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[Anvilfolk]

Aw man, I hope you pull this off

It should be relatively simple to find an A* implementation in Python, no? Or find the right datastructures and implement it yourself. The main thing, I think, is keeping track of who is moving so that you can dynamically assign weights to the nodes that are undesirable for that character. This way, zones that are undesirable will simply be avoided.

Of course, depending on the state of the station some poor guy might decide to brave a tile of fire if the alternative is going to Earth on a spaceshuttle and back I'm sure a whole lotta !!FUN!! can result from this

[Girlinhat]

I'm actually just writing out my own pathfinding function using A*.  Once the step-by-step and the math becomes visible, then the code is obvious.  It's just a matter of refining all the if's and while's.  Once I get the basics, I can start expanding it for creature-specific actions...

[Skyrunner]

A* is easy enough with wikipedia's pseudocode and lots of online resources c:
Once you get the idea you'll never forget it.

[Girlinhat]

Wikepedia wasn't the most obvious.  This was actually what made it obvious, and I started striking up my own code from scratch:
http://www.policyalmanac.org/games/aStarTutorial.htm

The problem is all the gifs and pngs in the world won't describe the F=G+H or the scaling of movement cost or how it selects the most direct route.  This page actually goes step-by-step and shows how this works at the most basic level, and could work with non-square grids.

[Skyrunner]

Huh. I guess it's personal difference. For me, findLowestF()  was one of the hardest parts.

[miauw62]

Can anybody recommend me a good Python tutorial? I used one a few months ago and didn't go trough with it, and now I can't find it anymore :/

[Girlinhat]

Can anybody recommend me a good Python tutorial? I used one a few months ago and didn't go trough with it, and now I can't find it anymore :/

If you're totally unfamiliar with programming, then you can easily find C++ tutorials.  It's the same thing, just slight variants on how many parenthesis you use.

Code: [Select]

if(x==TRUE)
{
  y=3;
}is the same as:

Code: [Select]

if x==True:
  y=3

[Skyrunner]

While the syntax is quite similar, the horrors of compiler errors and templates and types is quite a thing.

Compare
std::mao<std::string, int> dictionary;
and, for Perl (I don't knke the syntax for dictionaries in Python off the top of my head)
$dictionary {"one"->1};

Also, to beginners most compiler errors look like CERROR 39482 SOMETHING BROKE AND YOU CAN'T FIX IT. C++ errors are among the less helpful ones, though it does improve for modern compilers.

[Anvilfolk]

Python is just

myDict = {"one": 1, "two": 2, 5: "anything I want, really, as both keys and values!"}

There are plenty of programming tutorials for Python, including some free online books for programming games using Python, while learning Python. Just google for "free python game programming" or something, and it should get you there

[lue]

And in Perl 6 it's just

Code: [Select]

my %hash = <one 1 two 2 five stringValue>;
 

Also, for C/C++ errors, I highly recommend LLVM and clang. GCC 4.8 just got around to doing the "print code line and point at the problem" that LLVM does. (Don't know if 4.7 did it too, but I know 4.6 didn't.)

Compare, with the following terrible C++ file:

Code: [Select]

#include <iostream>

int factorial(int number) {
    if (number == 0) { return 1 };
    return number * factorial(number - 1);
}

int main() {
    std::cout << "Hello world! " << factorial(4,2) << "\n";
}

Output of g++ 4.8.1:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

TEST.cpp: In function ‘int factorial(int)’:
TEST.cpp:4:33: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘}’ token
     if (number == 0) { return 1 };
                                 ^
TEST.cpp: In function ‘int main()’:
TEST.cpp:9:50: error: too many arguments to function ‘int factorial(int)’
     std::cout << "Hello world! " << factorial(4,2) << "\n";
                                                  ^
TEST.cpp:3:5: note: declared here
 int factorial(int number) {
     ^

And a somewhat old checkout of the upcoming clang 3.4:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

TEST.cpp:4:32: error: expected ';' after return statement
    if (number == 0) { return 1 };
                               ^
                               ;
TEST.cpp:9:37: error: no matching function for call to 'factorial'
    std::cout << "Hello world! " << factorial(4,2) << "\n";
                                    ^~~~~~~~~
TEST.cpp:3:5: note: candidate function not viable: requires single argument 'number', but 2 arguments were provided
int factorial(int number) {
    ^
2 errors generated.

Not the best comparison I could whip up quickly, but hopefully gets across the somewhat friendlier nature of clang. (Also, colors. At least for me a generous application of color keeps my brain from seeing a wall of errors as undecipherable. I tend to switch from g++ to clang++ whenever I want easier-to-read errors.)

[Skyrunner]

I personally use MSVS. It has the best debugger ever
The error messages for non-templated code is also pretty friendly.

... though Clang seems to be hopeful-looking.

[Girlinhat]

While the syntax is quite similar, the horrors of compiler errors and templates and types is quite a thing.

Compare
std::mao<std::string, int> dictionary;
and, for Perl (I don't knke the syntax for dictionaries in Python off the top of my head)
$dictionary {"one"->1};

Also, to beginners most compiler errors look like CERROR 39482 SOMETHING BROKE AND YOU CAN'T FIX IT. C++ errors are among the less helpful ones, though it does improve for modern compilers.

Just want to point out how we're discussing "What's it like to use Python" and you pull up C++ and Perl.  This appears to be fantastically irrelevant.

[Skyrunner]

I said I didn't know Python enough for dictionary code off the top of my head. Meanwhile, both being scripting languages, Perl and Python have similarly simple syntax. So I said I wrote Perl because I didn't know Python fluently, knowing their syntax won't be so different as to make a difference. The Python someone else posted for me was strikingly similar to Perl, just swapping -> for colons and dropping the sigil. I'd say this is pretty relevant.

As for the second part, it is in line with the purpose of my post, wherein I recommend Python over C++ because of the latter's containers' verbose and generally scary errors.

[miauw62]

While the syntax is quite similar, the horrors of compiler errors and templates and types is quite a thing.

Compare
std::mao<std::string, int> dictionary;
and, for Perl (I don't knke the syntax for dictionaries in Python off the top of my head)
$dictionary {"one"->1};

Also, to beginners most compiler errors look like CERROR 39482 SOMETHING BROKE AND YOU CAN'T FIX IT. C++ errors are among the less helpful ones, though it does improve for modern compilers.

Just want to point out how we're discussing "What's it like to use Python" and you pull up C++ and Perl.  This appears to be fantastically irrelevant.

You were the one that said "you can easily find C++ tutorials" when I asked for Python tutorials, tough

E: I found the tutorial that I lost, tough, with some more creative google searches.

[professorlamp]

http://programarcadegames.com/

I used that site when I just started with Python, that was a few months ago, if you stick at it, it doesn't take too long to make surprisingly useful stuff

That site above is very good, super user friendly and with a butt-load of videos. Whilst it is more oriented around games programming, nearly all the chapters can be done without a games library.