Difficulty level

[Temporal]

Hi everybody, sorry if bothering. I guess that I have a suggestion that should not be difficult to implement(unless there isn't a differentiation between opponents and me, the cart being played):

Along the time, no matter how freaking intelligent the AI is, we start to beat it up until get tired. Then I start to handicap them, like losing until everybody gets 20 or 30 points or someone getting 40 or something like that.

I tried to look between the configuration files, but all that I saw was configurations for ALL the karts, not one for me and one for the AIs.

SO I would like to be able to:
1)Give to the AI more top speed (doesn't matter if it cannot be differentiated between all the AIs or if it could/should be made one for each one). The speed tops right now, without any additives, curves, climbs or descents, at around 160. I wanted to be able to give to the AI more, so it would top in 170 for example(I understand that they may skid/slide for not being prepared to).
AND/OR:
2)Could be a lower one just for me. Works too.
AND/OR, the easier:
3)Give them, each one or for all, starting points. Meaning that I could give to each one, or for all, an amount of points to start with.

BTW, if I skipped any config file that actually could help to make it possible right now(Ver 0.6.2), tell me! Thanks!

[hiker]

Hi,

Hi everybody, sorry if bothering. I guess that I have a suggestion that should not be difficult to implement(unless there isn't a differentiation between opponents and me, the cart being played):

There actually isn't a difference between AI karts and player karts - the kart controller is different, but that's all (well, that's for 0.7, in 0.6* the objects were different, but the actual physics etc. was used from a common base class, so it was always identical).

Along the time, no matter how freaking intelligent the AI is, we start to beat it up until get tired. Then I start to handicap them, like losing until everybody gets 20 or 30 points or someone getting 40 or something like that.

Well, that's a problem more or less any game is facing. And cheating (i.e. giving the AI powers the player doesn't have) is an easy solution for that. In our current development tree we did that for a while, too (AI's did not get a slowdown when skidding), but we actually removed this cheat yesterday, since the steering of the AI has improved quite a bit.

I tried to look between the configuration files, but all that I saw was configurations for ALL the karts, not one for me and one for the AIs.

Correct, and atm it is our goal not to do any cheating. But since I am aware that a challenging AI is difficult to implement (I am certainly not saying that the current AI is good ), there is a chance that we might give the AI some advantage later on.

SO I would like to be able to:
1)Give to the AI more top speed (doesn't matter if it cannot be differentiated between all the AIs or if it could/should be made one for each one). The speed tops right now, without any additives, curves, climbs or descents, at around 160. I wanted to be able to give to the AI more, so it would top in 170 for example(I understand that they may skid/slide for not being prepared to).
AND/OR:
2)Could be a lower one just for me. Works too.
AND/OR, the easier:
3)Give them, each one or for all, starting points. Meaning that I could give to each one, or for all, an amount of points to start with.

If we should add some kind of advantage to the AI it will be configurable. At this stage we intend to release the next version without many more AI changes, and certainly not with cheating (while I have written that this is an easy solution, I meant it's easier than writing a good AI). 'Good cheating' is quite difficult (e.g. the original tuxkart suffered from that - you could mostly only win by not being the first in the last lap, otherwise the AI would drive faster and faster and finally just overtake you with a supersonic-speed, which was very frustrating) - it should not be obvious, but make the game more challenging (e.g. adjusting the top speed to the kart position, so that if the AI is ahead it does actually slow down somewhat).

I still hope that we might get someone who spends more time with the AI (be it general improvements, or just cheating),

BTW, if I skipped any config file that actually could help to make it possible right now(Ver 0.6.2), tell me! Thanks!

No, this can't be done in 0.6.2 (nor in the upcoming 0.7 version).

Cheers,
Joerg