Hey, Last year I did a project on path finding and motion planning and I wrote a application to support the theory and to use at a demo for my fellow colleagues (yes, they let us do presentations at university here, it was a great experience to be able to show something you''ve worked on very hard for several months :-)) Anyway, the app was written in VB and with the summer holidays coming up, I would like to rewrite the thing in VC++6, making it more stable, better, bigger,... The way I see it now, it will involve robots in an environment and I would like to add ''proven tactics'' to their movements. So I''m looking for a source (site, book,...) on evasive maneouvres and battle tactics that aircrafts and ships use to attack or defend their position (like the Crazy Ivan manoeuvre in The Hunt for The Red October). Furthermore, in Star Trek they''re always mentioning ''attack patern omega'' or ''the Picard manouevre'' and stuff like that. Are there actually sources that give pictures and technical details on how such moves are implemented? Any help is appreciated! ****************************** Stefan Baert On the day we create intelligence and consciousness, mankind becomes God. On the day we create intelligence and consciousness, mankind becomes obsolete... ******************************

I''ve seen a bunch of Army/Marine web sites that have their squad-level combat tactics, and I''ve seen some nice writeups on naval engagement tactics, but nothing quite like what you''re describing. If you do find something along those lines I''d appreciate getting the link from you myself...that would make a good addition to the page.




Ferretman

From the High Mountains of Colorado

Kylotan,

Well, about 90% of my year probably felt ''forced'' as well, so it might just be me ''enjoying'' to do a presentation. And I was nervous and wished I didn''t had to do it about 5 min. before ''I went on stage'' but after that, it was OK.

On topic now: Is there really no-one who has info on this? Please?

******************************
Stefan Baert

On the day we create intelligence and consciousness, mankind becomes God.
On the day we create intelligence and consciousness, mankind becomes obsolete...
******************************

Yes, have to second Kylotan, infact had to do one as part of my grade for final year project, so not only do they force you but without it you might fail.

That was only one of many by the way, and it doesn''t stop there, you get more to do as you work.

ElwoodPDowd,

I have only scanned the site and I guess that there will be some useful links available overthere.

The problem is that most of these sites give some info on movements of whole groups of soldiers whereas I''m more looking for movement patterns between individual ''vessels''.

But that for the link!

******************************
Stefan Baert

On the day we create intelligence and consciousness, mankind becomes God.
On the day we create intelligence and consciousness, mankind becomes obsolete...
******************************

This is somewhat offtopic, but I couldn''t help noting the use of "the Picard maneouver" in your original post, and I have to comment on it (being an admirer of strategy... and to a much lesser degree a strategist myself)

The Picard Maneouver is by far one of the greatest things to come out of the Star Trek universe (besides Tachyons... because there''s nothing they can''t do). For those of you who don''t know what it is, I''ll explain it quickly:

1) The USS Stargazer, capable of warp travel (faster-than-light speed), encounters ship using light-based sensors.
2) Capt. Picard accelerates the Stargazer to warp in the direction of the opposing ship. Note that the light from the time of warp hasn''t made it to the opposing ship yet.
3) Light just before Stargazer enters warp reaches opposing ship at the same time that the light from just after Stargazer exits warp does. This creates the effect that the ship is in two places at once.
4) During the confusions, Capt. Picard blows the opposing ship to smitherines.

If this is not brilliant, I don''t know what is. Not only does he exploit the weakness of the opposing ship, but he does it in one of the most creative ways possible. Even in a day where computer controlled sensors are predominant, it''s nice to know that psychological warfare still plays a part. I''m particularily fond of Gary Casparov''s game where, for no reason (apparantly), he broke out laughing in the middle of a game, just to throw his opponent for a loop.

Now, I''m pretty sure that this particular maneouver can not be programmed into a simulation like you might be thinking, but what about the possibility of analysis and exploitation of weaknesses.

This is an interesting idea which really hasn''t been used extensively to the best of my knowledge. One game that I know uses it is XCOM: UFO Defense (I''ve recently gotten re-addicted... stupid PC Gamer issue). Any aliens that have psyonic abilities go after the weakest links in your team, exploiting them and turning them against you. This is a very simple application of this idea, but the game was published in the early 90s, and it still kicks ass.

What about an AI in a MechCommander type game that recognised the type of Mech you were in and modified its strategy accoringly. I haven''t played any of the recent ones, but I know that AI hasn''t been that good at doing that in the past.

In fact, in a simple robot simulation, you could attempt to program the robots to react in different ways to different other robots. I think that creativity in tactics is better than a ''proven playbook'', because a creative tactic may be unrecognised and cannot be responded to.

Anywho, that''s my two cents.