TANX (Iron Strike)

**Huehnerschaender** · 14-07-2006, 09:15 PM

lol.... but that's funny, isn't it?

No no no

You are completely right.... there must be a way to get "rid of" the dead bodies

We could send in some invulnerable medics, picking the deads up *lol*

Or mayby they just vanish into a blood pool

**tanffn** · 15-07-2006, 12:29 PM

Adding blood, and.. body parts.. will limit the age rating (or add parents control to lock that function out).

Dirk, I never done this kind of AI before. But if you want I can try to build something to fit your needs. Just give me the solider information record and make a wrap function that I can use (i.e SoliderGoToXY(...))

**Huehnerschaender** · 16-07-2006, 10:14 AM

Hey tanffn.

Thank you very much for the offer.

I thought about it a while, but I came to the conclusion that it won't work with the AI concept I created. I have to do much more work on it (because there will be friendly and enemy units in the future). There is no way at the moment to wrap some AI which will work in future versions.
I don't use a pathfinding algorithm, too. So "soldierXgotoXY" will work with my AI, but they will never walk the same way. I created a AI with sensors. The units only know where they are told to go, but they are on their own to find the way to that place.

Simple example:
If a unit is at XY and needs to go to X1Y1, then it knows the direction to reach X1Y1. The unit begins to walk in that direction. It's sensors (up to six) always control the area around it (like our eyes) and if there is an obstacle, the unit will walk around that, but it's the units decision which way it takes. So two units of the same kind which are told to walk from XY to X1Y1 will reach X1Y1 for sure, but it's not sure that they will walk the same way. That's why I think the behaviour in groups (like formations) will be hard to implement in my code.

Let me finish my AI, then I can see if there is a way to implement groups and if it makes any sense. Because you will not encounter 50 soldiers at once, you will not notice grouped behaviour anyway. One rocket in a group of troopers will kill nearly all of them.

Greetings,
Dirk

**Huehnerschaender** · 16-07-2006, 10:20 AM

Another idea would be to "clone" single units and build formations with the clones. The formation could always do the same as ONE of the living clones. That way they would walk in a formation, but would also shoot at the same time etc.... maybe there are some more thoughts to be put on that (and I think it would be quite easy to implement).

**tanffn** · 16-07-2006, 11:04 AM

Good point on seeing if groups even makes any sense in game.. not all the neat code is fun, apparently.. so i've been told anyway :roll:

You can always make the AI even more advances, make them walk in a path (as a group) and if they encounter an enemy run towards it scattering and surrounding the enemy unit, maybe even taking cover.
Now when you reach that level you can create a sequel game, that all of its purpose is training the soldiers AI

**WILL** · 17-07-2006, 12:51 AM

Originally Posted by Huehnerschaender

Another idea would be to "clone" single units and build formations with the clones. The formation could always do the same as ONE of the living clones. That way they would walk in a formation, but would also shoot at the same time etc.... maybe there are some more thoughts to be put on that (and I think it would be quite easy to implement).

Hey Dirk... I just use a 'reaction time' value for all my 'units' or creatures that have to fire. You can obviously just set one of these for each unit, but use a random tollerance level to it.

Example:

Lets say that
[pascal]Trooper.DefaultReactionTime := 10; // Thats frames of your time increment...[/pascal]
then you would calculate your tollerance like this
[pascal]Rand := Random(Trooper.ReactionTollerance * 2) - ReactionTollerance;[/pascal]
so then you get
[pascal]Trooper.TimeToFire := Trooper.DefaultReactionTime + Rand;[/pascal]

The idea is that whatever the usual reaction time is, some will be slightly slower and some slightly faster... Just make sure you have enough tollerance so that there is enough randomness, butt not so much so that there aren't huge, huge delays where they are not firing and just sitting there till they get run over...

**Huehnerschaender** · 17-07-2006, 06:18 AM

thats an approach i can use and i guess i will.

i made some stress tests yesterday with 1000 visible troopers on screen. hell, it was really fun to blow them all away with a hand full of rockets. i added life to the troopers and they only fly away when they get a direct hit by explosions.

**Robert Kosek** · 17-07-2006, 05:05 PM

Um, Dirk, with explosions and people you'll need to be a little more realistic then that. A rocket such as that would have a signifigant explosion and a kill radius of about 10m, with a shrapnel radius of ~20m. Since the rocket isn't designed to penetrate the target, but to explode upon the surface, you'll want to implement a form of these kill radii.

Just a note on the explosions.

**WILL** · 17-07-2006, 05:35 PM

Well players ARE going to expect the following effects from either a cannon or rocket explosion:

(In order from center of explosion out to edge of danger area.)

Kill Zone (All will die!)

:arrow: Direct Hit -- Trooper will disintegrate (or explode) himself.
:arrow: Indirect-Hit -- The close the trooper is to the center the more chance he'll disintegrate or be thrown faster or fly. Farther away the more chance the bodies will remain (for the most part) intact, but will be thrown slower and fly much less.

Danger Area (Some may survive...)

:arrow: Close Miss -- Troopers can still die and take damage when out of the kill zone. The only gaurntee about a danger area is that it's not a 100% chance of death. But all will most likelt take damage, if that is not fatal to them it's self. Most likely near deaths or really hurt. A few lucky ones might be only scratched.

:arrow: Just Inside the DA -- Perhaps a 50/50 chance of taking damage. It probably won't be fatal, but only about half would be untouched. The rest slightly to moderately hurt.

Now a fair portion of that it text book [size=9px](yes, they study this in the Infantry

)[/size], but I think that any gamer that plays these types of military influenced games would exspect at least the idea of this as a minimum.

Just my thoughts on this one issue.

**Huehnerschaender** · 17-07-2006, 09:05 PM

The video shows the very first draft of the troppers. They had NO life. A hit was a kill. Meanwhile they have a life property which will decrease when they are shot by machine guns, are hit by tank cannons (the farer away from the explosion, the less damage will be taken) and can be hurt by rockets. The rockets make biggest damage of course. There was a radius which worked for non human targets, and the same works with the soldiers now.

If they are hit by a rocket and are quite near the center of the explosion, they will "fly away". Those who get only hurt by the explosion will be pushed away from the explosion center, creating a blood splash particle and go on with the rest of their lifes. Of course, if they get only a bit damage, but life drowns to zero from that, they will die. At the moment there is no "random" factor in the outer explosion ring like WILL said it should be. Do you think it's necessary to implement such "realistic" behaviour? I mean, it's an action game, no war simulation. Shooting rockets and blowing soldiers away primary should bring fun into the game.