Re: Standard game problems in windows (20031214) version

[Eric McDonald <mcdonald@phy.cmich.edu>]

Hi Peter, others,

On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Peter Garrone wrote:

> > I don't think we should automatically move in any direction other 
> > than that specified by the user. Second-guessing the player is 
> > generally not a good idea.
> 
> I disagree. The path-finding implies that a move is possibly different.
> An aircraft, directed to go from A to B, might fly to C to get some
> fuel.

I don't entirely disagree when one is precomputing a path, though 
I still think that one must think about how tight do you want to 
keep the fuel budget when determining a path. If you say that a 
unit should refuel once it has traversed enough path to use 50% of 
its fuel, then you are quite possibly producing a very inefficient 
path, even if it is the only one that is essentially guaranteed to 
be safe. 

The case I was looking at was: what happens if we get a certain 
distance along a path and find that our primary refueling 
opportunity might have vanished? And my answer is the same as 
Jim's: the user needs to decide. Obviously if the 
refueling point is on the path and can be reached/utilized, then 
you let the automatic movement continue without user intervention; 
I certainly was not disputing that....

  Regards,
    Eric