Using a lot of CPU?

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Aug 29 2013, 4:35 am
Okay, I see what you mean. Should I rather do a check on when a player moves using a for loop to see if there are enemies in his/her view and if there are, call the enemy' move proc?
Aug 29 2013, 4:46 am (Edited on Aug 29 2013, 4:51 am)
 
mob
    var
        BossN
        tmp/Boss

    EnemyNPC
        New()
            . = ..()
            spawn() move()

        proc
            move()
                while(src)
                    var/Target

                    for(var/mob/P in oview(6))
                        if(Target) continue
                        if(P.client && !Frozen) Target = P
                    if(Target) step_towards(src, Target)
                    else
                        if(Boss || QuestNPC) SpAtt()
                        sleep(10)
                    sleep(5)

            SpAtt()
                for(var/mob/P in oview(7)) if(P.client && !target) Target = P

                if(findtext(rank, "Mega") && target)
                   if(prob(25)) SpAttack1P()
                   else if(prob(50)) SpAttack2P()
                else SpAttack1P()

        Bump(mob/M)
            if(ismob(M)) if(M.client) if(canattack) AttackP(M)



The way you programmed the AI is pretty bad :S You should reprogram the procs and simplify everything, I'm sure you could make something better.
Aug 29 2013, 4:50 am
In response to Raimo
Raimo wrote:
Okay, I see what you mean. Should I rather do a check on when a player moves using a for loop to see if there are enemies in his/her view and if there are, call the enemy' move proc?

Basically that's the idea, yep!

They can have a loop that runs then, of course (so they can be made to take steps toward the player, or attack if in range), but this loop should only be activated by the player "telling" it to.
Aug 29 2013, 4:52 am
In response to SuperSaiyanGokuX
SuperSaiyanGokuX wrote:
Basically that's the idea, yep!

They can have a loop that runs then, of course (so they can be made to take steps toward the player, or attack if in range), but this loop should only be activated by the player "telling" it to.

What do you think about Eternal's way on using a target var?
Aug 29 2013, 5:08 am
In response to Raimo
Raimo wrote:
SuperSaiyanGokuX wrote:
Basically that's the idea, yep!

They can have a loop that runs then, of course (so they can be made to take steps toward the player, or attack if in range), but this loop should only be activated by the player "telling" it to.

What do you think about Eternal's way on using a target var?

Well, now that it's been brought up, here's my point of view.

If you're going to the trouble of running a search for players in view, then sticking one of them into a variable (as your original code did with "player_found", and Eternal's is doing with "Target"), then you should be using that variable to its fullest. Why should the attack procedure run another check to find a target, when move() already did that?

I would use your move() proc to find and select a target, then pass that target along to the attack procs so they can use the target that was found.

Your move() proc should do the following:

if no Target
  look for/find a Target
if Target was found
  if within range of Target
    Attack the Target
  else
    move towards Target


See the general idea in that plain English pseudo-code? Make the enemy select a Target, then have them go after or attack that Target, rather than have them look again to select a Target a second time in the attack proc.

You do this very simply by passing the Target (or player_found) through the call to the attack proc.
Aug 29 2013, 5:18 am
What way is more efficient, your first option or your second? Talking about CPU usage of DD itself.
Aug 29 2013, 5:40 am
Obviously, the fewer procedure calls/iterations, the better. So any system that reduces that number is more efficient.

However, these two concepts are not mutually exclusive! you can have it so that the move() loop is only running when it needs to be (when a player is nearby), and remove the second target check by finding a target once, and then passing it along.

Obviously, though, if you're activating their move() proc through player movement, you can probably just cut out the target search function entirely, and just pass that player into move() (and then on through to everything else.

One thing, though, is that you'd need to be careful that you're not activating the move() loop more than once at a time. Once the enemy has a target set, and is trying to chase/attack that target by their move() loop, then player steps should stop calling that enemy's move() proc.

One way to do that is to move the Target/player_found var into an actual var under the enemy mob type, so it will remain "permanent" (instead of being a temporary var within a proc). that way, you can check if the enemy has a target in your player's Move() proc, and only start the move() loop if they do not already have a target.

In fact, if you do this, then your move() loop can just use "while(target)" to run its course. Once there is a condition reached that the target is no longer the target (they moved out of range, or they were killed, basically), then you just set that var back to null, and the loop will stop.

This will also allow for on-the-fly target changes in a multiplayer environment. The enemy will go after whoever is their current target, and that can be changed if someone else wanders by.
Aug 31 2013, 10:29 am
Currently, I'm using a custom movement() proc to let players move. Anyway, I added a part in to check if enemies in the range of 7 tiles have found a player to attack, and if they already have, it breaks the for loop, but if they don't, it spawns their move() proc. Using that some mobs start attacking, other mobs keep standing in their place. Here is the movement() proc:
        movement()
            if(usr.moving||usr.Frozen||usr.AFK)
                return
            src.moving++
            while(1)
                if(src.north)
                    if(!src.south)
                        if(src.east)
                            if(!src.west)
                                if(src.diagonals)
                                    step(src,NORTHEAST)
                            else
                                step(src,NORTH)
                        else
                            if(src.west)
                                if(src.diagonals)
                                    step(src,NORTHWEST)
                            else
                                step(src,NORTH)
                else
                    if(src.south)
                        if(src.east)
                            if(!src.west)
                                if(src.diagonals)
                                    step(src,SOUTHEAST)
                            else
                                step(src,SOUTH)
                        else
                            if(src.west)
                                if(src.diagonals)
                                    step(src,SOUTHWEST)
                            else
                                step(src,SOUTH)
                if(src.east)
                    if(!src.north&&!src.south&&!west)
                        step(src,EAST)
                    else 
                        if(src.north&&src.south&&!west)
                            step(src,EAST)
                else
                    if(src.west)
                        if(!src.north&&!src.south)
                            step(src,WEST)
                        else
                            if(src.north&&src.south)
                                step(src,WEST)

                if(!src.north&&!src.south&&!src.east&&!src.west)
                    src.moving--
                    return
                else
                    sleep(move_delay)
                for(var/mob/EnemyNPC/E in ohearers(7,src))
                    if(E.player_found)
                        break
                    else
                        spawn() E.move()

And here is the current EnemyNPC AI:
mob
    var
        BossN
        tmp/Boss=0
    EnemyNPC
        var
            mob/player_found = null
        proc
            move()
                if(!player_found)
                    for(var/mob/P in ohearers(7,src))
                        if(P.client && !src.Frozen)
                            player_found = P
                            break
                    if(src.Boss||src.QuestNPC)
                        src.SpAtt()
                        spawn(10)
                            move()
                        return //stop the regular loop
                if(player_found)
                    step_towards(src,player_found)
                    if(get_dist(src,player_found)>7)
                        player_found = null
                spawn(5)
                    move()

            SpAtt()
                src.target=player_found
                switch(src.rank)
                    if("Mega","Mega Lv-2","Mega Lv-3")
                        random=rand(1,4)
                        if(random==1)
                            src.SpAttack1P()

                        if(random==2||random==3)
                            src.SpAttack2P()
                    else
                        src.SpAttack1P()
                    break //don't target everyone in range. just one.

        Bump(mob/M)
            if(ismob(M))
                if(M.client && src.canattack)
                    src.AttackP(M)

Can anyone help me out please? Thanks in advance!
Aug 31 2013, 10:42 am (Edited on Aug 31 2013, 10:47 am)
This is for the player.

mob/proc/Movement()
    for()
        . = 0
        sleep(move_delay)
        if(moving||Frozen||AFK)
            continue
        if(north)       .+=1//NORTH
        else if(south)  .+=2//SOUTH
        if(east)        .+=4//EAST
        else if(west)   .+=8//WEST
        if(.)
            step(src,.)
            moving++
            for(var/mob/EnemyNPC/E in ohearers(7,src))
                if(E.player_found)
                    continue
                else
                    spawn()E.move()
        else
            moving--
Aug 31 2013, 4:15 pm
I've used continue instead of break, now it works.
Aug 31 2013, 4:46 pm
Sorry for the double post, but I managed to get DD's CPU usage from 45-50% to 2-3% with that. Thanks a lot guys, it really works great now.
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