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Thread: SPAM/S 2nd gen discussion

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    Default SPAM/S 2nd gen discussion

    Well, I'll soon be somewhat rewriting the whole SPAM/S'y stuff. As `2nd gen` suggests, it should be better and a lot buggy'er.

    The world map is split into 9x7 500x500 tiles. Each tile is named in the format tile.x.y.bmp where x and y are the position of the top left they refer to (ie goes up in 500's).

    Each tile has a file with details on the preferred walkable colours (ie primarily paths). Will also detail if there is a divide (ie a gate) that prevents crossing over.

    'Blind path generation' (my own badly named technique) will work so that paths will be generated by uncovering tiles as needed, so it will search the tile it is on and if it doesn't find anything, then it expands to neighbouring tiles. It will stop expanding when it finds the target (will continue searching the current tiles in case there is another, closer one).

    Blind path generation is used when you have no idea where you are going at all, ie if you are looking for the nearest magic shop. However, this should really never be done.

    'Direct path generation' (another badly named technique, yay) will work by starting off the path finding with the tiles directly in between itself and its target, so perhaps a straight line or, as the tiles aren't well suited to diagonals, rectangular areas with the start and target included. It would then be expanded as needed to find an optimistic and optimised path.

    This will ideally be used in conjunction with with some kind of gate AI so that it can take shortcuts where possible and the like.

    A resource file will also have details on all banks, their tiles and their positions on the tile. Of course, it could be expanded to other icons or places of interest, but I believe banks are the only nearly global script use. Other than banks, towns will be added as everyone likes ease of use when it comes to towns.

    At the moment, the RS World map is used for the tiles sauce and is quite covered up by silly town text and the like, so it could use cleaning up, but building in a bit more to the tiles details file should circumnavigate any problems.

    Anyway, I'll get round to working on it some time next week and in the mean time I am opening it up for discussional purposes as I am looking for people to point out any blasphemies before I waste time or suggest improvements so I can make myself look better when I implement them (anyone wanting to help is of course welcome, but only if I can take all the credit).
    By reading this signature you agree that mixster is superior to you in each and every way except the bad ways but including the really bad ways.

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    Hmm, if it wouldn't be too hard, you could use a color that doesn't exist on the map already to go over all of the areas that can't be walked through, so the script could more easily avoid generating any paths that would be unwalkable as a straight line.

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    I could convert the entire world into a x colour based map. I'm unsure if it would have enough benefits in terms of how annoying it would be to do so. If someone else wanted to, I would be more than happy to implement it as such, but considering the size of the map, even just setting the non-walkable areas would take a lot of time if you look at the annoyingly shaped areas and the like, hence my preference for.having general details in a separate file.
    By reading this signature you agree that mixster is superior to you in each and every way except the bad ways but including the really bad ways.

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    Well, as long as the information is accurately stored somewhere it's probably just better to do it your way.

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