Originally posted on Team Covenant
I’ve been interested for a while now in Javin a projector-based visualisation tool for X-Wing, which would have several components ultimately:
1) A projector table to show off visualisation software, such as Vassal or a bespoke coded program.
2) Interactive table features to allow AR tags on ship bases to be recognised on the table as a hybrid computer/physical game interface.
3) Artificial intelligence opponents that could play either a virtual opponent or a physical opponent.
Sadly, the two students I put on this over 2013 were rather poor in delivering results, so the project was sort of shelved for a while. Anyway, I am now looking at Vassal as the main visualisation software, rather than creating our own testbed, because it has become ubiquitous in online play; the exceptional work in appearance and functionality of Vassal is well above anything that I could do in the short term. So, I am now looking at ways to modify/extend Vassal and/or the X-Wing module to allow asteroid and ship positions (x,y,ø) to be transmitted to an outside process for A.I. planning of ship movements. These would then need to be passed back to the settings for the AI. movement dials, ideally, but we need to be realistic. Many rulings and interpretations of pilot abilities and general implementation of movement would still require a human to apply.
Anyway, when (if!) I make any progress on Javin I will, of course, post it here.
UPDATE
I’ve been playing with Vassal basic editing, and come up with a ‘canon’ extra fighter, the TIE/d (Note, not the TIE/D which is the Defender. In this case the ‘d’ stands for ‘drone’). If you would like to run these, the important thing to do as ‘human’ players is to simulate a basic A.I. and have craft engaging in swarm (as in bot) behaviour; keeping apart, but pursuing the nearest enemy, regardless of ‘who’ is tactically best to attack. NOTE: This player should be immune to ‘Biggs’ despite the fact that this is not specifically mentioned on the card I created, as it only just occurred to me; this depends upon ‘how’ the Biggs Effect works of course. Also, on considering the weak A.I. of the lookup table (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) / Web Applet as a suitable model for the first version of an inbuilt A.I. that system ignores assigning Stress Tokens, because it would occasionally produce illegal moves otherwise; when a Red move came up and the ship was already stressed. There are two solutions to this:
- Allow the move, but stack up the stress counters, which would represent increasing confusion on the part of the bot brain and prevent actions until all had been cleared off.
- Update/extend the lookup table to account for occasional restrictions on movements, which would complicate the basic A.I. table quite a bit.
Pilot Card
Ship Token (with stats)
I’ll include a download link here once I’ve finished the Vassal extension and tested it.
