Resets and repops

[Nathan Yospe]

On Wed, 19 Mar 1997, Jon A. Lambert wrote:

:> 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 about four levels of programming. The lowest level requires a
restart of the MUD, though it has the nice advantage of being runnable
from within the MUD, contrary to Dikus (I have an emacs/pico/vi access
pipe for top level imms, and failed bootup protection, bringing up the
last viable mud core when there is a failed bootup, but not the mass of
areas, etc.) This is, of course, the C++ access layer. The middle levels
are integrated into the same language, which allows both low level (yes,
blackboxed) calls to C++ objects and indistinguishable calls to objects
designed in the lower middle level usage of the language. (Think library
vs application writers in C++) The highest level language is the scripting
language provided to animate Characters, usable for NPCs and PCs... a
quest writer could use this for all of his quest NPCs, and a Player could
use this for a script to keep his Character alive when he goes LD.

:> :>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.

Hmmm. I use macroscopic event prediction to account for whatever happens
while an Area is Playerless. Then again, I've got a background in chaos
mathematics, thermodynamics, nanotech... I tend to think that way anyway.

:> *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.      

Actually quite easy to model. Aether I have done before (For a lark, I
modeled Terry Pratchett's Discworld in one simulation... where light is
only barely faster (sometimes slower) than sound, and the world rests on
the backs of four elephants riding on the shell of a giant space turtle.)
Your universe is quite well defined... The forces, as I see them, are
Mass/World attraction, Aether/World repulsion.... I could use these, and a
proper balance of mass and Aether for your sun, to model the celestial
motion of the sun. The fixed stars are not a problem at all (I never
bothered to unfix the stars for Singularity 2.... as I never even coded
them in.) Water behavior sounds natural... if we have any sort of spin to
the world, I could give Aether a polarization value, and water would
simply be responding to the pseudo magnetic properties of the Aether
field.

:> :>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.  

Attraction of the gods... the ability of a god to force attraction from
any mortal. Kind of a touchy issue.

:> 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. ;-)

Sounds like what I would expect from your Aether/Mass model. Yes, the
Aether laden witch would be lighter, potentially, than a duck. I want to
see an overly enchanted sword lift its owner into the heavens.

   __    _   __  _   _   ,  ,  , ,  
  /_  / / ) /_  /_) / ) /| /| / /\            First Light of a Nova Dawn
 /   / / \ /_  /_) / \ /-|/ |/ /_/            Final Night of a World Gone
Nathan F. Yospe - University of Hawaii Dept of Physics - yospe at hawaii.edu