Poff Shots

[EricL]

It came to my attention that in the 2.4X code fork at least, Poff shots are not stictly ornimental.  Each of the 20 Poff shots is a -2 shot containing 240 nrg independent of the erngy or body state of the bot that died.  Thus, sim energy can potentially be created from whole cloth if another bot is close enough to absorb any of these poffs.

I'd like to know your opinion on the matter.  There is a certain logic in making them strictly ornimental as this would allow me to exclude them from collision detection, which would help perf, and also turning them off would have no impact on sim energy.  On the other hand, there is something to be said for keeping energy from dead bots in the sim even when not using corpse mode.  Or perhaps corpose mode should be the only mechanism for this.

Tell me what you think.

[Henk]

IMHO Corpses already cover this so I see no need to add this.

Henk

[PurpleYouko]

By the time a robot dies, it shouldn't have any energy left. If it has a bunch of body then we should rely on corpses (if they are enabled) to gradually release this potential energ as either waste or -2 shots as it decays away.

Keep POFFs strictly ornamental so we can switch them off to speed up the game.

Truth is I always run with them disabled anyway.

[Greven]

Actually I see it all on another "plane"... hehe

No what I mean is "changing" the whole death thing. Not changing as complete redesign, but changing in the way the program handles death.

Please correct me if I am wrong on any of these assumptions:

Overall
When a bot has 0 body, it is okay, it still lives. This is unrealistic say that a living being can have a functional mechanicy (a word? ), but no actual phycial form, is somekind of trenscendant energy life form . This needs to be changed I believe. So if a bot reach 0 body, it dies, like it dies when hitting 0 energy.

Corpses
If corpses are enable, the corps should not "shot" out energy. Instead the body/energy left in it will slow decrease by a fix amound or percentage (user defined). So if we have corps feeders they need to actively "attack" the dead bot, instead of passively being besides it, getting energy.

No corpses
If we dont have corpses enable. Then the energy/body left in it can:
1. Disappear (not farvored by me)
2. Shot out "poof" of x shots in random direction with y energy in each
3. The last attacker gets all the remaning energy/bodt.

The first one is not good by an "energy presevation view".
The second, is the best, but is CPU intensive.
The last one, I think is the best. Rewarding the bot that hunted down and killed this bot, but it aint realistic, but in preserves energy and it aint CPU intensive, so it could be good compromise.

What do you think? Not altering the sim so much and still getting a more realistic feel to the sim?

[Greven]

bump...

And not hard to implement either, only very small codes changes. And older bots still function...

[Numsgil]

Overall
When a bot has 0 body, it is okay, it still lives. This is unrealistic say that a living being can have a functional mechanicy (a word?  ), but no actual phycial form, is somekind of trenscendant energy life form  . This needs to be changed I believe. So if a bot reach 0 body, it dies, like it dies when hitting 0 energy.

 Program already does this
 
 

Corpses
If corpses are enable, the corps should not "shot" out energy. Instead the body/energy left in it will slow decrease by a fix amound or percentage (user defined). So if we have corps feeders they need to actively "attack" the dead bot, instead of passively being besides it, getting energy.

 The options next to corpse mode in the options panel let you select the decay type of a corpse.  Set it to none, and you have the behavior you describe.

 1. Disappear (not farvored by me)

 Would seem to favor bots learning to feed less wastefully, ie: using -6 shots, or a combination of -6 and -1 shots, or intelligently using certain shots in certain situations.
 
 

2. Shot out "poof" of x shots in random direction with y energy in each

Would seem to favor bots hunting in packs maybe.  Or perhaps bots feeding very closely to another bot.
 
 

3. The last attacker gets all the remaning energy/bodt.

 Encourages overly agressive bots I think.  Whoever delivers the killing shot gets a huge jackpot.  I'm not sure if I approve of this or not.
 
 I think a option set would work well to let the user choose between these 4 (+corpse mode) options.

[Greven]

God damn you Num! I thought I had such a good idea

[Numsgil]

They are good ideas, which is why we already implemented them

[Endy]

Maybe do a complete substance conversion back into nrg ie. (body, slime, shell, venom) then send the shots in random directions. Scavenger type bots could probably form that rely on other bots that actually hunt. Be pretty cool I think.

[PurpleYouko]

Maybe do a complete substance conversion back into nrg ie. (body, slime, shell, venom) then send the shots in random directions. Scavenger type bots could probably form that rely on other bots that actually hunt. Be pretty cool I think.

Which is again more or less what corpse mode does.
Right now I don't think it goes so far as to convert slime, shell, venom or poison but it does convert body back to energy and shoot it out in random directions as either waste or energy and even in user defined sizes and intervals.
It may be worthwhile to convert these parts back to energy but then again maybe not. Slime just washes away and shells often don't dissolve at all when a creature dies. (hence limestone)