Apocalypse Rising AR :: October 2016 Update

[Apocalypse Rising Team]

Check out the October Update for Apocalypse Rising! Surprises found inside!

Hello, everyone! It's time for another dev update, and is there much to cover! So much so, that we can't fit everything into one update. Progress has steamed ahead and each testing session has become more interesting than the last! With so much content being divided into equal parts, expect several updates as we catch up on our reveals!

 

 

Today's update: Bots, Attack Dogs, and Spies!

 

 

Bots In C&C Mode

A wonderful feature we are proud to introduce into AR, bots now populate the maps and fight the good fight!

 

Upon the start of each match, AI offensive modules and AI defensive modules are loaded in. Speaking generally, bots that attack and defend join the battle, meaning that players can play the game against the AI! Offensive bots immediately move out to engage and attack the enemy forces. Defensive bots, on the other hand, will remain at base to protect against trespassers.

 

The offensive bots forces comprises your team's ground arsenal, from infantry to tanks. Infantry AI will support friendly tanks and engage enemy infantry. Additionally, they will infiltrate enemy buildings, and will even attack weakpoints within the enemy base! If the unit is armed with C4, they will stick it onto major weakpoints. A little C4 knocking at your door!

Tank AI will prioritise enemy armour first before engaging enemy infantry. If properly supported by friendlies, they may even bring down a base defense or two, and then move on to shoot base buildings!

 

 

Offensive bots battling for field control.

The defensive bots forces comprises of basic infantry and engineers. Infantry will be stationed around the base and inside friendly buildings to ward off enemy advances, as well as chasing and killing enemy units that enter the buildings themselves. Engineers will be positioned at Repair Nodes to repair any damages caused to the base, but will leave the building they spawned at to run to other buildings when repair duty or C4 disarming tasks call. Naturally when attacking the enemy base, it would be viable to send soldiers inside to wipe out the repairing personnel.

 

 

An Engineer bot taking care of a Repair Node.

Bots are removed/added back to the game dynamically depending on the playercount (if enough players are ingame, all the bots are gone). This ensures the game is always full of action, even if there are only a few players online.

 

 

A lot of time has been spent on this new feature by @moonsense715 that makes bots able to play classic C&C mode. In short, the AI learned how to destroy and repair bases.

He'll be working on improving offline and online gaming experience in AR by making bots smarter.

 

 

Soviet bots paradropping. Invasion confirmed!

Attack Dogs

Attack Dogs have made it ingame, and are purchasable from the Barracks. Both teams have their respective canine companions; the Soviets with the Siberian Husky and the Allies with the German Shepherd. An effective anti-infantry unit, Attack Dogs introduce a new element to close-quarters combat. Consider biting enemy infantry while inside a building!

 

 

Allied and Soviet Attack Dogs, created by @Romanov, animations by @Jerad2142.

Spy

Tactical Espionage Action.

 

 

Always with an affinity for subterfuge, the Allies again employ the use of Spies in the Third World War against the Soviet Union. Armed with his quick wits, a silenced Walther PPK, and a Disguise Kit, the Spy seeks to obtain intelligence and sow confusion among the enemy forces.

 

 

The Spy's sidearm, the Walther PPK, created by @Romanov.

With spotting scope in hand, a Spy may find an enemy infantry (or a driver of an enemy vehicle) to disguise as from a relatively safe distance. Once disguised, the Spy may then bypass enemy base defenses without worry. Moments later, the Soviet base finds itself without power! Fancy that!

 

 

Secondly, with the same disguise ability, he can act as a decoy unit by targeting teammates. Imagine the soviets seeing 2 Tanyas approaching their base, but they don't know which one is the real threat!

 

 

@FRAYDO demonstrating @Romanov's disguise scripts.

 

For base infiltration, the Spy has a slowly respawning hacking device at his disposal. This ensures that the Spy cannot sprint from building to building shutting everything down. The mindful Spy will keep note of the cooldown timer of the hacking device, as well as soviet movements within their base while determining which building to infiltrate next.

 

 

Recruitment

We are always hiring new team members to speed up AR's release! If you believe that you can help us out, you are more than welcome to help!

 

 

The following positions are open:

• 2 Artists for modelling and texturing civilian buildings and props.
• 1 Artist for making nature assets (trees, bushes, etc.)
• 1 Character Artist
• 1 Texture Artist/Photoshop User (optionally Unwrapper) to help in texturing building interior objects

If you wish to contribute to this project and believe you have the skills, give us a shout!

 

 

If you would like to contribute to the game and believe you have the skills, don't hesitate to apply! If you don't know if you have the skills, send us a forum PM and we can chat. If you would like to help in areas not listed here, that is also more than welcome.

To apply, just send me or One Winged Angel a PM (Private Message) via the forums and let us know which position you wish to apply for.

 

 

Team Messages

OWA: Work at Creative Assembly has been slowing down progress, but the G.I. should *finally* be in the game before the end of October. Also there is work to be done on vehicle cameras now that we have a multitude of new vehicles. Stay tuned for more updates.

moonsense715: MEGA amount of dev progress in August and September! Building interiors are done and tons of new units were added to the game core.

FRAYDO: Testing sessions have been crazy fun! If you haven't already applied to testership, what are you waiting for?!

Romanov: TDBERR

Killing You: *Creating lots of sound effects*

 

End

Any questions?

[des1206]

Very cool spy logic you got there. Nice touch on the TF2 reference : )

 

Actually wait, how did you get 2 hands? I thought dual wield isn't possible in W3D engine?

[Pushwall]

Actually wait, how did you get 2 hands? I thought dual wield isn't possible in W3D engine?

 

Never seen Renegade's Remote C4?

 

First person and third person animations are 2 very different things. First person animations don't have to deal with things like a single gun bone that is anchored to a specific part of the character's body and would cause guns intended for the other hand to flail all over the place instead.

 

Also those two hands don't have two separate guns that are expected to fire in alternation. Some tool or armament in one hand and a scope/binoculars/detonator in the other is just about the only sensible way to do first-person dual-wielding in this engine because it gets around the issue of "only one firing animation".

[MPRA2]

Terror Drones, despite having no control whatsoever on their movement................ Are the best units in AR.

[JigglyJie]

If I remember correctly the Spy in RA2 also functioned like a thief. How will this be handled/balanced? Will they be limited or something else?

[moonsense715]

If I remember correctly the Spy in RA2 also functioned like a thief. How will this be handled/balanced? Will they be limited or something else?

Some buildings behave different when "hacked" by the Spy. Right now for the Refinery, when the Spy attaches the device, instead of shutting the Ref down this happens:

Every second, 1% of the soviet team's cash is stolen instantly and distributed between the allied players. Since it's always 1% of the "current soviet money", the amount rewired is less and less every second (but increases if the War Miner dumps ore).

 

Hacking devices can be disarmed by Technicians/Engineers to stop the effects.

[Einstein]

Is that stackable??

[des1206]

 

If I remember correctly the Spy in RA2 also functioned like a thief. How will this be handled/balanced? Will they be limited or something else?

Some buildings behave different when "hacked" by the Spy. Right now for the Refinery, when the Spy attaches the device, instead of shutting the Refinery down this happens:

Every second, 1% of the soviet team's cash is stolen instantly and distributed between the allied players. Since it's always 1% of the "current soviet money", the amount rewired is less and less every second (but increases if the War Miner dumps ore).

 

Hacking devices can be disarmed by Technicians/Engineers to stop the effects.

 

 

I did a little math on that using Excel. If Soviets ignore this for 1 minute, they effectively lose 45% of their original money. If 2 minutes, then 70% of their original money.

 

Edited October 7, 2016 by des1206

[Killing_You]

Well, it's their fault if they choose to ignore it.

[moonsense715]

 

Some buildings behave different when "hacked" by the Spy. Right now for the Refinery, when the Spy attaches the device, instead of shutting the Refinery down this happens:

Every second, 1% of the soviet team's cash is stolen instantly and distributed between the allied players. Since it's always 1% of the "current soviet money", the amount rewired is less and less every second (but increases if the War Miner dumps ore).

 

Hacking devices can be disarmed by Technicians/Engineers to stop the effects.

 

I did a little math on that using Excel. If Soviets ignore this for 1 minute, they effectively lose 45% of their original money. If 2 minutes, then 70% of their original money.

 

The soviets get an announcement that their money is being stolen so they can act on it or slowly lose their money.

[Jeod]

Is there a timer on that? What if nobody is at the base? Soviets could be planning a massive attack on the Allies and the Spy uses the time to hack the refinery. That's a poor risk/reward mechanism, but that's what testers are for.

[moonsense715]

Is there a timer on that? What if nobody is at the base? Soviets could be planning a massive attack on the Allies and the Spy uses the time to hack the refinery. That's a poor risk/reward mechanism, but that's what testers are for.

We can always do what the APB Thief does, steal 50% instantly, that's what happens in RA2. I just thought this would be more fair as he can do many other things in the enemy base.

 

We also tried a logic where the Spy must go back to the friendly refinery to deposit the stolen money but he NEVER got out of the soviet base alive after stealing so that idea was dropped and this current one is in place now

[Jeod]

 

Is there a timer on that? What if nobody is at the base? Soviets could be planning a massive attack on the Allies and the Spy uses the time to hack the refinery. That's a poor risk/reward mechanism, but that's what testers are for.

We can always do what the APB Thief does, steal 50% instantly, that's what happens in RA2. I just thought this would be more fair as he can do many other things in the enemy base.

I'm hesitant to preach RA2-lism for many reasons, but it's not to difficult to visualize what kind of balance/imbalance we'd have in a game of 10-14 players. I'm all for testing both methods. Gives the spy a good opportunity to stay in the refinery and defend the hack node.

 

Better yet, throw the hack node thing into the APB server for a day or two and let technicians and golden wrenches fix it. That'll give you more data for balance testing, won't it?

Edited October 7, 2016 by Jeod

[MPRA2]

I still think this balance is better than APB's Balance. you got invulnerable terror drones!? what more could you ask for!

[Willy]

The bots being added to the game is probably the best thing to happen to fans of AR since grilled cheese sandwiches.

[Mojoman]

What stops the bots from lagging the server? Wasn't that a big Renegade problem when you had many of them?

[Pushwall]

THEY ARE MAN! Could you port the scripts over to A Path Beyond so we could have the same system bots during low player counts? Or would you have to really modify every single map to have something even close to your system?

 

I guess you've never been around for the times Camos Canyon Bots got put on the server and seen how all bots flood down the very same path and vehicle bots don't know how to not bump into each other. Which means they will happily block ore trucks. This is only slightly solved in camos by how all of the vehicle bots spawn in front of the ore fields instead of their own base so they won't drive into their own ore truck's path, but when one team gets the upper hand they'll still unwittingly block the other team's ore truck. Plus it means when you're sieging the enemy base from outside, enemy vehicles will spawn behind you, which is no fun at all.

 

Also look at the screenshots and notice how there is basically no scenery for bots to get stuck on.

 

Also the proliferation of respawning infantry bots = killwhore heaven, as they are still infantry and therefore count as kills. I'm just about pushing the reasonable limit for this with AI ore truck technicians.

[moonsense715]

Bots shouldn't get stuck in scenery if you generated pathfind on the whole map and fixed some remaining issues with extra pathfind blockers.

 

But yeah some APB maps are way too huge to completely be covered with pathfind zones just for bots.

[Pushwall]

If I took the time to make a bunch of specialised pathfind blockers for each map they could have them, but then we end up with ore truck shenanigans like the ones I pointed out in the thread for the first patch that contained River Raid. I originally wanted to make a Bots version of that map too, but with pathfind generating across the entire map, the Soviet ore truck's path went awry after leaving the base; rather than going straight to the ore field from there, it would drive around the right side of the bridge, into the river, then all the way left through the river, passing by the gem field and finally going back into the ore field, taking at least an extra minute per trip - restricting the pathfind to just the intended OT path prevented this. So I'd also have to make sure every map's ore trucks are behaving properly - and adding pathfind blockers to prevent such things from happening would also prevent other AI units from moving through areas I don't want the ore truck moving through too. While I don't have to completely block off the main field from pathfinding (just block it off enough for the OT to see that the shorter route is in fact shorter), that just means there's a lot less potential routes for units to path through, making the traffic-jammage even more severe than on Camos considering there's even less room to move around on that map already compared to Camos.

[moonsense715]

ah shit. With all the problems you just listed, I wonder how Apocalypse Rising gets around all of these issues then?

By spending the time APB devs spend with VIS setup on pathfind fine-tuning.

[MPRA2]

 

ah shit. With all the problems you just listed, I wonder how Apocalypse Rising gets around all of these issues then?

By spending the time APB devs spend with VIS setup on pathfind fine-tuning.

 

Making sure bots shoot correctly, and aimbot hardcore.... kinda like zunnie's older bots before he dun goofed it up and made that glitch where you could crouch walk towards a bot and take no damage.

[MPRA2]

SO what, are the bots like SUPER accurate, and a total chore to deal with in game? Or are they actually pleasant to have on your side/fight against?

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh a little bit of both. BUT they still have dumb pathfinding.

[Willy]

Soooo, yes? I am also super stoked to see vehicle bots!

[Einstein]

It can be....interesting to say the least. MPRA2 might have more to say on that

[MPRA2]

It can be....interesting to say the least. MPRA2 might have more to say on that

They are my worst nightmare..

[Jeod]

With the bot refining I'm hoping to see a coop map. Ahh the memories...

 

[ganein14]

 

It can be....interesting to say the least. MPRA2 might have more to say on that

They are my worst nightmare..

 

git gud skrubloard. In all seriousness though, if you circle strafe around them and they don't have a hitscan weapon, you'll be dodging about half of what they're shooting at you. Still a lethal amount if you're out numbered three to one.

[moonsense715]

That's what we're working on. Making bots able to play C&C mode properly.

[Willy]

MRW to that

[V0LK0V]

BOTS

That shit is fucking awesome.