Slicer glitch - WorldCorp basement

[JeniSkunk]

I've been adding code to log all the reasons why the AI turns hostile on you. I'm trying to mod it so that it behaves more fairly and rationally.

But on day 1 you can also get weird activity from the firewalls. For example I have had a firewall turn hostile on me for seeing an unconscious firewall (knocked down by Master Kale), or when scaring the n00bs the firewall near the subway suddenly became hostile after he killed them.

That's the TNM alarm bug from case 4 above.

JeniSkunk also mentioned firewalls attacking the spiderbot and turning hostile as a result.

That's a result of civilians getting scared. The firewalls don't hate you when the spiderbot is upset at you because they aren't on the spiderbots side. But the civilians don't make that distinction: they are still scared of you because of it. The firewalls are on the civilians side so they attack you for upsetting the civilians. At least that's what happened when I tried this yesterday.

Just started a new game as a test to check this.
I drew the minispiderbot to the firewalls, and they ID'd the minispiderbot as an enemy. They ran past the civilian male and female that stand outside Phas's apartment; and those two were paniced by the drawn weapons being carried by the running firewalls. At that point, the firewalls paid no attention to the fear status of the civilians. The firewalls ran up the stairs near the subway to reach the area where the minispiderbot was. They successfully terminated it, but in the process; the Firewall Agent was injured to the point of going into stealth mode.
During returning to their guard duty at the road block; the firewalls passed back by the civilian couple who had calmed down. Whilst I was watching them return to their post, one of the Firewalls turned hostile on me for no visible reason. When that Firewall drew his weapon, the two civilians paniced, and then the other firewalls became hostile to me as well.

Note: The civilians were NOT scared by me during any part of this, but by the firewalls having drawn weapons in the detect radius of the civilians. The DX AI, however, treatss the civilians being scared as being because I directly did something in their area to make them scared.

There might be other reasons for unwarranted AI hostility but I haven't come across them. It's looking like it shouldn't be too hard to mod the AI into being sensible. I'll refrain from claiming I've done it until I've not seen any for a few hours of play nonetheless.

Thanks for doing that status tracking, Chris.
I hope my info from the events in the Downtown area gives you some more possible clues as to what to look for.

Jenifur Charne

[Jonas]

Finally moved to Help & Support where it belongs

[that guy]

Now we've only got to worry about the original Deus Ex code.

Don't be so sure. The problem with working from poorly designed code is that there's only so well you can design the code you add. As such you end up with a rickety design on top of a rickety design. So the more you add, the more unstable it gets by its very nature.

[Hassat Hunter]

Hmmm, with the n00bz thing, the only firewall that turned hostile was indeed the one near the civilians. That might explain that.

As for why some others go hostile (for example once the one between SymGeosis and the chatty couple) I have no idea. He shouldn't have been able to spot Sym's body. But those incidents are very rare and infrequent.

And let me be the 3rd to thank you for your work, Chris .

PS. Slicer: If you move forward slowly into his cell, you trigger gas from the vent. This will continously trigger a beam, and it will never stop. It wont affect Slicer though, but it does do you if you enter the cell. Triggering the second, higher beam makes it turn off eventually. BUT if you disabled the lasers after setting it off, there is no way anymore to do that, and talking to Slicer in his cell *will* kill you. Ouch.
I know it's very rare to have this happen, but it's very annoying when it does happen none-the-less.

[agoaj]

Even if he's hostile, if you open his door and disable the lasers he'll thank you for saving him later.

[Chris Rosenkreutz]

In three weeks, I've only managed to get enough play time to reach shadowcode. I think I know what's going on so far but the day 2 corporate sector is still the real test. I'm still here though so I'd better reply.

Well Chris, I can't fully speak for our programmers of course, but I think we'd be happy to implement any fixes you come up with in TNM for patch 1.0.3 if you'll let us

Thanks for looking into it either way.

Of course you can. The alarm bug is the only one in TNM's code. The rest is better fixed by modding the original code. I don't know why you didn't have your very own DeusEx.u but it means this will be a seperate mod. Which is good because it won't make 1.0.3.

As long as this:

Given that any pawn set to hate alarm will respond negatively towards the player when the alarm is activated I guess the only real solution is to make the players enemies the only ones who enable the alarm. As such I agree with your suggested code change.

I've implemented both fixed. you can expect them in 1.0.3

is in 1.0.3, you are covered .

Now we've only got to worry about the original Deus Ex code.

Don't be so sure. The problem with working from poorly designed code is that there's only so well you can design the code you add. As such you end up with a rickety design on top of a rickety design. So the more you add, the more unstable it gets by its very nature.

The Deus Ex AI reaction code seems reasonably sane. It's relatively well designed and I can't see any bugs. Fortunately, the poorly designed code
is elsewhere.

I think that some of the Deus Ex AI's paranoia is intentional. It's actually working. So the Hong Kong police should go hostile with the least provocation. It's TNM's rich environments that give so much trouble. There's nothing more annoying than having a group that should be on your side going hostile. That rarely happens in the original game.

I hope my info from the events in the Downtown area gives you some more possible clues as to what to look for.

So I mentioned that the AI reaction code is relatively well designed, right? The AI state code is more ... interesting and I don't understand it so well.

I know why the AI thinks what it does but predicting how it behaves from that is harder. In reverse, given an example of AI behaviour, I don't know WTF it was thinking! Reports aren't that useful to me at the moment.

No, I don't know why the firewall attacked you. Maybe a civilian was scared of you but quickly decided better without running away.

As long as I understand the causes of the AI going hostile, I can hope to control them. Then the AI will do something like the right thing. I want to know if the AI still misbehaves when I think I've fixed it. I haven't yet.

[JeniSkunk]

I hope my info from the events in the Downtown area gives you some more possible clues as to what to look for.

So I mentioned that the AI reaction code is relatively well designed, right? The AI state code is more ... interesting and I don't understand it so well.

I know why the AI thinks what it does but predicting how it behaves from that is harder. In reverse, given an example of AI behaviour, I don't know WTF it was thinking! Reports aren't that useful to me at the moment.

Ok Chris.
I didn't realise that.

No, I don't know why the firewall attacked you. Maybe a civilian was scared of you but quickly decided better without running away.

Little bit hard for both the civilian male and female to have done that in the Corporate District when they were both dead due to A2.

The ones in Downtown, though, they were panicked not by me at any time, but as near as I could tell, first off by the sight of firewalls running past them, weapons drawn, as the firewalls were going to deal with the minispiderbot. But what tripped off the firewalls that second time, I have no idea. I could not see any panicked civilians.

The ones in the slums, panicked civilians, yes, since the vamp was going after me, and I had to pass by Wilbur on the way to the firewall near the wrecked cars.
But I was past the wrecked cars and heading up the hill when the firewalls turned hostile. So that should have put things out of the reaction area for the wandering vagrant male and female.

As long as I understand the causes of the AI going hostile, I can hope to control them. Then the AI will do something like the right thing. I want to know if the AI still misbehaves when I think I've fixed it. I haven't yet.

Here's hoping you can ID enough to try to fix things, Chris.

Jenifur Charne