In the process of doing some general combat system maintenance, we've fixed a few bugs. Additionally, a few systems will follow this rollout shortly.
1. PvP balance/position messaging has been corrected, so that you will see your own balance whether you attack or defend.
2. Weapons will no longer break on a miss. The actual cause was some inconsistant checks on whether a weapon had sustained enough damage to break or not, depending on whether you were the defender or attacker.
3. The last known cause of "You dodge" messaging being followed by a hit has been corrected. Minor shield blocks (say, less than 25% or so) were not producing a message when they should have. This caused the system to default to the above.
4. Natural armor messaging in weapon damage has been fixed. The correct name should appear, instead of "chitinous hide" all of the time.
5. Creatures will now drop bows or ammunition when losing the appropriate arm.
6. Creature stamina changes are coming soon.
7. Some fixes to the engagement system are coming soon. Significant portions of the code have been rewritten with the intent of making the code easier to debug and develop. This is only a small, first part of the engagement system rewrite.
8. General AI is coming soon.
First, this is only minimally a combat AI. This code change is intended to give creature authors much more control over how their creature behaves, and opens up the opportunity for a number of "really cool things" GMs can do that they couldn't before.
One result you will immediately notice is that creatures will have the ability to swap between any target that is at melee with them. Also, general targetting of opponents is no longer completely random.
This is not a Magic AI. That is on the list of things to investigate, however.
Lastly, this is only a first take at general AI. Any number of enhancements are possible in the future.
-- GM Veyl
