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* Converts Spiderlings from Structures to Basic Mobs (#75001) If I could've made this more atomic, I would have in a heartbeat, trust me. ## About The Pull Request Hey there. People were mocking us for having spiderlings still be a subtype of `/obj/structure`. I decided to take a lot of time to fix that. A lot of behavior it was implementing was just pseudo-mob stuff, so it was actually easier than it looked for the raw conversion. A lot of the footwork on spider stuff in the basic framework was already done previously by Jacquerel, so that was pretty nice. However, there are two new things that weren't introduced in the code that had to be put in. A) A component to handle growth and differentiation into a mob. This may have already existed, no clue. If it does (and it's NOT evolutionary_leap), let me know. B) AI Behavior to handle seeking out a vent, entering a vent, and then exiting out of a different vent. I may have gone a bit wacky on the code, but it certainly works as expected (spiderling goes in one vent, exits the other). Let me know if you can think of a way it can be better optimized, but it was deliberately written to be very failsafey in case shit goes yonkers. One fundamental difference between structure spiderlings and basic mob spiderlings (beyond the AI and not just a random prob() check for movement) is the fact that they had vent movement coded in... but we _really_ don't need stuff like that for our intents and purposes. If the range turns out to be too OP in the current framework, we can always change it up a bit, but also there's a _lot_ of vents we can end up in the station (my testing had one spiderling end up in the AI sat to get obliterated). ## Why It's Good For The Game Spiderlings aren't structures! They behave like a mob should! Players can possess spiderlings! They work seamlessly with differentiating into a giant spider! Better AI! More room for people to add into this very under-utilized buggers! ## Changelog 🆑 refactor: Spiderlings are now basic mobs, report any complete weirdness/deviation from known behavior. They should be a lot more intelligent now though. add: AI Spiderlings are super fragile, but they're also super fast, especially when they get into a vent. Once they're in circulation, they could end up everywhere! Maybe in the armory, maybe in a locked closet in maintenance. Be sure to be vigilant and splat them whenever you can to save the station from a whole lotta heartache! /🆑 --------- Co-authored-by: MrMelbert <51863163+MrMelbert@ users.noreply.github.com> * Converts Spiderlings from Structures to Basic Mobs --------- Co-authored-by: san7890 <the@san7890.com> Co-authored-by: MrMelbert <51863163+MrMelbert@ users.noreply.github.com>
AI controllers
Introduction
Our AI controller system is an attempt at making it possible to create modularized AI that stores its behavior in datums, while keeping state and decision making in a controller. This allows a more versatile way of creating AI that doesn't rely on OOP as much, and doesn't clutter up the Life() code in Mobs.
AI Controllers
A datum that can be added to any atom in the game. Similarly to components, they might only support a given subtype (e.g. /mob/living), but the idea is that theoretically, you could apply a specific AI controller to a big a group of different types as possible and it would still work.
These datums handle both the normal movement of mobs, but also their decision making, deciding which actions they will take based on the checks you put into their SelectBehaviors proc.
If behaviors are selected, and the AI is in range, it will try to perform them. It runs all the behaviors it currently has in parallel; allowing for it to for example screech at someone while trying to attack them. As long as it has behaviors running, it will not try to generate new plans, making it not waste CPU when it already has an active goal.
They also hold data for any of the actions they might need to use, such as cooldowns, whether or not they're currently fighting, etcetera this is stored in the blackboard, more information on that below.
Blackboard
The blackboard is an associated list keyed with strings and with values of whatever you want. These store information the mob has such as "Am I attacking someone", "Do I have a weapon". By using an associated list like this, no data needs to be stored on the actions themselves, and you could make actions that work on multiple ai controllers if you so pleased by making the key to use a variable.
AI Behavior
AI behaviors are the actions an AI can take. These can range from "Do an emote" to "Attack this target until he is dead". They are singletons and should contain nothing but static data. Any dynamic data should be stored in the blackboard, to allow different controllers to use the same behaviors.
Guides:
Making Your AI: Quickly runs through how to make an ai controller for anything with a step by step development of one.