Sunday, September 15, 2013
Summary
A solid day of many different focuses
I did some really nice conceptual work today on AI. The biggest remaining problem left to solve in AI is "faction reasoning." I'm not going to lie, I've been hiding from that one a little bit But after finally thinking long and hard about it, I came to the realization that the only real remaining problem is actually just "delegation." The AI needs the ability to understand delegation - offloading tasks onto others. After exploring this concept for a bit, I started to understand that it's one of the most crucial concepts to the LT AI. Not only does it form the entirety of faction reasoning, but it also forms the entirety of mission generation! Delegation to subordinates (so-called "faction reasoning") is completely symmetric to delegation to strangers ("mission posting")!! Wow, awesome! So really, we just need to solve this problem and then both factions and missions will be in order. I've already got some nice insights and ideas in this arena after today's thought session, so I'm both happy and excited to break down this final barrier
After some internal debate, I've decided to go with a full-blown window-based UI (rather than the semi-automatically-managed thing that you've seen previously). To that end, I started implementing legitimate windows today So far I've got draggable, resizeable windows that snap to a grid and to the sides of the screen. There's still a lot to do though, as I'd like to implement snapping to other windows, hotkeys for fast docking to half or quarter screen sectors, and perhaps even a fast multi-window automatic layout algorithm. Frankly, there's not a single operating system that I've tried to date that hasn't disappointed me in some way when it comes to windowing. I'm thinking this can be a fun opportunity to implement everything that I would want in a window manager Not that LT needs to look like a full OS, but I think it's critical that managing information and interface-based interactions should be as fast and intuitive as possible.
Oh! And I fixed / finished pathfinding. It works now Hoping to finish the abstract "go to" event tomorrow!
PS ~ Aaaaaand sorry for another weird log time Really should have written it before bed again like last night, but fell asleep accidentally
[ You can visit devtime.ltheory.com for more detailed information on today's work. ]
Post
Mon Sep 16, 2013 2:38 am
#1
Week of September 15, 2013
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” ~ Henry Ford