Insanity questions

[Gallipolli]

Hi everybody!
I´ve been playing H&D Deluxe for a couple of days and found it very exciting and a great gaming experience, but it has some things that I´d like to adjust before continue playing. Since the editor seems to me very complete and it gives access to most aspects of the game I want to tweak the AI reaction times and shooting efectivity to make it more realistic, because I like to play the missions in a "one time go or die" manner without saving and reload, and  the way the game is configured now is nearly impossible unless you perfectly know every enemy on the map before starting the mission and even then it´s very difficult. In less than a second they spot, identify, aim and shoot you with amazing accuracy. No matter if they have smgs, rifles or pistols they are deadly at short to middle range. The NPC AI computer controlled characters have the same skills but preferently in an ambush role. If they have to move they gonna die because usually they are spotted first, and the first to shot is the last and remaining one. I still have to try some things with the tactical map, but at the current state to recon at night means to advance one step and run back like devil without a half second  delay.


WARNING! SPOILER!
So far the only mission that I´ve managed to complete at first try is the C2M3 and thanks to a walkthrough that gave me warning about an incoming enemy attack, so I put two soldiers with bren MGs waiting on the shore and the other two in the boat in the middle of the river, facing the mounted MG to the other side of the river. After a brief and intense fight (actually a carnage), I did a bit of preliminary sniping on the objective and then moved everybody aboard the boat and to the dock allowing the gunner to make a quick work of the remaining shooters. Then under cover of three MGs I started the cleaning work. Grenades for the ambushed enemies, and a bit of luck when the MGs managed to kill a second undetected sniper in the water tower and a don´t-know-where-did-he-come-from-guy near the tank. Then it was just to aim the tank gun and blow the river lock, and escape with a car by the road (and what else!).

  Man, that was the best game i´ve ever played. Driving the car as the water flowed furiously through the breached river lock was simply unbelievable. I felt like the main actor in a war movie!!!.

Now to the point, I would be gratefull if someone can help me. Questions:

.- How does the game calculate the spotting ranges, the reaction times, and the shooting skills? I mean, how the scenary values and the personal actor values influence the results, are they added, combined or overrided by each other?

.- Shooting: min error 0.8, max error 5, what does it mean? Are they in meters? Do they depend on target distance, on weapon effective range, on shooting skills or on type of shot (single-burst)?

.- Some spotting ranges 50-100-150, some weapon ranges 100-600-1200, again I think they are meters but is there any kind of scale graduation (short, mid, long) so 100 m is long range for a smg and short range for a MG? and consecuently are there more  chances for spotting in the middle than in the long scale or it´s just that you enter the spotting range and you become automatically spotted wich seems to be the case?

.- Does the stealth skill influence the spotting range? Are the spotting chances calculated periodically or in a one time chance every move?

.-I´ve readen somewhere that SAS soldiers have their own unique personalities, that some of them can panic and others are good leaders ...etc, is that true? is there any way to handle the soldier tab files?

.- Has anybody investigated the AI?, because I´d love to put my hands on it.

.- Finally (sorry ), where can I find all the technical information and documentation about the game and the editor if that is possible?

[Lars]

.- How does the game calculate the spotting ranges, the reaction times, and the shooting skills? I mean, how the scenary values and the personal actor values influence the results, are they added, combined or overrided by each other?

They are counted with/in meters. You can set the complete AI to one setting or specify the AI for each enemy at the own (e.g. if they should hear something .. should hunt you ..how good they can shoot .. how fast they (re)act

.- Shooting: min error 0.8, max error 5, what does it mean? Are they in meters? Do they depend on target distance, on weapon effective range, on shooting skills or on type of shot (single-burst)??

All settings are in meters. Don´t know from where you got that from (charackter screen?). Can´t remember if they used there a diffrent format.

.- Some spotting ranges 50-100-150, some weapon ranges 100-600-1200, again I think they are meters but is there any kind of scale graduation (short, mid, long) so 100 m is long range for a smg and short range for a MG? and consecuently are there more  chances for spotting in the middle than in the long scale or it´s just that you enter the spotting range and you become automatically spotted wich seems to be the case?

Well I don´t think that the weaponsettings in HD1 are the best ... you only need an mp for the most of the work and an sniper for the far away guys... i think mg is nearly useless .. only in some missions where you have to defent somthing and would be overrun by the enemy it is somehing where you chances to survive the missions are real better.

.- Does the stealth skill influence the spotting range? Are the spotting chances calculated periodically or in a one time chance every move?

Yes ... best to see that it has effect is in c2m2. I think they are calculated in the time they move.

.-I´ve readen somewhere that SAS soldiers have their own unique personalities, that some of them can panic and others are good leaders ...etc, is that true? is there any way to handle the soldier tab files?

Well I nearly never noticed such big diffrenced between them .... only that some could carry more or can shoot better .. but yes you can change these settings somewhere in a tbl file ... but don´t ask me where it was stored ... vadim? do you remember?

.- Has anybody investigated the AI?, because I´d love to put my hands on it.

As far as I know not more as that what the normal editor would allow
investigated

.- Finally (sorry ), where can I find all the technical information and documentation about the game and the editor if that is possible?

First step should be the readme for the editor (Start editor and press F1) Than these sites
Tutorial -> http://www.hidden-and-dangerous.net/edi ... orials.php
Faq -> http://www.hidden-and-dangerous.net/editing/faq.php
For buying the IS2 engine and getting more help from them check it here: http://www.3d-front.com/en/index.php You can also try to ask LCG via mail forum. These guys where very helpfull http://www.lonelycatgames.com/

[Gallipolli]

Thank you very much Lars, I have to do a lot of testing and searching by myself but I´m the kind of person that the more I know the more questions I got. If I begin to be tedious feel free to tell me.

I already had readen the tutorials (the damn good tutorials) and the help doc, and I also had written to LCG for tech help. The fact is that I admire people who are able to make new models and maps (actually they make me wonder), but I am more inclined to take those models and maps and force them to act the way I think is most realistic without losing the enjoyable playability. No game is perfect but many times I feel that one game could be really an awesome experience with just a few changes. Unfortunately those changes tend to be the most obscure and hardest to achieve.

So my goals would be:
1.- Make the weapons more realistic in ranges and accuracy. MGs for the long range supressive fire, rifles for the mid range precision shot, and smg for the short and deadly ones. I did like the feeling of tracers flying and buzzing around in C1M4 when I was on the top of the hill. And to know that any time one of those bullets can find the target and end your game is very exciting. That should be more common in the long distances and even in the short-mid ones.

2.- Make the soldiers more human. At the moment every man in the game is a crack shot, with feline reflexes.

3.- Make the AI more I and less A. This is the hardest part  but I will try to make them take cover, remain ambushed, use grenades, raise alarms etc.

4.- Lastly and after playing the campaigns and mods (i´m willing), to make my own or modify the existing campaigns using the stealth skill and the inventiveness to overcome the situations. This probably should be the most enjoyable part if I were satisfied with the game mechanical.


I´ll try to figure out how the engine works with the parameters. As in
tables/game configuration/reaction times min=500; max=2000;
I suppouse 1000 is 1 second but I don´t know how the reaction skill of a soldier influences this, and how much random calculation is there. If technical documentation is not available I´ll make a series of tests with rection 1%, 50% and 100% to achieve desired results.

Same thing with
tables/game configuration/shooting (angles) shoot err min=0.8; shoot err max=5.0; shoot magnet min=0; shoot magnet max=8.0,
but this is more complicated. To start I´ll take the supposition that the first two values are X axis deviations and the other two are Y axis deviations for the projectiles.

There are lots of parameters which I´d like to understand well, such as
tables/game configuration/AI/attack-subj killed...=3000; attack-subj lost...=3000; Move hunt dist over=3000; Follow-formation ra...=0.0
Tables/game configuration/Watching/Vigilance/ walk=0.85; run=1.0; watch=1.6; guard=1.0; follow=1.4; attack=1.1;
/Uniform confusing factor/ german uniform=0.02; civil suit=0.01; civil with weapon=1.0;
I suppouse some of these are AI percentages preferences of behaviour.

I don´t think that the developers of the game were wrong or did mistakes, but as a final user of the product I know when a given feature could be tuned up, and I also know well how AI programmers tend to make their creatures overgifted to compensate their limitations.

Look at this (the last 4 lines) http://www.avault.com/featured/hidden/jeffers.asp to understand what I said about SAS personalities. I think this could be literature but perhaps one of these days I´ll take a look at the soldier tab files with an Hex editor to see how many variables has each soldier. It is just 1 Kb so it would be interesting if they could be customized with combat experience and favourite weapons.

What does this game so attractive to me is that it is very well finished and bug free, and the editor is really a jewel. I know that it is a bit old fashioned but who cares about new 3d effects when you are so immersed in the situation that you begin to hold breathing  as if you really were there. Perhaps one day they´ll release the source code and the documentation and the community could make her own dream game. As Homer Simpson would say: Source code...mmmmmmmmm

[Lars]

Thank you very much Lars, I have to do a lot of testing and searching by myself 1.- Make the weapons more realistic in ranges and accuracy. MGs for the long range supressive fire, rifles for the mid range precision shot, and smg for the short and deadly ones. I did like the feeling of tracers flying and buzzing around in C1M4 when I was on the top of the hill. And to know that any time one of those bullets can find the target and end your game is very exciting. That should be more common in the long distances and even in the short-mid ones.

You can change any weaponsetting via the inventory table. Choose there the Item and than switch to the weaponsettings... should be selfexplained there

2.- Make the soldiers more human. At the moment every man in the game is a crack shot, with feline reflexes.

That might be a bit harder to do without getting/having into the sourcecode. However you could change the AI a bit from the game config table. But I think if you want to made them react more realistic you need the source for changing it.

3.- Make the AI more I and less A. This is the hardest part  but I will try to make them take cover, remain ambushed, use grenades, raise alarms etc.

Well as above ... it is possible to change it a bit but no big steps from the default one without rewriting the code (at least I guess that)

4.- Lastly and after playing the campaigns and mods (i´m willing), to make my own or modify the existing campaigns using the stealth skill and the inventiveness to overcome the situations. This probably should be the most enjoyable part if I were satisfied with the game mechanical.

Well If you want to made "new" missions (with a new terrain) you need at least an old 3ds max (3.0 and 3.1 will work with the plugins) But if you would have that you can change really everything ... you can make new cutscenes new terrains models animations ...

Well most of the settings i never had to change or looked deeper into it ... so I guess you will be the first one who takes that step. Some of them are missunderstanding and complex... but it seems to work

The avault page is an pretty old one witch also features the "history" of the enemies even they are never named somewhere in the game so I think that most of the stuff there was taken from the imagination of the ed.

Hmm bugfree game .. well at least I think that hd2 has dozen more of bugs as hdd has lol
If you want some more tutorials you could look at these: http://www.hidden-and-dangerous2.com/tipps/editor.php but they are in german and you need and tranlator like babelfish etc...

[unclevadim2]

You can replace very much much (in *tab)
From capacity and range of any weapon
As to add the
As sounds
Irritation of a uniform
Distances of following between your soldiers
Speeds of movement in different poses (to stand to lay to bend down) and at different installations (follow, walk, guard)
Errors of a miss of hits....etc

With granates it is more complex{difficult}
It is possible to give a command to attack the purpose (granate) (for enemy)
But to fail his{its} personal choice it to make.

Persons---replace structures(textures)

@Gallipolli  In general I like your optimism
You have Insanity (not h&dd editor)?

[MorgTzu]

I am also curious about some of these issues raised..it would be a much more enjoyable experience to survive a few missions in a row without having to reload due to almost instantaneous kill shots by the bots...as most probably know, most shots in combat (esp. in that time period) were misses and most hits were wounds. That's a big generalization, but I would like to make a 2 or 3 mission campaign that is very non-linear involving simple fire and manuever fire fights, not "commando" type objectives that restrict you to do a, b, and c in almost a precise order or the entire war front collapses on your shouldrs. That gets old fairly quick, making mutiplayer for a few missions at a time a more enjoyable experience. As has been said before, this game has a lot of potential...and even for it's age (I started playing it prob. 3 years ago and have lurked the forums off and on since then) still has more dynamic and tactical possibilities than the modern video game-mmo crap out there where respawning and avoiding being team killed are the most important tactical objectives. Ah...if only we could combine the dynamics of H&DD with the smoothness and graphics of the original Ghost Recon...but I digresss 
     Galipoli, I would be real interested if you could post a kind of hands on or tutorial on how to change the settings in the way you (and some of the veterans) were talking about, I have tried to mess about with it but just end up with a screwed up game or errors.
    One more thing...has anyone ever figured out how to have your men progress in their skills as they complete missions (in a similar fashion to GR)?

[unclevadim2]

Aga!
Japanese people
Too here!   

[Gallipolli]

Sorry I did´nt knew there were more answers. I´ve been reading the pseudo-translated tutorials and playing campaign 3. The tutorials and FAQs are very good but the babelfish ... that´s another story. Here is an example:
27. How do I know new Ger?che hinzuf?n?Create - > 3D object - > sound (or dr?e Shift+S). W?e the Ger?ch of the Men?Benutze preview (first)option. you will help you, which suitable Ger?ch to find which you look for.  
I wish I knew German. Sometimes it´s a headache but with time enough I´ll get used to the editor.

In C3M3 and C3M4 (indoors combat) the game was very realistic. Fast reaction is not the problem. The problem is the human player poor visibility in long range combat. The computer player can see everything in its visibility range, even through trees and bushes. A human can do the same (sometimes) with the binoculars or the scoped rifle but ...Ok it´s possible to use the squad controlled by the Ai in outdoors, and use your poor human senses for sniping and fine tuning I guess.
It´s a nice game. I have to play a lot to know it well. And I´ll try to make a  map for testing the settings and the AI.
Thank you Lars.


Unclevadim2 I don´t understand you very well. I warn you that english is not my native language so have mercy  . Mine is not insanity but ignorance, surely there would be lots of problems but as a wish list to start why should I get short.
I am discovering the possibilities of the editor, and I´ll try to customize the game for my pleasure. It´s a game so I´d like to have fun, instead of frustration.

Morgtzu I absolutely agree with you, I like the way this game kill your characters with one or two shots, but I think they are too much accurate. There is a narrow margin to maneuver. You probably like to play games the way I do. I don´t like at all to save and reload every five minutes. I mean if I´d want to play arcade platform games I´d be playing super Mario bros. There are two parts in this, one is how the game has been coded and how the editor gives access to the possibilities of adjusting the parameters to make the game more enjoyable. And two the way the missions are designed and scripted. Here would be non linear missions and campaigns, intelligent reactions of the enemy force as a whole, etc... A lot of added work in designing maps. For many years one of my dreams has been a game where the computer controlled characters had fear and survival instinct instead of being a kind of happy suicides.
By the way, I´m not a veteran in this game nor in this forum. In fact I´m very noob. Perhaps that´s why I´m a bit excited with H&D.

To see some progress with their skills in a campaign would be nice, and perhaps could be done somehow. An external program which edit the SAV file and adds some % to the skills after every mission. Developing characters use to be the most addictive part of many games such as RPG and the like.

Back to insanity 

[Lars]

Ok. I think you don´t have the german Umlaute (äöü) and that will made it impossible to make any sense into it Try it with googles translator
http://translate.google.com/translate?u ... uage_tools

[Gallipolli]

Now we are talking! 
Thank you very, very much Lars. I´m sorry if I´m a bit clumsy. I´ve never used a translator before but this google tool seems to do it great. Actually, I can´t understand english as well as I´d wish, although if you ever need help with spanish count on me. That´s why I´ve got problems with jokes and double meanings. I couldn´t say if unclevadim was talking about the insanity engine or about my madness. After reading some topics in the forum, I guess that you Lars (german), unclevadim (russian I think) and Jason (english?), you three have to know a lot about HD&D and the editor. I still have to play a lot with them. Before I was afraid that mods in languages other than english were unplayable for me but now and while I´m trying to get HD&D2 and MAX just in case I´d need it, I´m gonna play the mods you have done, because they have to be really good.
I think there is one called Bertgold,  and another called Deluxe 2 (don´t know if finished yet) that I´m sure they´ll be great.


Now for the people like me, who doesn´t understand why this game looks great and gets frustrating at the same time this is what I´ve found so far. The most important things in the official campaigns are visibility and spotting, and much less important are reaction and shooting skills. Weapon ranges modify the accuracy, but as most missions are set with low visibility and short shooting distances for the characters, it isn´t very important.

There are the camera settings in scene properties with two parameters, FOV (field of vision in grades I think) , and range. These are the limits for a human player visibility.
For the computer player we´ve got the watch distance and the min shoot distance which are both set by default in the game configuration table to 100m, and the endurance, shooting and reaction are set to 50%. But this is modified with every character model at designer wish.

Sometimes you send your AI soldiers forward and they are able to spot and shoot enemies, but as the campaign progresses and the designer wants to put it more and more difficult there are all sorts of super enhanced soldiers with not much consideration to the player intelligence. Suprisely, the elite SAS commandos in prone position, with weapons ready facing the street across the enemy is about to arrive, are unable to set up a decent ambush while the veteran german soldiers who come running chasing a group of civilians in Prague, can finish them all in two seconds  .  Well, not strange, actually this headhunters can see and shoot from 150m and have a shooting skill of 100%. Further more, I think these numbers are added to the default because other characters have 0 and 0% values in their AI and are not blind at all.

They can see further than yours and many times they can shoot you with total impunity. I feel cheated. I guess this is the way the designers say: "this time is not going to be so easy", but that´s not fair. After playing all campaigns I remember the manual and the funny part about tactics. Hehe!, the only tactic I´ve found usefull while playing is the "save-move-die-reload and kill". Why bother securing zones if the next step will hit a trigger and a bunch of enemies will appear just behind you. Why bother with fields of fire if your soldiers can´t stand head on with enemies. Why bother with moving stealthy if they all are miopes while enemies are hipermetropes. But yes, as long as you stay out of the enemy field of vision you can nail them. Unfortunately  there is usually just one way, and it´s  headed to the very center of the enemy defenses. So you play with an assault brigade of 4 half blind and slow soldiers, always hidden hoping that enemies will run from one side to the other of your field of vision. But hey, SAS are elite troops.

It´s a pitty because the maps are wonderfull and the game works very well. If anybody wants to play the campaigns with more realistic settings, he should have to modify every character in all missions in order to be sure that there are no supermutants. Perhaps the Deluxe2 has done precisely this and many other improvements. I´ll continue playing the mods and tinkering with the editor.Now I think I understand what unclevadim said. This is truly an international modding community.  I´ll see if the translator works with russian too.

[MorgTzu]

I'm glad to see you continue to play and figure things out. I am not much of a poster, but have lurked around here for years, hoping that either deluxe2 or somefink else would resolve some of the issues you have mentioned. As I have stated elsewhere, I'm a big Ghost Recon (original) fan and ever since GR Debut, I have wanted to see a mixing of the best elements of both games. Off topic, but has anyone here ever played the War of Infamy mods for Ghost Recon, superb stuff....you have all the ww2 gear in historical setting, but with much more freedom to plan and move around the battlefield, even using mortars...but you can't pick up enemy equipment or ride in vehicles and your squad command choices are somewhat limited.

[unclevadim2]

@Gallipolli
I wrote about the engine(Insanity 2)

To each separate soldier At
You put distance of visibility at the desire.

_ It seems Jason it happens here...
Once in two months     

[Gallipolli]

I´ll give a try to Ghost Recon and we can discuss it in "other games" section. Looks like the kind of game that keeps you sweating. Finally I will be forced to update my hardware, because I´m hooked on games again. Last modern game I played was Warhammer 40000 DOW, and it kept me cursing about the humungous amount of resources wasted in the amazing 3d graphics and sounds  , and the pretty boring and flat game design like you have said before. You must be a lone hunter like me.

Unclevadim I only have the Deluxe with the editor. Why do you ask? Do you feel like wanting to build your own game from the beginning? Do you know Akella team in Russia? They are brilliant. I don´t know how many are they, but I think they started from zero.

Some qestions I´m working just now:
.-The light multiplier factor modify the watching distance? and how then, how do you know the amount of light is there in a given scenary or scenary zone?

.-Can we make all weapons scoped to help human players to see what are they shooting, without making the weapons extra accurate? In the inventary table every weapon has an option to make zooming false or true.

.-Can we make the player soldiers more customizables like one having better sight to use him as scout? Importing the table, editing and exporting...
And I´m trying to understand how to set the grid to see the exact distances.