Aliens just stand there, not activating

[doctorbenjiphd]

Hello again, my favorite community. I have a project that's been in development off and on for, well, my entire life I guess, and it's back in "on' mode. I have a level that is pretty cool, but some of the aliens are just standing there, staring at me like idiots. I have to shoot them to activate them. I know all about zone borders and "deaf" and "blind" tags and "activated by" options and such. I've gone through them all countless times. Nothing seems to work. This isn't even a giant level, and there aren't a ton of polygon lines between the player and the aliens. Some of them simply choose not to activate. Others will play the "activation" noise (Pfhor chatter or whatever) over and over again, but still don't do anything. It's really annoying. I seem to remember something about "original Marathon AI" plugin that solved this problem for me in Eternal some years ago, but it doesn't seem to make any difference in my level whether it is on or off. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Meerjel01]

I don't know a lot about this but it would be wise to send a picture of the layout here to get proper help.

[doctorbenjiphd]

I don't know a lot about this but it would be wise to send a picture of the layout here to get proper help.

Thanks, er, how does one upload a picture in a forum post?

[doctorbenjiphd]

Let's see if this works.

The two aliens next to the shotgun shells in the bottom middle room. The four aliens in alcoves at the top center of the map. The four aliens on the ledge above door 767. There is a pit between the center area and the latter two alien spots. But the shotgun aliens are right there. They just stand there chattering. No borders or anything.

edit: or maybe just try this

[Meerjel01]

I don't know a lot about this but it would be wise to send a picture of the layout here to get proper help.

Thanks, er, how does one upload a picture in a forum post?

"Full Editor & Preview" Which allows the Attachments options.

Wish I could help but I barely work on Marathon maps. Hopefully someone cunning comes over from the discord server. That's what I thought when I posted the first one.

[hypersleep]

Taking the monsters at the top for example, I've got a hunch your pit is stopping them from building paths.

Here's something to try – take one of those little cubbies at the top with an offending honker inside it and add 2 extra polygons that the monster is able to enter, see if the problem goes away.

Summarily:

• Monsters need to be able to cross between 3 contiguous polygons to behave properly.
• If they have one, welcome to honk town.
• If they have two, they'll mostly behave but also moonwalk on the walls.

[The Man]

The other thing to be aware of, although I don’t think it’s the issue in this specific case, is that monsters need to be able to cross through the centre of (1) a line and (2) a polygon in order to build a path. To wit, this means that a line must be longer than the monster’s diameter. So a Juggernaut needs at least a 2 WU line, a Hulk needs at least a 1 WU line, and most other monsters need at least a .5 WU line. I doubt that’s specifically the issue here (without seeing your polygon heights or knowing what kinds of monsters you’re using, I can’t be certain), but it can definitely trip people up and can explain otherwise inexplicable monster behaviour. I didn’t even learn that this was an issue until last year – it’s not documented anywhere that I’m aware of.