XVehicles (Network play) (VCTF, VMH for UT99)

[Buggie]

Vehicle already is armor. Also I have idea (which too come to Ferali mind) - wear driver with armor which send all damage to vehicle instead of player.
For PvP modes not really actual, until players not grow up claws, but some monsters, like Titan, able hit player directly in vehicle, because use long enough melee attack.

So I not see point wear armor to armor.
Anyway vehicle capable for reduce damage, which already used in MH. But I not see this really useful for PvP mode like VCTF.

[Gustavo6046]

Hmm... What I mean is that there could be a powerup that you can pick up and auto-activates whenever you drive a vehicle, and it brings up a power shield around the vehicle. It is not a very strong power shield, a single shot being enough to dissolve it, but it auto-regenerates after some time (if you're not shooting).

One idea is that this power shield would leave the vehicle inside intact if it's dissolved at the same time; for example, a vehicle with 300 HP and a 250 HP power shield, when receiving a shot of 800 HP damage, will lose its power shield for a while but it'll still have 300 HP. Or you can divide the damage that makes it past the now dissolved power shield, so say the power shield soaks up 250 HP of the damage, so the remaining damage is 800 - 250 = 550 HP, but the vehicle inside only receives a fifth of that, so it receives 110 HP damage, for a total of 90 HP and a dissolved power shield. Of course, with the power shield now down, it should be vulnerable to further shots.

While the power shield should always regenerate (whether it's partially spent or fully dissolved), there should always be a chance that it breaks any time it does get fully dissolved. Say, 50%.

The reason I say this is that vehicles are slow and aim slowly, which makes it hard to fight back when someone is about to destroy you. This way, you have at least some guarantee that even the most powerful tank can't destroy your vehicle in a single powerful shot, and weaker tanks will need some sort of cooperation and coordination to destroy you after wearing your power shield down, especially useful for flag carriers being swarmed by the enemy team. And tanks which don't move could regenerate this shield faster (using less energy with movement).

Heck, just have all vehicles have an "energy" bar, which always goes up, is spent by movement and by shooting, and by the power shield powerup, and possibly other things too.



Another idea is to give some way for infantry to destroy vehicles. Maybe fixed anti-tank turrets could do the trick - it could be explained as an explosive shell that penetrates armour before detonating. Also, perhaps a way to temporarily render a vehicle unusable (so it doesn't move nor shoot), something like an EMP blast turret, could be useful for defensive purposes.

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Automatically merged

Also, what if bots simply exit vehicles in random parts of the map? With default factory settings they'll not respawn until they are destroyed and might be a pain to reach. Might be worth it auto-despawning vehicles A) far away from home base and B) outside line-of-sight or range of any team member.

Also, what about a factory that can pick a random tank from a list?

Also, what about a mutator that periodically scatters random vehicles across the map in selected "wide open area" locations (those can be algorithmically found)? Could be neat with small vehicle types (like armoured motorbikes or mini-jets) so they can spawn in not-as-big maps

I mean, imagine flying in a minijet above the canyon wall in CTF-LavaGiant!

[Buggie]

Too many ideas. Before start do something, need at least polish exists thing, instead add new one which be bugged at start.

Empty vehicle, spawned from factory, vanished after 60 seconds (configurable) and start timer for respawn new.

If vehicle damaged or push off respawn, after 60 seconds it vanish too. And timer for respawn start too.

Currently random tank from list is not a good idea. Also factories now can use different time for respawn time. So Jeeps respawn in 15 seconds, but tank in 60 for example.
In general it same answer as for first - doubtful idea, which need test after polish current things.

You can try onslaughtvehicles. They messy, but there few which fly.

[Gustavo6046]

That's fine. The thing I would be more interested about myself would be a mutator that lets you play with tanks in any map (by algorithmically spawning them in, like I said earlier); of course this would be low quality compared to maps *made* for vehicular play, like eating instant noodles versus eating actual spaghetti a la carbonara proper. But it would instantly open up a variety of new scenarios in which tanks could be tested and played with!

[Buggie]

Already done:
viewtopic.php?p=134044#p134044
> - Add mutator XVehiclesSummon for summon vehicles (mutate veh 1-6), for make tests.

So you can just use XVehicles.XVehiclesSummon as mutator. When you type
mutate veh 1
...
mutate veh 6
You summon need vehicle (numbers can be from 1 to 6) on any map, so you can test it it any map for check fit it or no.

1 - Jeep SDX (fast)
2 - Jeep TDX (heavy)
3 - Kraht (small)
4 - Tank GK-1 (grey)
5 - Tank ML-105 (red)
6 - Shrali (big)

[Gustavo6046]

Hmm, that's not quite what I meant; I was thinking about spawning random vehicles automatically in random areas depending on how much space there was. So it could actually spawn vehicles in any corner of the map. This could be interesting e.g. in LavaGiant.

[Buggie]

Too hard for find really good places.
All vehs can be spawned on top of level. Good flat surface. But not reachable by players.

If try follow from pathnodes or playerstarts - can be expensive. And not all maps use paths.
Vehs not relicts for safe spawn it on any pathnode.

In general some mutator can collect info abot which Navigation nodes players touch and try use it on next run, but in general UT not great in file storage and store settings per map for some mutator, AFAIK.

[Gustavo6046]

I think you can start searching from NavigationPoints. It might be a bit expensive, yes, but you could do it at the start and then place down marker actors so you only have to do it once. I think it's worth it.

Plus, almost every map has some sort of NavigationPoint, whether it's weapons and pickups, or teleporters, or really anything that has navigationpoint stuff related to it.

[Buggie]

Wapons and pickups not really Navigation point. it is must be linked for I0nventorySpot - hidden navigation point. Which appear after build paths on map. If not built paths - then no such nodes.
Then only PlayerStart (mostly), Teleporter and FlagBase exists on map.

[Gustavo6046]

Wapons and pickups not really Navigation point. it is must be linked for I0nventorySpot - hidden navigation point. Which appear after build paths on map. If not built paths - then no such nodes.
Then only PlayerStart (mostly), Teleporter and FlagBase exists on map.

This should still be enough because the mutator will execute on map load, i.e. at runtime, not at map build time.

[Buggie]

v12

- Add redirect all damage, dealed directly to pawn, to vehicle. (Titans no more able hit player inside vehicles).
- Bots aware about splash damage, from not instant hit vehicle weapons.
- Fix spiderman bug (climb on almost vertical walls).
- Fix few physics code issues.
- Restore lost from v0 classes and sounds.

Updated at first post: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=14936

Added github repo: https://github.com/SeriousBuggie/XVehicles

[EvilGrins]

I should pay more attention to this thread...

- Fix spiderman bug (climb on almost vertical walls).

...kinda sorry I missed out on that one.

[f7r]

What is about ServerPackage? Is all of *.u must be on?

[Barbie]

What is about ServerPackage?

You need them only in ServerPackages if you want to summon tanks to a map that has none.

[Buggie]

Yes. You need all .u + .utx in ServerPackages only if you want use XVehicles in some way on maps, where no XVehicles.
If you simple use maps targeted to XVehicles - you not need add into ServerPackages anything.