[MUD-Dev] Modeling spells/skills as collections of affects

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <Pine.SUN.3.96.970909164324.2633B-100000 at sun38>, on 09/09/97 
   at 02:08 PM, Shawn Halpenny <malachai at iname.com> said:

>* The post a wee bit ago about tying a rope to an object could be
>done something like this:

>- Bubba tries to move a rock, but find he can't get a grip on it
>  (let's say that the rock determines his dex must be 20 to move the
>  rock) Bubba ties some rope to the rock (the rope creates an
>  I-have-a-rope-tied-to-me modifier and attaches it to the rock. 
>  There's also some virtual container or some such magic going on
>  that associates the actual rope object with the rock as well so
>  they move as one entity.)
>- Bubba pulls the rope and the rock moves (the rock receives a
>  message to be moved (probably came from the rope) and queries its
>  list of modifiers.  Rock sees the rope modifier and calls a method
>  on it that lowers the dex required by the action by 3 (and perhaps
>  spews out a message fragment about being able to move the rock now
>  that the rope is tied to it).  Execution returns to the move rock
>  method and the action succeeds since Bubba's dex was 17.)

>This lets you tie that rope to anything and pull it around.  The rope
>doesn't have to know anything about what it's tied to as long as the
>verbs on that object can pass the required attributes to the rope
>modifier so they can be modified if necessary.

How I would do this:

  The rock has a certain weight, size, and shape etc.  

  I assume for simplicity that the weight is evenly distributed thru
the rock and that I can largely ignore the shape of the rock for
weight distribution.

  Bubba is attempting to move the rock in a certain direction
(sideways, uphill, downhill, down a hole, whaetever).

  Bubba is impeded in that attempt by the weight of the rock, the
location he applies force to, and whatever is in the way (eg moving
rock the wall of building).

  After that it is all simplisitic mechanics to determine if Bubba can
move the rock with static/dynamic friction largely ignored, momentum
exagerated, and rolling ignored.

To handle the rope, and its added leverage:

  Create a virtual object/anonymous group of the rope and the rock. 
Now have Bubba's force applied to the point of the rope's attachment
to the rock.  Exagerate any leverage effects to account for static vs
dynamic friction.  

No spoofs or watchers required.

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
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