Raising the Talon Droid

[67434885585eeZylonBane]

As most of you know, there's an unused, incomplete AI in SS2 called the Talon Droid. All that exists of it in the final game is a 3D model and a stub in the gamesys that provides no details other than how high it was supposed to float off the ground. I thought I'd take a shot at making it a functional enemy (as have many DromEd'ers before me). After much messing around, here's what I came up with, deliberately not requiring any new gamesys objects.

Talon Droid (-2301)
Add:
- AI/AI Core/AI: rangedexplode
- AI/AI Core/Movement max speed: 2.00
- AI/Ranged Combat/Ranged Combat Applicabilities: None, VeryHigh, None, Normal, None, None, None
- AI/Ranged Combat/Ranged Shoot: Launch Offset Z: -1 (everything else default)
- AI/Ranged Combat/Ranged Combat: 0, 40, 0, Very Low, 0.8, Very Often, false
- Game/Damage Model/Hit Points: 50
- Game/Damage Model/Max Points: 50
- Links/AIProjectile: Rick Turret Shot; Link Data: None, 0, Straight-Line, Very High, 1.5, 0, 0, High, false, N/A
- Links/Corpse: Linear HE Explosion
- Obj/Object name: TalonDroid: "A talon droid."
- Physics/Model/Attribues: Mass: 500
- Physics/Model/Controls: Controls Active: Rotation (everything else default)
- Speech/Voice: vsecbot

The biggest problem is the way it rotates. It turns in very chunky discrete steps, same as how the annelid grubs turn. This can be resolved by setting the Creature type and motion ActorTagList to Overlord, which results in silky-smooth rotation, but unfortunately this also results in an AI that fires very slowly and tends to wander into corners and get stuck.

The other problem is that it never retreats. You can get right in its face and it'll never back off. I could swear I had it doing that once, but my random flailing hasn't been able to reproduce that behavior.

That being said, the little bastard will now quite competently hunt you down:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvZDlh3Ln08

Other than the noted flaws, all it's really missing at this point is debris flinders and an ambient sound. The one the big bots use isn't quite suited to a smaller bot like this. For some reason in my head I've decided it sounds like this as it's hovering around.

Any suggested improvements welcome. Let's make this little forsaken Descent reject the best AI it can be.

[6743488558774voodoo47]

could really use some vertical movement, to feel less like a hovering turret. ideally, it should fly around and be a nimble little pest.

[6743488558cf9ThiefsieFool]

Very nice AI settings, I've never seen a really aggressive Talon in either my experiments or others, even though it's always been an idea

The biggest problem is the way it rotates. It turns in very chunky discrete steps, same as how the annelid grubs turn. This can be resolved by setting the Creature type and motion ActorTagList to Overlord, which results in silky-smooth rotation, but unfortunately this also results in an AI that fires very slowly and tends to wander into corners and get stuck.

Yeah, I bet this wasn't a problem with the original use of this AI code, perfectly round fire elementals. Doesn't seem possible to fix without custom scripts, it would be a little tough since it needs to handle rotations both while patrolling and engaging a target, but maybe we could rouse NV for this project.

Another rotation issue I remember is that shooting the edges of them with a rifle would make them spin wildly, now this was a cool effect which should be reduced a little and kept to give them some "this is a different enemy than all the others" flavor, but the thing is their pitch and roll would never recover after they stopped spinning. Unfortunately only a custom script would really work to slowly interpolate their pitch and roll back to 0 after a short while, perhaps the same script from before.

The other problem is that it never retreats.

Not surprised, I don't recall fire elementals ever retreating in Thief, especially since they had a fire damage aura to deal with personal space intruders
If having a player in the Talon's face is too effective then they could be given a damage aura too, or maybe they could use their rather prominent "talons" to slash the player, something that again would have to be custom scripted. (slash animation: pitch up, pitch down with slight random yaw to the left or right, reset yaw to normal).

Some other notes:
- with the default hover settings and its large size, fighting this thing just doesn't feel much different than shooting another hybrid in the chest, would be nice if it can float higher but still lower itself when it has to go through doorways,  (for a similar novelty effect it could be a little smaller, like the fire elemental it's inspired from which was always supposed to be a small target and a little hard to hit, it would be a lot nicer if it just floated higher when needed though)
- its attack needs to stand out a little too from all the other AIs, perhaps it could launch 2-3 weaker projectiles at once with bad accuracy and decent speed, like Thief spellcasters

A final note: given how security alerts worked in their next game, I can't help but wonder if these Talon droids were supposed to be spawned during alerts only, not that I'd want to make them work like that but I do wonder if that was their purpose

[67434885593abZylonBane]

could really use some vertical movement, to feel less like a hovering turret.

Unfortunately, the AI scripts have no concept of vertical motion. The hover height is just a hard-coded floor offset in the gamesys.

Yeah, I bet this wasn't a problem with the original use of this AI code, perfectly round fire elementals.

The AI script used, "rangedexplode", is actually the same script used on all the combat bots. I suspect the movement limitations are due to the talon droid not having any of the motions that the script attempts to play for turning and other basic actions. For example in Ranged Combat Applicabilities I had to tell it to never try to back up, because if that's set it just freezes when the player gets in its face.

Another rotation issue I remember is that shooting the edges of them with a rifle would make them spin wildly

Or just bumping into them. Fixed by setting controls: Rotation.

- its attack needs to stand out a little too from all the other AIs, perhaps it could launch 2-3 weaker projectiles at once with bad accuracy and decent speed, like Thief spellcasters

Agreed that a "real" implementation would give it a unique projectile. The posted settings are intended to just get it running around.

[6743488559680RocketMan]

It's a cool enemy.  Too bad the game can't accommodate some truly unique behaviours that would be fitting of such an enemy.

[6743488559d28Olfred]

missing [...] debris flinders

As usual I could help out with that.
Just give me some information what you want/need and where I can find it.

[6743488559e35ZylonBane]

Well, there are currently no plans to include this in SCP, so it wouldn't be for any particular use just yet.

[674348855a166voodoo47]

Unfortunately, the AI scripts have no concept of vertical motion. The hover height is just a hard-coded floor offset in the gamesys.

I think someone over at TTLG had a working "flying" ghost AI - maybe it could be helpful?

[674348855a292ThiefsieFool]

Yeah it seems like it would be hard to give this AI any real flavor without heavy custom scripting, I'd like to shove it into Secmod but haven't been able to shock NV into doing any scripting in ages 

Still it's fun to speculate about this AI, like how it actually has "talons" under it like an eagle that snatches prey from flight,  they are so damn big that they could be used for carrying cargo.....or the player..

[674348855a38fZylonBane]

Also, I discovered it can't attack in timed bursts like the cyborg assassins do, because its firing action has no motions to force a delay. So it just fires all its shots simultaneously. I guess that could be tweaked with appropriate projectiles to give an interesting shotgun-like effect.

[674348855a476voodoo47]

that sounds like the thing with T1 fire elementals needing AIProjectile/Firing Delay set properly to not release all their projectiles in one fiery volley of death under ND.

[674348855a5a1ZylonBane]

Seems the SS2 AI scripts use that property differently. Ranged Combat: Firing Delay is completely ignored, and AIProjectile: Firing Delay just controls how often it fires. So if delay is 5.0 and burst is 3, every 5 seconds it fires 3 shots at once.

Looks like an AIRangedWeapon link setup might work. That's how turrets work... there's a separate object that does the actual firing, with settings for field of fire, burst, etc.

EDIT: Nope, that didn't work. Apparently only the "turret" AI script uses AIRangedWeapon links. Hmm.

[674348855a6cbThiefsieFool]

I thought the cyborg assassins attack in bursts sometimes because that's specific to a unique attack motion they use, the motion itself has 3 swipes and an AttackStart flag or whatever it's called on a frame in each swipe, when they use another attack motion they only shoot one star.
Anyway I always thought it would be fine if they fire the projectiles all at once, it's how the Thief spellcasters actually did it, like the Apparition's skulls and whatnot, maybe have some slower projectile speed if it's too hard to deal with.

[674348855acb4unn_atropos]

For some reason in my head I've decided it sounds like this as it's hovering around.

Maybe combine it with this?

I just tried to extract the robot sounds from Space Patrol. Unfortunately the instructor was walking and talking, and I had to cut some stuff out.

[space_patrol.mp3 expired]

[674348855ae44Kolya]

I thought it was a really cool idea when one modder scaled down talon droids. It gives them more detail and makes them a more interesting enemy, a tech equivalent to pod swarms.

[674348855af29RocketMan]

THAT is fucking awesome!

[674348855b04bSystem]

how to make that shot?

[674348855b11dvoodoo47]

you create a mod with the talon droid, and take a screenshot.

[674348855b1e4Kolya]

then you do shot web

[674348855b2aeSystem]

Droid does not shoot, how to fix

[674348855b377voodoo47]

copy setup from other AI.

[674348855b792System]

Talon Droid (-2301)
Add:
- Links/AIProjectile: Rick Turret Shot; Link Data: None, 0, Straight-Line, Very High, 1.5, 0, 0, High, false, N/A
- Links/Corpse: Linear HE Explosion

does not work

[674348855b8c2voodoo47]

Christine's FMs have working Talon droids, load one of those FMs and see how it's done. SCP beta3 will have a Talon ready gamesys if I remember correctly, if you don't mind waiting for Halloween.

[674348855bb2aZylonBane]

does not work

Does work.