In my last post
I talked about doing some fiddlying inspired by smart agent
behavior. This is the start.
So, what is it doing?
It kind of plays a big game of tag (or hunting, in
Crichton's Predator/Prey verbage). It sets one as "it" and puts
it somewhere on the screen (randomly). This game of tag sucks:
there is only one thing to be tagged and it can't move. The other
things (also randomly placed; 200 of them in this setup [much more
than that and it gets a bit slow]) all then try to "tag" it. It
creates a bunch of agents that all "think" for themselves (in a
very limited fashion). They look at where they are and where the
"tagee" is. Then they turn to face the tagee and move forward. And
they do this 90 times / second. There are 2 limits on this
behavior: 1. There is a maximum rate at which they can only turn
(these guys are pretty fast: 92 degrees per movement) 2. They turn
the wrong way from time to time (these guys are pretty smart, they
go the wrong way about 16% of the time - and then they follow that
wrong course, on average, for 14 movements)
There are a few other variables I can set and then re-run the
"simulation." They can turn at a certain rate. They have a certain
speed. They are a certain size. In the above setup I've modeled
them after insects: they are small and can turn quickly. You can
make them look more like bats or a general swarm (if they get
really small). It'll get more interesting as I add more logic to
the agents (e.g. "stay a safe distance away from your
fellows").