State machine AI for multiple enemies

You could try putting the code within the enemy objects as a behaviour. Pretty sure that way the groups won't affect each instance. Someone here should be able to confirm this.

Hello, I have created an example of how I use to do this.
Hope it helps =)

Your example is so complex... working with only 4 events.

Something I can clarify in the code?
Cannot think of an easier way to achieve what's requested, or how to achieve group activation/deactivation without looping through each of the objects in some way =/

If there is a way I would gladly like to know =)

Quote from Vease

Something I can clarify in the code?
Cannot think of an easier way to achieve what's requested, or how to achieve group activation/deactivation without looping through each of the objects in some way =/

If there is a way I would gladly like to know =)

See my mfa.

Ahh.. sorry. My bad. Maybe I misunderstood the question.
Thought the question was how to use groups for different actions, and use group activation/deactivation (which could be useful in more complex cases).

I'm far from the cleverest coder around these parts, so I may well be missing something, but I just can't see a way around your problem. The way I see it, the beauty of your original state machine is that it works 'automatically', in a sense. No matter what, Fusion will read and execute the code from beginning to end, once per cycle. So all you're doing is turning groups on/off before it gets there. It's a bit like releasing a marble at the top of a ramp, and then quickly running ahead of it to insert/remove various obstacles in its way. Throughout the whole thing, the marble remains 'dumb': all it does is roll, once, from start to finish, with no idea of the frantic work you've just done in setting up its itinerary.

But what you're proposing with these enemies requires that the marble no longer be 'dumb'. Now, running code once per cycle, from start to finish, isn't enough. The marble can no longer be be allowed to merely run its natural course, but now needs to skip ahead, backtrack, and re-run various parts of the ramp many times, all in the same cycle. I just don't see how you can get the marble to do these new acrobatics, without doing something like what Vease and Patrice have suggested. The marble now needs 'signposts' to help it navigate its new, much more complicated journey, and things like "on loop" or "if state = " are those signposts.

Is copying-pasting one line at the start of a whole bunch of events really that much of a problem? If it is, I wonder if one of the "Function" extensions would help you. I've never used them myself, but from what I can (hazily) remember of my Actionscript days, a function is perhaps what you're after. There are a few different function objects in the Extension Manager - maybe have a play with one of them.

I like Volnaiskras marble analogy and think it descibes the scenario quite well.

I can recognize 2 ways of implementing a State Machine for multiple enemy instances.
The question of using Loops or not is unrelevant from my point of view, as you can often avoid using Loops by taking goog advantage og AlterableValues.

#1
( as mentioned previously )
For all Events that belong to a particular State, add a Condition "State=..." on top of that Event.

I didnt read everything too carefully so forgive me if im wrong here, but i understand that you are worried about (A) code looking messy and (B) Events running unessesarily when States are inactive and potentially resulting in some kind og lag/ slowdown of the Application.

-A-
I wouldnt worry much about the extra condition on Events using thos method. If your using this method this is the way it has to be, but it only means you have to insert this extra Condition ( State=... ) for Events relating to Enemies behaviour/ AI and not ALL events.
Code 'will' get messy, try to make the best out of it.

-B-
I wouldnt worry much about this if you do it correctly,considder theese Events and let me explain:

EVENT#1
+ State = 5
+ Enemy ShotsFired =< 3*NumberOfEnemies+1/ ClipSize
+ Enemy is overlapping Player
-> Do some Action...

EVENT#2
+ State = 5
+ Enemy is overlapping Player
-> Do some Action

Fusion runns Events and Condition from top to bottom.
- If no Enemies have State=5, the only part of the Events that will get checked is 'is State=5?' ( wich will be False ) and Fusion will skip the rest of the Conditions ( Fusion will not use resources to do the calculation or perform the colision check ) and move on to tje next Event below.
So nothing is running unessesarily or eating wast resorces as long as the 'fundemental' Condition in this case ( State=... ) is placed First.
- in the case that 2 of 5 Enemies have State=5, Fusion will first select the 2 Enemies and then perform the calculation and colision check for theese 2 Enemies.

#2
( also as mentioned previously ) Implement the Enemies State Machine code/ behavior inside the Enemies 'Behavior Event Editor'.
I have not used this method before, bit i assume it will enable/ dissble GroupsOfEvents dynamically.
Id be more than happy to test this and provide an example when im back.

Ive also heard there are some ( minor maybe ) issues with Behaviour Events, but it should be a perfectly valid way to code.
One thing i would like to 'stress' however ( if choosing to work with Behaviour Events is this:

Fusion checks Events from top to bottom, and the ordet your Events are triggered do matter and can be critical ( especially for large or complex creatoons ).

There a few different Event Editors, and its wize to know in what order they are checked.

I will list them here in the order ther are checked:
- Frame Events
- Global Events
- Behaviour Events

Also note that if you choose to work woth multiple Event Editors, you need to jump back and forth between them to get a complete overview of whats going on ( as opposet to using only 1 of the Editors to have 1 compleete list of all your code ), but if you know what your doing or have planned carefully this shouldnt be a huge issue.

I reserve the right to be wrong about any of this, and please correct me if im wrong.

Hope this helps.
Huggs and kisses

Hey, am I late? I have this mini example (If I understood correctly): Please login to see this attachment.

I believe (and correct me if this has changed) but Qualifiers are not able to be used in Behaviors. So that is one limitation...

Yep, I just tried it, and qualifiers don't seem to work in behaviours.

Personally, behaviours to me seem like a messier solution than all the others. They're fiddly to get to, they're easy to forget about or neglect, there's no easy way to jump to them with a hotkey from the other editors, they fragment your code, they can't handle qualifiers. I dunno, that just doesn't seem as elegant as, say, BartekB's example above. Just my 2 cents though.

There is a workaround to get qualifiers in behaviours and global events, there's a forum post somewhere explaining it but weirdly i cant find it

I tested to see if 'Behaviour Events' for Instances handle 'Group Of Events' seperatly ( see example ).
According to the test it does not.

It appears that the 'Behaviour Events' for an Object is global for all Instances of the Object.
In the context of this thread it means that if 1 Enemy Instance changes from one State to another ( Deactivates one Group and Activates another ), this happens for all other Instances as well.

...
I had another idea, about creating new Behaviours for each of the States and simply switch between the behaviours to swich States.
I'm not sure this will work any better but am not able to test this as I cant find any way to swich/ activate/ deactivate behaviours from the Event Editor.

The idea about replacing an Active Object to change State is an interesting one.

You have a qualifyer on each of the AOs that can reffer to the Enemy in general, while State specific code could reffer to the specific AOs representing the State.

A potentiall ( am not sure but thiink it will be an issue ) issue with this would be frequent fram drops/ lag as muliple enemies change states, due to the fact that a new AO with a new set of graphics and animations will be loaded on each State change.
It depends on the graphical size of the AO an number of Frames/ Animations it has of cource, for example if its 2-3 animations per State with 5 Frames per animation i dont think it would impact performance much.

Transferring data from one AO to another uppin State change is unproblematic.

Id like to suggest however to just roll with State change based on an AltValue and just accept the extra conditions youll have to add.
Its not really that bad at all, CF is very powerfull and lets you create excellent fuctionallity in very short time, and the extra conditions youll have to add doesnt really deduct you or set you back much in terms of time or days.
It could be much worse.

Entirely new actives for each different states is not a good idea. Creating and destroying objects is quite expensive on performance so I don't recommend it.

Anyway, I think what you're asking for is a condition for multiple events/actions. I believe Fusion 3 already has this covered named "Child Events": Please login to see this link.

For toggling behaviours, can't you just do a version of your original state machine?

Say your enemy has 3 different behaviours. In each of the 3 event sheets, you put all of the code into a folder, and then you add a line at the very top that switches the group on/off depending on state.