Re: Major improvement to the Xconq kernel

[Eric McDonald <mcdonald at phy dot cmich dot edu>]

Hi Peter,

On Mon, 17 Nov 2003, Peter Garrone wrote:

> In my proposed patch a path node that was in the unknown has a special flag bit set.
> If that bit is set, then the path is recalculated each hex. That
> way an exploring unit will follow roads and avoid obstacles. It
> should be reasonably efficient because searching in the black is cheap.

Sounds good. I think that addresses the issue.

> > (due to low supplies) when they pulled out of supply range while 
> > heading to a remote destination. (This might not be strictly a 
> > path-related problem.)
> 
> I have later plans to incorporate refueling behavior into the
> pathfinding algorithm. The node state would be position and amount of
> fuel. As a node runs out of fuel it becomes un-pathable, so to speak.
> With care, it should be possible to transport aircraft across the board,
> without needing to plan all the refueling stops.

Good.

> I dont think the current behavior is different to the prior behavior,
> so perhaps we should get to the prior functionality first.

Might not be. And, like I said, I am not sure it is path-related. 
Along as the SupplyLow flags are checked as a unit is advancing 
along a cached path, then I think we basically have the old 
behavior. (Namely, automatic movement would cease when a supply 
became low.)

There seem to be some other factors at work wrt the supply 
problem.

  Regards,
   Eric