Request: Spray & Pray AI

[tehflambo]

You're a scavenger. Every day and night you fight off mirelurks, ghouls and mole rats. Every day you dig through trash. Last week you found fifteen bullets for your 10mm, and boy was that a big haul. Scavenging isn't easy and it isn't makin' you rich, but it's a living and you're good at it.

 

Or at least that's what you thought, until you ran into raiders.

 

Seriously, does it drive anyone else crazy that any enemy with a gun just unloads on you like he's toting a munitions dump around with him, and yet never drops more than like six bullets for loot? To be more precise: I love that ammo is rare in Fallout 3. I think it could stand to be even more rare than it is, actually. But it drives me crazy that ammo isn't rare for NPCs.

 

A small tweak or change is what im looking for. Two important features:

- AI remove ammo from their inventory when they shoot. When AI have no ammo in their inventory, they can't shoot.

- AI understand that they have limited ammo, and don't waste it by taking potshots on hopelessly distant enemies.

 

The upside:

- WAY better immersion when fighting enemies with guns.

- More reason to finish firefights quickly (with grenades, heavy weapons, stealth, however you want to play it)

 

The downside:

- AI isn't very smart. A change like this could potentially make it too easy to fight Raiders and similar enemies.

- A change like this might be difficult. I don't know anything about writing mods for Fallout 3.

 

More detail: (If you haven't read enough yet)

 

AI maximum firearm engagement range derived from several factors:

- Amount of ammo available

- Weapon skill of AI unit (a.k.a. maximum effective range)

 

AI should spawn with more ammo in inventory, so that they can still do a reasonable amount of shooting before running dry.

 

End of Request.

 

MORE FEATURES OH EM GEE: (if someone takes up this request and is feeling ambitious)

- "Have any of my friends died yet?"

** If the AI knows you are attacking its camp, and knows that you have succeeded in killing one of their buddies, they should become more trigger happy. Why? Because if the AI sit around conserving their ammo while a sneaky character picks them off one by one, then this mod would make stealth gameplay way WAY more powerful than it presently is.

 

- AI will restock their ammo from nearby containers they own.

** If a bunch of raiders are in a raider camp, they will refill their ammo from ammo boxes, depleting the inventory of those boxes.

** If a bunch of raiders are wandering the wasteland, they will not omnisciently refill their ammo from the random box that happens to have a few bullets in it.

 

That's all! Thoughts, or even worse, has this already been done? Looking forward to feedback/someone agreeing to do this mod.

[EbbyExaspimaru]

The ammo part of this is actually very easy, just.... insanely tedious to implement. I went to the trouble of doing it for my current load order, which includes the 20th Century Weapons mod. The work involved is mostly going through the entry for each weapon you want NPCs to use as if ammo were actually a thing and check the "NPCs Use Ammo" flag. It's also a good idea to adjust the entries for various ammo spawns, since the vanilla ones tend to be slanted toward NPCs that don't need the bullets to fire and so don't give enough ammo for an even remotely prolonged firefight. If you want, I could probably adjust parts of the personal mod I use for NPC ammo use for the load order you use. Just PM me the load order and whatnot.

 

As for NPCs being aware of ammo conservation... that's rather harder to institute. I can think of a few vague ideas where to approach that problem from, but nothing particularly solid. The normal AI for say, Raiders, is ludicrously reckless. I have had them charge me with bare fists if they used up all their ammo before I could injure them enough for them to flee. On the other hand, they do stop to pick up fresh guns and bullets off of, say, the corpses of their recently-dead pals. I'm still working on something to make them less insane when they're unarmed, though. I might go the route of just adding melee backup weapons to most NPCs.

[tehflambo]

The ammo part of this is actually very easy, just.... insanely tedious to implement. [...] If you want, I could probably adjust parts of the personal mod I use for NPC ammo use for the load order you use. Just PM me the load order and whatnot.

 

That would actually be really cool. The only catch is that I don't even have Fallout 3 installed at the moment. A few months ago I was on the nexus to mod a clean install of Oblivion, and now I'm back for Fallout. I'll probably have a modded install up in about a week, and if your offer still stands at that time then I'd love to take you up on it.

 

As for NPCs being aware of ammo conservation... that's rather harder to institute. I can think of a few vague ideas where to approach that problem from, but nothing particularly solid. The normal AI for say, Raiders, is ludicrously reckless. I have had them charge me with bare fists if they used up all their ammo before I could injure them enough for them to flee. On the other hand, they do stop to pick up fresh guns and bullets off of, say, the corpses of their recently-dead pals. I'm still working on something to make them less insane when they're unarmed, though. I might go the route of just adding melee backup weapons to most NPCs.

 

Yeah, definitely not a simple problem. I don't even have any idea of how much AI modification is possible through mods. I think I've read here and there about mods adjusting AI, so I hope something is possible. If it were, I can think of some simple AI logic to adjust behavior with regards to ammo conservation.

 

Am I on my last clip? YES: conserve ammo behavior (see below) // NO: Do not conserve ammo; normal behavior.

 

Conserve Ammo Behavior:

 

What is my maximum effective range? <handy equation factoring NPC weapon skill and weapon item's accuracy to meet a target 'hit chance' value. 'Hit chance' target value could range randomly from 50% to 100% across individual npcs>

 

Eg. (Modifier x Small Guns) x (Modifier x 10mm Pistol Accuracy) x (Modifier x Weapon Condition) x (Modifier x Accuracy Target) = Maximum Effective Range

 

Is the target within my maximum effective range? YES: normal attack behavior // NO: seek cover; do not engage.

 

Have any of my friends been killed by <target> in this encounter? YES: "Jumpy" behavior; maximum effective range doubled // NO: Maximum effective range normal.

 

Am I out of ammo? YES: Seek ammo or weapon from corpses or local placed items/storage containers // NO: continue present behavior.

 

Did I find ammo? YES: Put no more than one clip of ammo into inventory. Return to conserve ammo behavior // NO: Vanilla suicidal melee engagement behavior.

 

But again, all of this depends entirely on the amount of control a mod can actually exert on AI behavior. If anyone happens to read this who knows anything about altering AI via mods, input would be madly appreciated.

[DerekBleize]

At the end there when you said the 'did I find ammo part', what if instead of them charging with melee weapons they instead hid behind a rock or the corner of a building or some other obstruction for you to find them, then try to clobber youD? I am not sure if this is possible, but if I recall correctly, there are some mods that make your own followers use cover in firefights, so this may be possible.

[tehflambo]

At the end there when you said the 'did I find ammo part', what if instead of them charging with melee weapons they instead hid behind a rock or the corner of a building or some other obstruction for you to find them, then try to clobber youD? I am not sure if this is possible, but if I recall correctly, there are some mods that make your own followers use cover in firefights, so this may be possible.

 

I would definitely love behavior like that. Even more, I'd like to see the AI make a fight or flight evaluation when they run out of ammo. Raiders fighting scavengers might unload their clips and then run in with knives and bats, while raiders against Brotherhood could unload and then run for home.

 

For the scope of this mod request though, I'm trying to keep my wish list short. If the mod ever sees an initial release, it would be way cool to add in more features like these.

[EbbyExaspimaru]

The offer will still stand, to be sure.

 

 

Hm... well, I was going to tamper with AI packages and scripting for WNC at some point anyhow, I think I'll look into some of my ideas on how to implement what you're describing here. With regards to the "Have any of my friends been killed by <target> in this encounter?" part, I think if I were to put something together for this, I would have a YES answer also result in increased chance of retreat on top of the other stuff. Hence, the more of a group gets slaughtered, the more likely the survivors are to try cutting their losses.

 

Mm... lots of ideas on what would be good to see in a system like this. Different types of enemy with variations in behavior, etc. Some of it could probably be based off of the vanilla Confidence behaviors.

[tehflambo]

With regards to the "Have any of my friends been killed by <target> in this encounter?" part, I think if I were to put something together for this, I would have a YES answer also result in increased chance of retreat on top of the other stuff. Hence, the more of a group gets slaughtered, the more likely the survivors are to try cutting their losses.

 

Mm... lots of ideas on what would be good to see in a system like this. Different types of enemy with variations in behavior, etc. Some of it could probably be based off of the vanilla Confidence behaviors.

 

Yeah, there really would be a ton of room for variation and improvement in the name of immersion, challenge and fun. Once a project like this got started it could be really easy to see it escalating into a compilation of advanced AI enhancements. Probably not in time for Bethesda to pick up on the work and pass it off as their own in F:NV, but oh well! :tongue:

[DerekBleize]

Sorry for dredging, but I forgot about this thread. One more thing I just thought of could be some sort of hit and run tactics, like some raiders shoot from one side of a building, then run to the other side or somewhere else to lose you, then attack again from a blindspot, but I'm thinking this is waaay past the limitations of the engine.

[evilneko]

Well, I don't think it's anywhere near what was suggested in terms of ammo conservation, but Combat Enhanced Tactics does make NPCs fight smarter.

 

Given that this thread got no attention from anyone willing to attempt making something like this, that's probably as close as you're gonna get.

[Nadin]

Ehh...I'll tinker. Don't hold your breath.