The Shining Source

Hi all,

A small post this time.....
 
The AI is coming along fine. There are bucketloads of checks at the moment.
The enemy can do a number on things based on info that is generated every 5-10 secs.

All tasks are prioritized, so..., based on aforementioned info, the enemy-AI decides what action to take.

The most obvious checks are as follows:

How much money do I have ?
How many units do I have ?
How many units of a certain unit-type do I have ?
Does the selected unit have the appropriate order for the current task ?
Am I close to a base if I want to regenerate energy ?
Is my Main Base being attacked by the Player ? 
How many friendly Keeps do I have ?
How many units does the player have ?
How many Keeps does the player have ?
How many player units are in a certain area ?
..and many more...

There are a couple of tasks that go into the "sneaky b@st@rd" department. 
I hope to have a small demo ready , very soon.

Stay tuned peeps.



   

Wow sounds awesome, I do have another question for you.

Is the player only going to be able to create one unit at a time which must be taken from a base to the land around it?  Or have you come up with something different?

I've started on a new line of plot that seems a lot better and will keep it to an email between you and I - as I don't think we will need to worry whether it fits in with existing story knowledge.

The player can only "order " one unit at a time.

-#-

I've been playing around with the counters that represent the time that is needed
to construct a certain unit.
I've come to the conclusion that more expensive units take more time to build them.

*kicks in open door*



I'm working on a list with units and their construction time. Starting with the infantry-unit since it is the cheapest unit.

-#-

The code for the Keep (including changing Flags , movement of the Flags, "housekeeping"  (which side , how many infantry, etc. ) is now complete.

-#-

Animation strip for the unit-orders is complete too.
Next up is the buy-list : select the unit / order from the buy-screen.
I need three versions:
- 1 for full screen,
- 1 for splitscreen - horizontal
- 1 for splitscreen - vertical

S'all for now,
More new soon    
 

Here's an update on how things are progressing:

-#-

New: the BUY screen is working. On this screen you can see the:
1- ordername
2- ordercost
3- unitname
4- unitcost
5- total cost (combined cost of order & unit)
6- total units

Using the UP/DOWN cursorkey switches between Order / Unit / Radar Type
Using the LEFT/RIGHT cursorkey switches between each Order / Unit / Radar Type
SPACE confirms the current selection of UNIT & ORDER
ALT brings up / cancels the BUY screen

While the computer is "building" the unit, you will see an animated icon that represents the construction.
I've chosen the REPAIR-ICON from SFII, which ,I think, perfectly represents the "hammering away".

When the unit is ready to be picked up, the building icon is removed,
and in its location is now the "YES-nodding" icon from SFII. This animated icon will continue to blink
to remind the player that a unit can be picked up.

While pressing SPACE and hovering over the main base OR a friendly keep, will instruct your avatar to pick up the
requested unit. Avatar goes into CARRY-mode. 

Pressing SPACE while in CARRY-mode will release the carried unit onto the ground.
(of course you can only place land_based_units on land & sea_based_units in the sea )

Pressing SPACE while in FLY-mode and NOT hovering over one of your units will instruct your avatar to go into WALK-Mode 

Pressing SPACE while in WALK-mode returns your Avatar back to FLY-mode 

Pressing ALT while in CARRY-mode will bring up the GET-NOW screen. On this screen you see what unit you've picked up along

with its current health , HP , MP , etc. Toggle between the LEFT\RIGHT cursorkeys to change the order.
Press SPACE to confirm & press ALT again to cancel the GET-NOW screen.

Just to be on the safe side: I'll program some sort of switch that makes sure you pay only for a new order -ONCE-
if this is different from your previous order.

-#-

New: It is now possible to play in FULL SCREEN / SPLIT SCREEN - VERTICAL / SPLIT SCREEN HORIZONTAL

-#-

New: You can control your avatar with the cursor keys. Left\Right turns & banks your avatar in that direction.
UP accelerates , DOWN brakes(!)

Also thinking about manual key configuration and maybe use of a joypad would go down well too.
(including joypad (RE-)configuration). 

Right now I'm tinkering away at what the ideal size should be for the grid (used for A-star AI).
Currently looking at 10 units for each grid-square with a total terrainsize of 1024 x 1024 units.

-#-

New: Tower unit is finished

-#-

Working on the Merman-unit. It's nearly finished, just needs a trident    

I'll make a separate post about AI, otherwise this post will be very boring (Yawn)

See Ya    
     

WOW sounds great!!

OK so today I sent you a copy of what I have to date.
As a checklist here is what was included.
* Final decision as to tutorial vs instructions
* Initial game storyline
* General plot for campaign
* Specific plot for first few maps
* Unit acquiring, difficulty advancement.
* Map outlines.

More progress on the scripting-front:

The AI is split up in SCRIPTS and TASKS

So far I have 10 different SCRIPTS, including "building units in order to occupy a neutral base",
"harassing the player" , "fortifying main base" , and a few other "surprises"

Each SCRIPT has a PRIORITY-number and a pre-determined number of TASKS.
PRIORITY ranges from 1 to 10 , with 1 being the highest priority and 10 the lowest priority.

Some SCRIPTS are activated by an AI-helper function.
This function issues a number of SCRIPTS based on GAMETIME.
Other SCRIPTS are activated on EMERGENCY , including : "low on energy",
"player attacks main base" , "player has more bases than AI".

Like I said , each script has a number of tasks.
Every task has its own ID-number and another number which basically is the same ID-number of the script it belongs to.
Each script also has a counter. This counter holds the number of the task that is currently running.

If a task is finished, then the counter points to [the ID-number of] the next task on the list.
A script is deleted when its tasks are finished.

"Why use a system of scripts and tasks ?"
I did it this way because it's possible to abandon a script that is currently running,
and to start another script with a higher PRIORITY.

Each time a script is added to the list, all scripts are (re-)shuffled according to their PRIORITY,
and the avatar only executes the first script it comes across.

So, when a script is deleted, the next one on the list could very well be the abandoned one I told you about.
Each script can only exist once , when its on the list. It's therefore possible that the AI-helper function wants
to activate a certain script which is already running.
In this case, the script is set aside as long as the previous one is running.

And now the tasks:

These range from "build a certain unit with a certain order" , "check a location" , "replenish avatar" ,
"replenish unit" to "attack player" , "move to main base" and "move to nearest friendly keep"

I'm trying to write AI that doesn't cheat , because that wouldn't be fair. ( "O rly ?")

It is possible that the first time you get trashed by the computer on later missions,
because , let's face it, the AI always knows exactly what to do (to a certain degree).   

Elvenfyre has written very good story-material, but I'm not explaining the story here,
because that would ruin the surprise(s). 


Aaaand,

For those of you , who follow the progress of Dark Resurrection: I've written a new post about its progress.

Stay tuned peeps.

Ahem, here's a small update 

While programming the movement of the characters , somehow I mixed up the function
that takes care of the actual movement.

Initally I copied the movement-function from Dark Resurrection (movement = 4-ways)
For "Crusade" I reprogrammed it for movement in 8-ways.
The "8-way" is based on the time (& speed of the character) it takes for a character to move from one grid-square to another.

This is where it went wrong.
The "4-way" version was again copied OVER the "8-way" version. ( )
First I had to figure out what went wrong, but has to complete the level-up database
for Dark Resurrection. Which guzzled up all my spare time.

Anyhow, Dark Resurrection is one step closer, and "Crusade" is back on track.

Cheers