Monster Instumentation

[Paul Stevens]

I have been pondering the problem of 'buying' items
from gigglers.

It was suggested that Giggles carry pressure pads
that respond to items stolen by the Gigglers.

I have a (Great?) idea almost exactly like that. Except
it is much more general and might be adapted by
you clever people for other uses. It is this:

We equip a monster with a radio-link, remote-control
instrumentation package. Whenever something happens
to the monster it sends the monster's location (and action)
back to the laboratory for analysis.

We already have such a laboratory.....it is called a DSA!
And we can send a DSA up to 12 different messages.

So here is how it would work. If a monster is carrying
a DSA then the DSA will receive a different message
when:

--The monster moves.
--The monster turns.
--An item is added to the monster's possessions.
--An item is removed from the monster's possessions.
--The monster is damaged.
--The monster attacks.
--The monster dies.
--The monster's timer expires.
-- (Up to five additional messages)

And since the DSA is INSIDE the monster, the
DSA is aware of the monster's location. The DSA can then
ask questions:
"Does the monster possess an Apple?"
"How many monsters are in the group?"
"Is there a gold coin on the monster's cell?"

And the DSA can control the monster:
"Remove an Apple from the monster's possessions."
"Give the monster a Dagger."
"Add 300 to the monster's hitpoints."
"If monster has fewer than 50 hitpoints, add 5." (Self-healing)
"Remove gold coin from cell containing monster".

And when the monster dies, the DSA is discarded so
that it will not cause spurious results when lying
on the floor receiving messages meant for something else.

It should be pretty clear how we can now buy things from
Gigglers. Or from Screamers...we give them a large
hitpoint and buy things by throwing daggers at it.
Or from dogs...we put a dragon steak on the floor
next to the dog.

[beowuuf]

That sounds curiously intruiging... : )

[Zyx]

Programming monsters!!!???
This sounds tremendously stimulating!

This is an excellent idea!

Now just to keep a little less passionate: maybe we should first achieve a bug free, fully working, almighty version of CSbuild before sailing onto the DSA shores...

[Paul Stevens]

bug free, fully working, almighty version

I'm supposed to do what Microsoft cannot do?
Your confidence in me is touching, if misplaced.

[Zyx]

A little extremist, was I?
I was trying to make a point about dispersing ourselves with so much ideas and only one programmer...

I have already several questions ready for the DSAs. I am waiting better times to engage discussions about it. Do you prefer having them now?

[Paul Stevens]

The quicker we start the sooner people will get to
know that DSAs are not difficult.....only different.
And it will take a while to learn; so let's go.

[Zyx]

Here are some suggestions:

Global variables:
* light level: from darkness - 0 - to to maximum light -6(?)-
To be used in conjonction with a "darkness shooter" (I already asked for this in another thread).

*Is there a way to refer to the current party coordinates?

Monsters variables;
*party detected (true/false)

*morale (fearing, neutral, aggressive, friendly?)

Imagine a vexirk that runs away from you, casts darkness spells, and then comes back in the dark...

* Hit points (in %)

For each variable, one should be able to do some tests (=, <, >) and some operations: set to a value, +, - ...

[Paul Stevens]

Keep these in mind when we have such a thing.

I think a dark spell would not be too difficult.

"Is there a way?" No. There is not. But these things
are easy to add.

"Hit point %" Figure it out yourself! 100*HP/MAXHP.

"Arithmetic operations?" Most are already there!. Check the
Help.

"Party Detected". Obviously this happens. I don't believe
it is a 'state' of the monster. I think that each time the
monster trys to move it is determined how far away the
party is, etc. But someone will have to figure out where
that happens. Then we can add a message for "party
detected" and "party not detected".

The other Monster suggestions are probably possible.
But I don't know how the monsters work. Someone will
have to figure that out. Obviously, Vexirks turn and run.
But I don't know what bits to set to make this happen.

In general, the monster behaviour is either extremely
complex or it has been coded in a way that makes it
appear extremely complex. The code is a tangle...a
complete and total tangle. I have never been able to make
heads nor tails of it. And it is such a hard problem to
solve that it would require a dedicated effort for a long
time. I will not have that much time available in any kind
of forseeable future. There are a lot of 'trace-points' that
dump events to the trace file so that anyone who wants
to figure these thing out can get a LOT of help.
And I can add more traces easily.

Another thing that I have done in the past when the code
got too hard to comprehend was to divide it up a bit and
duplicate parts so that each part deals only with a subset
of the situations. This results in a lot fewer things like:

if (levitating) A;
else B;

because we divide the code so that one funtion handles
only levitating monsters and the other handles only
non-levitating. This is a bad example but it is the idea.

But making monsters smarter would be quite an
accomplishment.

[Adamo]

Paul Stevens wrote:

But making monsters smarter would be quite an
accomplishment.

making monters smarter by using DSAs they carry? Could you give an example (a demo)?


BTW: isn`t that thread is started by a "guest"??
Take a look http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=46 first post here is Paul Steven`s post

[Paul Stevens]

Could you give an example (a demo)

Sorry. This idea never was seriously
considered, much less implemented.
Nor will it be. But a lot can already
be accomplished with the various filters
such as the 'Monster Move Filter'. (Gotta
be a bit careful not to use 200 percent of
the available CPU time.)