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madrussian

Formal Request for new script capabilities

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I'm knee deep in development of an AI mod I believe many of you will find truly transformational.  Rather than show videos, provide lengthy descriptions, etc, I'd rather simply focus my time moving forward towards completion.  Please take me at my word -  If I manage to complete everything, the reward will be worth the wait.  A very brief description would be -

  • Automatic Navmesh creation (covering entire map)
  • Pathfinder (implemented in C++)
  • Innovative new way to move units around (allowing strafing, etc)
  • Advanced use of Buildings & Cover

Here's what will help my effort the most right now:

  • _unit doMovePath _path - Engine will pre-check the user-provided path to see whether engine can perform it (considers slopes, etc).  If the path checks out, engine proceeds to move unit along the path using exact same mechanics as doMove.  Returns true if it worked and false if not.
  • "PathCalculationStarting" event - Different than existing "PathCalculated" event, as this one happens just prior to the engine's normal path calculating attempt, and gives option to prevent the path calculation from even starting (in other words aborting path calculation), by handler returning false (instead of the normal true).  Parameters provide path's intended start and end positions.

With these two new capabilities (EH and command), creators could easily intercept engine path creation and substitute in their own highly efficient (C++ produced) paths, saving enormous amounts of CPU and preserving what I like to call precious SQF bandwidth.

 

Curious, how feasible are these and might we see one or both eventually?

 

Quick speculation:

Spoiler

Seems "PathCalculationStarting" event might be far easier to implement than doMovePath, and definitely the "PathCalculationStarting" event is way more important to my efforts (than doMovePath).

 

Meanwhile, big thanks to the devs (plus anyone else who had a hand) for these absolutely amazing recent AI related (2.10) capabilities:

Spoiler

Projectile Event Handlers:

Explode, Deflected, SubmunitionCreated, HitExplosion, HitPart, Deleted

 

Group Event Handlers:

UnitJoined, UnitLeft, VehicleAdded, VehicleRemoved, Empty, Deleted, Local, CombatModeChanged, CommandChanged, FormationChanged, SpeedModeChanged, EnableAttackChanged, LeaderChanged, GroupIdChanged, KnowsAboutChanged, WaypointComplete, Fleeing, EnemyDetected

 

^ These (along with existing commands), now encompass almost everything AI creators could possibly need... truly profound.

 

Finally this bit:

Spoiler

I have huge respect for Leopard20, who is creating an advanced AI mod that has some (many?) similarities, and I pick his brain every now and again.  I'm also rooting for him to get all the way to release, and think these new script capabilities (I'm requesting here) will no doubt help him tremendously too.  I would also secretly love to pit our souped-up AI soldiers against each other one day in virtual battle in-game.

 

P. S. Leopard - If you happen to be reading this, I'm still likely several months away from releasing anything.  Creating truly transformational AI is an enormous undertaking.  Seems this is a marathon and not a sprint.  Anyhow good luck & full steam ahead! 👍

 

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"Formal requests" will go unanswered here, I suspect. File a ticket on the feedback tracker. Or at the least, post this in the Dev Branch forum (don't double-post, report your post and ask for it to be moved).

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On 7/28/2022 at 2:06 PM, Harzach said:

"Formal requests" will go unanswered here, I suspect. File a ticket on the feedback tracker. Or at the least, post this in the Dev Branch forum (don't double-post, report your post and ask for it to be moved).

 

Thanks Dedmen for moving thread here (per request).  Thanks Harzach for the suggestions.  I will file a ticket soon also, just need to figure out how (again). 😉

 

^ edited

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