Parik27
Small Town Bank problems
I've been stuck playing Small Town Bank for awhile. It has three major issues when using the different randomizers that just make progress impossible.
Weapon randomizer - This is probably a problem for many shootout missions, and more questionable to "fix", but with 3-4 randomly spawning police officers, Catalina (and usually CJ) will die immediately to a rocket or grenade that explodes before I can even walk out the door, and often will die to one of the other officers with those weapons. It seems like weapon selection for peds should be made a bit more fair for that, or maybe Catalina could be buffed for her health. Vehicle randomizer - After probably 30+ attempts to make it to the vehicle section, two random large vehicles appeared. On the cutscene to enter them, Catalina got stuck (I think, I couldn't see though), and then the cars blew up in the cutscene. This seems like something that could happen quite frequently, and I think the car pool should be limited there. It was especially frustrating to make it that far after so long, only to unavoidably die in the cutscene because of the vehicle selection. Catalina AI - The majority of the time, Catalina doesn't spawn with a shotgun, and she will randomly stumble into walls, get stuck, and generally not walk forward to the end of the walking section. I think that she attempts to go after cops, but it seems like sometimes she just doesn't know how to move forward in the mission, even after the cops have been killed.
Well, regarding the Weapon Randomizer issue, it's more likely for a cop to get a melee weapon (a weapon you can't shoot with) than to get an actual gun, and even more unlikely for them to get a rocket or a grenade. I'm not sure how I would be able to further reduce the possibility of an NPC getting a rocket launcher or a grenade, since it already seems fairly uncommon. I'm not sure what random cops you mean, but they shouldn't be spawning when you're inside the bank? You can punch/kick the ATMs to smash them as well.
The Vehicle Randomizer issue is being worked on at the moment, that is a fair point and the vehicles will be moved apart in a future version. It doesn't happen that frequently, since it only happens with really large vehicles, and there aren't that many of them.
The Catalina AI doesn't depend on the weapon she's given, really. If she gets stuck on a wall, it would've happened regardless of what weapon she's given. It's probably a spawned cop that she might be chasing after, it's hard to tell.
It happens more frequently than you might think, at least when I was playing. I would say probably a third of my attempts died to Catalina instantly dying upon walking outside from a rocket. If it's possible to make Catalina less able to die (immune to explosions, is that possible), that would probably make it more fair without changing weapon randomization at all. I'm not sure how the mission works, but I think, based on playing the mission so many times, there are a random selection of positions that cops can spawn on during that mission. 2-4 spawn as soon as you open the door to leave, and more spawn down the alley in different positions each time. The likelihood for one AI to get a rocket launcher is uncommon, but multiple means a higher chance for just one to get those weapons and kill the mission.
Vehicle randomizer being fixed, sounds good :)
As for Catalina's AI, I think it does affect how she moves. More specifically, if she doesn't have a shotgun, she won't use any weapon at all, I don't think. I think all she was doing was melee attacking, or maybe not even that (just walking around). The couple of times she spawned and used her shotgun, she would make continuous progress. The issue might be that Catalina just can't use any weapon she gets (except Shotgun) which messes up her ability to kill and makes her AI dumb. Maybe that could be fixed if that's the issue.
I'm having the same problem. From my testing, I've observed that the cops spawning on the rooftops (country cops / swat ) have a higher chance of receiving a rocket launcher, and if you try to go after them, Catalina will try to kill a cop (armed) with her parachute or if you try to clear a path for her, she will most likely jump in front of your gun (her AI is really dumb when she has anything but a shotgun). As for a solution, the only thing I could think of is reducing the rate that the peds could get heavy weapons, but if you said @Parik27 that the chance is already low, I don't really know what to suggest. I just wanted to inform you that beside @Gibstack, I too have this problem and maybe others as well.
