merc confusion gadget

[Overstatement]

Nothing and everything is hard to code.

[Succubus Dryad Of The Undying Comet]

And ghosts through the map.

[mentalmars]

it's a option, just giving input for a different aprouch ;)

you also wouldnt gain ground if you used the ss as a projection gun

[InvisibleMan999]

Do you know how long it would take to program?

To make it look anywhere realistic enough to fool a merc, it's going to effectively require a simple AI of sorts, and that includes programming pathing into it such that it runs around obstacles.

About the only thing that might work is allowing the spy to control the thing manually, of course that'd be pointless, because you'd have to be standing still while you're doing it. A manual one might be ok if it produces sound from running and if you could launch it from the launcher on your gun like a sticky cam and that's where it starts.

But any kind of automatic holopod? People talking about programming a bunch of animations into it and such. Come on. That's going to take way too long to code to make it do anything remotely like what you'd want it to do. 

"...going to suck completely." Why?

Because any experienced merc will easily be able to tell holo-pod from spy after a few plays. It's only going to be a device to confuse a newbie.

Seriously, the holopod is a cool idea if we could make it work, but I don't it's possible. It's going to take a lot of coding and then after all that, it's going to be a gadget nobody uses.

[Cyntrox]

Do you know how long it would take to program?

To make it look anywhere realistic enough to fool a merc, it's going to effectively require a simple AI of sorts, and that includes programming pathing into it such that it runs around obstacles.

About the only thing that might work is allowing the spy to control the thing manually, of course that'd be pointless, because you'd have to be standing still while you're doing it. A manual one might be ok if it produces sound from running and if you could launch it from the launcher on your gun like a sticky cam and that's where it starts.

But any kind of automatic holopod? People talking about programming a bunch of animations into it and such. Come on. That's going to take way too long to code to make it do anything remotely like what you'd want it to do. 

You're ignoring so many of the suggestions it's not funny anymore...

And why would it require any more animations than an ordinary spy?

[Farley4Fan]

I had a limited suggestion for remote control.  Like you could tell it when to start running and going faster, but it still does the basic recording or goes in a straight line.  It would mimic human movement a bit better if you could tell it to run when a merc sees it.  It would help convince the merc that it is real.

Whoever said it would require more animation is either:
A) Completely lost
B) Not reading posts
C) Has no common sense

It's the same spy, why the hell would you give it animations that a real spy doesn't have?

And invisible, you should have more faith in our dev team.  Frvge even said that it wouldn't be too hard to code himself.

[Ion.67]

This has evolved into a lot of randomness about improving this idea. Remote control is retarded, as is AI. Forget about those.

[Farley4Fan]

Who said anything about AI?  Are you reading any posts?  What's wrong with EVOLVING an idea?  We are putting input into something that we see could be great.  What's wrong with that?

[Cyntrox]

This has evolved into a lot of randomness about improving this idea. Remote control is retarded, as is AI. Forget about those.

I agree that AI is not a good idea, but tell me why a limited remote control is retarded. I'm not talking about assuming full control of the hologram, I'm talking about specifying a point to move to and from, and perhaps do minor things on the way - like getting up and diving if it is seen.

[Farley4Fan]

How about drawing it's path on your map?  Like you click the mouse on the map and drag it until you reach the desired path for it to take.  From there, you can control the holopod's speed and stance.  And it's not randomness as you say it is, Ion.

[Succubus Dryad Of The Undying Comet]

Papa, this would require LOTS of holopods throughout the map.

[Farley4Fan]

Says who?  You launch the pod to its starting point, and you draw the path, he stops and restarts at the end of the path.  Don't quite follow you.

[Cyntrox]

Sounds like it'd take too long to set up.

[Succubus Dryad Of The Undying Comet]

How about drawing it's path on your map?  Like you click the mouse on the map and drag it until you reach the desired path for it to take.  From there, you can control the holopod's speed and stance.  And it's not randomness as you say it is, Ion.

Of what i understood you meant the Tactical map (F7), so as i said, this needs lots of holopods.
Or maybe you meant drawing the path on the floor...whatever.

[frvge]

Making a holopod run from A to B requires him to follow the curvature of the floor. I think it's possible when we make it drop to the floor, but we can not implement obstacle evasion. Well, we can, but it's time that can be spend better somewhere else.