AI Modding

I

InZane

Hi all,

I'm new to the Saints Row modding community, but I have had experience modding several titles of the Total War series, Civ 4 & 5, and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. My knowledge of most topics is broad but shallow. I'm more interested in modding AI, as I am obtaining a Master's degree in AI. I did lots of AI rebalancing in the Total War games, and had a failed attempt at making a friendly drone in Half-Life. My course work has included evolving NPCs based on player performance (for balanced gameplay, not particularly increased difficulty) and predictive behavior. I am working on creating social behavior for my thesis (this would be an interesting game to apply it to :D). I also have experience writing scripted AI and FSMs. I have just extracted the files for the game and I'm still in the process of looking around.

First, for the more experienced Saints Row modders, how accessible are the files for modifying NPC AI?

Secondly, what would people like to see for modifying the AI? If it is possible to create custom missions, how would those missions play out?
 
I'd just like to see pedestrians reacting more accordingly to you actions, like some of them fighting back at you when you hit them or people driving vehicles getting mad at you if you ram into them. Also, but not necessarily related to this, SR2 had some little details that made the world feel a little more alive, for example you could see people rollerblading, cheerleaders training near the college, etc, shame Volition didn't include anything similar.
 
Most of this is probably going to end up being in the EXE itself.

SRTT's exe is protected using Steam's CEG copy protection, we can't modify it without resorting to piracy - and resorting to piracy is something that we don't allow.
 
There are some AI tables (ai_behavior.xtbl, ai_goals.xtbl, and ai_personalities.xtbl) but I don't know exactly how much control you can have over it from those.
 
@ Dr_Salsa & Toad King: It is possible to alter the behavior of peds using the AI tables. In particular, their behavior after certain events such as being attacked, collisions, and seeing others attacked. It is simply a matter of tweaking the probabilistic variables. I will have to check it out, but it looks as though you can create new event triggers, so it may be possible to create more complex behavior as well, but it may not be based on what other agents think. Maybe it can be based on what they see. Also, it may be easier just to increase the number of aggressive peds in the gamespace if that can be modded and that table found.

@ Dr_Salsa: I did not play SR2 other than a demo, but what it sounds like you are describing is a full collaboration between (an) animator(s) and additional scripting if it is even possible to do without meddling with the .exe itself as Minimaul mentioned. I agree it's a shame such beautiful ambiance wasn't included in the initial release.

@ Minimaul: Piracy is only cool if you are Edward Teach, Calico Jack, Henry Morgan, or Black Bart. Piracy free since 1730.
 
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