| Main Menu |
| Home Flash Games Weblinks Contact Us |
| Game Modding |
Battlefield 1942 · README FIRST · Ai.con editing pt1 · Ai.con editing pt2 · Ai.con editing pt3 · Pathmapping pt1 · Pathmapping pt2 |
| BF 42 Modding/Mapping: Ai.con editing pt1 | ||||||||||||||||
Ai TRANSPLANT
Welcome to Part One of the Ai .con Editing tutorial, I will be your host today and my aim is to show you how to create an addon, that will add Co-op & Single Player support to a Battlefield 1942 level. This part of the tutorial will be brief and short on details, consider it a guided tour through the scripts, other files & folder structure required to add Ai to a Level. The main task is to get an Ai successfully running first, then we will proceed to customise & further investigate the Ai in the further parts of the Tutorial series. There are many things that will not be covered in this Tutorial. Firstly, this tutorial will only cover Land based maps that only use Cars, Infantry, Tanks & Aircraft. LANDING CRAFT andBOATS (ships) will NOT be covered. Also, on occasions you may be required to do tasks that requires other software, such as RFA Tools, Image Editors and Map Editors. If you are doing this tutorial, you should already know how to do these tasks.It is not within the scope of this tutorial to teach you other software unless it is a tool or technique specific to Ai Scripting. With this in mind, lets go botty ; )
The quickest way to get an Ai in to a conquest only map, is to borrow another one. For this we can use another map, grab the required files and add them to ours. I have chosen Kursk to be our donor as it is a simple map, and has a simple set of strategies that are very general purpose. This will allow the transplant to happen with a minimum of fuss, and will lay the foundations for us to build the Ai to suit a more complicated map. Aberdeen and Kursk are what i am going to call a "Mirrored" maps, as they have the same basic layout of Bases & Control Points regardless of which Side you are playing. Battleaxe and Midway are two other examples of Mirrored maps. When choosing a map to pinch an Ai from, i highly recommend that you use Kursk or the Ai produced from the tutorials as your donor as there simplicity allows for easy modification to suit another map, where as many other Dice maps are more complex, subtle and the inner workings are not as easily understood.
But ... by the end of the Tutorial Series, it is my hope that you will be able to write your own Ai
1.1 – Create the Addon Folder: First, make a folder to create your Co-op Addon in. If it's your own map, it is still a good idea to keep it separate as compiling the addon will be much quicker than compiling your full map, textures & all, as their will be lots of adjustments to the Ai as you “tune” it For this first step, using the desktop is quite handy.
1.2 - Extract Source Maps: We need access to files within the Maps we will be working with. Aberdeen.rfa Aberdeen_003.rfa Kursk.rfa Kursk_000.rfa Kursk_003.rfa
1.3 - Copying Files: Open the folder that you extracted Kursk into.
1.4 - First Round Editing: Lets go through the files you just copied.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.4.1 - AI.CON is the main file that details the Ai's setup, starts the Strategic Ai (SAi - BF's Ai “engine”) and calls the other parts of the Ai's files into use. Most of the complex settings in this file are unknown at his time, so its lucky that there are only few items here that require our attention. Before we start making changes, the first thing i would like you to do, is add a header to the top of this file. Something like this ... rem *** ABERDEEN *** rem *** Co-op Addon Tutorial *** rem *** yourname ***
Trust me on this one, it will save a lot of confusion when you have a dozen .CON files open. Highlight the block of text you just typed in, and COPY it to the clipboard
aiSettings.setWorldMapSize 1024 1024
Lucky for us, Aberdeen is the same size as Kursk, so we don't need to change this, but keep in mind for other maps, this size could be different. A 2048 worldsize will require pathmaps that are 2048 x 2048 pixels. GeometryTemplate.worldSize 1024
and Change the value to 1, this will enable displays within the game that will allow us to see detailed statistics related to the SAi, Bots, Strategies and Strategic Areas
This does generate a awful amount of information, most of which we will not need. Each Bot's individual Stats go beyond our requirements until we are fine tuning or troubleshooting, and can be disabled by adding the following statement. This will also reduce your CPU load by a decent amount. ai.showBotStats 0
Thats all the changes we are making for now, but before we Save & Close the file, scroll down to the bottom and have a look at ... ai.addSAIStrategy 1 holdAndCamp ai.addSAIStrategy 1 single ai.addSAIStrategy 1 double
ai.addSAIStrategy 2 holdAndCamp ai.addSAIStrategy 2 single ai.addSAIStrategy 2 double This is a list of Strategies that are available for each side to use. Notice that both Side 1 & Side 2 have the same Strategies ... this is part of what i refer to as being "Mirrored"
1.4.2 - AIpathFinding.con manages settings for the Bot's pathmapping, and calls the pathmaps that will be used into action. Again, the first thing i want you to do is add your header. If the text you copied in the previous step is still in the clipboard, PASTE it down, or type it in ... again. This file can enable a tool that will allow us to test the pathmapping in game, and will display some pathmapping related information. rem game.aiPathfindingDebuggingActive 1 Remove the rem statement. When in game, you can “shoot” two points and a test will be run to determine if the Ai can find a valid path for a bot to follow, and will draw a valid path with a purple line.
This tool is rarely needed, and can even become annoying. You can turned off again at anytime, by “rem”ing the statement out, or changing the value to 0. Also, there is a problem that occasionally pops-up in this file to haunt people. In some Dice levels the word “infantry” is mis-spelled as “infantery.” If you stuck to my suggestion of using Kursk, or the Tutorial Ai as templates, you will probably never encounter this problem, however, check it and make the correction if required. We don't need to make any other changes to this file, so Save & Close the file
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.4.3 - Ai \ Strategies.con contains the code for the Strategies that we're listed Ai.con. Strategies are the “plans” of attack and/or defense that will be used by the Ai throughout a game. Strategies will be further detailed in Part 3. yet again, the first thing i want you to do is add your header. Now look at the four blocks of text in this file, notice they are the Four Strategies that we're listed in AI.CON
ai.addSAIStrategy 1 breakOut
aiStrategy.createStrategy breakOut
aiStrategy.setPrerequisite breakOutPrereq
1.4.4 - Ai \ prerequisites.con is part of the Ai's decision making process and will be covered in detail in Part 3
aiStrategy.createPrerequisite breakOutPrereq Notice that is a reference to the Strategy we just looked at ...
aiStrategy.addCondition noFriendlyCPCond 10.0
1.4.5 - Ai \ conditions.con is the main part of the Ai's decision making process and is also covered in Part 3 1.4.5 - Ai \ conditions.con is the main part of the Ai's decision making process and is also covered in Part 3
aiStrategy.createConstantCondition noFriendlyCPCond Crisp Equal Friendly ControlPoint 0 Once again, the reference between Conditions & a Prerestiquite is there
1.4.6 - Ai \ StrategicAreas.con describes areas of the map that have strategic value, their purpose, location and information on which areas link to another.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.4.7 - "Gametype" .cons
All we need to with this file, is make the settings the same to Aberdeen in Conquest. Open Aberdeen's Conquest.con, and look at the following settings ... Game.setNumberOfTickets 1 100 Game.setNumberOfTickets 2 100 Game.setTicketLostPerMin 1 7 Game.setTicketLostPerMin 2 7
.setNumberOfTickets determines how many tickets a side starts with in a 100% Ticket game. .setTicketLostPerMin controls the rate of ticket loss when a side is “bleeding” The settings for Kursk are different, so change them to match or to your own preference. You also need to open Singleplayerallies.con & Singleplayeraxis.con and make similar changes.
Next ... browse into the Gametypes folder, and delete all the old Kursk files. Go back and select Coop.con, COPY it and PASTE into the Gametypes folder. Whenever you change Coop.con in the root directory of your map, you must duplicate the file or changes to Coop.con in the Gametypes folder
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.4.8 - Pathfinding Folder will store the pathmaps for the map. If you have no idea what pathmaps are i would suggest that you at least complete Pathmapping Tutorial One first.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.4.9 - Singleplayer Folder much like the conquest folder, this folder stores the files containing the layout & detailed information for the Object Spawns, Soldier Spawns, and Control points. Two extra files required for the singleplayer folder are; skirmish.con, & bots.con which reference to the Bot names within the Battlefield's .RFAs. Now, browse to the extracted Aberdeen Conquest folder, COPY the contents and PASTE them into your Addon's Singleplayer folder. This will overwrite the old Kursk files, with Aberdeen's Conquest layout. If you have made any adjustments to this layout in the Pathing Tutorial, or at anytime for that matter, now is as good as ever to add the updated files.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.4.10 - RFA Creation When you create your .RFA we want to take advantage of the update system the game supports. Aberdeen already has one update file, Aberdeen_003.rfa, we want to make sure our file supersedes all previous updates, and allows room for more updates, so use the filename Aberdeen_010.rfa Create the .RFA and we are now ready for our first test run.
1.4.11 - First Test Start Battlefield, Create a Multiplayer game, select CO-OP and add Operation Aberdeen to the list These are the settings I use for testing:
Having no time limit is useful, as if you do set a limit, by “Murphy's law,” just as something important is about to happen ... the round will end. Also you can always leave the game running overnight to see how the balance is over multiple rounds.
Start the game, and when it's loaded you should see this.
If you see your desktop, you have missed something ... Rather than waste a bucket load of time trying to find the error, Delete it, and start again. It doesn't take long, and it's good practice anyway ; )
Drop the console by pressing the tilde key [~] and type ... freecam 1 this is the short version or “Alias” for game.enablefreecamera
You may even want to shorten the “Alias” for this command as you will be using it often Open the file: <Your Battlefield Folder> / MODS / bf1942 / Settings / AliasedCommands.con and remove “free” from the line alias freecam game.enablefreecamera now when you use the console you can type the shorter cam 1
Credits: Arc D'Wraith - Author Coralon – Proof Reading & Feedback White Thunder - Title Image
Special Thanks to the toolmakers, for without your work modding Battlefield would be a joke.
Resources: bf42.com Editing Forums Original Battlefield Maps
Battlefield 1942 Corel Photo-Paint Notepad
|
