NPCs to use ranged weapons against all enemies, and automatic fire against dangerous enemies

[zachmmeyer]

Summary

SUMMARY: Balance "NPCs to use ranged weapons against all enemies, and automatic fire against dangerous enemies"

Purpose of change

NPC's currently nearly do not use ranged weapons at all, including bows, unless the situation is dire, in which case, it is too late. Instead, they use ranged weapons as melee weapons.

Describe the solution

Suggested change allows NPCs to use ranged weapons against all enemies, and to use automatic fire against dangerous enemies.

Describe alternatives you've considered

I originally thought it would be useful to revert back to previous conditions, but users did not like NPCs being full automatic at all times.

Testing

Additional context

[Wishbringer]

Rather than just reverting the change you'd want to actually come up with better values.
Example thresholds: 1.0 melee and 5.0 for automatic fire.
You'd need to test and find out what values provides the best balance.
There was a reason the change was made to begin with.

[zachmmeyer]

@Wishbringer My change has the desired result I was going for.

[Wishbringer]

@zachmmeyer Just reverting the change undoes what the original PR was intending, find the middle ground, just my two cents. Anyway lets wait and see what the devs think on the matter.

[zachmmeyer]

@Wishbringer I agree on waiting. I am not hopeful. I appreciate the feedback.

[kevingranade]

Need some use cases here, what NPC stats and gear, what enemies, what distances?
As it is there's no way forva maintainer to evaluate this PR except by starting from square one and figuring out all of this themselves, which defeats the purpose of someone foing the PR.

[zachmmeyer]

@kevingranade I wish I could help more on this. I am personally trying to get my NPC to use their bow long range, as apposed to using it as a melee weapon at all times. I do not know enough cpp to implement the use cases at this time. I can close this PR if you want.

[codeknave]

I dug into this a little. I tried giving an NPC archery and marksmanship stats, took her melee skills to zero. She only occasionally shoot an arrow (crude wooden) and would almost always resort to bashing with the shortbow instead. I had her fight fat zombies, other NPCs, zombie children, and decayed zombies.

They seem much more likely to use guns than bows and arrows.

[dissociativity]

I have definitely noticed NPCs being useless since a certain point in time, just beating zombies with their ranged weapons and rarely, if ever firing them.

I totally gave up on giving NPCs ranged weapons after this behavior continued regardless of what I gave them.

[mlangsdorf]

I appreciate the typo fix but entirely reverting the threshold change is not a good solution.

[kevingranade]

Just following Mark's suggestion is still not sufficient, you need to outline specific (and repeatable) situations where the current values do the wrong thing and your values do the right thing.

[Dacendeth]

Couldnt this be solved with some kind of dont melee attack unless you have to setting or open fire command?

[zachmmeyer]

I'll get my lackey working on that data.

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions. Please do not 'bump' or comment on this issue unless you are actively working on it. Stale issues, and stale issues that are closed are still considered.

[TobalJackson]

Is it possible to have NPCs swap to a melee weapon when their inclination is to bash things rather than have them bash with their ranged weapon?