[bos-dev] Intro - Another One of Those Student Devs

[zerted <zerted@xxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings,

I thought I should introduce myself as I'll be around for at least the 
next few months.  I'm a Masters student in Computer Science and I'm 
writing an RTS AI for my thesis.  As you can guess I'm doing it on Bos 
Wars.  There's a few tweaks to the game that I'm making to support 
better automated AI testing:  improving the command line options and 
adding Machine vs Machine games.

Bos Wars is a good game for RTS research.  It's a full game that isn't 
too complicated (Zero-K) nor too simple (ORTS).  It's maintained so it 
still works on modern systems, but isn't so actively developed that it's 
APIs are unstable (0 A.D.).  The code is free and not closed source 
(Starcraft) and mostly easy to understand.  There's a surprising amount 
of papers using Stratagus and I think that would increase if every 
researcher didn't have to make these same tweaks.

The largest change I'll be making is the addition of a new AI API. My AI 
needs to have the same abilities of a human player and the nice AI 
framework you guys have is too simple.  I don't have all the details 
yet, but I'm thinking of:

* OnUnitVisible() - List of all newly seen units this cycle/turn.
* OnUnitHidden() - List of all units that moved out of sight (and maybe 
died.  I'm not sure how to handle entering/leaving transports.)
* OnDiscoveredTitle() - Titles the AI has uncovered.  This is only used 
for unexplored areas, not fog-of-war.
* OnActionCompleted() - Completion of something the AI asked the game do 
to.
* PerformAction() - How the AI yells at it's units.
* GetUnitStats() - For getting details about units (health, location, 
etc...).

I was thinking of only passing around unit ids to avoid tolua++ object 
reference issues.  I want to keep the cross talk as minimal as 
possible.  I know some of those functions already exists in various 
states.  I need review the current AI API a lot more.  I'm not sure how 
this fits in with BigBrain, if at all.

While it doesn't have any bearing on my thesis, I'd like to work with 
you guys and try to get my AI updates into the game.  If I can improve 
the game, I'd consider that a job well done.  Research is pointless if 
it isn't applied anywhere.

Regards,

~zerted