Inside Mac Games Volume 1/Inside Mac Games Volume 1.iso/More Goodies/Bolo Stuff/Milo'sBrain ƒ/Milo's README

Text File | 1993-06-09 | 7.3 KB | 135 lines | [TEXT/KAHL]

// ****************************************************************************
//
// Bolo standard Autopilot Brain
// (C) 1993 Stuart Cheshire <[e-mail]>
// I make no claims that this is good code. It is provided solely as
// simple example code to assist in writing Bolo plug-in Brain modules.
// I do not have the time to tidy it up and make it elegant at all, so
// if you have ever been a student of mine and lost marks for bad style,
// don't even think of trying to use this code to justify claiming extra
// marks. It is crap. And it uses far too many global variables.
//
// ****************************************************************************

// ****************************************************************************
//
// Bolo non-standard Autopilot Brain
// Modified by Milo Sharp <[e-mail]>
// I will make many claims that this is not good code.  It is provided
// solely as an alternative to the standard brain.  I do not program in
// C, so if I ever let you look at the code, you would probably cringe in
// horror.  I do.  And it STILL uses far too many global variables.
//
// ****************************************************************************


    Changes I've made to the brain:

    New options:

        Roam - This used to be a part of the 'Aggressive' function.  However, I
        thought it was stupid that a non-aggressive brain would just sit and rot.
        To me, non-aggressiveness means you won't embroil yourself in fights - not
        that you don't have any motivation.  A roaming tank will avoid fights with
        other tanks and will not attack pillboxes.  Bases are still fair game, as
        are builders.  (see Murderous)

        Aggressive - Due to the addition of the Roam function, this has no control
        over what your tank will do UNLESS he is within sight of an enemy tank or
        pillbox.  With Roam unchecked and Aggressive checked, your tank will sit
        in one spot, but chase after any enemy tanks that come into view.

        Drop Only Near Bases - The standard bolo brain would just place a pillbox
        whereever he picked one up.  This didn't make for a tough offense against
        them - they would leave their bases unprotected and scatter pillboxes around
        the map randomly.  Now, with this option checked, the brain will carry any
        pillboxes it has picked up with it until it reaches a base.  Once upon a
        base, the brain will place a pillbox one square behind itself.  It's still
        pretty mindless, but I've seen brains build some decent forts this way -
        I've stumbled upon bases with two or three pills surrounding it before.

        Murderous - The old brain took no notice of builders whatsoever.  This made
        it simple to have your builder sneak up behind it and drop a pillbox,
        which would take upon itself the duty of pulverising the brain.  Now the
        tank will make a concerted effort to blow the builder to smithereens.
        Unfortunately, this rarely works, as the builder generally moves much too
        fast for the poor brain to catch it.  However, other brains, at least,
        have the tendency to leave their builders stranded amongst some buildings
        or rivers, and this has some use if a Murderous brain happens upon a lost
        builder.

    Disabled options:

        Build Fortresses - This will more or less work, but is still buggy, so I
        decided to leave it out.  Anyone with some skill in ResEdit could easily
        re-enable it, so here's what it does:  similar to the Place Only Near
        Bases (in fact, it requires that option enabled to work), Build Forts
        tries to make brains work harder at defending the bases they've worked so
        hard at capturing.  When a fort-building brain captures a pillbox, they
        will proceed toward any friendly base they can find immediately, whereas
        a brain with only the Place near Bases option on waits until they decide
        they NEED to return to the base (which is sometimes too late).  The main
        problem with this is that on occasion the brain will get stuck in a loop,
        as with the case of a base surrounded by four pillboxes.  Since the tank
        can't slip between them, he'll blast his way out.  Moving forward, he picks
        up the defenseless pillbox.  Then, realizing he must build a fort with it,
        he'll turn around, move onto the base, drop the pillbox behind himself,
        and once more be trapped.

        Repair Pillboxes - This should work, with one exception.  There is no
        build mode available to brains for repairing pillboxes.  The closest is
        BUILDMODE_PBOX, which requires you be carrying a pill, and if you use
        that, it'll tell you "You cannot place a pillbox there".  Looks like this
        feature waits on Stuart, until he implements that.


    Making the brain a leetle bit smarter:

        I tried to modify the brain's behavior a little bit, since I found it had
        some incredible moronic habits.  Here's a small list of eccentricities:

            Attacked pillboxes while in deep water on a boat
            Preferred the head-on-with-guns-blazing-until-a-immense-wave-of-shells-
            washed-over-the-tank,causing-instant-death method of pillbox fighting
            Would wade into battle carrying a pillbox, where most real players would
            be more cautious with a valuable asset like an unplaced pill
            Would attack other tanks EVEN while wounded and hiding in the forest

        I've tried to fix all of these.  While still not as bright as it could be,
        and far from a human opponent, it performs obviously better.  I've seen it
        take two pillboxes at the start of the game without being killed.  It
        still likes the head on approach, but when there are more shells coming at
        him than he has armor, he'll turn tail and run (usually) which (usually)
        winds up saving his butt.  This works best if there's a base nearby he can
        use to repair his armor.

        He won't attack pillboxes will in a boat, which saves him from both slow
        loss of ammo and instant death.  He'll try to runaway from enemy tanks
        when he is trundling around with a pillbox, and will definitely shy away
        from pillboxes.  And if he's down to his last points of armor, he develops
        an affinity for the forest and avoids the open road, giving him the
        cloaking advantage that many human players are fond of.

        Still and all, I've seen my brain make its' fair share of blunders.  He's
        trying to burrow his way into a wall right now.  But this is at least a
        slight improvement, which makes playing with computers a bit more fun.

    About this brain:

        I did NOT write the original code for this brain.  That honor goes to Stuart
        Cheshire, the author of Bolo.  I've only modified it to improve performance.
        Why, you might ask, didn't I just make my own?  Well, for all Stuart's remarks
        about the shoddiness of the code, it's actually pretty good.  Better than I
        would have done, since I don't understand Bolo as well as Stuart (but then,
        who does?).  And the best reason of all, I don't know how to program in C.
        All the programming I did came from a basic knowledge of programming (from
        Pascal experience) and looking at Stuart's code for syntax examples.

        I hope you get some use out of this brain.  I've found it to outperform both
        Stuart's original Standard Autopilot and the Independent Brain 0.9, which are
        the only two brains I've been able to find that will work with Bolo 0.99.1.
        Let me know what you think of it, and what you would like changed about it.


                                                        Milo
                                                        <[e-mail]>