Simply my idea’s (put down any ideas below I might have missed) for the options that need to be available for forging with AI, with intent for custom missions as well as Warzone and plain Firefight (if it ever comes back). I don’t expect this in Halo 5, however I would like to see some of this in Halo 6.
I’ll start off with what should be the Basic’s and eventually move on to what should be in the Advanced section, which would contain special option’s and abilities.
There should be a category called AI, in which there should be 5 races:
Humanity, Covenant, Forerunner, Flood, and Other (which would contain various AI’s like birds, bugs, etc. Wouldn’t expect so many options for these types as the other’s)
In say, the Humanity tab you would pop up 4 characters Marines, Spartans, Scientists, and Civilians. Once you click it, it spawns in a circle with an outline of the AI and you open up its options which would have:
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Character- it opens up a subsection which has various customization options so a Marine would have something like:
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Sub-type- allows for different versions, like there’s different kinds of elites, and different kinds of hunter’s, maybe even the option for some key figures from the campaigns, like Captain Lasky, Chief, etc. - Difficulty- ability to switch the AI’s difficulty from easy, normal, heroic, and legendary - Gender- switch between male/female - Color- allow you to choose what color its skin is - Primary and Secondary weapons- allow you to choose what its weapons are - Starting Pose- allow you to choose a custom pose when it’s passive like whether it’s sitting down, have its weapon in a salute, or have its weapon across its chest, etc. (perhaps some special poses specific to each race like the grunt huddled up sleeping) - Custom name- Name you could set that would appear over it - Allow Weapon Swap- allows weapon swapping with players - Maybe some extra customizing, like helmet or no helmet, a few hair types, different voice pitches etc.
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Next in the basic’s is:
2. Alliance- allows you to choose what team’s the specific AI is friendly with, and it would assume that everyone else is enemies. Should also have the option to not be friendly with anyone, or all.
3. Health, Shield, Movement, and Damage- a subsection in which you could switch the percent of each attribute for the specific AI instead of using some custom game overall settings.
4. Free-roam option- simple on or off which if turned off would open up a subsection which would have:
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Area shape that it was allowed to move in like rectangles, circles, squares, which would have some options to change the length, width, and height of it. - There would also be another option which would say whether you want a Custom Path instead and if you switch it to yes it would gray out the area options and open up the Advanced options which I’ll get to in a minute. - Spawn timer- allows respawn or make the AI one-life - Spawn at start- on or off
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Now here’s where it gets complicated.
Th**e Advanced tab which would be at the bottom of the options, when clicked, would open up a variety of options which would be useful in creating custom missions. There should be:
- Custom lines- speech that you can either input, or a wide variety of phrases and sentences that would useful for making dialogue for the mission, that would be activated on command from a script block, so it would have some number or so assigned to it (assuming MCC style of scripting).
- Custom Paths: Now here’s probably the most complicated but essential item that would be needed for you. In order to have this work, we will need a special marker, an AI marker
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AI marker- this would just have to be some special AI objects, which would be under scripting forge blocks, that would just have to be a see-through object that could be a circle, a square, or a rectangle (which sizes could be changed) with maybe an arrow pointing down on it or something in order to make it noticeable. - It would have some number assigned to it that scripting would make the AI, which has in its Custom Paths the marker’s number, and the activating number which would make it go to it. It would also go in order, so there’s no chance of it messing up and making the AI go to the 6th custom spot when it’s only gone to the first three so far. - The marker however would have to be “smart” in a sense, as it would need to have the ability to tell if it was specifically placed on a Scorpion turret, or in the gunner seat of a Warthog. It would be good if the marker either had the ability to highlight a certain seat, or it instead selected the entire vehicle and gave the option for either driver, gunner, or passenger. - The markers size would also act as the area the AI was allowed to move around it. - There should also be the ability to have the marker send an activating signal of some kind once the AI had reached it so it could then trigger other events as well. - There however would have to be special markers for AI’s in vehicles so they wouldn’t just get out and walk to the point, there would have to be some kind of vehicle markers that would allow the AI’s to use the vehicle to get there. The vehicle markers would also have to have some coding in case the driver of said vehicle dies that would allow any other AI’s in the vehicle to immediately get into the driver seat and keep on trying to get there.
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So we would need regular AI markers and AI vehicle markers.
- The final AI marker I could see us needing in this is a special AI switch marker, or something of the sort which would be like the regular marker however it only places on switches and other mechanism’s that involves other scripting. This would allow for AI’s to operate scripting itself which would be interesting to see in action.That’s all for the AI markers, the last few advanced options I could think of right now are
- Custom gametypes- allowed to only be used for certain gametypes
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Custom number- In case it’s set to not spawn at the start, there’s a number it can be assigned that can make it spawn like other blocks.
That’s all I could think of for now, leave any other idea’s down below that could be added that I didn’t think of. (Little bit braindead after thinking about this for over 2 hours…)