Getting visible things, setting targets - ZScript monster AI

[matimba]

Hello all,

I recently extracted my self-made doom levels from the 90s and got them to run with the help of Slade. So I started to create new levels - but this time, I would like to enhance the monsters AI with ZScript, something that wasn't possible back in the days. I managed to add a zscript with a new zombieman with increased speed and read a lot about zscript, DECORATE and ACS. But I still can't tell if what I want to do is even within the scope of ZScript, so here comes my question.

What I want to do: I would like to create a monster that has other monsters as default (and only) target. For example, a zombieman that will attack an imp as soon as he sees him. Ideally I would like the monster AI to be able to choose if there are multiple enemies.
So far I managed to add a different target to my enhanced zombieman via self.target=<Actor>, but that would only be a specific actor that I would need to identify first.
So is there something similar to LookForMonsters(), but instead of returning a bool, it returns an array of all visible things a monster can see, so that I can process it in zscript and make a decision which thing should be set as new target?

As mentioned above, I read the wiki and this forum up and down and could not find anything in that direction - is it possible?
Thanks for any help!

[inkoalawetrust]

What the actual fuck? What kinda fucking coincidence is this? You asked for a function like LookForEnemies() that returns an array of all valid enemies 3 days after I wrote a function that does exactly that, and then 3 days after THAT, it was merged to GZDoom.

Uh, anyway, yes, you happened to ask that question just as I added a function to GZDoom that does exactly that. You just need to pass an array into it by reference, like this:

Code: Select all

Array <Actor> Enemies;
If (LookForEnemiesEx(Enemies,-1,False,True,Null))
{
	for (int i = 0; i < enemies.Size(); i++)
	{
		Let Enemy = enemies[i];
		//My epic checks
	}
}

Then you just iterate over the array, you SHOULD also be able to use ForEach(), but when I tried it, it didn't work. Keep in mind that it's only in GZDoom devbuilds for the time being though.


As for making a zombieman attack an Imp as soon as he sees him, that depends on what you're asking, if the Zombieman is hostile and you want him to attack a friendly Imp immediately, there's a +SEEFRIENDLYMONSTERS flag that I made a PR for like a year or two ago.