Once a merc has no APs left, they cannot move. This can lead to situations where, well, mercs die, even if allies are around, because they cannot help them.
Now they can.
This is simple. If a merc is crouched and the main hand is free, they can grab a prone person (even hostile) or corpse next to them (press $ to get the selection menu). If they then move, whomever they drag moves along. Their AP cost for movement is increased according to
; AP costs for movement are multiplied by this if we drag someone.
; Valid values are from 1.0 to 10.0 .
; Default is 1.5
DRAG_MOVEMENT_APCOST_MODIFIER = 1.5
in Item_Settings.ini. As I am not good with graphics, the fact that a merc currently drags someone is now marked with the runs of chaos undivided on the merc's face (see Fidel's portrait in the above video).
I am fully aware that the grapics aren't exactly to write home about, but hey. Would be weird otherwise.
While it would be slightly more reasonable (and useful) if the dragged person would look away from the dragging merc, this causes issues, as then the prone person's legs would be in the same location as the merc, so I don't do that.
After careful consideration, I've decided that only the main hand needs to be free (unlike in the above video). This will make this a bit more userfriendly. No more need to send me images from your favourite gung-ho movie about how people drag around fully equipped soldiers with one hand while suppressing full auto with an M4 in their other hand.
I've fiddled around with movement a bit more, corpses now move a little bit smoother compared to the video.
As the overwhelming majority of the feedback called for the weight of the dragged person to be taken into account, it now is taken into account during breath point calculation. We add the other guy's inventory weight, and the estimated weight of the person (or corpse) to our weight. The estimated weight depends on bodytypes and was hardcoded by me, which will stay that way.
And no, dragging somone a few meters doesn't suddenly drop breath to a half. You people have no issues stuffing a merc with 2 ARs, dozen grenades, mortars and body armour and expecting them to jump around, so don't suddently complain about non-realistic behaviour
This feature has been added in r8474 & GameDir r2386.
This is fully savegame compatible.
Using the new exe without the new GameDir will cost you dearly.
[Updated on: Mon, 18 September 2017 01:28]
I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.
If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.
Very sneaky! Now my medics have a chance to heal a downed merc who was flanked or caught in the open without the medic having to be sent on a suicide mission; they can just drag the downed merc into cover first.
As to the action point cost: would it perhaps make more sense for the cost to be dynamic based on the strength of the crouched merc realative to the weight being carried by the prone / unconscious merc? A merc should not be able to move another merc carrying 100kg of gear as easily as they could move a merc carrying no gear at all. Maybe this could be done by counting the weight of the prone merc as part of the couched mercs weight and letting it affect their AP the same way it would if the crouched merc was carrying all that gear themself.
Wouldn't this lead to funny situations where a viable tactic is to have a prone sniper with a very slow sniper rifle be dragged around by another merc so he can use his APs for firing instead of moving in and out of cover?
As SVN is back up, this feature has been added in r8474 & GameDir r2386.
This is fully savegame compatible.
Using the new exe without the new GameDir will cost you dearly.
I am fully aware that the grapics aren't exactly to write home about, but hey. Would be weird otherwise.
While it would be slightly more reasonable (and useful) if the dragged person would look away from the dragging merc, this causes issues, as then the prone person's legs would be in the same location as the merc, so I don't do that.
After careful consideration, I've decided that only the main hand needs to be free (unlike in the above video). This will make this a bit more userfriendly. No more need to send me images from your favourite gung-ho movie about how people drag around fully equipped soldiers with one hand while suppressing full auto with an M4 in their other hand.
I've fiddled around with movement a bit more, corpses now move a little bit smoother compared to the video.
As the overwhelming majority of the feedback called for the weight of the dragged person to be taken into account, it now is taken into account during breath point calculation. We add the other guy's inventory weight, and the estimated weight of the person (or corpse) to our weight. The estimated weight depends on bodytypes and was hardcoded by me, which will stay that way.
And no, dragging somone a few meters doesn't suddenly drop breath to a half. You people have no issues stuffing a merc with 2 ARs, dozen grenades, mortars and body armour and expecting them to jump around, so don't suddently complain about non-realistic behaviour
AP cost does not depend on weight, breath does, which is what happens now. AP cost can already be set higher by DRAG_MOVEMENT_APCOST_MODIFIER.
Yes, one can drag around a sniper. Note that if you want to get the sniper in firing position, the merc doing the dragging will have to move in front of them, which will put them into the firing line. The 'dragger' also now has way fewer APs, so he likely cannot shoot himself, which seems like somewhat of a compromise.
Yes, you could create a situation where cheap mercs effectively shuttle a sniper around, but... what's the point, really?
I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.
If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.
Noticed that when dragging corpses, merc can move in normal or alt mode, but dragging people is only possible in alt mode, in normal mode the dragged person is dropped soon. Is that intentional?
It wasn't, no. The issue was that in the function where we move our soldier (and whatever they drag), we move the soldier before we move whomever they drag - which caused the game to notice we were too far away, and thus cancel the dragging action. Fixed in r8855.
I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.
If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.
We can now drag any 1-tile, structure that is not a wall/roof/light/switch/person/corpse/vehicle/cavewall/fence and is defined in TableData/Items/StructureMove.xml. In there we have entries like this:
that define what specific tiles from which tileset can be dragged, and under what name.
We obviously can't drag through walls, or into water etc. The structure will be placed in the tile we just left when we move.
Ordering a merc to drag a structure works as usual: be in crouched position, have your main hand free and be next to the thing.
If the item is a container, moving over items will place them inside. Otherwise the items will be placed on top.
Items now also move with dragged corpses. This has the amusing sideeffect of corpses functioning like vacuum cleaners, though they do leave obvious marks behind...
No, you cannot move minefields this way. Mines and some action items don't move, which we saw in the video with the switch-activated explosion. Traps on locks do, however, which Trevor shows off.
This feature has been added in r8870 & GameDir r2558.
This is fully savegame compatible.
Using the new exe without the new GameDir will cause your mom to publically denounce you as an asset flip.
[Updated on: Fri, 24 July 2020 01:12]
I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.
If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.
Messages:2433
Registered:October 2005 Location: Australia
Nice feature, will Fox have interior design as a trait now?
This should add some more flexibility with dealing with a counter attack, or opening locked doors when there's no explosives or lock-picking specialists around.
What's the deal with some of the names of each prop? Gas cylinder for oil drums? Could you add different sound effects dependent on item? though a screeching locker in game would be too grating for the ears after a while.
Seems a step closer to the build your own base like in the old days of X-Com, if things like walls and fences were 'moveable' or buildable, at least to some degree you can create more open plan 'renovations'.
Yeah, I foresee someone raiding all the houses in D13 and preparing for the DCA by hunkering down in a cupboard/oven/chair bunker.
I looked at each and every vanilla tileset, so at some point it became tedious and I just made one entry for every tileset, thus the not always fitting names. It's no problem to make the names fit better by dividing the entries though, in case someone wants to do that work ;)
Different sounds would be possible by adding another tag to the xml, but... do we actually have a large collection of different drag sounds to begin with?
Theoretically you can drag anything. I had my share of fun with my mercs demolishing houses by dragging away the walls during development. Or them dragging around cars, or trees... theoretically they can drag light.
It would be possible to move an entire house, it would just require a bit of code voodoo.
I added restrictions later on. The most important one being that we can only drag 1x1-structures, because we can be sure those will fit the gridno the merc just left. Otherwise you have weird issues with structures blending in, which is not a good thing.
As there then was the issue that some draggable things wouldn't be draggable in RL, like trees, or solid columns and statues. Thus I added the xml.
The AI no longer finding a path is more an AI issue, though I have an idea or two for that. Generally the pathfinding takes these things into account though, so I haven't found an issue so far.
As we can only drag and not push though, there is the amusing possibility of the player accidentally walling themself in and not being able to free themselves without 'outside' help. I see no good way to implement pushing, as that would require the merc to walk into the place currently occupied by the structure, which the code takes care to ensure not to happen.
The best idea I can think of is 'merc moves structure by kicking it', which would be very amusing but tedious to code and order ingame.
We could add a 'merc dropkicks fridge onto next tile, this squishes an enemy standing there' moment, which would at least be chuckleworthy for a moment.
I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.
If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.
Messages:2433
Registered:October 2005 Location: Australia
In regard to sounds There's a few effects in Wizardry 8, ROCK SCRAPE.WAV would be a good candidate, not sure in Vanilla though. There's also plenty of foley effects on the net, but that has it's own issues. Good to know it's possible though.
would result in different names (Gas cylinder / Gas Barrel) for content of the same .sti ?
Yes. Exactly like that.
I know now that it could never work between us, as much as we wanted to, it could never be! Not because you're a rabbit, but because you're black.
If you want, you can donate to me. This will not affect how and what I code, and I will not code specific features in return. I will be thankful though.
@sevenfm: Any chance the drag structures component will be integrated in the AI+ mod? Would be very cool to be able to have the ability to form barricades against a competent AI.
@sevenfm: Any chance the drag structures component will be integrated in the AI+ mod? Would be very cool to be able to have the ability to form barricades against a competent AI.
No, since it requires new XMLs which will break compatibility.
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