Ai : Mg42 Gunner and Spotter :: Pip
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In this tutorial I will explain how to set up enemy machinegunners, for SP games, that will respawn a given number of times. It's also possible to spawn spotters. They point out the target to the machinegunner and will attack you when you've shot the machinegunner. Very little scripting is needed, but some basic scripting and mapping knowledge is assumed.

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Part 1 : Setting up enemy machinegunners
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Let's get started with the map. Open your map or create a basic room with light and playerstart. Make sure the playerstart is behind a wall or something if you don't want to get shot at once.

1. Now place a mg42 base with a mg42 on top of it somewhere in your map (See Surgeon's spotlight tutorial for indepth instructions of how to do this). Give the mg42 a key/value of $targetname / mg42.

2. Now we're going to setup the spot where the machine gunner will be standing. Add an info_pathnode behind the machinegun. Give it a $targetname / mg42_gunner_path.

3. Next thing to do is to put an info_pathnode where you want the enemy to spawn. They will appear here and then run to the machinegun, so make sure that you place in a place that the player can't see. Give it a $targetname / mg42_spawner_gunner. Make sure it's pretty close to the machinegun otherwise your gunner can't find it.

4. To set the number of times you want the machinegunner to re-appear give the mg42 a key / value of $spawn / 2. In this case the gunner will respawn 1 time after being shot the first time. You can change this to whatever you want.

That's it for the mapping part. That's easy right? Let's get into the scripting.

To get the AI to work we need to add the following line to the script:

And to set up the mg42 we need to add this line after "level waittill spawn":

My map is called test.bsp and the script is test.scr. It looks like this:

Allright. Save your map and script. Compile it and your ready.

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Part 2 : Adding Spotters
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You got the machinegunners working? Let's add some spotters. The spotter doesn't really have a function, it's just another guy for you to shoot at. He will tap the machinegunner on the head and will point in your direction, as if he's telling the gunner where to shoot. Let's get to it.

1. Add an info_pathnode to your map. You want the spotter to stand next to the gunner so place it next to the mg42_gunner_path. Give it a key/value of $targetname / mg42_spotter_path.
2. Now place an info_pathnode where you want the spotter to spawn. Just like with the gunner. e.g. place it next to mg42_spawner_gunner. Give it a key/value of $targetname / mg42_spawner_spotter.

That's all. You don't have to change anything in your script. When both your gunner and spotter die a new couple will be spawned.

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Part 3 : More MG42's
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You can have as many mg42 as you like. It's all about the targetnames.
When you set up a new mg42 do NOT give it the same name as the first one. All mg42s must have different names. Suppose I added a second mg42, I would name it for example $targetname / mg42b. Every mg42 needs it own spawner and path nodes. So create another info_pathnode and name it: $targetname / mg42b_gunner_path and another one with $targetname / mg42b_spawner_path. Same goes for the spotter path and spawnpoints. Of course this mg42 also needs a $spawn value.

Tips :
Info_pathnodes are added as follows: right mouseboutton > info > pathnodes

Quite a few different models are spawned and you need to precache them in your precache_test.scr. Take a look at the console to find out which models to precache.

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Part 4: Some more about the mg42_active.scr
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Although there's only one script line referring to this script, it is doing a lot of work in the mg42 setup. It can even do more then I've already shown you. Here's how to finetune your mg42s.

Except for the $spawn variable you don't have to set anything, it's all done by the script, but you can set some stuff that doesn't get overwritten. Here's a list with things you can set and the standard value the script applies.

First of all you can set a maximum range for the mg42. Instead of calling the script like this:

do this:

In this case 1024 would be your range. The default range is 2400.

The following settings can also be set in the mg42s entity window:

Value Default
setplayerusable 1
turnspeed 45
pitchcap (-45 45 0)
maxyawoffset 45
bulletdamage 70
tracerfrequency 3

I think it's all pretty self-explanatory. Take a look at the g_allclasses.html in your MOHRadianr docs directory if you want to know more about the Weapon and Turret settings.

Next is the AI's appearance. When the AI is spawned they are assigned this model:
german_wehrmact_grenadier
You can easily change this by giving the mg42_spawner_gunner and/or mg42_spawner_spotter a key/value of $ai_model / modelname.
For example: key = $ai_model and value = german_afrika_private

That's it. If you want to make even more changes, you should start hacking the mg42_active.scr. Unpack it, place in a dir. Eg. main/maps and make sure your script points to your own mg42_active script, like this:

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