Resets and repops

[Jon A. Lambert]

> From: Nathan Yospe <yospe at hawaii.edu>
> :On 17/03/97 at 12:17 PM, "Jon A. Lambert" <jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com> said:
> :>I heartily agree with your sentiments.  I am attempting something
> :>similar. I treat most NPCs identically to characters.  The subsystems
> :>that NPCs run issue commands to an input buffer.  In like fashion, the
> :>players' input buffers are written to by the network process. 
> 
> The problem here is that you get the same overhead on an NPC as on a PC,
> with the interpreter, but twice, as you have to create the NPC commands
in
> the first place.

You are correct in this first instance, interpreter overhead is the same on
an
NPC as a PC.   The script that issues NPC commands requires very little
interpretation.  The overhead does in fact occur primarily in the command
parser.
 
> I do allow for this in my own system, but I also have
> lower level command access for both PCs and NPCs, and in general, PCs
tend
> to use the command buffer more, NPCs the lower level access. 

This is interesting, I have thought of black-boxing low level routines so
they 
can easily be integrated in higher level scripts.  You then come up with
two
levels of user-programming.  Your more sophisticated mud-programmers
creating these lower-level routines and your less sophisticated users
accessing
these at a more abstracted level.  

> :>I have attempted to balance this by programming some
> :>NPCs to be "marshalls" for other NPCs or controllers of city/town
> :>subsystems.  Thus not all NPC scripts are  active and consuming
resources
> :>all the time.  For instance city guard captains are  programmed to
issue
> :>patrol orders and attack orders to their charges.  An interesting side 
> :>affect is that by taking out a "marshall" or subsystem controller, a
>   ^e?
> :>great amount of chaos  ensues until a replacement NPC is found.  
> 
> :Cute.  I like this.
> 
> Hmmm. I tend to like everything remotely active to be completely active,
> thinking for itself to a greater or lesser extent.

I agree with this, the type of activity I refer to occurs whether or not
players are
present.  The individual tactical activity occurs when players are present.

> *grin* I modeled a bit of that into my graphical project... I like it
too,
> and hope someone will eventually run such a world with a Physmud++
base...
> I certainly provided enough support for that, and for alternative
physical
> models... nonetheless, any consistant model will create a better mud,
> whatever the model may be.
> 
I would be pleasantly surprised.  I suspected that my model to be
inconsistent with 
a model based on real physics.  My world is round with a hole in the
middle.  Water
flows into one hole and out of the other.  It is suspended in aether.  The
sun is exactly 
30 miles in diameter and is in fact a flat golden disc that descends and
ascends into the 
hole.   The stars are in fact fixed in the firmament of the heavens.  The
amount of aether 
present in an object determines its attraction or repulsion to earth.      

> :>They demand sacrifices, quests and generally participate in mortal
> :>affairs.  As such they are roleplayed by whomever is granted with the
> :>responsibility.  With this in mind, I have done away with my
solar/lunar
> :>timer events and have assigned maintenance and execution of these
events
> :>to the Apollo NPC's and Artemis NPC's subsystems. 
> 
> Quite nice. How do you model the Deiatic charis
> 
What does this mean?  I am intimately familiar with Homer,Hessiod, the five
playwrights 
and Plato, although only in English translation.  

> Linking scheduling is quite simple in my system, partly because I had to
> allow for the distorted physics of the region around a black hole, the
> effects of time dialation, and simpler matters such as different
planetary
> systems, differing gravitational fields, free fall localities, fluid
> environments... I think I could link in a "gods" system fairly easilly.
> The whole point of Physmud++ is that it can model any, _any_ set of laws
> to the universe.

Even if these laws are consistent in their inconsistency?  I think part of
the
charm of such an environment is that it can conveniently match with
observed 
behavior and be believable in context.  I keep thinking of the scene in
Monty
Python's Holy Grail where a discussion about how to determine whether the
lady in question was a witch.  Can such ridiculous observable behavior
occur
in your physical model.  Is the lady, lighter or heavier than a duck?  In
my model
there would be ample observable evidence to support the lighter than a duck
theory, since if the lady be a witch she would have a good deal of aether
within.
Thus she would readily be repelled by the earth, more so than a duck. ;-)