Re: pathfinding refueling

[Peter Garrone <pgarrone at acay dot com dot au>]

On Sat, Dec 20, 2003 at 11:09:08AM -0500, Eric McDonald wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Dec 2003, Peter Garrone wrote:
> 
> > These scenarios are not from any game in the library.
> 
> Correct. And I did not claim they were. Nonetheless, they are 
> valid hypothetical scenarios.
> 
> (And actually, if you look at the amount of c and f1 that are 
> available to land units in Bellum, you might recognize how close 
> this is to the fuel1 and fuel2 of the proposed scenarios.)
> 
> > No rational game would have
> > separate sorts of extremely limited range fuels refueled from different
> > points like this. 
> 
> So I guess Bellum isn't rational....
> Please let me know how you would do things differently.

But none of the units in bellum use more than one sort of fuel.
This example is not from bellum. I didnt say bellum was irrational,
but dont jump to inferences here.

> 
> > In such situations the player guides the unit to refueling points
> > (wo)manually and presses t for take. 
> 
> The player could do that if he or she wished to, but as I stated, 
> the player was requesting a final destination B from the 
> pathfinder. So, the question is, how would the pathfinder deal 
> with this?

It will refuel with the material it has decided is the fuel.
However if it could not take on board all materials necessary for its
survival, for a turn anyway, it would fail the task and sit there blinking stupidly.

> 
> >This sort of combat situation where
> > fuel etc is short should not be automated
> 
> How do you prevent it from being automated if automation was 
> requested?
> 
> > But if the requirement were that all such situations should be
> > automated, then the approach I have advocated would be in error.
> 
> If the player requests automation, then automation is indeed a 
> requirement. (And this is no different than present behavior.)

I am not developing a totally automated and integrated
pathfinding/supply environment. It is not my requirement.
It may be your requirement. That is not a cause for disagreement.

> 
> 
> > 2) combat situations where aircraft have to continuously get fuel almost
> > every turn.
> 
> It is less clear how your proposal would help here. I think that 
> the second scenario (or variations thereof) might show up fairly 
> frequently in this case.

I am happy to answer well posed questions, but this comment does not
qualify.  Your scenarios are not from any game.

> your proposed solution is a bit narrow-minded in some cases.

Thanks Eric, I'll take that on board, and try to be more broad-minded in
future. We cant all be renaissance genius's such as yourself.