A21 NPCMod and Addons

[Fox]

Day 12 in Navezgane, still no birds or spiders (including nest(s)). I don't even know what to look for or where in-game. I have all the latest from here as I know things are still being worked on. I also have DarkRaiderGurlzFriendly installed which works fine so far, haven't hired any yet though.

Edited July 11, 2023 by Fox (see edit history)

[drkstardragon]

14 hours ago, Fox said:

Day 12 in Navezgane, still no birds or spiders (including nest(s)). I don't even know what to look for or where in-game. I have all the latest from here as I know things are still being worked on. I also have DarkRaiderGurlzFriendly installed which works fine so far, haven't hired any yet though.

Can you spawn the birds or spiders with f6? Also, in your %appdata% 7dtd folder, in generated worlds > prefabs do you see any of the spider pois spawning?

 

[arramus]

16 hours ago, Fox said:

Day 12 in Navezgane, still no birds or spiders (including nest(s)). I don't even know what to look for or where in-game. I have all the latest from here as I know things are still being worked on. I also have DarkRaiderGurlzFriendly installed which works fine so far, haven't hired any yet though.

The spiders appear in the Wasteland and Desert. The Colony Expansion spiders also have their own POIs once generated in a RWG World and they can appear anywhere.

[Fox]

On 7/11/2023 at 7:29 AM, drkstardragon said:

Can you spawn the birds or spiders with f6? Also, in your %appdata% 7dtd folder, in generated worlds > prefabs do you see any of the spider pois spawning?

I went into the desert, hung out for a while exploring the entire desert area, spammed F6 in a dozen places (EDIT: Didn't know about DM mode, will try again later), opened command to see if anything came up relating to birds or spiders, nothing... just a bunch of Raider girls killing stuff. No nests at all, no spiders. I did see 2 vultures, but that's vanilla. Unless TFP removed them and that's what this bird mod does is bring them back?

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to check the prefabs file while the mods were still installed, but I did look in there afterwards and searched for the keyword spider and nest and nothing came up. I imagine it was too late cuz it was uninstalled, but maybe it wasn't?

 

On 7/11/2023 at 9:39 AM, arramus said:

The spiders appear in the Wasteland and Desert. The Colony Expansion spiders also have their own POIs once generated in a RWG World and they can appear anywhere.

Thanks. I hardly ever go there for anything, so maybe it's pointless for me to have that mod installed anyway. Though I was curious so I went there to see them but obviously saw nothing as I described above.

 

Something else I'd like to point out and I kind of doubt the mods are the cause of this but my fps went from the capped 144 down to 12 when one of the wandering hoards spawned in near my base area. Killing the zeds didn't fix anything. Had to lower a few settings from Ultra+ to high to I guess reset some stuff which bumped me back to 144 again. I'll try Ultra+ again now that I uninstalled all but the raider girls and core stuff and I'll see if it happens again.

EDIT: Turns out having a buttload of full grown trees in a small area tanks fps when everything is maxed.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Fox (see edit history)

[xyth]

8 minutes ago, Fox said:

I went into the desert, hung out for a while exploring the entire desert area, spammed F6 in a dozen places, opened command to see if anything came up relating to birds or spiders, nothing... just a bunch of Raider girls killing stuff. No nests at all, no spiders. I did see 2 vultures, but that's vanilla. Unless TFP removed them and that's what this bird mod does is bring them back?

 

Thanks. I hardly ever go there for anything, so maybe it's pointless for me to have that mod installed anyway. Though I was curious so I went there to see them but obviously saw nothing as I described above.

 

Something else I'd like to point out and I kind of doubt the mods are the cause of this but my fps went from the capped 144 down to 12 when one of the wandering hoards spawned in near my base area. Killing the zeds didn't fix anything. Had to lower a few settings from Ultra+ to high to I guess reset some stuff which bumped me back to 144 again. I'll try Ultra+ again now that I uninstalled all but the raider girls and core stuff and I'll see if it happens again.

Did you load both the base spider pack then his expansion pack?  Any error in the log?   You hear birds more often than see them, but again, that mod might not be loading due to a log error

 

[Fox]

28 minutes ago, xyth said:

Did you load both the base spider pack then his expansion pack?  Any error in the log?   You hear birds more often than see them, but again, that mod might not be loading due to a log error

 

Nothing red came up, but I didn't read every line as, well... a lot of text comes up all the time. Maybe I should have paid more attention for the yellow texts?

Didn't hear any birds either. And yes, I loaded both spider mods (yours and the expansion).

[xyth]

19 minutes ago, Fox said:

Nothing red came up, but I didn't read every line as, well... a lot of text comes up all the time. Maybe I should have paid more attention for the yellow texts?

Didn't hear any birds either. And yes, I loaded both spider mods (yours and the expansion).

When you are in DM, and press F6, can you spawn a bird?  I just went in game an spawned a few.  Maybe the spawn rate needs bumping up a bit

 

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by xyth (see edit history)

[Fox]

44 minutes ago, xyth said:

When you are in DM, and press F6, can you spawn a bird?

Ok, so after re-installing the mods, going into DM mode which I didn't know I needed to do for F6 to work, I was able to get spiders to spawn, but could not find any birds in the list at all. Is it named bird or something weird?

 

Ok, so I was able to find robin (and others now that I know to filter / search under animal) and that spawned in just fine... although damn some of those things are small. So maybe it all works fine and I'm just not able to see them naturally spawn in cuz I'm in a biome that only spawns in tiny birds (base located in large corn field near city)?

Edited July 11, 2023 by Fox (see edit history)

[xyth]

The robin is tiny, the other birds are not.

[xyth]

Pushed .08 version update:  Added tags for each weapon type that an NPC can swap to.  This fixes a bug where if the Character author only wanted some weapons to be used on a character, they could specify only to use those weapons.

 

Darkstars soldiers and friendly Gurlz are now updated to this new system, so be sure to download those updates.  This version also requires the latest version of SCore.  

[xiao]

Hi, I found a problem while trying to use the mod. When the bandit fired, the nearby monster who heard the shot would move directly towards me, even though I remained in stealth mode. And the zombies will attack me first, not the bandits. 

[kuroobuta]

Hello, the UI is small and I can't select the options. What should I do?

1 minute ago, kuroobuta said:

こんにちは、UI が小さくてオプションを選択できません。私は何をすべきか？

[xyth]

5 hours ago, kuroobuta said:

Hello, the UI is small and I can't select the options. What should I do?

this mod needs the Vanilla UI, or one that is compatible. 

8 hours ago, xiao said:

Hi, I found a problem while trying to use the mod. When the bandit fired, the nearby monster who heard the shot would move directly towards me, even though I remained in stealth mode. And the zombies will attack me first, not the bandits. 

We do not change the vanilla zombie targetting AI beyond adding the NPCs to the list, which is `ApproachAndAttackTarget class=EntityPlayer,0,EntityBandit,0,EntityEnemyAnimal,0,EntityNPC,0,EntityAnimal,0|`      The player is the first priority of the zombies, so if it sees you, its going to go for you.  Stealth wont help you if they are alerted and can see you.

[xiao]

Ok😀. Another problem is that the ai doesn't seem to be able to shoot in most of the houses, but keeps going towards the walls.Not only that, they can't get out of the house properly, regardles

7 hours ago, xyth said:

this mod needs the Vanilla UI, or one that is compatible. 

We do not change the vanilla zombie targetting AI beyond adding the NPCs to the list, which is `ApproachAndAttackTarget class=EntityPlayer,0,EntityBandit,0,EntityEnemyAnimal,0,EntityNPC,0,EntityAnimal,0|`      The player is the first priority of the zombies, so if it sees you, its going to go for you.  Stealth wont help you if they are alerted and can see you.

s of whether there are zombies around.

[drkstardragon]

8 hours ago, xiao said:

Ok😀. Another problem is that the ai doesn't seem to be able to shoot in most of the houses, but keeps going towards the walls.Not only that, they can't get out of the house properly, regardles

s of whether there are zombies around.

Yes, a known issue, currently being worked on. Havent had much in the way of bug reports/feedback so far with the release of the "stable" version. Need info on reproduceable issues. Mod is really still in experimental phase, playtesting would be appreciated.

Edited July 13, 2023 by drkstardragon (see edit history)

[Seregavlg]

Please help, 

latest build , dedicated server :

2023-07-13T18:42:47 103.040 ERR XML loader: Loading and parsing 'dialogs.xml' failed
2023-07-13T18:42:47 103.052 EXC No action class 'HasTag, SCore found!

[Guppycur]

You need to have sCore loaded.  The latest version, too.

[Seregavlg]

Thanks, already download

[xyth]

This mod could really use some help testing out the NPCs in gameplay situations.  If you are interested in joining the team as a tester, this is a list of known issues:

 

1.  NPCs sometimes, after working as expected for a while, start slow walking, almost an stationary shuffle.  We think we know the root case, and hopefully this one will be fixed in a day or so.

 

2.  Game crashes on exit if you have both a hired NPC and a Drone active.  Work around is pickup the drone before exiting.  Have not found the root cause yet.

 

3.  NPCs sometimes lose the ability to attack after a while.  They will stop firing if ranged, or run up in your face but not attack.  This one was reported but I cannot reproduce.  If you can help identify conditions when it happens, that would help.

 

4.  Pathing issues inside POIs.  We know part of the root case and I reported to TFP testing staff.  Vanilla zombies have the same issue, but since they will break blocks, it isn't easy to see.   What is happening is in the vanilla Shapes.xml file, a huge number of shapes/blocks have the property `<property name="Path" value="solid" />`  commented out.  What this means is a zombie or an NPC might see going through that block shape as a valid path to get to the player.  However, the zombie and NPC are physically blocked by that block.  The zombie then attacks it, while the NPC just runs into it like its not there.  Its not just inside POIs either.  Ever wonder why zombies attack some trees for no apparent reason?  Yup, same issue.  Most trees are now fixed in the NPCCore is loaded now though.

 

The fix would be to identify any shapes in the shape.xml file that are causing this behavior, and we can in the short term uncomment those properties so those blocks act correctly.  We then can let TFP know those shapes and they can add those fixes to the next game update.  This will be easier to find on an NPC, as they will run into that block shape, or just stare at it depending on the active AI task.

 

Note:  If you are in DM (debug mode) by typing DM into the console when in game, then after exiting the console, press the zero key on the numpad, you will see debug information over the head of all entities.  On NPOCs it will show their target, and active task (movingto, idling, attacking etc.  This information is important when reporting bugs.  What was the AI telling the NPC to do when a bug happened?  

 

Note2: Another helpful tool is pressing F3 while in debug mode to show another screen that will allow you to inspect the object you are looking at.  F3 will tell you a lot about the player character, but holding the shift key down while F3 is toggled on will tell you about the NPC or block you are looking at.  That's an easy way to identify the bad block shapes.

 

In A22 when TFP releases bandits, this pathing issue might be a huge issue for them to test, so if you ever wanted to get in on testing that will improve the quality of a game you care about, this may be your chance.  Anyone who shows they are active in testing will be welcomed to join the NPC community team, and be credited for their work.

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited July 13, 2023 by xyth (see edit history)

[Fox]

11 hours ago, xyth said:

This mod could really use some help testing out the NPCs in gameplay situations.  If you are interested in joining the team as a tester, this is a list of known issues:

 

1.  NPCs sometimes, after working as expected for a while, start slow walking, almost an stationary shuffle.  We think we know the root case, and hopefully this one will be fixed in a day or so.

 

3.  NPCs sometimes lose the ability to attack after a while.  They will stop firing if ranged, or run up in your face but not attack.  This one was reported but I cannot reproduce.  If you can help identify conditions when it happens, that would help.

Ok, so I finally hired one of the Raider Gurls for inside my base as a lookout. One thing I noticed is that she's constantly sighing like she's out of stamina while doing nothing. Could this be the thing you're looking for as to why they stop attacking / walking slowly? If it falls in the category of player (which I think it does as it counts towards player kills if you kill them), could they maybe also have food / thirst / stamina levels or lacking a stamina number and therefore barely function once hired?

 

Also, I noticed that Betty's "sniping" range is very lacking. During blood moon, she hardly ever shot at all, at least not until they were within 4 or 5 blocks distance (while she's 3 blocks above ground level in the base). Doesn't seem worth it for base defense if that's all a "sniper" can manage. Unless maybe she was too close to structure or the angled blocks I used messed with her sight in some way (even though she kept looking at me instead of attempting to shoot)?

EDIT: Ok, so weird thing just happened. I was out in the field attacking the wandering hoard when suddenly I hear a shot from my base. So Betty can shoot 25+ blocks distance... but only if I'm there with the enemy target?

RE-EDIT: Nvm, I have an idea what Full control and Hunting is now. Full control defends your immediate location (perfect for when following) and Hunting allows them their full range and can attack at free will (perfect for everything else). But this is why a proper description is so important. RE-RE-EDIT: I saw the description in-game... sneaky, but that works too... I guess.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Fox (see edit history)

[xiao]

Test environment: a closed place with a locked door
Problem found: When the npc is being chased by zombies, it cannot determine whether the door is locked and always runs towards the door

[xiao]

Test environment: Closed stairway with access to the outside world.
Problem found: The npc keeps going down the log, regardless of whether it has access to the outside world.

 

 

I originally suspected that the guardrail might be the cause, so I removed the guardrail, but it did not seem to work

 

 

Later, I suspected that the other blocks could not recognize the problem, so I replaced the surrounding blocks of stairs again, but it still did not work. But there is a phenomenon: the npc head starts flashing, so I suspect there may be a problem with the ai route planning.

 

[xyth]

Thanks for testing guys.  Please download the SCore version posted today.  It has some fixes that will help.  We are still working to improve pathing, but that new SCore release helped a lot.  Issue #1 listed above should be improved, but not fixed yet.

 

Edited July 14, 2023 by xyth (see edit history)

[xyth]

Just another note, we are actively working on the AI.  TFP made many pathing improvements in A21 EAI, and we are using a lot of A20 EAI code, so we will need to work on bringing some of the A21 EAI into this mod.  That will take some time, but we are working on it.

[DrunkZombie]

Is there an estimate on when khzmusik_Civilians will be released?  I've been waiting for it before starting a new game. Thanks.