Explicit Supply Columns

[The Plodder]

I remember back in the day of COTA when the supply features first came out and it was shown that supply columns were abstracted due to cpu restraints. Is that still the case now or is the bottleneck still the threading? Hopefully one day we will be able to see the actual supply columns on the map doing their thing.

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

We really need multithreading for the AI first.

 

[Iconoclast]

Hey,

from a programmer perspective: What exactly is a 'multithreading AI'? Would that mean that. let's say, each BnCdr has his own 'AI'? I am just curious.

Cheers,

A

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

At the moment we have one command per side containing all the units of that side. Both sides/commands use the same AI thread for processing their AI events - ie assessing the situation, developing plans, reacting etc. So at the moment all the events get banked up in a queue and processed serially. Multithreaded AI would see us say having one thread for each command and having multiple commands per side. So you may end up with say eight commands and eight AI threads. These threads would then be assigned to one of the CPU cores on your machine. Now some machines may only have four cores, others may have more. At any one time we could process say four or more AI events instead of the current one. It is a way of spreading the processor load so there is concurrent processing being done not serial processing. Or in other words utilising the existing processing capacity.

 

[GoodGuy]

At the moment we have one command per side containing all the units of that side. Both sides/commands use the same AI thread for processing their AI events - ie assessing the situation, developing plans, reacting etc. So at the moment all the events get banked up in a queue and processed serially.

If the scenario designer doesn't field a Supreme Command HQ (say Army or Korps HQ), but just say 5 Regiments with their HQs, would the scenario still be a valid scenario, or does the ScenMaker (or the game) insist on a supreme HQ (either as a noshow or as real reinforcement) in CO2?
And if it's valid, who'll be in charge (what would the descision process behind it look like)?

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

It should be valid but one of those will have to be designated the on map boss and it will probably end up overloaded and you'll suffer order delays.

 

[GoodGuy]

It should be valid but one of those will have to be designated the on map boss and it will probably end up overloaded and you'll suffer order delays.

That's what I was aiming for, it would actually be a desired effect, even if it would also mean that some units are just sitting there waiting for orders or reorg'ing, as it would force the enemy AI to maintain a less mobile defensive stance, for the aim to simulate bogged down fronts, which was discussed here:

http://forums.lnlpublishing.com/threads/the-corridor-new-scenario.1101/page-2