Love to see Fighters included

[Spoot Knight]

That does sound like a good idea there.

[antisocialmunky]

And so our heroes began once again in search of the legendary phpBBtec temples.

Wha?

Quick! Over there! A small ruin that may lead us to the tower of Babel!

All I was saying was that finding nearest neighbor is not a fun thing. That is of course your mapping system is set up well to handle it.

Also, I wonder how big this quote pyramid will get before it breaks? Shall we find out?

[Kaelis]

All I was saying was that finding nearest neighbor is not a fun thing.

Please explain.

[Venator]

I don't see how Demeters should even be considered fighters since they're kind of...you know...attack drones...

Realistically, drones would be more efficient than fighters given acceleration tolerances and the fact that they don't risk human (or [race]) pilots.

Regardless, what I'd really like to see is just a triangular or wedge-shaped Demeter so they look more fighter-y .

[DeathsHand]

Upgraded demeter-- UCAV launcher see---http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCAV



demeter + 10x coolness = UCAV (well, technically the demeter is a UCAV, but........)

[antisocialmunky]

All I was saying was that finding nearest neighbor is not a fun thing.

Please explain.

You need to run a simple heuristic(guestimate - in this case, a the simple and accurate guestimate: X+Y) algorithm on each actor(fighter) within a area(I'm not sure how this is implemented in BSF). So since every actor has to be compared to another actor, you get n! number of loops which is a REALLY ugly thing.

Though cheeky partioning of areas up helps things remarkably.

[ChaosTheory]

All I was saying was that finding nearest neighbor is not a fun thing.

Please explain.

You need to run a simple heuristic(guestimate - in this case, a the simple and accurate guestimate: X+Y) algorithm on each actor(fighter) within a area(I'm not sure how this is implemented in BSF). So since every actor has to be compared to another actor, you get n! number of loops which is a REALLY ugly thing.

Though cheeky partioning of areas up helps things remarkably.

Correct. Triangulars, recursives, and "!" (I forget what it's called) are annoying when programming. But still, if there is CPU availible, it makes things better. Personally, I set it to check the milliseconds/step first, and if it is less than 25 or so, I tell it to perform the check. If it goes above 30-33, the check shouldn't be performed at all. Alternatively, you could use a system where each ship finds the nearest neighbor, then performs the actions for both, and takes the other ship out of the loop too, so that it won't perform its check but other ships can check agaisnt it. It helps a little, but not much. Lastly, one could skip recursives altogether and switch to cell-grid checks, but I believe that may be beyond the capabilities of GM for optimization and may, in fact, end up being slower. I have often found that GM does strange things with code you would think might optimize an algorithm.

[Squishy]

Knock it off with the programming techno-babble.



I also would enjoy fightercraft in BSF.
But we'll have to settle for drones though.

[ChaosTheory]

Knock it off with the programming techno-babble.



I also would enjoy fightercraft in BSF.
But we'll have to settle for drones though.

I like to program. I technobabble. Live with it. We all have intrests, and we are enthusiastic about them, yes?

Just replace the drones with fighter sprites and most of us will be happy.

[Kaelis]

So since every actor has to be compared to another actor, you get n! number of loops which is a REALLY ugly thing.

Right, as if that is a problem with modern hardware...

[ChaosTheory]

So since every actor has to be compared to another actor, you get n! number of loops which is a REALLY ugly thing.

Right, as if that is a problem with modern hardware...

No, it's a problem with GameMaker. :x

[Lord-General Thunder]

So since every actor has to be compared to another actor, you get n! number of loops which is a REALLY ugly thing.

Right, as if that is a problem with modern hardware...

Sadly, this isn't all you need to worry about.

Some programming languages are inherently inefficient. So inefficient, in fact, that you may have gigabytes of memory. You may have a monster graphics card. You could be running a terahertz machine and it would still be ridiculously slow (all things considered). GameMaker seems to be one of these, like Turing or Python.

However, you don't need to check n! times. Just 2n, if you're good; start with a ridiculously high number, then compare this to the range to a ship. Pick the closer of the two. Compare this to the range to another ship. Pick the closer of the two. Repeat until you have the closest ship.

[Normandy]

My math skills are tingling...

That would accomplish?

What we need to do is come up with an idea how to allow demeters to target eachother without eating CPU. Do that and we're happy people.

[antisocialmunky]

Give them a PD flak cannon and have them fire randomly in a small radius when there are other demeters/projectiles/crap around.

[Arona Daal]

Make the platform fabricator able to spawn tiny, customizable ships perhaps? I think this has already been mentioned though.