WallDog:: Yes, we agree about improved programming.


WallDog:: We have have caused you to change your original claims.

Now you agree that better AI programming is needed for flight sims.

In your last few posts you shy away from requiring all flight simming be restricted to IT Network only.

Most important, we now agree that we need to try to program things better in general.


WallDog:: Which people? WallDog if you want rational discussion at the simhq.com I shall post again my observations of the AI in O-R-B and how it would be useful in flight simming both online and offline.

We must not only Debate here about making the flight simmer experience more enjoyable, but we must talk about the mission builder too. Many flight simmers depend upon 3rd Party mission creators for their missions. I like to think that the more flight simmers find mission building to be easy and available, the more power they will have to enjoy flight simming the way they wish to.


For the WallDog, one example of AI programming that would be useful in both offline and online flight simming (dull dull description followed by explanation)

The tactical space game O-R-B (Orbital Resource Base) allows the player to command hundreds of AI ships either individually or collected into groups. The ships conduct their own very simple combat. The player may select what formation the groups of ships will fly in. For example "X" formation, line formation, Vee formation. The corresponding idea here is to allow flight sim mission builders to define formation that AI planes fly instead of being limited to a single default type (thinking of Forgotten Battles here).

The O-R-B player may take any number of individual ships and order them to group into a single fleet. In O-R-B, if this number exceeds 20 ships then the ships form multiple formations of 20 ships (or whatever number is left over for the remaining formation). These multiple formations are easily controlled and act as a single entity (fleet) but still retain individual ship behavior but confined within its formation.

Even better, the player may define AI behavior for each ship or groups of ships. The available behavior includes total agressive and attack anything within range, shadow or escort another ship or group of ships, total evasive behavior, or "neutral" behavior where the ship/group ignores any targets or threats to itself. Further behaviors include maximum distance before retreating for re~arming weapons. Many other behaviors that I did not explore in my short time playing the space sim.
~ http://www.o-r-b.com/
-----------------------------------------

Sorry for the long description; the important "flight sim" points for O-R-B AI are...

(1)Flight sim mission builders defining number and formation of aircraft from 1 plane up to hundreds of planes.

(2) Flight sim mission builders defining the behavior of AI aircraft. We give an example of hidden AI behavior not documented in Forgotten Battles manual or readme files. If a single engine AI bomber follows a "normal fly" waypoint, it will drop bombs and attack any enemy aircraft within standard AI engagement range--no matter if the enemy plane is not a threat--even a lowly Fi~153 Storch. However if the AI bomber is following a "ground attack" waypoint then it will ignore any aircraft threats to itself and keep bombs and fly to surface target.

The mission builder should be able to define which of these two types of behavior the AI bomber will follow--with the AI programmers possibly coding a random chance of AI ignoring ordered behavior as in real life ~~> THIS last point is a perfect example of how one may "improve" AI programming.

Ok Lexx..

I'll tell you what. Maybe we should seperate things out that should be done globally (in all sims) from those things that could be tried in A sim or maybe SOME sims.

One would think it would go without saying that when you use AI you would try to use GOOD AI, and would continiously try to improve AI. Maybe that doesn't go without saying, but I would think it does. Some things are always being improved upon. AI is one of those. Others include graphics, sound, etc.

Within each of the global areas that we are always trying to improve, we sometimes can think of new ways to handle that improvement. In the case of graphics someone at some point thought that using polygon modeling might be worth a try. Luckily for us, someone decided to try that innovation and was consequently able to radically improve flight simulation graphics. That doesn't mean that every simulation from here to eternity needs to use polygons though. If someone comes out with a way they think might be better than polygons, we should look at it.

Within the global area of AI there have been a number of ideas and I think they have been hashed over pretty well in previous posts, so I'll ignore the urge to repeat them here... Suffice it to say that we should be open to new ideas in this area just as we should be open to new ideas regarding graphics.

Sometimes a new idea is radical enough that it might warrant a complete restructuring or reclassification of one of the global areas. I for example am suggesting that we might use real pilots instead of just AI even in what are typically considered 'offline' environments.

**Note: I have been very consistent in that suggestion. You continually say I'm changing my position. I have maintained the same position throughout.

Obviously you wouldn't call human pilots 'AI.' They would be doing what AI typically does, but there would be nothing 'artificial' about them. So maybe if this worked (which it would) you would have to come up with a new name for the global area of 'AI'.

To say that I'm trying to get rid of AI or that I'm trying to get rid of offline gaming per se is just plain inaccurate. Am I talking about changes that don't fit within traditional classifications? Yes. But you are clouding the issue when you say that I am suggesting that these types of gameplay go away. I'm not suggesting that at all. I never have suggested that.

Now, can we please move beyond the bad debate tactics and get back to a real discussion about the future of flight sims?

By the way - the aggrevating part of your posts isn't that you are using bad debate tactics, but that you make it painfully obvious that you KNOW you are using them. How about we just move past that?

The idea must be so radical I just don't get it.

How can one use a human pilot instead of AI in an offline environment? And why does it include having to be online?

Would you be kind enough to explain/elaborate on the concept, and it's ok to describe it as if you were describing it to a five year old, I won't take offence

Actually I usually do a combination of these. You use rules to limit the choices, to make sure the choice is appropriate, and then randomly pick from the remaining options. I'll also weigh the chance of picking an option differently depending on the situation. I had thought about using Genetic Algorithms to modifying these weights as the game progressed but couldn't figure out in a multi aircraft engagement, especially with aircraft of different capabilities, how to determine which AI seemed to be working better.

Elf

WallDog:: This is a great idea. Thanks. I would like to hear more.

McGonigle:: I understand the part about Forcing all flight simmers into internet simming alone, but I too am lost in total confusion in the vague fog posted here.


My lack of understanding makes me think that WallDog's internet requirement for all flight simming will not only eliminate offline simming, but eliminate all local LAN multiplayer flight simming also (fearlesslds can say goodbye to his multiplay brothers ). No more LAN parties.

There is a saying in Life about if something cannot be said in an understandable manner, it is a Deception.

I ask again, why would IT Professionals come to a webboard and want all flight simming be restricted to interntet only?

Why eliminate offline simming?


Just today, a fun example appears of at least one IT professional In Action...

Microsoft Security Chief Uses Firefox
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18173

S! All!

The idea that sprang the line of thought about a game using human players as AI in an otherwise 'offline' game is in the following thread:

http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bbs/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=100;t=000197

Lexx - this is not a 'sinister' thought. I don't know why you are against doing something like this in a flight simulation. Nobody would force you to buy the sim, and nobody would force other developers to follow a similar model. There is the possibility that if this idea works as well as I think it would then a similar model might be used by others. That is how it works: someone has an idea and they follow it. If the idea works, then others borrow from the idea and improve upon it. Some people call that 'progress.'

If I get to build that sim and I make a little money for a publisher in the process, that doesn't have to be a bad thing. A solvent marketing model for the flight simulation world might be considered a GOOD thing by many of the people here.

I'm not going to re-post that entire thread here - particularly when the specific sim idea expressed in that thread is outside the scope of this conversation - but if someone wants more information on how I envision it working, they are welcome to read that thread.

The general concept I exhibit in that thread - the concept of moving toward using other human pilots rather than AI - is sound. Yes, it would require an Internet connection. But who said it would require some central server? The game I want to build would have a central server, but that doesn't mean someone else couldn't do it differently. Someone else could take a similar concept and release the server software or build the server software into the game. I could see doing this in a peer-to-peer network, or over a LAN, or over any of a number of different models. It doesn't have to be 'scary' like Lexx_Luther is trying to make it sound.

But then that gets back to some of the themes in my original post on THIS thread - we have defined ourselves into a box. Anyone who tries to innovate and get the flight sim genre out of that box gets slammed by negativity. And that's not the fault of the developers, but rather of the community as a whole.

Gentlemen, many go points have already been made in these discussions, but.............

L'art d'etre ennuyeux, c'est de tout dire.

(The art of being boring is to tell all.)

We’re probably having too many different conversations here and that aids confusion.

Walldog, I’ve reread the thread you linked to and I hope you will find partners and realize your idea and vision. Respect.

As far as I can tell, in that thread you state that there will be no need to program AI or dynamic campaigns, because everything is online, behind the scenes.

It’s your choice entirely of course as it’s your vision. Follow you vision if it is at all possible.


So in a more general commentary, I’d like to see some of those hot multiplayer coders from Joint Operations on the development on the next WW1 fligth sim :-D

Let’s see what they can do when they have to include information on the connection so that we can make saveable, editable and viewable replays, out of an online dogfight with 125 a/c.

And I still want offline, as in internet connection closed. It’s really no different than that sometimes I like to go out and sometimes I prefer to stay in. I’d like to have that same distinction in my gaming.

Saying that it’s too difficult to program better AI, imo is giving up and admitting defeat before really trying. Isn’t it sad, really, that Tailgunner found the best AI in RB3D? A five year old sim?

So we went from 133MHz CPU’s to 3 GHz CPU’s. And today we have better graphics, but worse AI.What I’d like to know is this:

Who stole all those cycles????

We had GPU’s then as we have now, now they’re even bigger, better and terrifyingly faster. Where did it all go wrong then?

Surely it can’t be that difficult to mix the rulebased and random elements in such a way that the random events are within some appropriate parameters in terms of a/c and combat situation?

It’s just that in general I get the impression that developers dropped PC’s because they claimed consoles were easier to develop for, some want to drop the programming of better AI because it’s too hard. What’s the next thing they’ll drop, just because it’s too hard to program?

Since I'm just an old fart who can't resist playing with words, I'd say that we have not designed ourselves into a box, the box has been taken away from us, salami-style, one slice at a time.