42 replies to this topic

[Alardus]

Dave Forsey, on 18 November 2015 - 11:14 AM, said:

@Ascaloth

Glad to know that Armageddon isn't impossible.

Your approach illustrates why the Academy challenges don't have extrinsic rewards - it's too easy-peasy to kit out a 'Mech with a special build and game the system. Rather, the purpose of the challenge allows a player to gauge how the build they want to use in game behaves (range, dps etc) and, of course, to practice hitting specific parts of a target at the greatest/optimal effective range.

And range limitations are exactly what new players have to understand.

You guys should have a look at the practice challenges of Armored Core:Nine breaker. It provided you about 30 different challenges ranging from simple accuracy to boost and shoot and complex maneuvers.

[Muzakman]

Dave Forsey, on 26 January 2016 - 08:51 AM, said:

(I'm likely to regret jumping in here...)
(does lore say these are direct conversion units or is there a steam turbine involved

I like to think generously that BT fusion reactors run on proton-boron fusion ¹p + ¹¹B → 3 ⁴He


The output of this reaction has the pleasant benefit of being electrically charged, and everyone should know what that means: direct conversion of fusion energy to electricity, baby!

This is somewhat different than what MW2's codex describes, which is still direct conversion, but using a p + p tokamak-style reactor (IIRC, too tired to look it up atm)

Dave Forsey, on 09 December 2015 - 09:29 AM, said:

I could have them veer left and right as they go.... which will result in some keystone cop moments as they crash into each other and other knock-on effects. Torso turning to distribute damage would be faster/easier to implement and would give an added twist (ahem) to the difficulty setting

If you are able to use an attractor type of pathing system that would avoid the Keystone Kops routine and not force you to have to define paths or anything that complex for this particular goal.

The way it would work (for folks who aren't familiar with this system of AI path-"finding") is that the point on the map the player is at is assigned a positive large-ish (more on that in a min) value. On update, an enemy calculates the "force" vector between it and the target using good ol'

F = G*m1m2/r^2

.
The constant G can and should be tweaked to taste, along with the r^2, albeit more cautiously. The m1 and m2 values are the "mass" values associated with the two objects - remember that "positive large-ish" value I said I'd cover? Well, I just did

We repeat this calculation for every entity participating in the pathing (e.g., any object that you want the AI to take into account), running the same formula with different values for r^2 and m2. It should be obvious from this that there are considerable opportunities for optimization in these calculations.

The result of this calculation (when performed for x, y, and maybe Z) is a vector which points in the direction the 'mech should travel at that point in time to reach its' goal.

How does this avoid Keystone Kops? Simple. Other enemy mechs are assigned a negative mass value just like the borders of the training area. In practice, the values used for 'mechs and for borders are determined experimentally but you'll want the borders to have higher negative values than 'mechs since they're both further and should have greater influence. What it will end up looking like is that mechs will diverge from each other even as they converge on the player's position.

Programming science is hard. Let's go shopping!

[Roland Skinner]

Dave Forsey, on 09 December 2015 - 01:27 PM, said:

One of my favourite sites:

http://www.projectrh...Can%27t_Do_That

Dave Forsey, on 26 January 2016 - 08:51 AM, said:

(I'm likely to regret jumping in here...)

It's more likely to have a catastrophic release of energy from the ultra-capacitors. A more realistic set-up would require a device to store the relatively small flow of energy from the reactor (does lore say these are direct conversion units or is there a steam turbine involved! :-) ) and deliver it to the weapons in fractions of a second. Short these out and you release megajoules of energy instantly - providing that spectacular explosion folk crave. (And, dare I say it, anyone who has tried to put more current through a cable (or out of a capacitor) than it's rated for should have no problem with the concept of extra heat)

Also, there might be lots of energy bound up in magnetic field pressure and/or currents in the fusion plasma, which get dumped all at once when the containment fails. Not a nuclear explosion but I can see it ripping a mech apart.