Waypoints like in Soldat please

I know, I know... I just really want 'net support to be implemented. There would have to be some sort of compromise if it ever goes online. Maybe make the pixels that are active, freeze the second they hit the ground. I'm just getting myself excited about battles with 8 players on each team (And before you say it, yes I know that that is extremely far-fetched).

Think about it. There would be the people that just dig for gold, and then they could all of a sudden spring out of the ground and torch the enemy with a heavy digger. It's stuff like that that makes me want 'net play.

I'm sick of AI walking on top of my brain, back and forth, and ACTUALLY GETTING THERE THAT WAY!

The aiming brings the gameplay down. The sharp corrsair should go through the walls so you do not need to go up out of your base to see how business is.

Also Data should bring back pressing a certain button to do sharp aim.

People, stop stomping on the dream of online play! I believe it is possible! Anything is possible! remember that CC is not even running on graphics hardware yet! It's running striaght off your processor. The dream of no-lag is possible, so why not netplay? There could be safeties implemented in network mode. For instance, particles travelling faster than a certain speed could be wiped and when the number of loose particles went beyond a certain point, the extra particles could be wiped as well. That alone could reduce lag enough for netplay. 3-d games go online, and that sometimes means keeping track of thousands of polygons in 3 dimensions, so why would thousands of particles in a 2-d world be too much? All the math could be handled by the user computers and the information sent across the network.


Isn't this already in the game? It's the 'J' button on the keyboard configuration.

About the waypoints... there would have to be waypoints in the walls, sky, and ground also, otherwise the AI would ignore convenient things like gaping holes in the enemy base, and wouldn't be able to get around things such as crashed ships. The sensors the computer used to detect these waypoints would need to be incapable of seeing through walls for this to work (except for one sensor used for pathfinding, and it wouldn't really see 'through'. It would rather look 'around' the terrain and walls to find the best way to the enemy's brain.) The AI would also need a way to figure out what to do when there was no direct route to the brain; complex.

What I think there will be in the future...
Graphics hardware support! no more lag unless you use insane amounts of particles!
better AI; This game is supposed to go commercial in the end as far as I understand, so the AI as it is isn't near good enough. The AI can't use the jetpack to move around; it can't use the digger for its intended purpose, even if equipped with it; it can't even defend its own base properly.
You mean they actually walk AWAY from your brain in order to get in the fast way through your base? Do you have any screenshots of AI robots doing this? I find it quite hard to believe this since data hasn't fixed the pacing AI bug yet.

It's not running on hardware?

Because CC sure as hell gives me problems when I disable hardware acceleration.

From what I understand, it isn't taking near full advantage of the hardware. Hardware acceleration would help, but I don't imagine it's the same as having the program actually use the hardware on its own. If there is support on the software end it should become much more efficient.

[quote="ProjektTHOR"]What are you talking about?! "The AI is fine?"

It's terrible. AI is not just about whether or not it shoots at you. The AI are too retarded to even follow a path. The only path they can follow is straight down to your brain!

Here's how I think would be the best way to solve this problem: Somehow, there would have to be an addition to the program to allow bots to have preprogrammed paths. For example, they go from point (x,y) to point (a,b), then from (a,b) to (s,t).

That would be a responsibility of the map makers, so that they can customize waypoints for the bots to follow specific to their map.[/quote]

THe AI on A lot of games acts like this because it takes the shortest path to the brain. Unless programmed to do so.

That is not true at all! As long as the game doesn't rely on random calculations most of the physics calulations would not need to be transmitted at all. Nor would you need to transmit all of the coordinates ever. You only need to transmit the ones that have changed from the last timestep. The only other thing that would really need to be transmitted is the player's actions. This plus the things cliftut pointed out make online play fairly plausible actually. Don't give up hope! I personally can't wait to see networked play in CC.

That doesn't they shouldn't fix it so that it doesn't do it.

Just because everything else does something some way doesn't mean that something else shouldn't be different.

Besides, what games are you talking about? Just about every game uses some sort of waypoint system, even games like Mario Bros has a functioning, non-retarded AI.

Huzzah!

Net play is possible!

The AI should be programmed where it automaticaly calculates the shortest path to the enemy brain, compensating for enemies and herd to traverse tarrain. If the brain is completely surrounded, then it will find a part of terrain that is very small and the AI would use a digger to get to the brain. Is that even possible?

My guess is that getting the computer to dig would be the hardest part. I have an idea how it could work, though. For the heck of it, I'm going to show you some terrible diagrams I made in paint (yes, paint)

However it works, in the end the AI should be able to take advantage of the game physics rather than just shooting you and walking toward the brain.

That's exactly what I mean!

I think it wouldn't be to hard for the AI to dig. After all, for the final version, the AI will need to be able to do all kinds of stuff (including digging). The AI would just need to recognize that there are no open paths to the brain. It would then find a path with the least amount of buried nodes to dig through. Then the AI would continually spray the digger whil walking, and occasionaly pause for a bit to clear out more dirt.

It is possible.

P.S.- Someone should PM a link to this topic for Data, it has some good ideas.

The reason I say the coding might be tricky is because the game would need to have a way to check and find the route with the least resistance to dig through. This would have to be more than just checking distances, or the computer would have to look at TONS of possibilities just to figure it out. I suppose it could be simplified by only having it check paths that are within its view (gun range).

It seems possible.

I'll PM this to Data, although I don't know how often he checks his messages. I haven't seen any activity by him on the forums recently (likely because of GDC). I'll send hime the link anyway.

Maybe the AI would check distances that are buried that are only under so much distance.

So let's say that the AI will chack for 5 meter digging distances to the brain. So the AI will only check for places to dig as long as they are under 5 meters. That way, the AI won't have to do huge amounts of worthless calculations.