RuneStorm
http://www.runestorm.com/forums/

Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
http://www.runestorm.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=52462		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  Grobut [ Mon Feb 11, 2008 2:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
As the name suggests, this mutator is all about slowing gameplay down a bit, and making it more tactical, it is a "realistic movement" style thing so to say.

Running speed has been slowed to more of a fast jog, strafing also comes at a slight speed penalty, and running backwards happens at about half speed.

Momentum is also included, you have to "accelerate" into full speed, and when you stop you will slide a little bit, making player movement more predictable, so useing cover becomes more important, and many weapons (projectile based, semi-auto's and manuals) become more balanced with the Hitscan full-auto weapons.


This is a Beta release, firstly because i would like some player input on the thing, but also because a few issues remain.
UT2004 has no native support for the kind of thing im doing here, it has no momentum build into the player code, and it cannot simply be mutated in, so i've had to code this more aggresively than i would have liked to, the mutator relies on its own Pawn class to augment the movement.
This creates two problems:

1) there is no Bot support in the Conflict gametypes, only the player is affected, this is because the Gametypes are forcing the use of the Ballistic Pawn class.

2) You must make sure that the Ballistic mutators DO NOT have "Force Ballistic Pawn" enabled, or bot support will get broken.

I hope to fix thease issues, but i have to find a reliable way to force my own Pawnclass with a mutator for that to happen, and to be quite honest, i'm not quite sure how at this point, but i am working on it, any suggestions?


But alas, besides thease two hangups, it is fully functional with the BW mutators, and have all BW-Pawn functions (the code expands on the BW-Pawn, so they Gib and bleed like they should).


Have fun with it, and please, give some feedback! :)

EDIT: Link now points to Version 1.2, grab the new version here: http://files.filefront.com/BallisticSlo ... einfo.html

New in version 1.2 is better support for Gametypes, but still not full support for all features (player speed and acceleration is well supported, deceleration and strafe/backwards speed penalties are not so well supported).

There are now 2 mutators, Sloth 1.2, that lets you configure many setting to your liking, but has somewhat limited Gametype support (some work ok, some dont), and the new Sloth-GT mutator, that has better support for Gamtypes (still not full support though, just better), but is not user configurable.

Regardless, the mutators are still best used with normal UT gametypes and the BW mutators, but atleast they are not as inept if used with the BW gametypes as v1.0 was, and that would be a good thing.

Enjoy.

- Grobut.
Author:  James [ Mon Feb 11, 2008 2:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
sounds cool, i'll check this out soon.
Author:  Bulska [ Mon Feb 11, 2008 3:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
I've downloaded it, putted the 2 files in the systems folder, ran UT2004 Ballistic Deathmatch (loadout)
Force ballistic pawn was off, I'm really certain.

But no change in movement, it didnt work. I made an error, my PC is stupid or your mutator doesn't work.
If it was my error, can you see where I made the mistake?
If it was my PC, I might need to reinstall UT2004.
If it was your mutator, then I recommend you looking into it, perhaps if you can reach a different PC with UT2004, BW and internet on it, you can download it there and try it out there. Just suggesting.

I'm really looking forward to this mutator. It sounds awesome :D
Author:  Grobut [ Mon Feb 11, 2008 3:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Bulska wrote:
I've downloaded it, putted the 2 files in the systems folder, ran UT2004 Ballistic Deathmatch (loadout)
Force ballistic pawn was off, I'm really certain.


That shoulden't be, unless you used a Ballistic gametype? you need to use a normal UT gametype with Ballistic Mutators (with force BW-pawn turned OFF), or it wont work as intended.

Also, be aware that other mutators that alter the player class can conflict with this mutator (having several mutators fighting over the same code is obviously a conflict), that can include mutators that change Species statistics, enables 3'rd person view or other player stats, some might work just fine, others might not, its very hard to predict thease things.. or test them all for that matter.

Though i should mention that the BW-Sprint mutator worked just fine in my testing.

I hope you can get it to work, the differences are a bit subtle at first though, but it is definately working if you see acceleration and momentum when you start or stop moving.
Author:  Captain Xavious [ Mon Feb 11, 2008 6:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Sweet! I've really been wanting a mod like this for a for a while now!

I will definitely give this a try.

Saaaaay... first no packs, then more realistic movement... hmm... you aren't planning on making a more realistic version of BW any time soon are you? :D

Also, suggestion for making the game use proper pawns in BW gametypes:

Try just making child classes of the gametypes and change the player pawns that way. It'll give you new gametypes which are essential the same as older ones, but it should work and shouldn't be too difficult to do.
Author:  Grobut [ Mon Feb 11, 2008 7:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Captain Xavious wrote:
Sweet! I've really been wanting a mod like this for a for a while now!

I will definitely give this a try.

Saaaaay... first no packs, then more realistic movement... hmm... you aren't planning on making a more realistic version of BW any time soon are you? :D


You are forgetting the No-Boost! ;)

A full realism re-vamp of BW would be fun though, if there's any kind of intrest for such a thing in this community, perhabs we could form a little modding team twords thouse ends (it'd be a bit much for just one guy, afterall).

Captain Xavious wrote:
Also, suggestion for making the game use proper pawns in BW gametypes:

Try just making child classes of the gametypes and change the player pawns that way. It'll give you new gametypes which are essential the same as older ones, but it should work and shouldn't be too difficult to do.


Yeah i considdered that, but it's not a very ideal situation either, as it would effectively spam your gametype list with a whole slew of duplicate gametypes, and that's a bit much for such a rather small mod as this.
Then i'd really need to make this thing into a bigger realism addon to warrent the bloated size of it.

But as-is, this would be better left a simple mutator that people can use, but ofcourse, mutators and Pawn classes have a rather strained relationship with eachother, so it's no small task either, im't actually not sure anyone has found a way to do it reliably yet.
Author:  Captain Xavious [ Mon Feb 11, 2008 8:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Ah, I understand. Makes sense to me.

I'm trying to actually make something myself with BW as the base, maybe we can work on this as a joint effort. Its nothing terribly serious, just something to pass my time, but if you'd like to help, I'm sure we can benefit from each others' work.

Check your PM box soon. ;)

Oops, forgot to mention something I noticed with the mutator. I love it, but the sliding after releasing a movement key seems to go too long at too slow of a speed. Perhaps make you slide a bit shorter, or keep the slide distance and increase the speed you slide just a tad, or make a smoother transition in speed.

Other than that, I really like this!
Author:  Bjossi [ Mon Feb 11, 2008 8:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
BW has needed a mutator like this since the beginning. Good job. 8)
Author:  skyfe [ Mon Feb 11, 2008 8:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
this is great! 1 bonus for 1.1- make iron sights work while walking- its a big problem- maybe, slow down while you use them, but don't force people to crouchwalk while aiming, thats just stupid.
Author:  Grobut [ Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Captain Xavious wrote:
Ah, I understand. Makes sense to me.

I'm trying to actually make something myself with BW as the base, maybe we can work on this as a joint effort. Its nothing terribly serious, just something to pass my time, but if you'd like to help, I'm sure we can benefit from each others' work.

Check your PM box soon. ;)


Will do.

Captain Xavious wrote:
Oops, forgot to mention something I noticed with the mutator. I love it, but the sliding after releasing a movement key seems to go too long at too slow of a speed. Perhaps make you slide a bit shorter, or keep the slide distance and increase the speed you slide just a tad, or make a smoother transition in speed.

Other than that, I really like this!


Yeah i know, as i said, UT2004 really has no native support for this sort of thing, so this code is basically a hack job, i'm modifying the world and not the player, you know how you can set slippery surfaces in maps? like a patch of ice on the floor or whatever, that's what im forcing on all the time really, so it is not really true momentum.
This also means that the options are rather limited, i can't really make it go faster without you sliding infinately.. like one big skating rink, but one thing i can do is make sure you slide a little less, i'll experiment a bit with that.

But considdering that this shoulden't even be possible in the first place, its quite a clever little hack, meowcat came up with it (the guy behind the YARM mod), he helped me figure out alot of things with this project.

Bjossi wrote:
BW has needed a mutator like this since the beginning. Good job. 8)


I was a bit worried that i would be the only one who thought this was cool, so thats good to hear! !lol

skyfe wrote:
this is great! 1 bonus for 1.1- make iron sights work while walking- its a big problem- maybe, slow down while you use them, but don't force people to crouchwalk while aiming, thats just stupid.


Yeah i thought about that, and i'll look into it, because that would indeed be a nice addition to my mod, but it really depends on how it would have to be coded, and if such a thing can be coded without breaking support for other peoples weapon mods (that would be bad, i dont want to force people to choose between having a movement mod or new weapons).
We'll see, but no promises.
Author:  Captain Xavious [ Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Ah, I see how it works. Pretty clever. 8)
Author:  Bulska [ Tue Feb 12, 2008 10:47 am ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
rly cool mod, I got it working by not using a standard ballistic gametype, but a mutator.

Although the maximal speed for running forward might be a little bit slow for my taste, the acceleration and such is great.
Author:  Kaboodles [ Tue Feb 12, 2008 3:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
I actually thought the opposite. The max speed is fine, but I thought the acceleration was too slow. This mod could really benefit from configure-able settings.
Author:  Grobut [ Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:58 am ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Kaboodles wrote:
I actually thought the opposite. The max speed is fine, but I thought the acceleration was too slow. This mod could really benefit from configure-able settings.


Yes, it would, and i am looking into that, i have never coded a user configurable mutator before, so i have to learn how that is done, but now is as good a time to learn as any..


----------------
Progress report:

I have experimented a bit with different ways to replace the Pawn class, all have failed to do any better than my current code, some even created new bugs, it seems i am running out of options, and fast.
The real problem seems to be that BW gametpes not only use their own Pawn class, but are actively trying to force the use of said Pawn, and i am guessing that the engine values the gametypes higher than mutators, making my efforts in vain.
So i guess thease features wont be fully supported unless Runestorm wants to include them in their next version of BW as an option (and if you do, i am just a PM away).
I have a few things left to try, but things are not looking too promising.

And here's a request: i have looked over the aiming code, and i am confident i have found a simple clean way to force walking whilst aiming, but since thease features are supported in the weapon parent class, i would need a safe way to add and change features to that class without replacing it, if you know of one, let me know!


But so far, the next version is planned to have to following features:

1) minor tweaks to sliding, or possibly user configureable settings (but this stuff is fickle buisness, and tweaking values too much can easilly break it).

2) independant user config for strafe, and backwards speed penalties, ranging from 100% speed to 50% speed (lower values seem to mess things up).

3) user config of max running speed (probably a scale of normal BW speed, all the way down to the slowest you can go without messing up player animations).

4) user config of acceleration rate (within safe paramenters).

It might contain more, especially if i can find a way to force walking whilst aimed, but that is what i have planned so far.

And be sure to report any bugs you find with the current build, if there are any i would obviously want to fix them! ;)

And arm yourselves with a bit of patience.. i am learning as i go here, it might take a while :p
Author:  UndeadRoadkill [ Fri Feb 15, 2008 6:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Awesome mutator, I'm using it standard now even though it negates the effect of the speed ability in RPG, which I'm playing.

I like the bot support, I've been dying for a way to get them to act in a way more consistent with the style of the mod, as opposed to the "ARGH RUN AROUND AND SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT" that they like to do.

Looking forward to more development.
Author:  Grobut [ Sat Feb 16, 2008 1:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
I am at a bit of an impass here.. i have coded the user configurable options, and they work, but as i was digging around, i found a way that my mutator can allmost have full support, even in BW gametypes, problem is that works best with static values, not the new user configurable ones..

Hmm, what to do, user config is very nice, but the lack of gametype support is not, so static values could be a good idea, but on the other hand, even with static values, the muator works best in normal UT gametypes, there's not full support for stuff like decelleration and strafe/back speed penalty in some of the gametypes, only runspeed and acceleration, so is it really worth it?

Well, what do you guys think?

A: Stay with static values, and gain better support in BW gamtypes?

or

B: Go with user config, gaining userfreindlyness in the mode where the mod works best, but gametype support will still be very limited?
Author:  OCAdam [ Sat Feb 16, 2008 2:24 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Grobut wrote:
A: Stay with static values, and gain better support in BW gamtypes?

or

B: Go with user config, gaining userfreindlyness in the mode where the mod works best, but gametype support will still be very limited?


I say A.
Author:  UndeadRoadkill [ Sat Feb 16, 2008 3:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
If you've already got all the work done, why not release both a 'compatibility' version and a 'configurable' version?

I myself mostly play on normal gametypes with BW mutators, but I have custom gametypes thrown in, like Jailbreak, CTF Converter, etc. I never got into the Conquest BW gametype very much, but that was mostly because of how short matches were, due to the bots' reckless bloodthirst.
Author:  Kaboodles [ Sat Feb 16, 2008 5:53 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Grobut wrote:
I am at a bit of an impass here.. i have coded the user configurable options, and they work, but as i was digging around, i found a way that my mutator can allmost have full support, even in BW gametypes, problem is that works best with static values, not the new user configurable ones..

Hmm, what to do, user config is very nice, but the lack of gametype support is not, so static values could be a good idea, but on the other hand, even with static values, the muator works best in normal UT gametypes, there's not full support for stuff like decelleration and strafe/back speed penalty in some of the gametypes, only runspeed and acceleration, so is it really worth it?

Well, what do you guys think?

A: Stay with static values, and gain better support in BW gamtypes?

or

B: Go with user config, gaining userfreindlyness in the mode where the mod works best, but gametype support will still be very limited?




Both.

Just have a default value you can switch to, or have presets.
Author:  Grobut [ Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:03 am ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Kaboodles wrote:
Both.

Just have a default value you can switch to, or have presets.


Presets wont work, the reason i get better support with static values is that i am limiting what the Pawn class can do, aswell at the mutation of the BW-Pawn, for some reasons, that seems to force alot of things to work, or atleast work pretty well, with a few options missing.

But the moment i allow thease values to be flexible in any way, BW's code totally overwrites some of them, like the Groundspeed variable.
I've looked into the code a bit, and some of the gametypes are doing some odd things, like allowing the pawn to spawn, but then resetting the pawn (a Purge is called), and thats probably the problem right there, if there aren't solid values to fall back on after that Purge, then the values will be overwritten and set at BW defaults.

What i can do is make two mutators, one that is configurable, and one that is not, but ofcourse, it's hardly ideal.. still, there's nothing wrong with giving people multiple choices, so that may be exactly what i end up doing.
Author:  Captain Xavious [ Sun Feb 17, 2008 9:46 am ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
I say static values. User config is overrated, UScript is the ultimate in user configuration. ;)
Author:  Grobut [ Sun Feb 17, 2008 12:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Well, i decided to go with a dual mutator release in the end, and i hope this version prooves more enjoyable, if you haven't noticed it it yet, the new version has been edited into the first post ;)

I would still appreciate any feedback, as i may still find ways to further better the mutator.
Author:  Captain Xavious [ Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:38 am ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
I'm using the non-config one and i have to say I love it! Not seeing any problems with it at all in an Evo-Loadout Invasion game.
Author:  UndeadRoadkill [ Tue Feb 19, 2008 3:23 am ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Cool beans!

Would it be possible to tweak the animations to go through a more smooth standing-walk-run to the pace of the movement?
Author:  Grobut [ Tue Feb 19, 2008 6:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
UndeadRoadkill wrote:
Cool beans!

Would it be possible to tweak the animations to go through a more smooth standing-walk-run to the pace of the movement?


Nope, to make the anims really fit would require blending of anims (not supported by the engine), and all new player models with new anims like slide.

I feel it looks ok at any rate, considdering the limitations we're up against here.
Author:  Sgt. Kelly [ Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Very nice work. :)

The bots can actually aim now!
Author:  Grobut [ Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Ballistic Sloth (Beta), Version 1.2 out!
Sgt. Kelly wrote:
Very nice work. :)

The bots can actually aim now!


Yeah funny that, i haven't actually changed bot behaviour in any way, i haven't touched any of that code, but just lowering the speed of the game has actually had quite an impact on them, it changes the game alot, much more than i ever thought it would when i started this.

Guess we can call that an unexpected, but very welcome bonus ;)


Uscripts is an odd beast, you never can tell what's going to happen next..
Page 1 of 1 All times are UTC - 6 hours
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group
http://www.phpbb.com/