Building

[mskala at ansuz dot sooke dot bc dot ca]

Attached is my attempt at a minimal game in which building can be tested
and bad behaviour demonstrated.  The file as attached comes close to the
behaviour I wanted - builds immediately, builds take material from
treasury, default run of one unit (not "as many as possible"), builds
anywhere within a controllable radius.  This is good enough.  The only
remaining issue is that it requires the shop to be given ACP, so I hope
I'll be able to make the shop stay asleep when it isn't wanted.  I haven't
been able to find a solution that uses acp-independent; acp-independent
always gives me undesired behaviour in one form or another, sometimes
quite bizarre.  Several of my failed attempts create behaviour where new
units will be built into the target cell until it's full, then into every
one of the six cells surrounding the builder until those are full as well.  
Builders seem to generally behave better if they have some capacity and
are building new units as occupants of themselves, but that's no panacea.

It looks to me like one of the problems is that we aren't clear on the
difference between "build" and "create".  It looks like the first action
used to make a new unit is supposed to be a "create", and any subsequent
actions (if and only if additional actions are needed beyond the first,
and that is not the default) are supposed to be "build".  But the "create"
action checks both the "build" and "create" tables for permission to do
its thing, and the "build" command in the UI isn't clear on which kind of
action it actually initiates.  It looks like it initiates either or both,
and sometimes also "move".
-- 
Matthew Skala
mskala@ansuz.sooke.bc.ca                    Embrace and defend.
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/

Attachment: bldtest.g
Description: Text document