Re: Major bug and what to do about it (long)

[Eric McDonald <mcdonald at phy dot cmich dot edu>]

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004, Hans Ronne wrote:

> >And of course if the view isn't cleared, the AI (or less-intelligent
> >human player :-) ) could keep shooting over and over at the mirage
> >aka decoy, which is exactly what the crafty Xconq player wants to
> >be able to set up, heh-heh.
> 
> Right. The question of when to clear the view is actually quite tricky.
> Should a single failed action do it? I don't think so. But there has got to
> be a point where even a stupid AI realizes that it is shooting at a mirage.

In the case of firing, I think that a percent chance of the 
mistake being discovered was suggested. The percentage would take 
care of this problem as it would remove the unit view.

> Another thing I thought about is to gradually let a unit view fade away as
> it ages. The views have a dating mechanism, but it is currently not used
> for anything. The corresponding thing for the AI would be to make a unit
> view a less attractive target as it ages.

I like this idea.

> There is also the problem of what should happen if the targeted unit is not
> there, but something else is sitting in the cell instead (not an uncommon
> situation). My feeling is that fire-at should somehow default to fire-into.

Unless the code in the Dec 29 patch is failing, this is what the 
Tcl/Tk interface should be doing. However, I do not feel that this 
is the correct answer; the only reason I implemented it that 
way was because the attempted fire mechanism didn't exist.

> The probability of hitting an unseen unit should not be affected by the
> fact that you think you are shooting at something which is not there.

Why? Surely if you were firing at an individual unit, then the 
chance of another just happening to be in its place coupled with 
the chance of hitting the substitute unit should be smaller than 
the hit chance of directly aiming at the substitute unit.

> I agree that tactical level games would be the most affected ones. As I
> mentioned in a reply to Eric, I think that tactical unit deployment
> (putting a phalanx in the same cell as a chariot to protect it) would
> become much more important than it is now. But this should make most games
> more interesting.

And would ruin an important aspect of others.

Eric