors are bots worst enemy.
If you go inside the buildings on Makhnovo, you'll only find room enough for one player to navigate, and sometimes even us human players can get snagged on a bench or similar deco, bots wont navigate this, and even the paths you put here turn blue, meaning bots will want to ignore them and try to follow a better path.
And i think the crashes im getting stems from thease blue indoor paths, as im trying to force the bots in there with assault paths, but they cant do it, resulting in a permanent loop.

Thats just a head's up for future work, as changing Makhnovo to suit the bots would probably ruin it, it would have to be redesigned very heavilly, and would probably lose the charm it has in human vs human fights, i would not recommend it.

[Nestor Makhno]

Oh - well thanks for trying.

I am going to try and bot-path RO-Pripyat myself (prolly for Beta 3) just to give me an idea of the issues that can be caused by my ignorance of these things.

I do appreciate your efforts, Grobut.

[Slyk]

Grobut:

If you want to crack open 'Berezina-Beta 2' and have a go at it, feel free. I would ask you to start with getting the Germans to move to EITHER of the first two cap zones. If you try, good luck!

[Helmut_AUT]

Hey Grobut, thanks for checking in, sorry to hear it's such a problem. Like Slyk said, Berezina would be nice to have pathed as well (if you aren't sick of it by now )