RPS battle system

• an implementation of generalized Rock-Paper-Scissors into a real-time rotating spheres game

Basic Idea

• players play a generalized version of Rock Paper Scissors
• instead of a discrete choice between rock(1,0,0), paper(0,1,0), and scissors(0,0,1), the player chooses any normalized 3-vector: (r,p,s)
• The RPS vectors of the two players are compared, and the winner is determined
• players make their choice of vector by orienting a sphere

Other Features/Ideas

• The game is live, rather than turn based
  • each player has a trigger to 'attack', forcing a comparison of RPS vectors
• Continuous scoring
  • points are float-valued, determined by outcome of vector comparison
• Discrete scoring
  • points are integer valued, with pre-defined ranges for vector comparison output
  • e.g. 0 points: 0.0-0.5, 1 point: 0.5-0.9, 2 points, 0.9-1.0
• AI
  • It would be quite fun to try to write an optimal AI for this game
  • use a simple neural net (~few inputs are coordinates of player for past few steps, seven outputs: up,down,left,right,cw,ccw,brake, perhaps just one hidden layer?)
  • start with a simple random walk
• Separate attack/defense SAFE ZONES MAKE THIS A BAD IDEA
  • each player controls two independent spheres: one for attack, one for defense
  • points can only be scored by attacking
  • the attacking player's attack vector is compared against the defending player's defense vector
• NEW WAY TO DO IT:
  • attack and defense are determined by the same sphere, but the central reticule is split (left/right) (or top/bottom) into an attack reticule and a defense reticule
  • the angular separation between the two could be fixed, or variable, determined by the player directly, or determined by character gear/modifiers
  • you can still sort of park your defense reticule on the safezone, but it is more challenging to do it while moving your attack reticule
• SIMPLER NEW WAY:
  • attack and defense are determined by the same sphere
  • the ship's shield is the chromasphere
  • the attack color is whatever is directly in front of the nose of the ship
  • defense color depends on where the incoming attack hits the shield
  • the pilot flies the ship and decides when to fire
  • the co-pilot (chroma-engineer?), orients the chromasphere
  • visuals: open-circles represent enemy chroma-position, filled circles represent enemy physical angular position
  • perhaps enemy chroma info is only shown if the enemy is in your reticule, or if you're in theirs
• angular momentum
  • the spheres conserve angular momentum
  • players control sphere orientation through application of torque
  • there should probably be some small friction applied
  • also, perhaps a "brake" key, to significantly increase friction
• move keybindings to player class?
• joy con controls:
  • stick for pitch and roll (or yaw)
  • bumpers for yaw (or roll)
  • a to attack
  • b to brake

Potential Applications-

• GAME: Co-Pilot-

  • A minimalist space dogfight game (could be limited to 1vAI or 1v1), perhaps set in an asteroid field (something like Frontier)
  • The pilot flies the ship, just as in Frontier
  • The co-pilot controls the ships laser frequency and shield frequency using the RPS sphere system
  • Which player should control the laser aiming/trigger? probably the pilot
  • co-pilot controls only one RPS sphere
  • ship lasers fire only straight forward
  • therefore, pilot must aim lasers
  • On the co-pilot HUD (the RPS sphere):
    • numbered targeting dots for each enemy ship in the forward FOV
    • damage dots for each laser currently impacting the shields
    • pilot and copilot must communicate and coordinate which enemy to target next
  • shield spectrum and laser spectrum are identical
  • therefore, you can sit at the safe points and have impervious shield, but your lasers won't do any damage
  • alternatively: 3 crew:
    • pilot (only pilots the ship)
    • gunner (aims the lasers)
    • tuner (tunes the laser and shield frequencies)

• SIMPLE VERSION:

  • remake asteroids (2D), for two players
  • changes:
    • add in strafing
    • change 'bullet' weapon to beam weapon
    • beam weapon does instant, constant, long-range damage, low DPS (eventually overheats? pulse instead of beam?)
    • beam color and shield color are determined by RPS sphere
      • a 1-sphere (circle) could be the equator of a RPS 2-sphere, eliminating the safe zones

• MINIMAL RPS GAME OF LIFE:

  • all live squares have an RGB color
  • each step, all live squares battle all live neighbors. The sum of the outcomes determines if the square lives or dies
  • each step, all dead squares search pairs of live neighbors for those with 'enough overlap' in their RGB values (i.e. dot product)
    • if so, the dead square becomes live next round, somehow taking RGB colors from both parents
  • alternative: Asexual reproduction
    • at each death, the neighbor that dealt the most damage clones itself to replace the dying square
    • cloning is imperfect, mutations can occur