[DM-dev] EnhancedDungeon class

[Henningsen <al...@gl...>]

I've been thinking that I'd like to get some practise with STL stuff, and
what better than to write my next contribution to the DungeonMaker. I'll
write a whole separate new class with a constructor

EnhancedDungeon(pDungeonMaker)

that calls pDungeonMaker->GetMap( , ) for initialization. Everything else is
independent from the old code. Stephan, as long as you don't change the
values/meanings of the numbers returned by GetMap, everything will mesh
nicely. I'll work from my latest code, and we can later merge.

The EnhancedDungeon will have data members called "focal points", and will
store the shortest path to all focal points right in the map, for use in AI
routines. Typical focal points will be the exit, and chokepoints like the
centers of rooms the player has to pass through, or the locations of NPC's,
what-have-you... Based on conditions (like "player close to focal point 1")
the AI can then switch the path-targets of monsters around, making them
appear smart. This is something I will need in the demo game I intend to
write, in order to orchestrate the behavior of large numbers of Pacman-like
mini-monsters. I think it will be useful in other circumstances also.

The code that finds the closest path from every point to the exit will also
identify enclosed spaces, and it is then very easy to break them open or put
a door in to make a room. So that is the second bit of functionality
EnhancedDungeon will add. This will allow the use of many
"openAtStart"-Crawlers, which have a chance of enclosing spaces, and will
even allow the introduction of "closed"-Crawlers, that are closed at the
start of their run, and leave no opening at the end of their run,
guaranteeing to create enclosed spaces and therefore rooms.

One suggestion for Stephan: In order to get lots of rooms, we need the
option to have "closed"-Crawlers. For that to function, we'd need a new
parameter in the stats (for every generation different), "closedProb", which
would be most similar to openAtStartProb and should be next to that. You
could test your flexible file handling stuff by introducing that, and I
could then implement its functionality in the core dungeon construction code
after I got my new class going. (Without the class, this will of course
totally wreck the dungeons.) You'd have to change the definition of the
stats-struct too... What do you think?

Anybody else has a thought about how to improve EnhancedDungeon? Speak up
while there's no code yet;-)

Peter