Incorporating the Waypoint Features

I just finished the waypoint manager and have come to the realization that the fighter AI will need significant reworking to function with the new waypoint manager.  It's not a complete rewrte; there are many key functions that will remain in place with minor changes.  The primary change is in the logic flow.

First the logic flow is not intuitive and is very disorganized on a design level.  Second, the intercept routines will become the primary driver.  Currently, there are any number of "intercept" routines.  These will be consolidated into a two intercept routines (one for turning; one for thrust) and two avoidance routines (one for turning; one for thrust).  Each of these routines will accept a Transform variable.  The waypoint manager will just pass the waypoint's Transform to facilitate movement.  In addition, other Transform variable can be passed to intercept routines. 

The new outline will be:

1.      Initialize global variables

a.      Add an avoidance Transform variable

b.      Add an avoidance flag with a default value of false

c.      Add an escape flag with a default value of false

2.      Target selection

a.      Iterate through all targets in the DradisList

                                                    i.     Check for collision zones

                                                   ii.     Catalogue eligible targets into a target list (limited to five targets) using range and direction parameters

b.      If the fighter is in a collision zone or if there is a collision alert via raycasting in front of the ship

                                                    i.     Calculate avoidance transform position

                                                   ii.     Set movement Transform variable to avoidance Transform calculated by this routine

                                                  iii.     Set the avoidance flag to true

c.      If fighter has sufficient fuel (less than 10% fuel), has ammo and is combat capable (greater than 25% structure remaining) execute maneuvering routines.

                                                    i.     Selecting a target from the target list

1.      If the target list is empty

a.      If there is a mission target

                                                                                                                i.     Set mission target as current target

                                                                                                               ii.     Set the escape flag to false

2.      If the target list is not empty

a.      Calculate probability baseline by adding an iteration of the targets in the target list (5+4+3+2+1 = 15).

b.      Generate a random number based on baseline number (1-15)

c.      Calculate number of item selected by iterating through the number of targets in the target list (1-5 = 1, 6-10 = 2, etc…)

d.      Make the target associate with calculated number the current target

e.      Set the escape flag to false

                                                   ii.     If the current target is null

1.      If there is a waypoint in the waypoint data script

a.      Set the current target to the waypoint’s Transform

2.      Otherwise

a.      Set the current target to the closest friendly carrier ship

b.      Set the escape flag to true

d.      Otherwise

                                                    i.     Set the current target to the closest friendly carrier ship’s approach point

                                                   ii.     Set the escape flag to true

e.      If there’s an avoidance flag

                                                    i.     If the escape flag is true

1.      If the avoidance target is equal to the root transform of the current target

a.      Set the avoidance target to null

b.      Set the avoidance flag to false

3.      Maneuver the ship

a.      If the avoidance flag is true

                                                    i.     Execute avoidance routine and pass the avoidance Transform variable

b.      Otherwise

                                                    i.     Execute the intercept routine and pass the current target

The current thrusting routines will not change; however, I do plan on making future changes to it.  Currently, the thrust routines just sets the thrust to maximum.  Future plans are to make the thrust setting more variable depending on situation.  This might entail another rewrite of the AI routines; I'll just have to tackle it when I'm ready to add this feature.