AI development (bots) / AI engine

[planetacancun]

AI development (bots) / AI engine

All this has been going around my head like hamsters on a wheel

I want to share some thoughts I had on a possible AI engine for FlightGear. Of course this is just some ideas I had. Please comment on it.

• The AI should control waypoint destinations for different type of bots into FlightGear. AI frames should work independently on each machine connected to the network and should be managed from a general interaction AI service running on the server, as long as there is more than 1 user online to save bandwidth. This AI should be processed in each CPU and the server should be informed of bots location so all other nodes know what everyone is seeing in the limit range.
• Bots should react to multiplayer events like avoiding aircraft crash and attack/defend/escape from enemies in combat.
• The AI engine should be bounded to the multiplayer code basically for the implementation of bots, and the hit detection code between them.
• All bots should interact with the users into the FlightGear Network interconecting respective AI code from all computers, and sharing common code for their interaction like add/delete/create bots between connected users, with a maximum to be determined by network usaje by the master server. Users, for them to see the same as you do, need to see/use/share their bots, this ones being airplanes, cars, helicopters, maybe buildings or user created content sharing (copy/transfer bot AI?).
• We could download the models from the connected users (checkbox selectable) or from an alternate HTTP server(also checkbox), like in other games. P2P maybe? Torrent download for content? Also could be necessary to delete all bots from a disconnected player.

With the existing hit detection system (I got it from CVS and now I crash other online users planes too) and a common ground FG could have/be an interactive network, all coordinated by the master server, to create fully dynamically interactive world (like the Matrix), without the people (or with it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKO2yci0cDA ) and users could interact with bots for training simulations or team/death match play.

All this could lead to creating independent/personal FlightGear servers from the user's computers (for combat for example) for offloading bandwidth usage from the master server, but still maintaining contact for broadcasting the servers and to keep a list of connected users and their bots. Maybe the master server would allow a very limited amount of bots you can spawn (for world interconnection as it is now) and a personal server would allow you to define the number of bots you want (as many as your hardware/bandwidth allows you)

At the end it will need some admin tools to manage connections like Shrubbot: http://www.shitstorm.org/noquarter/wiki ... e=Shrubbot

Searching for AI on Google I found this explanation: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_(artificial_intelligence)"
(please copy paste last address)

Content to read:
http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/Technical_Reports
http://www.xs4all.nl/~dtalsma/flightgear.html
AI projects
http://steam.csres.utexas.edu/~ikarpov/ ... de08-demo/
http://nn.cs.utexas.edu/keyword?rtneat
http://nerogame.org/
Game Engines:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/d ... _Engine.3F
http://www.delta3d.org

[planetacancun]

haha is it too deep?

see also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_game_bot

[MD-Terp]

Might be a topic better suited for the developers' mailing list. The link for it can be found on the main Flightgear page under the submenu "support," bottom-most option.

[planetacancun]

Lol I got it out of my chest and it's here now

Anyways I talked to one of the devs from http://nn.cs.utexas.edu/ and he told me that it was a very interesting project to make He asked me how he could help but yes, it needs more dev to dev chat. Well, when you need AI into this that could be a way to make it.

[Hooray]

AI development (bots)

I only saw this thread due to the new AI sub forum, I am not sure if I understood everything you wrote, but I think you are making this more complicated than it needs to be.
If this is all about "bots" controlling aircraft, then you can do this already.
Take for example a look at another discussion a couple of days ago: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6807&p=66463#66463 (should probably also be moved to the new AI sub forum), where I roughly sketched out how to use Nasal to control an aircraft.

So this could then be used to create such "bots" (scripted pilots) for aircraft by using Nasal.

Thorsten has recently shown in very impressive ways that this method works really well and that Nasal can be used for many things already, including dynamic placement of AI objects:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6968
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7107
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7358


but I think you might already be able to do most of this, without too much work.

[glazmax]

I have to agree with Hooray.

Basically you can steer/animate an AI object in 2 different ways:
1.)Use the existing scenario/AI and update heading, position via a nasal script
advantages: less coding, good integration
drawbacks: has to be loaded at startup, therefore omipresent

2.)The nasal/model placement like in tanker.nas
drawbacks: requires more coding
advantages: (un-)loadable at runtime, very flexible

So it would be possibly the best way to generate an ai_plane.nas file similar to tanker.nas, that could be used for a wide range of applications. This script can then be steered via your own nasal AI script that is written for a specific purpose.

The second method is already in use for some model animations/movements and works well, so you could concentrate on the "real" AI part.

Fly on,
glazmax