making an ai squad follow the nearest player

[Rainacap]

im working on a map and im trying to just get a marine squad to follow the nearest player in a multiplayer map, ive already got the path finding set up i just need to the code to do it i feel like ive gotten pretty close to getting it right but nothing has worked so far, any suggestions?

[Nathan]

Oh man, I've struggled with this for a long time, in the Halo Modding Reclaimers discord talked it through for days.
It probably depends entirely on which game you're talking about.
You should explore the script files for different missions where you already know of cases where the AI is following you, the hsc files in the data-solo-etc folders (notepad++ opens them up easily enough).

For Halo 2, the thing that seemed to work more than other options was in Sapien->AI->Orders to also put assault style, Forced Combat Stance and debug on with the follow closest player and radius, and it seems best to make multiple orders and set the order endings at the bottom to transition to the next and trigger to be say player "not" [x] within a given world unit range (wu), which might be a trigger you'll have to create (easy enough, just copy the homework from a singleplayer map in sapien).
This still isn't guaranteed, script file may need something like (cs_approach (player0) 2 4 3) or some code I'm not even aware of.

But none of these are a surefire solution, for instance I still have had issues with a pair of hunters in deltacontrol not moving on the bridge to the loading zone for the hunter room area, been forced to resort to a crude method of teleporting them.

The single best advise I can give is Compare-Compare-Compare: find instances in levels where following seems to work well, and just compare all of those entries with others to find where they don't follow, and then when you're editing your own, have a checklist of sections you need to go over.

You should probably join the above-mentioned discord, almost no one sadly uses this forum (personally prefer forums as the answers don't get buried so easily as opposed to a real-time single feed, more compartmentalized topics and archival, but got to go with the times I suppose )

[Rainacap]

Originally posted by Nathan:

Oh man, I've struggled with this for a long time, in the Halo Modding Reclaimers discord talked it through for days.
It probably depends entirely on which game you're talking about.
You should explore the script files for different missions where you already know of cases where the AI is following you, the hsc files in the data-solo-etc folders (notepad++ opens them up easily enough).

For Halo 2, the thing that seemed to work more than other options was in Sapien->AI->Orders to also put assault style, Forced Combat Stance and debug on with the follow closest player and radius, and it seems best to make multiple orders and set the order endings at the bottom to transition to the next and trigger to be say player "not" [x] within a given world unit range (wu), which might be a trigger you'll have to create (easy enough, just copy the homework from a singleplayer map in sapien).
This still isn't guaranteed, script file may need something like (cs_approach (player0) 2 4 3) or some code I'm not even aware of.

But none of these are a surefire solution, for instance I still have had issues with a pair of hunters in deltacontrol not moving on the bridge to the loading zone for the hunter room area, been forced to resort to a crude method of teleporting them.

The single best advise I can give is Compare-Compare-Compare: find instances in levels where following seems to work well, and just compare all of those entries with others to find where they don't follow, and then when you're editing your own, have a checklist of sections you need to go over.

You should probably join the above-mentioned discord, almost no one sadly uses this forum (personally prefer forums as the answers don't get buried so easily as opposed to a real-time single feed, more compartmentalized topics and archival, but got to go with the times I suppose )

Damn thats a real shame especially since its just a matter of them not following you in multiplayer like if i found a way id be done with my mod but oh well do you mind telling me how to say put the mod in singleplayer like how some mods replace campaign files so that at least the ai will follow you.

[Rainacap]

Originally posted by Nathan:

Oh man, I've struggled with this for a long time, in the Halo Modding Reclaimers discord talked it through for days.
It probably depends entirely on which game you're talking about.
You should explore the script files for different missions where you already know of cases where the AI is following you, the hsc files in the data-solo-etc folders (notepad++ opens them up easily enough).

For Halo 2, the thing that seemed to work more than other options was in Sapien->AI->Orders to also put assault style, Forced Combat Stance and debug on with the follow closest player and radius, and it seems best to make multiple orders and set the order endings at the bottom to transition to the next and trigger to be say player "not" [x] within a given world unit range (wu), which might be a trigger you'll have to create (easy enough, just copy the homework from a singleplayer map in sapien).
This still isn't guaranteed, script file may need something like (cs_approach (player0) 2 4 3) or some code I'm not even aware of.

But none of these are a surefire solution, for instance I still have had issues with a pair of hunters in deltacontrol not moving on the bridge to the loading zone for the hunter room area, been forced to resort to a crude method of teleporting them.

The single best advise I can give is Compare-Compare-Compare: find instances in levels where following seems to work well, and just compare all of those entries with others to find where they don't follow, and then when you're editing your own, have a checklist of sections you need to go over.

You should probably join the above-mentioned discord, almost no one sadly uses this forum (personally prefer forums as the answers don't get buried so easily as opposed to a real-time single feed, more compartmentalized topics and archival, but got to go with the times I suppose )

Also sorry if im asking too much im just new to modding hell i almost cried whenever i finally got my pelican script working

[Kills Alone]

Most of what Nathan wrote will work for you although I'd skip giving the AI secondary or ending orders for now.

What is missing are the Zones that contain both Areas and Firing positions. In Sapien create a new Zone and name it Zones_Follow_Player then lay down some Firing positions which will look like red squares, place them where you want the ai to go and places you might walk over, lets start with ten of them, now select them all in the Game window (otherwise this next step will not work) and do a Ctrl+N, this was make all of those squares change to another color and create the Area. Now do this again for ten more squares, depending on what you are trying to accomplish these squares can be in the same location or not. Lets place these ten further down the path that you as the player might explore. Again select the new ten and Ctrl+N, notice how they are a different color (Area) from the first squares, if they are not you will need to select Areas, create a new instance, then go back to Firing positions and assign the new Area to the new squares. I suggest labeling these Areas as areas_0 and areas_1 if they are not already.

Now create or edit the Orders to be like this:
Style: None
Follow Closest Player: Checked
Force Combat Status: Combat
Follow Radius: 3 (adjust if necessary)

Primary Area Set:
Area type: deault
Zone: Zones_Follow_Player
Area: areas_0

Now hit the Duplicate button next to Primary Area Set, making a copy of what we just added. Then change the new copy so instead of areas_0 it reads areas_1.

Test it out and see if its working. You can test from within Sapien by going to Game Data > Player simulation then right-click in the Game window to place a Master Chief biped, now hit Tab to become that biped, hit Tab again to leave.

So you would continue to follow this procedure and create more areas around the level. There is a maximum of 32 different areas that can be set in one order using this method. Also keep in mind that here is a maximum on firing positions (within a Zone) but that number is pretty high (probably ~512) so you don't need to put the firing positions everywhere.

Oh yeah, you can use the console command (~) ai_connect to test and see if there are any issues with your Firing positions.