ihateregisteringeverywhere Posted January 10, 2009 Share Posted January 10, 2009 I'm currious about how you're planning to controll the npc's. Had an idea or two about this so I'd like to know how you're planning on doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QQuix Posted January 10, 2009 Author Share Posted January 10, 2009 Short term plan is to work on the concept of leveled NPCs. The general idea is that the NPC experience (or level) should add a bonus to the production site, e.g. an experienced farmer should produce more food than a novice one, everything else being the same. Some questions I plan to work on next:- Global experience x individual professions experience.- The above is related to the capacity of reassigning NPCs to new jobs (which, by itself, is a whole new game within the game)- Requirements for NPC leveling up- Automatic leveling up or player decision? Most likely, there will be scenarios where several NPCs qualify to a level 2 upgrade, but there is only one level 2 house, therefore somebody has to decide which one goes. Should this be a player decision (as it will affect the balance of the evolution) or should I devise an algorithm that makes this kind of decision.- How new NPCs show up: suppose you meet all the requirements and build a new farm. Should the NPCs appear automatically, in a "you build it and they will come" idea. Or the farmer shows up first and a farm is created when you hire him. Or a combination of both: a farmer shows up, the player hires him but will only start production after the player builds a farm and assigns him to it (I like this one better). Next week I will work on the script to control and keep track of all this and on how to integrate this script with the existing ones. But the real focus is the "engine architecture". The challenge in these early stages is to 'architect' it in such a way as to make it easy to add, remove and change concepts in the future. (I guess this is not what you asked, but I took the opportunity to get my thoughts organized here) Beyond that, not much planned.Initially I had the idea of creating some fancy scripts to make them look realistic (like the Realistic Farming), but then I realized this is not really my objective here. It would take a lot of time and it would not get nearly as good as NPCs With Jobs. I suppose the player should be more interested in balancing the overall evolution of the island than worried whether each lumberjack goes from tree to tree to cut them. So, I didn't think of anything much different from the vanilla ones: travel package to work location in the morning, lock up and go to bed at night. As you see, not much of a plan . . . so any contribution is welcome. (not sure this is what you asked either) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ihateregisteringeverywhere Posted January 10, 2009 Share Posted January 10, 2009 I meant the AI packs and things like that :). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QQuix Posted January 10, 2009 Author Share Posted January 10, 2009 Well . . no plans this far ahead. What do you have in mind? (Come to think of it, AI packages may become very tricky: as the island evolves and buildings get replaced, the doors and interiors should be replaced also, so, either the AI packages need to be adaptable to the changing conditions or triplicated, one for each building scenario. One easy solution to this is to upgrade just the exterior of the buildings, reposition the doors and keep the same interior all along. But I don’t like it because building are supposed to be very different as they level up, like going from one to two stories, and using the same interior will not feel right.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madman132 Posted January 11, 2009 Share Posted January 11, 2009 Well . . no plans this far ahead. What do you have in mind? (Come to think of it, AI packages may become very tricky: as the island evolves and buildings get replaced, the doors and interiors should be replaced also, so, either the AI packages need to be adaptable to the changing conditions or triplicated, one for each building scenario. One easy solution to this is to upgrade just the exterior of the buildings, reposition the doors and keep the same interior all along. But I don’t like it because building are supposed to be very different as they level up, like going from one to two stories, and using the same interior will not feel right.)It would be easier if the "better" Versions of the Houses had Furniture just as big as the old ones. Cubboards as big as the old ones, the Beds are the same Places and so on. Everything would look better but the NPCs AI could stay the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ihateregisteringeverywhere Posted January 11, 2009 Share Posted January 11, 2009 How's about premade sets of packages for each profession where you'd use marker rats instead of markers for telling them where to go? You could change their position with a script each time the need arises. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QQuix Posted January 11, 2009 Author Share Posted January 11, 2009 It would be easier if the "better" Versions of the Houses had Furniture just as big as the old ones. Cubboards as big as the old ones, the Beds are the same Places and so on. Everything would look better but the NPCs AI could stay the same.Problem is that, ideally, the interiors should be completely different. Level 1 houses may not even have a bedroom. Besides, the sleep packages references the bed reference and the bed should not be the same as the house upgrades. How's about premade sets of packages for each profession where you'd use marker rats instead of markers for telling them where to go? You could change their position with a script each time the need arises.Yeah . . . I may have to use this trick. Actually, I think I will have to use it, considering that NPCs may not live in the same house all their lives. Some will move to new houses in villages that are supposed to pop up later in the game. And their workplace may also change, if I implement the NPC reassignment idea. The problem with the bed mentioned above still remains. I wonder if I could use a disabled bed positioned over the visible, upgraded beds. If worst comes to worst, they could sleep standing by the bed (the player has no business peeking into their bedrooms, anyway. lol) I hope I don’t end up scripting the NPCs' every move, as I did for the farmer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bshaeffer Posted January 11, 2009 Share Posted January 11, 2009 I may not understand exactly what you want to do, but...You should be able to disable / enable entire furniture sets in different positions.I'm not sure if this extends to interior tilesets or not - or grid pathing. You *might* be able to hook up 3 'virtual' interiors to the same door, sorta.Depending on which level it is, that interior gets enabled.-or-You can enable / disable layered doors to do a similar job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QQuix Posted January 11, 2009 Author Share Posted January 11, 2009 The scenario is this: at the beginning the NPC lives in a Level 1 house, say, a one-room house like the player shack at the IC Waterfront. Later the house is upgraded to level 2 (say, a multi-room, single floor house) and at the end to level 3 (a multi-room, two-story house). As you see, the problem is not the furniture. The whole interior must be different. Unless there are some surprises, the problem should be solved with 3 sets of [Exterior house] + [pair of doors] + [interior cell]. When the house is upgraded, I disable the old exterior house and door, enable the new exterior house and door (which leads to a new interior), and move the AI package target(s) to proper positions inside the new interior. I hope it is that easy (well . . not counting the hard work to set it up) As a matter of fact, I would not mind eliminating all the house interiors, but the problem is the same for the workplace, so it is just a matter of applying whatever solution to the houses as well. Btw, talking about hard work, every 5 minutes I thank Elys for her Pluggy arrays. Can't imagine doing this mod without them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted269910User Posted January 11, 2009 Share Posted January 11, 2009 About that house thing, how would the items player has put in containers transfer to the 'new' house? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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