Shapes replacing walls in next version

[EricL]

I the next release, 2.43, I plan to make shapes visable to bots and also directly resizable.  As far as I know, these are the last remaining hurtles before shapes completly superset the functionality of the old walls that was actually implemented under the covers as bots.  This won't happen for a few weeks, but I wanted to solicit input as to whether everyone is cool with my removing the old-style walls from the program.

[Numsgil]

They are a bug filled, slow, relic of the past.  Blast 'em to next year

[Henk]

Yeah I agree let's get rid of them

The walls are dead, long live the shapes!  

[Testlund]

Go for it!    Also if you can make it so bots can't see through shapes and try to get to a bot on the other side whould be nice. Even if that function is not checked in the topography they still see through the shapes. And it whould also be nice if ALL settings in the topography are saved in the sim.  

[EricL]

Also if you can make it so bots can't see through shapes and try to get to a bot on the other side whould be nice. Even if that function is not checked in the topography they still see through the shapes.

I cannot reproduce this.  Currently, bots should see nothing when they look at a shape - not the shape itself and not the bots behind it - when the "Bots can see through shapes" checkbox is unchecked.

If you have a sim which demonstrates this, I would be very intrested in seeing it.

And it whould also be nice if ALL settings in the topography are saved in the sim.  

Agreed, in part.  I will be adding such to saved sims in future versions, at least those settings directly related to the operation of the sim such as shape drift settings.  One could make an argument however, that options of a purely visual nature which do not impact the sim but rather are there purely for the viewing convience of the human should not be saved in the sim file.  For example, the setting for disabling the graphic display or for disabling poff shots.  I would add to this list the settings for viewing shot impact dots, resource gugages, movement vectors, the vision thingy and so on.  Such settings have no impact on the execution of the sim (other than speed).  They are there for the human observer.

If I load your sim, should all my non-sim settings change to reflect those in the saved sim file?  I'm not sure that they should.  I will indeed add those which do impact sims directly, but I'd be interested in other opinions on the rest.

[Numsgil]

With so many new visual options, maybe a short settings.ini file would be a good idea, recording these sorts of options when you exit the program.

[shvarz]

to make shapes visable to bots and also directly resizable

by bots  

[Testlund]

I cannot reproduce this.  Currently, bots should see nothing when they look at a shape - not the shape itself and not the bots behind it - when the "Bots can see through shapes" checkbox is unchecked

I've seen it when I ran with horizontal and vertical maze. I could see a bot (Animal Minimalis I think) spinning around and then suddenly try to get to a veggie on the other side of a maze shape (the thin ones). I'll see if I can run a sim later and check it out again. I'm a little busy today.  

[Jez]

Not that I really use walls, being a 'league lover' but sounds a good idea.