MINERVA - read-only archives

With more creative use of triggering combined (oh I amuse myself so much) with inputs based on enemyfinder inputs and enemy AI inputs, you could trigger different messages.

Yep ... the "default" message could be a "got by without any enemies even noticing you, cleverly done Mr. Snake" message (aside: mental image of Combine soldiers saying "What's that box doing here?" although hiding in a box wouldn't work as well in first-person). If enemies spot you, this triggers a "way to blow your cover, you Frohman" and disables the "stealth" trigger. If you waste time killing them, you get berated for wasting your time killing them. Hell, I could probably implement that much ...

OoooO Snippy Snippy

Although references apreciated and marked as "lol"

It wouldn't be quite like that. More like, if you get spotted by a patrol, Minerva would say something along the lines of-
"Well, unless you like the idea of fighting against five hundred striders (And I sincerely hope you don't, for your sake), you had best take out the whole scouting party before they can get backup.

Never mind, Combine gunship incoming. 2km, incoming. Have fun!"

Upon sneaking past a patrol:

"You seem much more adept at stealth than my last Perseus. Well done. Keep your head down and you should be able to make it to the dockyards without arousing too much suspicion."

Now what I'd like to see for OOT would be a mechanic where you could conceal your weapons and blend with a crowd. Perhaps something like the City 44 equivalent of Red Square could have various NPCs walking around in it, with a few metrocops here and there to avoid. Or am I just anticipating "Splinter Cell: Conviction" too much? I don't think HL2 was well known for it's ability to draw lots of NPCs at once...

Theres a GMOD RP sever I play on (I ashamedly admit) and they have a holster script. So holstering and source is possible. However making it so the NPCs dont recognize you as hostile when the weapon isnt out would take an extra bit of work

Not notarget effect. Notarget means no one can see you, friend or foe. I meant like the metrocop "ai_police" ai script where they either guard or patrol an area, and if you provoke them (flag "respond to thrown objects") they will beat you with a stunstick a time or two, then return to their schedule.

The idea is concealing your weapons will let you blend with a crowd. (Remember the robbery scene in "Heat" where the robbers put the rifles under the money sacks and no one noticed the guns? Like that, somewhat.)

Okay ... thinking over the "stealth" elements from before, I confess that I'm pondering how one might manage to implement a MGS-style cardboard box in the Souce engine. I imagine it'd work as some sort of vehicle, and add some code to it and/or the soldiers that says, "Enemies can't see it when not moving; if seen while in motion, enemies recognize it as an enemy, and disable the can't-see-it-when-not-moving condition."

If you want to find out the latest on Kenny mod he's working on (since that post of his is pretty old now), you should go to the and his mod is hosted there. From what he has said there it is going to be pretty cool. Oh and BTW, his mod is called Five.

Yay! I get free advertising!

I was thinking about stealth throughout the entire time I was playing Metastasis.

"You mean I'm a highly trained Combine soldier that you've captured for use in a very important infiltration mission, and you supply me a research suit and a crowbar? That doesn't seem like a very stealthy choice to me... Unless you think they won't notice a man in a bright orange suit clubbing people down throughout their facility."

Even just the ability to hide in the shadows, or look for ways to avoid Combine patrols in the city would be awesome. The fear/excitement you'd get when you realize that a large group of enemies is coming around the corner and that it's time to "hide or die" would be truly amazing.

Well to do a hiding in the shadows type of deal would be to have location based npc LOS blockers. Tricky to implement with the existing toolset, particularly if your map has lots of shadows. I'll probably try making one at some point to test it's viability.

Programming! While it would be fairly complex, if there is an object that the NPC is looking at, one could determine the lightning of the object (another npc/or a player) using the same method as physics props. One could as well find the wall behind the object seen from the NPC's viewpoint, and then multiply the lightning of the wall with the wall's base color.
Then the color of the object can be compared with the wall behind it, and if the color is near each other (or both are dark enough!) the NPC would be able to detect this, and ignore the object.

Of course this introduces a lot of flaws such as constrasts and stuff, but it is possible!

(Actually, the best (and slowest?) method would be computing the colors of each pixels object covers and comparing the color to the color of the pixel, if the object wasn't drawn. Or at least trying only a few random pixels per frame, should perform well enough)