Re: [Tads3] knowledge / 'seen' / npc knowledge base

["steve breslin" <versim@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Eric Eve writes:

> One reason that springs to mind for distinguishing between known and seen
> might be in connexion with the hints system; for example a goal might 
> become
> open on the PC's becoming aware of the existence of an item (known) and
> closed when the PC physically finds it (seen). I can also imagine 
> situations
> where one might want to preserve this distinction in the isActive condition
> of TopicEntrys, where what the PC asks may be different if s/he has 
> actually
> seen an object from what it would be if s/he had merely heard about about.
Good points. It does appear that at least some objects can be both known and 
seen, and that these two things don't necessarily mean the same thing. In 
this case, I would revise my suggestion for knowledge base thusly:

Let's have two vectors for each actor, one for 'knowledge' and one for 
'experience' or something like that (I guess the latter would be able to 
include sounds having been heard or invisible objects having been felt or 
whatever -- but this is a complication which draws us away from my main 
point).

(The above seems nicer than giving each Thing an isKnownBy and hasBeenSeenBy 
vector, but that would work also.)

Whenever we encounter code which is to mark an object as known, we should 
add this object to the knowledge vector of the actor in question; likewise 
with the experienced or 'seen' stuff. This would simplify and expand the 
present setup as I understand it.

If we have a basis for this in the main library, any modules which need to 
deal with NPC knowledge don't have to write a new mechanism for doing this. 
(And I imagine this coming up in more than one module, so it would be nice 
to have some convention for NPC knowledge to avoid conflicts and streamline 
the code.)

(An example of good NPC knowledge (or sight) usage: the map data by which 
actors find the shortest route between rooms could include only connectors 
known to the NPC. Another: NPC knowledge of topics or objects; certain 
responses might be active only when a corresponding topic is known to the 
actor. Another: handling of a '>BOB, GO FIND THE BALL' command; this command 
might only work if bob has seen the ball before, or if the ball has already 
come up in conversation, or some such knowledge/sight precondition.)

_________________________________________________________________
Fast, faster, fastest: Upgrade to Cable or DSL today!   
https://broadband.msn.com