RTS Starter kit AI?
by Bucko · in Torque Game Engine · 07/23/2005 (3:19 am) · 4 replies
As Torque AI support is severely lacking (nonexistent one could say) does the RTS Starter Kit help out?
From the info it sounds as if selecting a bunch of units and having them go to wherever I want is a breeze but without robust pathfinding and RTS would be next to impossible to make. If there really IS pathfinding in the RTS Starter kit they should clearly say so as pathfinding is the most glaring omission from the Torque feature set.
Has anybody actually made anything with the RTS Starter kit? It would be really interesting to see how useful it really is.
From the info it sounds as if selecting a bunch of units and having them go to wherever I want is a breeze but without robust pathfinding and RTS would be next to impossible to make. If there really IS pathfinding in the RTS Starter kit they should clearly say so as pathfinding is the most glaring omission from the Torque feature set.
Has anybody actually made anything with the RTS Starter kit? It would be really interesting to see how useful it really is.
About the author
#2
I will still gripe about the lack of pathfinding in Torque but, as you say, pathfinding for RTS games is way to application specific to be useful.
Will there be an upgrade path for RTS Starter when TSE eventually gets released?
07/23/2005 (1:06 pm)
Sorry for sounding grumpy, not enough coffee apparently.I will still gripe about the lack of pathfinding in Torque but, as you say, pathfinding for RTS games is way to application specific to be useful.
Will there be an upgrade path for RTS Starter when TSE eventually gets released?
#3
While there is no current official plan for an RTS-SK upgrade to TSE, I know that it's been discussed, and also that people have done the port to TSE themselves. It's actually not that difficult at all, other than a few adjustments required to tie Atlas (the TSE terrain) to the RTS function set.
07/23/2005 (4:31 pm)
Well, as I mentioned, some tech currently in development will make implementing game specific pathfinding (well, to be more accurate, game specific unit steering behaviour) much easier, and in the case of actual pathfinding, at least make it much more efficient if the tech is used well. Long story short, a pretty nice binning system designed for RTS style games is in the late stages of development, and once it's fully polished you can expect an incremental update to the RTS-SK.While there is no current official plan for an RTS-SK upgrade to TSE, I know that it's been discussed, and also that people have done the port to TSE themselves. It's actually not that difficult at all, other than a few adjustments required to tie Atlas (the TSE terrain) to the RTS function set.
#4
www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=8531
tone
08/23/2005 (5:33 pm)
Serendipity suggests I post this brand-new resource link for pathfinding:www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=8531
tone
Torque 3D Owner Stephen Zepp
Pathfinding, and other AI functionality is just about as game-play specific as you can get, and there is no reasonable way to provide useful functionality without forcing dozens of game-play focused assumptions on the purchaser, so as it stands pathfinding is not an included feature in the RTS-SK. That being said, there is some pretty interesting tech being worked on that in the future (no current estimate, sorry), should make the tasks you mention even easier to implement for your project.