Serafen AI script - Help with making him go to enemies in melee range with a blunderbuss equipped.

[Caeyrii]

I want to keep him in "theme" but I'm having problems getting the right AI to force him to go near an enemy for the bonus damage from the Point Blank enchantment. Right now, I have a funky one to make him switch weapon sets (has a melee weapon in WS 1, the blunderbuss in WS2) when near an enemy. It just works, but there's that recovery time and only Fighters have Quick Switch. He also does one attack first before switching, so that's sort of more action time wasted. 

Not totally all bad to be honest, I just want a bit of finesse the script. I read something from here about equipping him with a morning star for the Will debuff modal, but it seems the duration is too slow to take into account a weapon switch.

Anything helps. Thanks!

[Shai Hulud]

1 hour ago, Caeyrii said:

I want to keep him in "theme" but I'm having problems getting the right AI to force him to go near an enemy for the bonus damage from the Point Blank enchantment. Right now, I have a funky one to make him switch weapon sets (has a melee weapon in WS 1, the blunderbuss in WS2) when near an enemy. It just works, but there's that recovery time and only Fighters have Quick Switch. He also does one attack first before switching, so that's sort of more action time wasted. 

Not totally all bad to be honest, I just want a bit of finesse the script. I read something from here about equipping him with a morning star for the Will debuff modal, but it seems the duration is too slow to take into account a weapon switch.

Anything helps. Thanks!

Yeah I'm often frustrated with the scripting in this game, unfortunately there isn't an action called "move to melee range" or something so movement is difficult to control. The easiest way to control it is with some movement ability like a rogue's escape (which if you're a blood mage you can steal as a movement ability with grimoire imprints, which I did extensively to script movement in my ultimate run), then a simplified movement block would be

conditional : target in melee range (not) -> escape target nearest enemy

Since serafen is a barbarian you could use leap like this. Screenshot below, you'd run out of rage eventually but you could use it like every 20s or something, could also give him bounding boots and script that. If you have two pairs you can cycle them out of the stash to refresh the per rest limitation.

What have you tried so far? It might give me some idea.

I also tried

Conditonal: Self - only ranged weapon equipped
and Target in melee range -> action: attack nearest enemy

If you uncheck the auto attack, this ensures you would only attack enemies in "melee range", but then serafen would just stand there when he's out of range of everything (may not be a big problem since enemies tend to approach, or you can move him manually when the script doesn't, though this isn't a great solution). Can't figure out how to script movement beyond just getting within attacking range. To that end you could just give him xefa's empirical explication with open choke and have him dual wield, that reduces the range of that gun to 3m which I think point blank is rounded up towards. Or you could give him a melee weapon in main hand and hand mortar in the other, then auto-attack should close the distance. 

[Caeyrii]

14 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

What have you tried so far? It might give me some idea.

What really worked for me is having a melee weapon in set 1, then make him switch when in melee range to an enemy to set 2 that has the blunderbuss. But it really eats up action time. I really only have the shout and rage talents for him, maybe I can make cast those to melee range targets? 

[thelee]

35 minutes ago, Caeyrii said:

I really only have the shout and rage talents for him, maybe I can make cast those to melee range targets? 

i don't think there's a default way in the AI scripting system to control the range something is used. and rage doesn't take a target, so that especially i don't think you have control over.

i think your best bet to avoid wasted action is just to maneuver serafen manually next to enemies.

[Shai Hulud]

11 hours ago, Caeyrii said:

What really worked for me is having a melee weapon in set 1, then make him switch when in melee range to an enemy to set 2 that has the blunderbuss. But it really eats up action time. I really only have the shout and rage talents for him, maybe I can make cast those to melee range targets? 

Yes I thought of that also, it's unfortunate all classes can't take quick switch like in POE1... Have you tried dual wielding a melee weapon plus hand mortar, or xefa' empirical explication with open choke + hand mortar? I think in either case the AI will close the distance. 

I don't think you could use shout like that (maybe if you target the farthest enemy?) since it is ranged, but if you have any melee range talents that might work, however you'd need a melee weapon. I think you either have to dual wield as mentioned above or use the bounding boots which would give you two movements per combat (once you have two pairs anyway, before that they're per rest). The first pair is in Deadlight (Aeldys' room), the second you normally get quite a bit later in Ori O Koiki.

It is also possible to "cancel" leap from bounding boots but it is micro-intensive, you have to click somewhere else or press the cancel key when serafen is between the highest point in the air and hasn't landed yet. 

The only classes I can really script to move correctly are rogues and blood mages (single and MC) where I imprint Escape and use it as a movement ability to close distances.

I think in this case if you don't want to dual wield, then thelee is probably right and your best bet at least until you get two bounding boots or leap is just to move him manually.

Edited April 18, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Caeyrii]

5 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Yes I thought of that also, it's unfortunate all classes can't take quick switch like in POE1... Have you tried dual wielding a melee weapon plus hand mortar, or xefa' empirical explication with open choke + hand mortar? I think in either case the AI will close the distance. 

Yep, I tried that with a saber + Hand Mortar weapon set and he just kept using the saber (unless there's something I haven't ticked for him to use both in autoattacks). 

[Shai Hulud]

1 hour ago, Caeyrii said:

Yep, I tried that with a saber + Hand Mortar weapon set and he just kept using the saber (unless there's something I haven't ticked for him to use both in autoattacks). 

Huh... you know I'd never actually tried melee + ranged, but I had assumed you would fire the pistol, close the distance, then attack with the sabre while reloading. You get the action speed bonus from two weapons but just use the melee one. Seems you have to move away to reload the pistol. Sigh...that's just bad AI. I'm generally pretty disappointed in what you can do with the AI in this game. I don't like to micromanage, but the ability to automate things is pretty limited. The interface is okay, but there just aren't that many conditionals and key actions are missing. Baldur's Gate came out over 20 years ago and had vastly, infinitely better scripting capabilities. I've seen (and made) scripts that were capable of doing the whole game, some thousands of lines long.

Really simple stuff, like checking whether you have a specific spell and if not then blood sacrifice, or checking if focus is maxed for soul annihilation, or "run away for X seconds", or any scriptability whatsoever to control animal companions and summons, just a lot of stuff lacking. Wish I knew more about programming / modding, so I could mod the AI. 

Well I guess your options then are Xefa's Empirical Explication (open choke) + Hand Mortar, bounding boots, leap, and micromanaging position. Xefa's blunderbuss is pretty good actually, but you don't get it until mid game, same with second pair of bounding boots, and leap is a fairly late ability.