Timeline for How can I maintain a rectangular formation when units are added or removed?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 26, 2013 at 13:06 | vote | accept | Tiby312 | ||
| Jul 25, 2013 at 22:04 | comment | added | Pieter Geerkens | @Tiby312: I believe you are over-thinking it. Give it a try, knowing you can always tune it later | |
| Jul 25, 2013 at 21:59 | comment | added | Tiby312 | I don't know. Having only one unit or a few in a rank of their own just doesn't look right to me, but it does make things less complex. | |
| Jul 25, 2013 at 21:27 | comment | added | Pieter Geerkens | @Tiby312: I wouldn't even worry about the back row density, except to space them out somewhat as the density drops. If they are placed symmetrically, I believe the formation will continue to look sharp. Another option to what I described above is to have the back rank all tight on the centre. | |
| Jul 25, 2013 at 16:29 | comment | added | Tiby312 | If the back rank has too few members (say less than 50% of the other ranks), and you increase the frontage, is this guaranteed to fix the problem, or is it possible that the back rank would still have too few members after increasing the frontage requiring it to be repeated or something? | |
| Jul 25, 2013 at 1:13 | history | edited | Pieter Geerkens | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jul 24, 2013 at 22:38 | history | edited | Pieter Geerkens | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jul 24, 2013 at 19:28 | comment | added | Ilmari Karonen | @Tiby312: It shouldn't be that expensive: it's only a few bots and you only need to do it once when the gap forms. (Unless the chosen bot somehow gets killed before reaching the gap; then you obviously have to choose another one to take its place. One way to do that would be to mark it as already "belonging in" the position it's moving towards, so that getting it killed triggers the same gap-filling behavior whether or not it already reached its designated position.) | |
| Jul 24, 2013 at 15:27 | comment | added | Tiby312 | It gets complicated because the back rank will ideally be centered, so the third column at the back rank might actually be most aligned to a different column of the main formation. I don't know...looking for the closest bot to fill it sounds needlessly expensive, but maybe it's the best way. Actually if you know how much off-center the back rank is, you could calculate the closest bot in the back rank without having to compare distances i think. | |
| Jul 24, 2013 at 14:15 | comment | added | Ilmari Karonen | Presumably, the closest bot in the back rank (i.e. the one in column 3) should run to fill it. Or you could save a bit of time by having the bots in columns 3 and 4 of the second-to-last rank each step one column up, moving the gap to column 3, and then have the bot at column 3 step forward to fill it. (IMO, the most "natural" looking strategy would probably be some heuristic combination of the two, possibly with some randomness thrown in.) | |
| Jul 24, 2013 at 13:55 | comment | added | Tiby312 | But hold on. Say the back rank only has 3 bots in it and are in columns 1, 2, and 3. And I remove someone from the 5th column someone near the front. I'd end up with a free spot on the second to last row in the 5th column without no bot behind it to take it's place. Who should fill this spot? | |
| Jul 24, 2013 at 13:50 | comment | added | Tiby312 | This sounds like a much more elegant solution. There is no need to fuss about prime numbers or aspect ratios at all, and yet it still avoids any row that has an unusually low number of bots on it, And the only condition that needs to be checked is how full the backrank is! | |
| Jul 24, 2013 at 13:50 | vote | accept | Tiby312 | ||
| Jul 25, 2013 at 23:34 | |||||
| Jul 24, 2013 at 4:00 | history | answered | Pieter Geerkens | CC BY-SA 3.0 |