Re: [TuxKart-devel] Ideas for AI

[Oliver J. <ol...@po...>]

On Tue, Jun 29, 2004 at 06:11:22PM +0000, Charles Goodwin wrote:
> 
> I also don't believe we should make each driver in the race be of
> increased difficulty so it is hard to get to #1.  Some people aren't
> game wizards and they'll find it frustrating if they can't win on easy.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean here, but I think there should be an 
approach similar to Mario Kart - where the AI ahead of you becomes weaker, 
and the AI behind you becomes stronger (or maybe just adjust the speed). This 
causes the karts to bunch a bit more and means that a good player always has 
a threat of being overtaken, and a weak player always has a chance to 
overtake.

> As for determining strong AI vs weak AI, if you could classify actions
> as "good, bad, or normal", where strong AI will use a mix of good and
> normal, medium AI use mostly normal actions, and weak AI a mix of bad
> and normal actions, and an invincible AI that only makes good choices.

But how do you define good choices? Is it better to take the corner in the 
fastest possible way, or to take it in a slower way that leads to collecting 
a powerup?

Basically, what you're saying is that we need to define some heuristics to 
determine what actions to take. It's not as simple as good/bad/normal 
decisions. For example, taking a slower route to collect a powerup makes less 
sense if you are in the lead.