Week 2

Monday was a big day. It was pretty much about the project scope and time management. As in, how long will this certain task take to be completed. Everyone in the group had roles which they must complete within this time frame so we don’t go over the deadline.

For me specifically, I must complete the battle code in 4 weeks. For this, I started researching into NavMesh and turn based combat. The main problem which I am facing is how to turn the NavMesh into a grid based system. Since I have pretty much decided on using the NavMesh, I then started some research into the turn based mechanic.

I watched many videos on different ways to make the turn based system. The main problem was that the game is a simultaneous turn based game, while many of the tutorials online are for one at a time. Honestly, I watched so many videos on how it could work, and I am stumped. This also includes the grid based movement using a NavMesh.

After some discussion on the mechanics, we have decided that we are not using a grid based movement system, but just a point and click, where the character just walks there. This makes my job a whole lot easier.

I went to James to talk about the coding of the game and was told to slow down and start with the pseudo code first. So, how the turns would work like, in steps. I have to make this for all 3 phases of the battle. Sounds simple enough, took me longer than expected.

After designing the steps, comes the state machines for the AI. This is for how the AI will react and work. I started making a state machine only for phase 1. This is very difficult. I wanted the AI to change its priority depending on how much health they have, so there would be multiple state machines to create.

The four states the AI will be in is

• Aggressive
• Attack
• Defensive
• Flee

Went to uni to discuss stuff, and found out the state machines I created were not correct. So, I was shown how a state machine should look like, and it was a lot more simpler than I expected. I have all 4 states on the flow chart depending on how much health the AI has, which will influence the percentage chances on the actions they will choose. This means I just have to create like 3 state machines, I think.