Announcement: Remember: you are giving away your fantastic ideas for free, and somebody else might even make money from them (or appear to). That's just how the world works! If you're worried about it, maybe you shouldn't post your ideas here.


Caravel Forum : DROD Boards : Feature Requests : Stunned brains (Unintuitive behaviour)
1
Page 2 of 2
New Topic New Poll Post Reply
Poster Message
Trickster
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 662
Registered: 07-03-2007
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
Doom wrote:
For what it's worth, stunning tarstuff mothers prevents them from spawning but unstunned mothers of the same type continue to spawn normally. This makes a lot of sense and it'd be flawlessly consistent if brains also worked like this.
What happens if you have two disconnected gel mothers and stun one? I presume the stunned one won't grow but the unstunned one will, but that might be broken if it were coded incorrectly.

I would check but I'm still trying to beat TSS and I don't know what c********s are yet.

also flawlessly const int

____________________________
Trickster

Official Hold Progress
Click here to view the secret text

Favorite Unofficial Holds (I need to play more!)
Click here to view the secret text

My Holds
Click here to view the secret text

07-17-2014 at 01:39 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
Trickster
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 662
Registered: 07-03-2007
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
Nuntar wrote:
lordatog wrote:
Er, also after re-reading the initial post, I don't see why the creature movement would differ for two turns. The brain should only be stunned on the turn you hit it.
To match the behavior of other creatures. If you push something, it's stunned for that turn and the next turn. If you try to push something but it can't move, it's just stunned for that turn.
If you push a queen on turn 29, she loses two turns of movement but still spawns on turn 30. I would expect brains to behave similarly.
Oh, that's a good point. I agree. The secondary "movement stun" turn shouldn't have any effect upon a sessile critter.

____________________________
Trickster

Official Hold Progress
Click here to view the secret text

Favorite Unofficial Holds (I need to play more!)
Click here to view the secret text

My Holds
Click here to view the secret text

07-17-2014 at 01:41 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 5056
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
I perceive this is a complex issue. I'm moving this topic to feature requests.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.
07-17-2014 at 01:52 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
The spitemaster
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 354
Registered: 06-09-2005
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
Technically, the roach queen spawns after movement on the thirtieth turn. To be consistent the brain would also lose the second turn.

____________________________
Last night upon a stair
I met a man that wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish that man would stay away
07-17-2014 at 04:38 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Visit Homepage Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
Trickster
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 662
Registered: 07-03-2007
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
The spitemaster wrote:
Technically, the roach queen spawns after movement on the thirtieth turn. To be consistent the brain would also lose the second turn.
No. You must stun the queen on turn 30 or she will lay. There is no "two-turn stun" for preventing lays.

____________________________
Trickster

Official Hold Progress
Click here to view the secret text

Favorite Unofficial Holds (I need to play more!)
Click here to view the secret text

My Holds
Click here to view the secret text

07-17-2014 at 08:01 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
Tuttle
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 1545
Registered: 02-22-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (+3)  
As unintuitive as that feels to me (roach queens lay immediately after their turn, to the extent that placement order matters), waterskipper nests behave the same way when stunned and moved. Rather than thinking about a "heavy stun" that fades into a "light stun", it's more:
- The first move after stunning is a total stun.
- If an entity was moved during the stun, the second move is a movement-only stun.

Intended or not, I'm not sure that decision is as easy to change as the brain one (but I haven't played that much of TSS yet so maybe it is).


I agree there's complexity here, but it's also a demo-breaking change so once a hold or two is released which has brains and stunning weapons in the same room the behaviour is pretty much locked in. In other words, this needs to be a 5.0.1 / 5.0.2 sort of feature request or it's probably moot (and the visual stun event just becomes a bug for the next point release).

I think most of the questions that have come up have consistency arguments in one direction:

1. Should brains be stunnable?
Yes - every other single squared monster is. (Edit: except clones.)

2. Should stunning a single brain automatically result in unbrained movement, or just be treated as inactivating that brain?
Inactivating a single brain is consistent with invisibility, where a single brain's awareness of Beethro is enough for brained movement. It's also consistent with the way stunning mothers works -- the stunned mother is inactive (only visible with gel), but remaining mothers will cause growth normally.

3. If stunning only inactivates a single brain, should something else (e.g. power tokens) result in stunning all brains?
There's no equivalent behaviour for gel mothers. This is probably the softest argument though; you could story up something about hive-mind if people think there's puzzle potential here.

4. Should a brain which is stunned while an invisible player is not in range (or has moved into range on the stunning turn) alert monsters of its distress?
I'd argue no. Stepping into a brain's range and killing it (e.g. via tunnel) doesn't result in brained movement, for example. And stunning a sleeping eye from behind doesn't alert it to Beethro's presence either.

5. Should a pushed brain which is moved by the push be stunned for one turn or two turns?
One turn is more consistent with the current behaviour of roach queens and nests.

[Last edited by Tuttle at 07-17-2014 10:21 AM]
07-17-2014 at 10:10 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores Quote Reply
Jacob
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3741
Registered: 10-01-2004
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (+1)  
I initially thought this idea was not worth implementing, but Tuttle and Doom's points make me think that it makes sense.

I agree with his points 1,2,4,5

The power token idea just seems bizarre. Why would stunning one brain stun all of them? I don't understand how this fits into the discussion at all.

____________________________
New to DROD? You may want to read this.
My Holds and Levels:
Click here to view the secret text

07-17-2014 at 04:51 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 5056
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
I'll have to take some time determining whether #5 feels right in practice, but otherwise, I'm sold on Jacob and Tuttle's reasoning on all counts.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.
07-17-2014 at 06:37 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
Trickster
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 662
Registered: 07-03-2007
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
Jacob wrote:
The power token idea just seems bizarre. Why would stunning one brain stun all of them? I don't understand how this fits into the discussion at all.
It doesn't. I think he was trying to say "is there some weird way you should be able to stun multiple brains w/o actually stunning them all on the same turn with mimics" and determined the answer was "no, even if things are weird or something".

Also for the record I agree with Tuttle on these as well.

____________________________
Trickster

Official Hold Progress
Click here to view the secret text

Favorite Unofficial Holds (I need to play more!)
Click here to view the secret text

My Holds
Click here to view the secret text

07-17-2014 at 11:52 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
Tuttle
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 1545
Registered: 02-22-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
Yeah, sorry, that post started out as an effort to just collect all the questions which had come up through the thread in one place, and I didn't want to arbitrarily ignore anyone's suggestions to date. Realising I actually had opinions came later. :)

To be clearer on #3, I don't think there should be a situation where stunning one brain stuns all of them -- there's nothing else I can think of which works like that and I'm not sure overloading the power token with yet more functionality is a good idea.

[Last edited by Tuttle at 07-18-2014 01:26 AM]
07-18-2014 at 01:25 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores Quote Reply
The spitemaster
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 354
Registered: 06-09-2005
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (+1)  
To be more clear, I always see the actions in DROD to be like Magic or DnD. So when I see the actions of the stun I think this:
1. Roach queens with no interference spawn after they move
2. Roach queens with the full stun spawn after the second turn
3. Roach queens with half stun don't spawn on said turn

The deduction that I make from this is that there are several functions to each monster's turn. It goes in this order

Monster detection/Special ability (ie. evil eyes detect during this part and aumtlich detect if frozen)
Pathing
Movement Attempt (The slayers wisp will sometimes occupy this space)
Special/ Clean up (aumtlich do not use this space by applying their beam again because their beam is separate from their character. (Side note. The rational behind this though is that their beams apply while you are under the effects of a speed potion.) Roach queens use this space though.)

The effects of the stun apply like this:
Half stun is finished after the clean up of the first turn and full stun after the movement attempt of the second. So I conclude that for brains the only solution is that the brained pathing can only come back AFTER it's movement portion of it's turn. Further testing shows that the spawn is inserted directly after the queens turn. (ie. a character/monster directly after will not block the spawn) Therefore, what I think is that pathing should only be interrupted until after the brains second turn.

____________________________
Last night upon a stair
I met a man that wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish that man would stay away
07-18-2014 at 06:58 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Visit Homepage Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
Trickster
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 662
Registered: 07-03-2007
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (+1)  
[Post Deleted] The spitemaster wrote:
To trickster:
Well that was a little rude.
It definitely was, and I very much apologize. I'm not sure what set me off there or what I was trying to say to be honest. :P I think I overreacted after responding the first time without reading what you wrote closely? Ugh. Sorry.

Normally I would leave a message up for the added shame factor, but in this case I don't think it contributes anything to the discussion so Imma delete it (your response still has the salient rebuttals).

____________________________
Trickster

Official Hold Progress
Click here to view the secret text

Favorite Unofficial Holds (I need to play more!)
Click here to view the secret text

My Holds
Click here to view the secret text

07-18-2014 at 11:31 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 5056
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (+2)  
Okay, for 5.0.1.6045, I've changed brains so they cannot sense the player while stunned.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.
07-20-2014 at 12:23 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
Trickster
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 662
Registered: 07-03-2007
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
mrimer wrote:
Okay, for 5.0.1.6045, I've changed brains so they cannot sense the player while stunned.
All I can think of is:

Click here to view the secret text

I guess I should have figured this out from the profile image, but still. Wow.

May I ask how many lines of code DROD's game engine (room operation) code is? (assuming the general C++/Java = 2.5 lines of C, Python/Perl = 6, wait why are you coding anything in Perl, etc.)

____________________________
Trickster

Official Hold Progress
Click here to view the secret text

Favorite Unofficial Holds (I need to play more!)
Click here to view the secret text

My Holds
Click here to view the secret text

07-20-2014 at 01:07 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 5056
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
Amazingly, this was one of those proverbial one-line code changes. Except I got it wrong and TFMurphy tweaked it for me :)
Trickster wrote:
May I ask how many lines of code DROD's game engine (room operation) code is? (assuming the general C++/Java = 2.5 lines of C, Python/Perl = 6, wait why are you coding anything in Perl, etc.)
Hmmm...let's just take the back-end DRODLib module as a whole. I'll have to run some "wc-fu" on my Mac to count this easily. I'd guess it's around 100K lines. I'll let you know when I get the count.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

[Last edited by mrimer at 07-20-2014 08:13 AM]
07-20-2014 at 08:13 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
Watcher
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 902
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (+1)  
mrimer wrote:
Okay, for 5.0.1.6045, I've changed brains so they cannot sense the player while stunned.

Cool, thanks. I understand that I might be too late in suggesting changes, but I just realized one thing that I thought was worth pointing out:

Tuttle wrote:
Rather than thinking about a "heavy stun" that fades into a "light stun", it's more:
- The first move after stunning is a total stun.
- If an entity was moved during the stun, the second move is a movement-only stun.

I did a bit of testing and discovered that there are a few exceptions from this description. Sleeping evil eyes are fully stunned on the second turn of stunning: they will not wake up even if they can see Beethro or a decoy. Citizens and engineers are also fully stunned and cannot build anything on the second turn, even if they are standing next to a build marker. Similarly, citizens don't check in at their waystations even if they could do so without moving. So based on that, I'd disagree with your point 5 and suggest that brains should get the full two turns of stunning. This would leave monster spawning as the only thing that can occur on the second turn of a stun.

____________________________
Today the refrigerator, tomorrow the world!
07-20-2014 at 08:15 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts Quote Reply
mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 5056
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
Watcher wrote:
So based on that, I'd disagree with your point 5 and suggest that brains should get the full two turns of stunning. This would leave monster spawning as the only thing that can occur on the second turn of a stun.
That's the way I had it, and TFMurphy switched it to only be one turn of stun. I can definitely see it working both ways. It would be odd that stunning a brain -- which doesn't move into the first place -- into an obstacle will only stun its effect for one turn while pushing it somewhere makes the loss of pathmapping last for two.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.
07-20-2014 at 08:43 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 5056
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (+1)  
Ah, fewer lines of code than I expected: almost 75K in DRODLib, the back-end DROD-specific engine logic.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.
07-20-2014 at 10:58 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
Trickster
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 662
Registered: 07-03-2007
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
mrimer wrote:
Ah, fewer lines of code than I expected: almost 75K in DRODLib, the back-end DROD-specific engine logic.
Heh. Considering the sheer count of DROD elements and their interactions, that's still pretty amazingly tight.

____________________________
Trickster

Official Hold Progress
Click here to view the secret text

Favorite Unofficial Holds (I need to play more!)
Click here to view the secret text

My Holds
Click here to view the secret text

07-20-2014 at 11:26 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 5056
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
Thanks! We do a good deal of refactoring.

It's turtles/roaches all the way down :P

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

[Last edited by mrimer at 07-21-2014 12:06 AM]
07-21-2014 at 12:06 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
Tuttle
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 1545
Registered: 02-22-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
mrimer wrote:
Watcher wrote:
So based on that, I'd disagree with your point 5 and suggest that brains should get the full two turns of stunning. This would leave monster spawning as the only thing that can occur on the second turn of a stun.
That's the way I had it, and TFMurphy switched it to only be one turn of stun. I can definitely see it working both ways. It would be odd that stunning a brain -- which doesn't move into the first place -- into an obstacle will only stun its effect for one turn while pushing it somewhere makes the loss of pathmapping last for two.
Not sure of the timing of TFMurphy's change, but testing in 6046 I'm seeing two turns of no pathmapping on a move and one turn if pushed against a wall.
07-21-2014 at 12:13 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores Quote Reply
mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 5056
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: Stunned brains (0)  
Right. That was my initial change, before TFMurphy's modification.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.
07-21-2014 at 05:35 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
1
Page 2 of 2
New Topic New Poll Post Reply
Caravel Forum : DROD Boards : Feature Requests : Stunned brains (Unintuitive behaviour)
Surf To:


Forum Rules:
Can I post a new topic? No
Can I reply? No
Can I read? Yes
HTML Enabled? No
UBBC Enabled? Yes
Words Filter Enable? No

Contact Us | CaravelGames.com

Powered by: tForum tForumHacks Edition b0.98.8
Originally created by Toan Huynh (Copyright © 2000)
Enhanced by the tForumHacks team and the Caravel team.