Spring RTS Engine

easy addition to any any AI that makes it 1000x times more fun. remember zero hour generals mode with the awesome taunting generals? especially tank china?
just have like 10-20 conditons in which an ai taunts.
(player defeated, destroys a comm, loses its comm, destroys somthing worth 2000 metal, builds a nuke, d-guns somthing etc etc) and then say 10 taunts for each condition.

Does sound easy. Perhaps paste the taunts in a config-file compatible format below, and we can paste them into our AIs.

If you're not sure what format to use, you could do it in xml:

<condition name="enemycommdies">
<taunt>Hmmm, hope that wasn't anything important?</taunt>
<taunt>Hey, can I speak to your commander a sec? Oh wait... </taunt>
</condition>

<condition name="destroy2000metal">
<taunt>Whee!</taunt>
</condition>

<condition name="winsgame">
<taunt>It's strange, you stopped attacking me. Everything ok?</taunt>
<taunt>Well done, you nearly beat a machine</taunt>
</condition>

hughperkins wrote:Does sound easy. Perhaps paste the taunts in a config-file compatible format below, and we can paste them into our AIs.

This is a good idea, but I think you're putting it in the wrong place. If it's in the AI, it will act inappropriately if the mod being played is of a considerably different character than what the AI is designed for. Imagine something like Nanoblobs where the resource figures are orders of magnitude higher than AA; suddenly everything would be a high-value target. One approach would be for the AI to analyze everything in the mod and figure the stuff out, but that seems overly complicated.

Instead, I think it should be defined in the mod. And then it will be automatically generated by the engine if "autotaunt" is selected for a player (much like in Unreal Tournament and such). AIs would (probably) have this autotaunt feature enabled by default.

This also means the messages could get very specific--a mod author could create individual taunts (or a whole set!) for killing certain high-value targets. And these would work across all AIs (and even players) so long as their autotaunt flag is set in the game lobby.

If we do do it, then we use TDF not xml. We have 5 skirmish AIs and a game engine currently using TDF, and the last thing we need is to add in an xml parser and parse a single file.

That being said, I said a very long time ago I'd add optional taunts to NTai if someone would provide the code, which isn't very hard to do, and Lindir tried but didn't know enough C++ to do it, and targ collective suffered the same fate combined with real life.

I never bothered to code it myself because I never had taunts to make it sayign anything and couldnt be bothered writing load sup.

make it mod dependant, only really needs to work work for XTA AA and EE as they are the most used and easiest to write for. it would be own. think the spoonbot for tribes 1

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:easy addition to any any AI that makes it 1000x times more fun. remember zero hour generals mode with the awesome taunting generals? especially tank china?
just have like 10-20 conditons in which an ai taunts.
(player defeated, destroys a comm, loses its comm, destroys somthing worth 2000 metal, builds a nuke, d-guns somthing etc etc) and then say 10 taunts for each condition.

Worst. Feature. Ever. If there's one thing I didn't like about ZH then it was the annoying generals which repeated themselves like 20 times a minute.

To quote the tank general: "...I VILL SSIMPLY BUILD MOAR TANKS INSTEAD [giggles like a drunkard]". Was only half of it because I can't remember it well, but imagine an AI being a complete retard like 90% of the time. You'll soon lose any interest at all to play them.
It was fun the first time, perhaps the second as well but that's it.

Hm okay, there was a game which had a fun insulting AI: Future Cop LAPD.

"I LIVE! AGAIN!" Z had good taunting from your own units. if you think its the worst feature ever you probably wouldnt have just brought up a case where it owned. kkthx

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:"I LIVE! AGAIN!" ...

Blood.

Best game ever. (well, not really but..)

Z was funny as hell.

I about died the first time they said, "What the fuck was that shit?" and all sorts of lines you didn't want the neighbors to hear. Had to keep the volume down.

You could have the AI outorefresh its Quotes from some Internet MovieDataBases - most of the have Quotes in there Sites - and if you let the AI search for War & Actionmovies - Come and get some :D

So, So fun...

Ahh, you know its just right when it melts the skin right off the bones, mmm-UHM!

if some people find it annoying, and i could see how it could get annoying after the 5000th game hour, would it be possible to toggle it somewhere, like a uikeys line or something.

I really like the idea +10