Ahem.

class Major : public Minor {
...
};

The insinuation is not that Minor NPCs are "intellectually inferior" to Major NPCs, but rather that the intelligence is of a Hive nature, rather than Individual. They are capable of complex thought, however, they act like the Borg, for example.

Just have a class constructor specifically for inheriting from a Minor NPC.

Sorry for the coder speak... but you could use some sort of Proxy object for an NPC that presents an ''intelligent'' interface to the rest of the game, but hides the fact that the NPC might actually have no knowledge yet. Initially, an NPC could just exhibit dumb hive flocking mentality or whatever, but when queried for more detailed information, it would allow the NPC to be dynamically fleshed out as appropriate. And when an NPC has been ignored for long enough, it could ''lose'' the detailed part of its intelligence so that the game data doesn''t just grow and grow. This would allow you to give NPCs a memory for significant things that have happened to them, without necessarily having to distinguish between ''major'' and ''minor'' ones. More interestingly perhaps, an NPC with no set role in the plot would have the capability to feature prominently in certain cases.

Another idea is to take a procedural approach to NPC attributes, generating them as necessary. So, instead of this:

class NPC{int unique_id;int hair_colour;int eye_colour;int home_town;int race;int class;int number_of_beers_can_safely_consume;// etc....} all_npcs[32000]; 

you could do this:

class NPC{int unique_id;int GetHairColour();int GetEyeColour();//etc...} all_npcs[32000]; 

All you have to do is base the results of GetHairColour() and the other functions deterministically on the unique id, and you potentially have totally unique NPCs, that will always ''remember'' their details, and yet never need more than a single integer to store them.

I admit that this system only addresses constants such as description, background, attributes and personality, rather than events that have occurred to that character in the game, but a combination of the 2 approaches could work well to add the appearance of a really detailed and consistent world that doesn''t require a lot of wasted CPU resources.

quote:you could do this:

class NPC
{
int unique_id;
int GetHairColour();
int GetEyeColour();
//etc...
} all_npcs[32000];

  class Minor_NPC {  unsigned long unique_id; // 2 billion NPCs (max)  unsigned short Appearance; // hair, eye and race/skin color (bitflags)  vector Position;           // where they are in the world  ai_func *Sub_AI;           // Function pointer to their AI subroutine  } all_npcs[MAX_NPCS];  

Of course you would want to add a couple of values for occupation, and perhaps parentage, which would determine social status etc. for you. These values would allow you to calculate almost every other variable you''d need, rather than having to store them in precious memory.

And I''d rather use a list than an array. Much easier to update when NPCs die, or you want to add new ones,

What do you mean? You could control all the vehicles in both Syndicate & Syndicate Wars.

I loved the Battletanks, and the APCs got me through so many tough situations.