[SWIRL] Human Radar & Alien Sense

There has been some fundamental issues with the traditional human radar and alien sense in Tremulous which has included the following:

  • Wall hackers can use the cover of saying that they knew where the enemy was from the radar/sense instead of wallhacking, thus not being as easy to detect

  • The radar/sense makes it difficult for enemies to strategically navigate and build without quickly giving their locations/movements away.

We have been trying a mostly disabled version of the radar/sense recently on test7341 where both teams can detect friendlies and not enemies, and giving humans their radar by default without needing a helmet.

However, now we are trying some new updates:

-Both teams can detect enemy targets with their radar, but only if there is nothing blocking thier view (not having their view blocked doesn’t mean that you have to be looking at the targets, as the targets can still be behind you and you can still detect them, in this way the radar/sense sorta acts like 360 vision) .

  • Friendly buildables are detected, but only if there is something blocking their view (the exception being friendly overminds/reactors which would always be detected if within range regardless of their line of sight).

  • Human radar can only be used by the helmet again.

These updates are now available on the test7341 server.

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So the solution is to give them more advantage by taking radars away from legitimate players?

Tremulous has never been about stealth and I think it’s a good thing. I’ve always thought people playing these games (Quake derivatives) were looking for pure action above all else.

My quick solution to wallhacking: give everyone precise and fast radars.

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Do enemies that are visible on your teammates’ field of vision appear on your radar?

no, i’d imagine that ppl have a wide spectrum of preferences, that even changes with time. also, ppl often don’t give hard efforts to find the most preferentially matching games; rather, there r other affairs involved. for example, i am sticking with Tremulous not because of its action.

btw, Tremulous has a significantly greater stealth element than other Quake derivatives.

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If it’s not the action then what? Provide some insight.

It’s as much of a stealth game as Quake III: Arena. The only stealthy element I can think of is the Basilisk, which pretty much no one ever uses because it’s boring.

(Edit) BTW. Take a look at Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory if you want to see a Quake derivative with actual stealth (it’s still very arcade though).

general components potentially causing ppl to stick with a game:

  • can’t be assed to learn a new multi-player (specifically players vs players) game.
  • can’t be assed to think about looking for a different game.
  • i know the community playing the game.
  • other (otherwise interesting) games require costy NAGGER Processing Units.

for me, the initial attraction to Tremulous was due to open source: i wanted to learn how to code at large.1 finding coding errors was a hardcore ego-stimulator. these accentuated the above „can’t be fucked” components. pertaining the above „community” point, having development and banhammar control over a fairly popular server was another key attractor.2

another trait is teamwork, including role division and information relaying. this is stimulating due to the more general satisfaction of a job well done.

some prefer not pure, constantly focused gameplay, but a mixture of gameplay and chatting. a Tremulous player team requires various roles from scouting/guarding to rushing/covering, permitting a rather preferred choice for many.

Tremulous is also more unique than most other FPSs.

1 first goal was to develop an aimbot. xD
2 popularity is exclusively what u’re seeking for, except that u’re not competent enough to grab what u call „the remainder of this dying community” — i challenge u.

WRONG. stealth extends to eg. the following:

  • ambushing primarily stage-1 humans.
  • particularly as a human, moving on a not-so-monitored path (possibly retreating upon evidence of being detected) to:
    • start building a forward base or the foundation for the new base.
    • reach and attack alien buildables without defence.
  • as a dretch, hiding in an upper corner of a large room, waiting for most humans to leave the base, to evolve into an advanced dragoon, to snipe buildables.

these examples r manifested in high-buildpoint settings and rather large maps, not the default camp&sp4m on atcs.

ind33d, i was particularly thinking of the multiplayer sides of primarily deathmatch/strike/elimination styled mods of Quake 3.

enneract : know that a game can be good for several points, and even can be good for having several points that make it be great.

I don’t know why Tremulous should be either pure action or stealth gameplay, while it can be both, following the way you play it.

I think disabling radar for both teams is a problem :

  • Aliens without radar can still move fast, hide, and locate humans easily.
  • Humans without radar cannot locate aliens easily, which is a problem as aliens are known to be great mind-fuckers on that point.

But human’s radar destroy every kind of hiding for aliens when well played, and they don’t have to go on contact to kill.

Other ideas :

  • reduce humans radar range
  • make helmet and radar separated items

I don’t have much time to think more about it.

P.S : please don’t split things into boxes too much

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I meant insight that’s related to this topic.

These things are as “stealthy” as the average CTF match in Quake III: Arena. To me stealth is killing without ever being seen (like in the Hitman series), not camping corners in a fast-paced death simulator and pretending like it’s some great tactical feat. Attacking an empty base isn’t stealth either, it’s just the enemy team being a bunch of retards.

It can’t be both unless you’re making Schrödinger’s game.

I haven’t played many different Quake based games, but I can give as an example that Xonotic (at least on the servers that I have played on) doesn’t have any radar at all, yet it is a fast paced action packed game.some differences between Trem and Xonotic that should be considered:

  • Tremulous has asymmetric teams with overall different mobility and attack range abilities.

  • Tremulous has buildables as essential comonents of the game play, that don’t move around, and can be hidden.

  • A lot more team coordination and cooperation in Trem is more essential in Trem (even when comparing Xonotic’s CTF mode).

Not at the moment, but that can be done.

Nope, part of the idea is to make it more obvious when someone is wall hacking.

Welcome to Tremulous :slight_smile:

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And yet, they were still valid examples. The difference between his (DevHC’s) example (Trem) and yours (QIII) is that stealth in Tremulous has a more profound presence in the game (hiding in vents, etc).

That is not what people recognize the term “stealth” as in videogames. Its usually associated with being sneaky, unobtrusive, out of sight, etc. Needing to “kill” unseen isn’t material here.

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A post was split to a new topic: Regarding Radical Changes to Game Play

Hiding in vents has nothing to do with stealth in most cases. It’s just people trying to score easy kills.

So what is the stealth for? Might as well just join the spectators.

WRONG.

that exists in Tremulous :

  • shove a camping teammate off a legde, into a pit or the alien-invested lower level.
  • fire a Lucifer Cannon blob, that does 99 damage, into the ass of ur teammate, kicking him over to the tyrant-intested corner.
  • deal 99% damage to human buildables, and invite aliens to finish the buildables.

and of course, if we allow „killing without --ever-- being seen” until completion of objective (aka up to the time of killing):

false dichotomy.

WRONG. attacking an always-populated base at a time-window when a combination of

  • few ppl being around the base, and
  • ppl not being ready to immediately begin firing at an in-sight alien,

allow an advanced dragoon to survive for somewhat more than 1 second, which is the amount of time needed to release 2 barbs.

the non-existence of radar eases undetected movement, and opens up the possibility of hiding. this will appeal to some ppl.

that’s possible: for each game, randomness determines (with 50%–50% chance) whether that game will be purely about stealth or purely about action; additionally, the gamelogic can be designed in a way that players generally find this out by playing that game.

Is this stealth?

Yes, to some people. It’ll be a source of frustration (or boredom) to everyone else.

Still can’t be both at once.

Let me give my FPS player opinion.
So what is action ?
ACTION to me is :

  • speed of movement
  • speed of action (precision and speed of decision)
  • adrenaline

STEALTH to me is :

  • speed of action (precision and speed of decision)
  • managing your body (sound it produces, shape it has)
  • manipulating others mind

This kind of gameplay is typical of every FPS I played. I played a lot to Sauerbraten, Teeworlds, Warsow and many other quake-derivates and FPSs. Not because you have goon charges in Tremulous, and soon CPM’s bunny hop and strafe it should be different from those.

Once you get how all these games have to do with kung-fu, you understand how you’re wrong. I wonder how would you play action in Tremulous while being the last alien and trying to hide. This is about stealth (which means : not being detected and brain the others).
And again, I don’t get why would you split stealth and this meaningless concept of “action” while both are linked once you’re fighting an opponent in such 3d game, and not a map.

Pointing out faults like “meh you can’t play stealth on tekken lol haha but it’s 3d you noob omg”, will make you be sent in court, facing my lawyers. You’ve been warned.

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ALSO

PLEASE WHEN YOU ANSWER, HAVE CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM.

Stop just answering one half line (which also just leads to continue the cancer post) when you quote 4 lines before and doing this 5 times. This is considered as spam, or cancer answering. I’m obviously not aiming to someone in particular…

no, the precursor to this is stealth.

more precisely, the distribution of appeals will be such that some ppl will get extreme entertainment, and everyone else will get neligible frustration/boredom — provided that „hiders” can’t force hide-and-seek games. an example attempt to prevent this is team support being linked to an operational main buildable of the team (without one, the team loses after some time).

the point is that the net effect will be positive, unless the gamelogic will be fucked up as a whole. another example of how the gamelogic, as a whole, can be fucked up, is Tremulous 1.1: campers can force a game of patience.

neither is the cat.

wtf is this shitcrap ?

giving urself an erection is stealth ?

this claim is undefined (wtf is „kung-fu” here ? exactly which of the 100s of points made above r WRONG ?) and unsupported.

umad ?

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Wtf is this cancer?

They could but it doesn’t matter.

Are we playing the same game (lol implying you’re even playing it) ? Do U really want people to build an egg in the ass of teh world and have to run around to find it for 50 minutes?

Congratulations, U succesfully removed the entire purpose of a COCKFUCKING radar! U might aswell just entirely get rid of it.

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We have had the radar regarding enemy detection completely off on test7341 for several weeks and a large majority of the games still ended before the time limit. Since buildables are stationary, you can find them if you are thorough enough searching the map (also noticing enemy traffic, and listening out for sounds helps with locating bases). With the current implementation of the radar, it would be easier to locate enemy buildables now than with no enemy radar, but still not as easy as the traditional radar.

Not really, the current implementation is still useful.

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I’ll just corner-camp with a rant, stronger than ev4r.

Yes I’m aware of that, played it, and got cancer.

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