What is a better way to get handle AI?

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#1

I’m sure we have all played something that consists of NPC’s that move from a point to another even on mobile like Clash Royale or Clash Of Clans and on PC League Of Legends, Dota, World Of Warcraft, and MMOs.

So, I am more then capable of creating a NPC’s system where it locates a target within a radius and goes after the target but the problem is I want to make this as resource friendly as possible.

Let’s suppose I need to manage 200 npc’s at one time. The Npc’s will be given a path to move to but if it detects any enemy within a range, it will go off it’s original path and follow the enemy via Pathfinding. So my question is how would I do this? My current idea is this:

local lastUpdated = {} 
local updateTime = 0.2

while true do
wait()
for i, v in pairs(workspace.Minions:GetChildren()) do
if tick() - lastUpdated[v] <= updateTime then -- assuming when I spawn in the minions I log it into the table
-- here we get target, create a path and follow etc
lastUpdated[v] = tick()
end
end
end

My current way prevents updating all the minions at once and gives the minions update times but I was wondering what would be the best way to approach this?

Edit; I have received good information but if you would like to let’s me know of more ways please reply

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#2

The biggest problem with this method is that your using getchildren each step of the loop which can be pretty resource intensive, Typically for my AI I have a table that has every AI and a function when creating an AI gets add into that table aswell as any AI’s in workspace also get added during the start of the game. I then have a main loop that loops through the entire table under a single thread.

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#3

Clarification:
Basically it’s better to store the AI into a table and iterate through that table to get the AI compared to :GetChildren().

#4

That is correct you be cutting down a lot of steps if you were to do that

#5

Also for pathfinding and stuff, I have it where each AI in my table has many properties and functions/methods built in

example

AITable[Ai].CurrentPath – returns an array table

#6

Thanks, never thought of that.

I’d assume I do something like so:

local AIS = {
[ExampleAiObj] = {
Properties = {},
Functions = {},
}
} 

AIS[ExampleAiObj].Functions.getPath = function(args) -- I'd assume this would create the function 

end

AIS[ExampleAiObj].Functions.getPath(args) -- And I'd assume this would work

EDIT: You’ve been very helpful I’m still going to wait for more replies to see if I can get some more information on this topic.

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#7

Nevermore Engine has this Binder Class that I believe could really simplify the creation of such a system. What it does is attaching a class to all instances with the CollectionService tag you specify. I have not used this myself but it might be worth taking a look at :slight_smile:

Nevermore Engine Binder

If you have not used classes before I would recommend reading this:
All about Object Oriented Programming

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