Programming AI

[Kobaz]

I think that you have to define something. Babies are born having needs that can only be met from external sources. Human babies are born with set responses to faces, boobs and have predefined responses to touch for example. They don't really know anything, that comes later as they categorise things as pleasure or pain. It's debatable when the concept of Self develops - it takes at least a few weeks if my experience as a parent is anything to go by.

An example would be when a baby discovers its own feet. It certainly looks as if there is no idea that these things are a part of Self, until the baby tries to bend them in a direction they don't go. Or when a toddler discovers its shadow - I've seen one of my sons in a panic about this thing that follows him around. Only over time did Zak learn that this was really an image of him (i.e. an extension or projection of Self).

All infants are born with immense amounts of wiring that defines responses to stimuli. Everything else develops as associations to that initial programming.

[Deimos]

Ok, well for storage and initial setup, it's getting kinda complex and it looks like I might have to end up making my own scripting language o-o.

Ok... here goes..

First, each NPC has their own object that they can refer to. The objects are automatically created and what not if they don't exist and all directories are auto made and so on.

From here, initialization of the object takes place in the NPC's local quest file under the INI sub routine. This is only if the file isn't already there : ).

Also, I have something that's getting setup to make NPCs load specific initialization files based on special labels for them and what not. I also setup something so that they load up a config file O_o. Not sure what to use this for yet or how I'm going to read it and store it (this is where I think I might end up doing a custom scripting language).

It's just getting kinda complex ^_-.

I figure I'm going to store memories and what not in their object file. However, I could store anything I wanted in their, so I could let people completely do all of their stuff in that one object (special flags, and so on, w/e they want).

Actually, now that I think about it, the object file can just be custom information people want that NPC to have. The configuration file can be the stuff the AI Engine runs with. I suppose this configuration file could be the thing that really runs the AI. Eh, but loading up lots of files is going to slow things down...

I could add a new table to the DB for NPCs, but no, that wouldn't be good... I think hashes stored in files (that can be treated as extremely dynamic objects) are the best bet. So then... the configuration file can be used simply to run the AI dll and determine how the NPC acts and what not. The object file can store the NPC's memories and everything under the AI Category (which will be reserved I suppose).

What do you guys think?

Am I being too ambitious? (This storage system thingie is all working thus far ^^).