First off, hi, this is my first time posting, I'm very interested in the work you people are doing here and would like to contribute if possible
I'm lazy and I don't make maps but I like coding and I like problem solving so I'm hoping some of my little trigger projects can be of benefit to
someone else's map rather than just sitting around.

Now on to my general AI "solution" I really doubt it is original and I have suspicions it is unfeasible for some reason, but you guys can point those out.
The principle is simple, in order to create AI for a unit type you just cycle through each one of those units, give it a burst of 'intelligence', and move
on to the next one, repeat forever (or until you want it to stop, w/e)
As far as how thats done well, replace the unit with its hero counterpart, when there are no longer any of that unit, replace the hero with the original
unit and hey presto you've got a cycle.

The effect is you have a location (or locations more usefully) that are always centered on one of those units, a random one at any given point in time.
Then you can start constructing intelligent behavior inside those location, which will then be applied to all the units of that type, in due time.

Disadvantages:

-units are healed when switched as well as possible unwanted upgrades/downgrades (hero unit) You can slow down the rate at which the switching occurs,
lowing the probability of it happening during a fight but in general I recommend this AI for many weak enemies rather than few strong ones.

-the intelligence is not omnipresent, it will only occur when the unit is switched but you can make it affect the behavior of other units within a certain
vicinity of the intelligent one, you'll see this in the example map.

-unsuitable for air units, they stack on each other, this will cause issues in the switching of them, perhaps there is a work around, I don't know it.
-perhaps it goes without saying but this will only be useful for computer units, human players like controlling their units (I think) xD

Advantages

-only one computer required.
-can create special behaviors, abilities in units.
-can be used to procedurally create and remove spawn points and rally points + pretty well anything else you can think up (I can explain this fully if you're interested)
-area-sensitive that is to say you can make units behave one way or have an ability in one region and totally different behavior/abilities in another, with a seamless hand-off.
-lots of room for tweaking and optimizing.

So anyways I'll give a simple example of a problem and the solution with this system at it's heart.
Zombies, how to make them both wander randomly but also swarm, I also used the fact that the location is randomly at a zombie to make it so
zombies only spawn where there are already zombies, at a random one, also they spawn by killing something, in this case civilians.
(exponential growth of zombies = coolness)

As far as actual AI in this example it is only the bottom 2 triggers of player 2. If you want to play around with it the simplest thing to do
is to make location Z4 bigger, this will make them more swarmy and less wandery, have fun.

Err and keep in mind this is my first time posting and I realize this may be unfeasible but idk, so be honest but please don't be mean *hides in corner*

Oh and I forgot to mention for your viewing pleasure ore = number of zombies, gas = number of civilians ^_^

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Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 17 2010, 10:37 pm by Burgled.

You might want to check out http://www.staredit.net/topic/8681/ and http://www.staredit.net/topic/8936/

Anyway keep it up.

Thank you, indeed I did see the artificial intelligence topic, in part it encouraged me to post this general system
perhaps I should have just posted it there but I didn't want to see it buried, maybe thats too narcissistic of me

It seems your thread is more about detection than the actual AI itself.

Hmmm true enough, but to me it seems the challenge of AI/special abilities isn't making it for one unit, that in itself isn't a big struggle.
The challenge is how to make it work for any unit of a particular type, and this detection system allows for that. Perhaps I would have been
more accurate in stating it as a detection system off the bat but AI seems like the most obvious application, its true my example has only 2 triggers
that cause AI (wanted to keep it simple) but they have a big effect because of the system in which they operate.

So your idea is to find a Zealot, replace it with Fenix, find another Zealot, replace it with Fenix and keep going until there are no Zealots left, then find a Fenix, replace it with a Zealot and issue an order?

This obviously doesn't work for units without heroes (BW units, shuttle, observer etc) and has the HP problem as you noted.

Why not just give the units to P9 instead of converting them to their hero counterpart?

Tried it just now, but quickly ran into difficulties:

You can create trigger-based Ai integrated into a VHP system!! Especially one that I describe in this topic. I had at one point begun to create a concept map, but I stopped because I have no time anymore. But yeah, it's very doable with only a single computer player. The only limitation would be locations, so you could have like 200 different units running at once, with individualized Ai. Since the hit points are virtual, you can detect them and run actions off of them. Yeah, it would be cool to make, but I really just don't have the time at the moment. Maybe in the future, I dunno.

Did you check my concept map, BTW? Other than how it uses two computers, is it the same as what you described?

1. They cannot own triggers or run AI scripts, but trigger owned by P1-8 can still Order units owned by P9-11.
2. If you need AI scripts and units to attack, you'd still get much cleaner results by just using 2 CPU players (7 & 8) and giving units between them than you do using a single CPU and hero units.

True enough, here I changed my example to giving instead of switching unit type, it works just as well, and solves the issue of HP
its a bit of a drag to have to use 2 computers instead of 1 but I can see it being more versatile.
Anyways, the way you achieve the switching is not so important, what is important is the wide range of AI behavior or special abilities
it allows you to create in a unit type. Anyways here's the modified map for your viewing pleasure.

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Yeah I did, but your method was very different from the one I had in mind. Mine wouldn't use the unit's actual HP for anything other than displaying current HP to players. Also, I planned to have all the units invincible, so all attack graphics would be simulated. I'm not sure how yours worked internally, but mine wouldn't be dependent on the unit being virtually represented, as in, a zergling could represent any type of unit that has already been created in the triggers. All Ai would be trigger based, since units are all invincible.

As for the Ai itself, I had planned to randomize most of the Ai based on surroundings of each individual unit. The random motion would be balanced out so that the likelyhood of something say.. Running away completely is very low, while the probability of it using one of its two attacks on you are both equal, and much higher than the fleeing probability, just as an example.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 19 2010, 5:25 pm by Cervantes.

anyways here is another example map that you can all not look at lol
I wanted to make a plant in SC, I used this system in combination with a mobile grid (in this case carriers)

Any sunken or spore colony in this map for player 2 will grow as far as they can in due time, of course the direction can be tweaked
(the mobile grid) as well as the speed of growth (by building delays) The triggers are not many or complex but the effect is
as intelligent as a plant would be expected to be. For this example It simply grows equally in all directions as fast as possible.

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