Tripod Sounds not all working? any clues?

[brice]

Hello to anyone who knows anything about the sound system. I am designing a large mod in which tripods play a central role. I have noticed that some of the tripod sounds don't play. I think it must be some hardcoded thing, but figured I'd ask. Here's what I know and what I've done...

There is a full set of .ogg clips for tripods. The create and death clips get played in game. But the attack clips don't, so the tripod laser fire is silent. Too bad since the attack clips are very cool! (I don't know if the losehealth clips play since tripods typically die instantly when they open fire.)

I've looked at the sounds.txt file and I noticed that many of the tripod related entries are mispelled -- in a way programmers do when they want to inactivate stuff. I opened the main.dat rar and edited the file to fix all the spellings, but this didn't change anything. (I hid the main.dat to force darwinia to use the edited file.)

Does anyone know for sure if the tripods are silent shooters in the current builds? Is there any simple way a modder can get the attack sounds to play?

If anyone wants to check, just send two groups of tripods at each other. This keeps the background noise level to a minimum = silence

Thanks for any info!!

...and about my "mod", I don't want to announce vaporware until it's done. But I will post it when/if it gets playable. Yes I know "tripods don't work right". But actually they do work very well, only their rules are a little peculiar. They can be very useful in certain situations. They also need a shapefile makeover... that's done.

-brice

[xander]

Well, you basically answered your own question. Tripods were removed from the game, and don't really work. If you get them to work properly, you are ahead of the rest of us (except maybe The_Goldfish and Icepick -- they may have made headway with the tripods at some point). More power to you!

xander

[brice]

I have no idea if I can make them work "properly", but they do work well. The trick (as with using much of the AI) is to put them in a lot of various situations and always be paying close attention... so their rules become clear. I don't need to tell you that -- I never knew officers could hit SDs before you told me about how Annihilation is supposed to be played.

Tripods are invulnerable except when firing. Even SDs and mega-centipede snakes can only push them around. A mega-snake can push one all the way across the map, drawing the snake far from it's home spread.

They can't climb tall steep cliffs. They suddenly burst whenever they "stretch" too much going up. Kinda funny -- maybe an inside joke. This contrasts with the mobility of the spiders. You can contain them with landscape if need be.

But they don't always need to be contained. They have good AI, but it has two conflicting search ranges. Local and global. If a group of tripods chases a bunch of DGs up a cliff, the tripods suddenly lose interest, even though the DGs are an inch away in 2D. This may be a "line of sight" thing for them. The tripods then seem to head for the greatest concentration of enemies anywhere in the map. As long as there are enemies on the map the tripods won't head for (0,0) or the ends of the map.

(Many of the AI have differing opinions about whether distance is measured 2D or 3D.)

Tripods are one of the only AI that can successfully distract ants and virii:

Ants pile up under their legs and chew and chew and chew with no effect. Invulnerable to ants. A single tripod can draw out the enire population of an anthill. This can kill performance, but as long as the ants (or tripods) get killed regularly, the effect can be useful. A group of tripods could kill entire colonies -- slowly -- if the ants didn't recycle the souls. Stalemate.

Virii also pile up under foot, but then they jump skyward when they go for the kill. This is the only time I've ever seen virii leave the ground. They're usually 2D thinkers, even when they attack jellyfish. It's very cool to watch a very large clump of virii take out a tripod. Fireworks up close!

Anyhow, thanks for the quick reply! I'm pretty much looking for someone to verify that tripod laser sounds are busted due to some hardcoded edit. Maybe TGF or Icepick know for sure? I plan on using tripods a lot in my mod, which is why I care so much.

Your mod has taught me a lot, as have all your detailed posts here. Thanks!

[Lowell]

I have the tripods in a level of Particles. They do work. They go right after ants and virii right away, but they are slow. There are no sounds for them.

EDIT// I think there is fifty or a hundred in the group as the level starts out. I thought it was cool.

EDIT//EDIT//Oh...don't let centipedes get near them...they love to tear tripods up for dinner. All gone in seconds...
It's cool to watch them kill off ants, the ants can't hurt Tripods...ever...that's why they are in that level where the ants had taken over.