[Ohrrpgce] SVN: james/12694 New enemy bitset "Controlled by Player"

Ralph Versteegen teeemcee at gmail.com
Thu Jan 27 16:40:39 PST 2022 

On Fri, 28 Jan 2022 at 09:52, James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Thu., Jan. 27, 2022, 8:40 a.m. Ralph Versteegen, <teeemcee at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 28 Jan 2022 at 01:07, James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu., Jan. 27, 2022, 4:34 a.m. Ralph Versteegen, <teeemcee at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, 20 Jan 2022 at 14:56, James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 6:49 PM Ralph Versteegen <teeemcee at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, 19 Jan 2022 at 13:49, James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So I do have a few other changes related to this one planned.
>>>>>>> * An option to make heroes controlled by (random) AI
>>>>>>> * A concept of "traitor" which will affect targeting classes when an
>>>>>>> attacker is targeting
>>>>>>> * A concept of "turncoat" which will affect targetting classes when
>>>>>>> an target is being targeted
>>>>>>> * Attacks that can turn these effects on and off or set-to-default
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So an enemy with all 3 of Controllable, Traitor, and Turncoat would
>>>>>>> function as a hero for that one battle.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> To simulate a classic "Confuse" status, you would have an attack
>>>>>>> that turns Controllable off, and traitor on, but don't touch turncoat. Then
>>>>>>> to end that status, use an attack that sets Controllable and Turncoat back
>>>>>>> to default.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I was hoping this meant you were going down this direction :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm not sure whether "Traitor" is proposed to swap foes and allies of
>>>>>> a target, or just makes everyone count as a foe. Those are two different
>>>>>> ways that you might want a Confused status to work, and it seems that these
>>>>>> bits would only allow one or the other.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What I was thinking was to give each combatant a team (default 1 for
>>>>>> heroes, 2 for enemies) and an "acting" team. A target is considered an ally
>>>>>> by an attacker if their team is the same as the attacker's acting team,
>>>>>> else they're a foe. Also team 0 could mean "independent", with no allies.
>>>>>> You probably wouldn't use more than a third team, for "Nature", say when a
>>>>>> clan of hyenas opportunistically attack while you're fighting someone
>>>>>> else).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So Confuse to make someone attack anyone indiscriminately would
>>>>>> change their acting team to 0 (so two confused targets still hit each
>>>>>> other), and to swap sides you'd change their acting team (although now I
>>>>>> realise that means the attack would need to be specific to use by heroes or
>>>>>> enemies, unless there was an attack bit like "swap target's acting team"
>>>>>> that just set it to the attacker's).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Maybe I've overcomplicated it again, while still not adding all that
>>>>>> much utility/flexibility (really should work on allowing script hooks for
>>>>>> things like this) vs just adding a third Independent bit.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Yeah, I think teams will overcomplicate it for now-- and yes, having
>>>>> scripting hooks so people can customize this behavior will be the best way
>>>>> to get advanced fancy effects
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I do kinda like the idea of being able to make a confused enemy target
>>>>> all, rather than only the opposite side, but I'll have to think if there is
>>>>> a nice simple way to do that.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Going down the route of bitsets then I don't really see another option
>>>> but adding another bitset to make everyone an enemy.
>>>>
>>>> Now, I'm not pushing for the team IDs idea, but I just wanted to write
>>>> something about complexity. Say you add a third bit, or even a fourth ("Foe
>>>> to all"). I think that arguably two integer-valued settings are simpler
>>>> than 3 bits, because 3 bits is 8 possible combinations, a lot to think
>>>> about. And even an 8-way setting could be simpler to reason about than 3
>>>> bits if you don't have to think about any interactions. Complexity of
>>>> implementation is usually also secondary.
>>>> But in fact after looking at the new version of get_valid_targs I
>>>> realised team IDs would actually have been simpler in implementation too.
>>>> The bitsets are more complex... in fact I see some mistakes in the code,
>>>> which I'll fix: "Dead-ally (hero only)" and "Dead foe (enemy only)" were
>>>> meant to be informative only, to warn that those settings didn't make sense
>>>> for enemies/heroes, but not to intentionally restrict the targets.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I was actually considering two more bit states-- "Indiscriminate
>>> Attacker" to attack both sides, and "Tergiversate Target" to be targeted by
>>> both sides
>>>
>>
>> Maybe we need to make more frequent releases so that you can outlet your
>> penchant for lexical obscureness elsewise :)
>>
>>
>
> Haha! I cannot question the perspicacity of this suggestion!
>

James, have you already started adding these bits? Because I was cleaning
up some other code and realised I needed an is_foe function, which I was
going to pull out of get_valid_targs.


>
>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Or a classic Berzerk could be implemented with Controllable=Off and
>>>>>>> could end with controllable set to default (this would work for heroes, but
>>>>>>> wouldn't do anything meaningful on an enemy)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This should allow a lot of possibilities, and is all pretty easy to
>>>>>>> implement.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And yes, someone could totally fake 5 or 6 heroes in the party with
>>>>>>> this, by using an instead-of-battle script, and adding hero enemies to the
>>>>>>> formation with a script before the battle starts. Definitely not ideal, but
>>>>>>> fine if people want to try it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Actually increasing the size of the active party > 4 and increasing
>>>>>>> the number of enemies in a formation > 8 is something I definite;ly want to
>>>>>>> do, but it will require lots and lots of cleanup, which is outside of the
>>>>>>> scope of what I am trying to do right now. In particular, there are tons of
>>>>>>> places where the ID range within the bslot() array defines what a
>>>>>>> BattleSprite Instance does, so the first step of that cleanup will probably
>>>>>>> be to convert all access to bslot() to a set of accessor functions for
>>>>>>> heroes, enemies, attack sprites, and weapon sprites. Then those different
>>>>>>> ranges can be split apart into different arrays, which can be dynamically
>>>>>>> sized when you load a battle formation with 15 enemies in it, or something
>>>>>>> like that. But that is for later. I want to keep the scope of what I am
>>>>>>> working on broken down into bite-sized baby-steps to mix a metaphor :D
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't think we would want to split bslot() into separate arrays for
>>>>>> heroes and enemies: being able to index across all of them with a bslot()
>>>>>> index is very useful and widely used (eg. targeting) so it would be a lot
>>>>>> of work to remove that. Why not just add is_hero and is_enemy attributes.
>>>>>> There's a lot of lines of code to change, but each would then be an easy
>>>>>> change. Could also start using polymorphism.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, you are right. is_hero and is_enemy attributes are much better
>>>>> than what I was thinking of with the accessor functions for bslot. Glad you
>>>>> said it :)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> On the other hand, I do want to remove attacks and weapons from
>>>>>> bslot() and was considering doing it soonish. Almost all of the
>>>>>> BattleSprite data is irrelevant for them, and nearly all of the advantages
>>>>>> of having them in bslot are (or will be) gone now that battles are
>>>>>> converted to slices.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Ah, right! Those only get used in animations, so the slice is all that
>>>>> really matters :)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Fortunately I think the current features I am adding will not make
>>>>>>> any of that later work harder, and might even lead to a little helpful
>>>>>>> cleanup.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ---
>>>>>>> James
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 8:22 AM Ralph Versteegen <teeemcee at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Wow! That's not a feature I was expecting to see for a long time. A
>>>>>>>> nice surprise!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I suppose this is particularly useful for giving the player extra
>>>>>>>> actions they can perform in battle. People are going to inevitable think to
>>>>>>>> use it to get around the 4 hero limit, but it seems really problematic for
>>>>>>>> that. Or is time to add team numbers to battles, so you can define which
>>>>>>>> combatants are "foe" or "ally"?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Mon, 17 Jan 2022 at 14:01, <subversion at hamsterrepublic.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> james
>>>>>>>>> 2022-01-16 17:01:32 -0800 (Sun, 16 Jan 2022)
>>>>>>>>> 39
>>>>>>>>> New enemy bitset "Controlled by Player"
>>>>>>>>> ---
>>>>>>>>> U   wip/bmodsubs.bas
>>>>>>>>> U   wip/enemyedit.bas
>>>>>>>>> U   wip/loading.rbas
>>>>>>>>> U   wip/udts.bi
>>>>>>>>> U   wip/whatsnew.txt
>>>>>>>>>
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