ID:116810
 
After doing some fiddling and testing with the code I've managed to cut back on how frequently the AI processes are called. As a result the AI is slightly dumber, making it fairly easy to take out one tank, while getting attacked by two no longer means instant defeat.

A lot of you were saying you liked that though, that the difficulty was good before and that it should be made more difficult, if anything. Unfortunately, smarter AI means more CPU required to run and I've noticed a bug in the game that causes a short 1/4-1/2 second pause in gameplay sometimes. It turns out, it's the AI, it calls way too frequently.

After going the checks and some nerfing, they game runs fairly smoothly. However, if you didn't mind the pauses before or didn't experience them, I do have good news for you.

By cutting back on how often the AI code is called, I've managed to allow more AI mobs running at once.

Now, there's a maximum of 24 AI mobs, DOUBLE of the original 12. So, fighting two or even three AI enemies at once is a common occurance now, especially now that I'm adding a #of teams option to allow battles between larger groups.

So now, the ability of combat is 12v12, 8v8v8, 6v6v6v6, and so on and so forth.

"But these AI are not as tough as before! I liked it when they were a challenge!"

There will also be included in the new version, a difficulty slider, much like the one found in TES: Oblivion. Enemies will keep their AI, however, based upon the difficulty slider, they'll have more health and do more damage. Considering that they are still fairly good shots, dodging and aim will become even more essential to winning.

I've also managed to include scoreboards, though there's still no "endgame" I have to code in a win/lose system so that the game can restart after battle. Keep in mind, I have to plan this for online play as well, so it'll be difficult to plan out, please give me time.


You can expect this update to be out sometime around this weekend. =)

Edit: Here is a version that just has the expanded # of AI and the scoreboard if you want to test it out. It's still a bit buggy I think.
As it turns out, having 23 AI mobs works, but is very CPU intensive. There's less call all together, but more projectiles, I might reduce the cap down to 20, not sure yet. Still working it out.

However, I am on a single core cpu, so, a multi-core will likely do much better. Try it out yourselves and let me know how it goes I guess.

As for multiplayer, it's almost done, there might be a byond bug keeping it from functioning properly though, I made a bug report, so now I'm just waiting to see if it turns out to be byond or the way I coded it.

If you'd like to check the issue out for yourself:
1. Start up the game with the .dmb and notice it's speed, it pauses a bit for the setup and then runs normally.

2. Start it with Dream Daemon and then join the server. Notice the lag is purely visual. If the game itself was lagging I'd attribute it to a bug in my code, but it's only a visual lag, as the game still runs fine in the background.


In the meantime, single-player works fine and the provided file has been updated. It now includes a scoreboard, a win/lose function and a difficulty slider for the AI. Let me know what you think.