Smarter enemies are sweet - what about smarter allies?

[Guest!]

I'd like to suggest a component to give better scripting to summoned creatures. Summons are still mostly cannon fodder, even Devas/Planetars don't use their spells effectively: they can see invisibile mages but won't cast Creeping Doom on them, keep attacking immune or protected enemies, don't cast Globe of Blades and so on. Micromanaging summons is kinda annoying and impossible anyway when they're offscreen, and then there's their irksome tendency to override the player's imputs with their own dumb scripts (if I place you there, that means I need you to stay RIGHT THERE, damn!), so they're usually half-wasted.

[coaster]

Have you tried the gminion mod (also on this site) - it's supposed to make more summons more intelligent (can't say I've tried it myself though).

[Guest!]

I tried it once but wasn't thrilled with the result.

[Guest amanasleep]

I tried it once but wasn't thrilled with the result.

 

If they cannot be made more intelligent I would settle for less intelligent. If all summons just stood there and never initiated action they would be much better than they are now. As it is you can't micro them even if you want too. The next time I have to force a Fire Elemental to attack the same guy 5 times in a row because on the way over it decides to attack the Mage with active PfMW and Pro Fire instead, I will throw my computer out the window. Nymphs burn a turn casting Barkskin when I tell them to be casting Confusion, etc.

 

JUST STAND THERE AND LOOK PRETTY, FODDER! IF I WANTED YOUR OPINION I WOULD BEAT IT OUT OF YOU!!!!!

[Jarno Mikkola]

If they cannot be made more intelligent I would settle for less intelligent. If all summons just stood there and never initiated action they would be much better than they are now.

You can do that by selecting everyone with the square button in lower right corner on your user interface, and then pushing the other button on the left next to it, it's the AI on/off button.

These:

[Guest amanasleep]

If they cannot be made more intelligent I would settle for less intelligent. If all summons just stood there and never initiated action they would be much better than they are now.

You can do that by selecting everyone with the square button in lower right corner on your user interface, and then pushing the other button on the left next to it, it's the AI on/off button.

These:

 

Thanks for the tip but I'm talking about controlling summons, not NPC's.

[Guest!]

I tried it once but wasn't thrilled with the result.

 

If they cannot be made more intelligent I would settle for less intelligent. If all summons just stood there and never initiated action they would be much better than they are now. As it is you can't micro them even if you want too. The next time I have to force a Fire Elemental to attack the same guy 5 times in a row because on the way over it decides to attack the Mage with active PfMW and Pro Fire instead, I will throw my computer out the window. Nymphs burn a turn casting Barkskin when I tell them to be casting Confusion, etc.

 

JUST STAND THERE AND LOOK PRETTY, FODDER! IF I WANTED YOUR OPINION I WOULD BEAT IT OUT OF YOU!!!!!

Scripting should work pretty much the same way for all creatures, I suppose, but I'm no expert. If that's the case, it might be possible to adapt the existing scripts to summons.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Thanks for the tip but I'm talking about controlling summons, not NPC's.

In case you didn't notice it, I told you to select every character, which includes the summoned monsters, and then turn off their AIs. You need to turn it of every time you summon more monsters off of course, as they have the default or another AI script running as they are summoned.

 

Scripting should work pretty much the same way for all creatures, I suppose, but I'm no expert. If that's the case, it might be possible to adapt the existing scripts to summons.

Yes, you should be able to do that by assigning the different AI script(to their Override script) for their .cre files.

[Azazello]

Have you tried the gminion mod (also on this site) - it's supposed to make more summons more intelligent (can't say I've tried it myself though).

 

I tried it once but wasn't thrilled with the result.

Try it again.

 

Try an experiment with gMinion: summon a Planetar and let it have-it an enemy party, preferably a fairly powerful one. Don't micromanage the Planetar, see how well it handles. Give us your report.

 

The fighting scripts are not overly complicated. The spellcasting script tries to be very expansive for all summons. The mod probably could use some updating since it was created 5 years ago.

[Guest!]

Have you tried the gminion mod (also on this site) - it's supposed to make more summons more intelligent (can't say I've tried it myself though).

 

I tried it once but wasn't thrilled with the result.

Try it again.

 

Try an experiment with gMinion: summon a Planetar and let it have-it an enemy party, preferably a fairly powerful one. Don't micromanage the Planetar, see how well it handles. Give us your report.

 

The fighting scripts are not overly complicated. The spellcasting script tries to be very expansive for all summons. The mod probably could use some updating since it was created 5 years ago.

Okay, I'll give it another shot and let you know.

 

Edit: just checked the readme and it looks like some summons have a slightly different spell selection in SCS2.

[DavidW]

Yeah, my basic policy with summoned allies has been, "leave it to Gminion". One of these days I may do a minimalistic component that just turns off summoned AI entirely for allies.