Chapter 22. Fighting Conditions

Key Topics

• Weapon Properties

• Applicability of Weapons

• Training Zone

Games are often designed to provide a diverse experience for the player. When it comes down to first-person shooters, diversity implies myriad combat situations. Implicitly, each of these situations may suit different weapons. The next few pages investigate how the different elements of the design come together to influence the task of weapon selection.

This chapter has much in common with its counterpart in Chapter 13, "Combat Settings," introducing the low-level details about combat with a particular slant toward shooting capabilities. The next few pages only emphasize and expand the concepts appropriate for weapon selection.

This chapter covers the following topics:

• The different attributes of weapons (for instance, projectile speed and rate of fire), showing how they affect the weapon's behavior

• The different aspects of the design and simulation that affect the applicability of weapons

• An ideal test bed that we can use later

The information in this chapter will help us analyze the role of the platform (that is, the environment and engine) for the AI and understand how it must be taken into account in the later stages of the development.