Dusty

So, I need some suggestions. I'm not quite sure how to handle saber staff in the new saber system or how to do special attacks. In base SP staff is pretty overpowered because it hits as hard as strong style. And special attacks are a little tricky in the new system. Also, on the whole, I'm trying to follow the motto of keeping things relatively simple and not too drastic as far as changes go from the default system. What I have so far: Staff - Attack strength is properly tied to staff style now, as opposed to the saber hilt having the twoHanded property. - Staff style is power level 4 (medium is 3, red/desann is 5, medium is your offense level + 0, red is +2 for example), I figure the wide two-handed palms-down motions of staff would add a little more gusto to the attacks - Staff does damage during transitions like strong/desann Special Attacks - have power level 5 strength - rather than adding to a break counter like standard attacks they act a little different - if the attack is strong enough, it breaks their defense out right - otherwise the attack is blocked Maybe... special attacks cause a longer stagger than other moves. And they react to being blocked differently than a standard attack. Ideally I don't want them to be too cheap (I want regular slashes to be important), but I want them to still be useful. Any ideas?

Yeah, knockdown or stagger is probably better.

What Roxoon suggested is practical I think, you just need coding. It could be hard coded that at all/most times the player's bones will fluctuate by a unit or two for breathing, or at least I imagine that would be possible. As for the running speeds, in JA they're hardcoded to match up with the run speed of the character or something. Changing the animation.cfg won't do anything by itself. Trying playing with the g_nofootslide and g_footslidescale cvars or whatever they're called. (or is it cg_? I can't remember off hand) EDIT: As for other updates, the saber system is nearing completion. Not bug-free though. I'm also making a little progress with some of the AI stuff. Figuring out why certain things don't work though is proving tricky.

No one has really given me any feedback . Next mods I will work on I think: - Independent release for Reborn Apprentice skin - Lightning visual effects - Menu mods

Let me just say, for me any sort of saber throw possession battle or saber catching mechanism is well out of my ability to code. It would have to be eezstreet or Razor or some other experienced coder if you want an idea how feasible it is. I already had help from @@redsaurus coding some more tricky things, like having to aim blaster deflections with the crosshair, save game screenshots, and saber force lightning block effects. About the saber inventory thing, there's two commands in SP related to picking up sabers. One is g_saber. This is/are the saber(s) that are saved as belonging to the player. You can use "playermodel x" to change your saber, or the saber command, but I'm not sure if they actually change the value of g_saber (i.e. I know playermodel doesn't change the value of g_model so if you don't change that too when you load the game later you'll have an untextured model). Then there's g_pickupabledroppedsabers. I think the Yavin IV mod just turned that on then did some clever menu stuff to keep track of sabers so you could gather up an inventory of them. Either way pretty clever and cool. For breathing animations I don't know what that would look like... maybe they could be ripped from the cutscene... as for the feet sliding and rollerblading in JA, I noticed in JK2 the run animations were more accurate, and in JA no matter what I did to the animation.cfg the animation speeds wouldn't change. What I found was a cvar in JA called cg_noFootSlide or something like that. If you turn it off the run (and walk?) animations are sped up. There's other cvars relating to this too but I'm not sure how they all work.

^Interesting idea, but out of my own abilities to code. Sabers are sort of possessed by whoever it belongs to and act as the active weapon even mid-flight. That's why you can't really switch to melee in MP when your saber throw is disarmed. Unless the saber's possession could be "deactivated" code-wise and then the "pick up" code that g_saberpickupabledroppedsabers uses could be used to "grab it". Saber throws are interesting though for duels but could use a little work. I feel like NPCs just need to not sit there dumbfounded when you knock their saber throws down or rush them after they throw it. Also, ideally the player shouldn't be able to be too cheap with it either. Saber throws in JA/JK2 in general are more of the spammy sort. In BFII the throw was more realistic IMO where it was powerful but it had more a boomerang likeness and high-speed momentum but required more skill to aim. While I like it roughly how it is in the JK games, I feel like it should have a smidge more power and speed, but be less like "lulz eat saber" and act like a rebounding pinball, and therefore a little less quick and cheap. Just an idea. Not sure what it would really look like though. What you guys think? On a side note, for return damage to be an allowable skill, I think NPCs would need to be able to cheat and be able to block it from behind except in maybe some special situations. Or perhaps return damage would be allowable if the saber throw was given more of a boomerang dynamic but wasn't so easy to aim nor has such a "rapid-fire" mechanic. Idea: Maybe disarmed sabers could be "picked up" mid-fight. Like if you knock an enemy's saber out of their hand (from a saber throw, strong attack, parry etc.), you could grab it and use it for the remainder of the level? But then some enemies would become defenseless...

Some more NPC AI things I've been working on that I've yet to test, or that I plan to do and think I can do: NPCs shouldn't default to "Heavy Melee" now (the punches that do 25-30+ damage), but only Chewie, Class_Gran, and Class_Trandoshan get it now, and non-heavy melee users should punch faster nowGrenadiers that have melee should try to punch you if you get really close to them now even if your saber is outImperial commanders and class_rodian + e11 using alt-fireAllied NPCs don't get higher game difficulty bonuses to HP like enemies do now, only on lower difficultiesNPCs that are "smarter" with surrendering and less awkward about itAllied NPCs that don't attack surrendering enemiesSaber-wielders that semi-evade if they're saber is mid-flight or run for it if you've disarmed their saberblaster/melee npcs with class_reborn not doing cartwheels unless they have at least force jump 1melee force user NPCs using force push on throwables and auto-dodging sniper shots just like saber wielders

So, anyone have any feedback for the couple of mods so far?

You know, in game, I can't find a difference between difficulty levels for blaster defense in normal gameplay... That's really weird though, because I could've sworn your defense was noticeably worse on higher difficulties... Does anyone know, if anything in AI_Jedi.cpp can affect the player's attributes? Or does everything in there only pertain to NPCs?

Silly me. Never assume because it makes an *** out of you and me. In JA imp commanders don't use alt-fire by default, precisely because that part of the code is commented out for JA. Still doesn't explain why alt-fire in .npc files doesn't work... but that's for another day.

It's crud like this that confuses me: if ( ent->NPC->rank >= RANK_COMMANDER ) {//commanders use alt-fire //ent->NPC->scriptFlags |= SCF_ALT_FIRE; } That's in NPC_spawn.cpp, and the only reference I can find related to commander ranks using alt-fire, but it's commented out, so I'm kind of baffled as to what makes Class_imperial NPCs at commander rank use alt-fire at all...

@@eezstreet: Are you saying commander ranks pretty much regardless of class will use alt-fire? Gonna test that I guess...

I'm guessing either it's either something in plain sight in the code that has some effect I'm not seeing or that is not immediately clear, or it is some indirect consequence of some seemingly unrelated coding that is probably really difficult to find... Either way, I'm guessing somewhere it has to come back to some "if g_spskill >= 2" somehow...

So I tried to find where class_imperial gets it's alt-fire thing, but no direct references. Another indirect code thing? Ugh. @@eezstreet: I call on your superior programming knowledge.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm completely lost.

^That's a good idea. While I would like this sort of thing externalized outside the code, as a temporary (assuming one day this may be fixable) fix I could just use specific classes. Like the Rodian gunner for example, I want him to use alt-fire, so maybe NPCs with class_rodian and an E11 will be coded to use alt-fire. EDIT: Maybe what happens in the code is something overrides the alt-fire script flag canceling it out. Icarus scripting and the alt-fire npc field seem to work in the same way, so the only difference that I imagine could happen is the "when" of when the game applies each to an NPC. Maybe there is some AI code that says "if this, use primary fire", and that's why I can't find anything, because it's not alt-fire that's being applied incorrectly but rather primary fire, so I should really be looking for wherever "primary fire" is coded in. Just a theory.

Your defense gets worse on Jedi Knight difficulty and up in JA, but I can't figure out why after having scoured the code thoroughly at every reference to g_spskill. Your defensive ability gets slower and has longer cooldowns between deflections, but I can't find any referencing for this anywhere in the code specifically. Any one have any clues?

Okay, sooo, I really want this to work, but I cannot for the life of me figure it out. Yeah yeah the icarus system is great and all for specific npcs in maps, but if I want one kind of NPC to always use alt-fire then it would be nice to be able to just set it in one spot in their .npc file instead of ent-modding it into every map :/

No mercy! Seriously though Kyle is freakin brutal to those stormtroopers...

Anyone have any feedback for the NPCs? Good, bad, the ugly?

So, I'm playing with the NPC code a bit. I'm trying to decide how melee attacks should work with enemies. The idea is that certain enemies, if you get really close, will sock you with a punch and then go back to using their weapon normally. Or gun whack you. Or something. Then there's the problem of all this being difficult to code. Version I can code: Enemy switches to melee when you get very close, throws a punch, then switches back to their weapon and waits a second before doing it again. Kind of sloppy though, that they have to completely put away their weapon for a second. Sloppy visually, gameplay wise, and code wise. Ideal: The enemy would, weapon in one hand, throw a punch or claw with the other hand. Or do a gun whack. These both are completely novel code pieces though, and not simple new checks or pre-defined actions I can re-use. Ideas I had in mind: - some enemies (like Gran) use Heavy Melee, which are the slow power punches. Maybe these would do slightly less damage than now (30-40 damage on Jedi Knight), but be able to knock you down or have more knockback. (for doing so much damage they don't pack much physical punch) - some enemies would have a "claw" attack (Trandoshans, Chewie?) that maybe knocks down. Not sure how much different this would be from heavy punches though. - some enemies could use a gun whack, maybe depending on the weapon and the class? Bowcaster, imperial heavy repeater, I see. It would a good bit of damage and be quick enough to catch you off guard, but wouldn't knock down. Weequays I imagine with a bowcaster whack. Trandoshans with some combination heavy punching or a claw attack. Human Mercs because they're aggressive turds maybe throw a punch at you if you get too close. Right now I'm trying to make Grans with Thermal Dets (or Blaster Rifles) punch you up close even if you have your saber equipped and then quickly switch back to their weapon.

^Yeah I should do that. v1.1 of the NPCs mod should be up in the next day or so.