Monster AI (v0.09)

[beowuuf]

type: difference from DM
properties: monster actions
priority: medium

Spellcasters now are too aware of the party. They will start friing through walls any time the party is near. So several times I've come to a beholder room (even the jawa skeleton key holder) and found at most one creature left alive from a shooting frenzy.

The dither mentioned before in Trolins and mummies is more obvious in larger creatures that take a while to hack. Small scopions, couatls, golems, knights...many creatures. There is no swift spinning, just turns to the left, right or back, like they are contemplating their actions (of course, heaven help you when a golem has made up his mind to hit you). Certain monsters don't seem to do this - I haven't noticed wasps being anything more than the vicious creatures we've known and loved (couatls should be the same).

[Zyx]

Screamers are still affected by fear.

[Big-J-Q]

I've noticed that the octopuses (whatever they should be called) also start to shoot even if the player is not in their sight. I remember the room on level 4 (the octopus/couatl-level) where there are many switches you have to push in order to get into a room with treasure and an octopus. Even when there are no access to the treasure-room, you can still hear the octopus shooting slime at you.

[George Gilbert]

The monster AI for shooting is a pure "if x or y co-ordinates are equal and its facing towards the party then fire" calculation - clearly walls and other monsters should block it from trying to fire!

[Lubor Kolar]

Woudn't be nice to implement some better monster AI as I suggested some time ago? At least more inteligent monsters shoudn't shoot/fire if they could hit other monster instead of party. Monsters like Wizard Eyes should determine, that using attack spells in closed rooms in useless and try to use "Open door" spells on door only IMHO.

[Zyx]

Maybe not all the monsters would stop throwing fireballs at you by fear of hurting a monster...
especially a dragon.
Besides, there are some nice traps where you need a monster to destroy others.

[beowuuf]

MAybe spellcasters are seperated from other creatures - spellcasters won't shoot through other spellcasters, but a Trolin or mummy is fair game?

[George Gilbert]

Fixed for V0.10