[DGD] DGD & Simulations II

[Joshua P. Dady]

Christopher Darque wrote:
> I understand what you are saying, and to me that is how it is
> supposed to be: structure the creatures to be as low a load on
> the system as possible.

What a concept.  8)

> My ALx NPCs do not follow specific loops of actions, rather they
> have a number of needs and these work in an organic way. They get
> hungry over time and eventually decide to go and get some food.

Fair enough.  Objects get swapped in when someone calls a function in 
them, or when someone asks for certain (any?) status() data about that 
object.  This means that any object in the immediate vicinity of an 
interactive object is probably swapped in (usually interactive objects 
are busily calling functions in everything they see...so rude), and 
anything with a call_out() that just ran out.

> I found that some things could be best done from a central control
> program/database (my Master Rooms) and some needed to be inside each
> indivdual NPC. Usually it was a trade-off between efficiency and
> allowing for unique choices.

That's usually the way it works out.  With some experimenting, you 
should be able to get the swapper just active enough to balance your 
supply of available RAM vs. disk I/O bandwidth.

On the other hand, DGD is quite powerful and a good choice for building 
a MUD that shares the core language with LPMUDs, but not much of the 
game mechanics that never really needed to be in the driver in the first 
place.

   -Josh

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