Скачать или смотреть [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 32: Automated Task Queues

Hello Unity fans. In the video before the last two short previews, I mentioned that we would consider visitors to our town, who could decide to stay as our citizens. However, it became clear that I would have to develop a proper task or job system before I would be able to handle the variety of actions a more complex town requires. So, I’ve spent the last few weeks developing such a system. An important consideration I’ve tried to keep in mind from the start is that, eventually, we would want to save our game and be in the same situation when we load it up again. This places some constraints on all our mechanics and systems. Let’s see how the automated task queuing system turned out.

Part0 (Introduction):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 0: Introduction...  
Part1 (Hexes to Water):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 1: Hexes to Water  
Part2 (Features and Textures):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 2: Features, Te...  
Part3 (Units, Visibility):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 3: Units, Pathf...  
Part4 (Random Maps):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 4: Creating Ran...  
Part5 (Post Processing):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 5: Post Process...  
Part6 (Resource Gathering):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 6: Automated Re...  
Part7 (Spinning Selector):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 7: Spinning Obj...  
Part8 (Preparing for Resources):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 8: Preparing fo...  
Part9(How Much Wood?):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 9: How Much Woo...  
Part10(Dynamic Trees):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 10: Dynamic Trees  
Part11(Meet The Meeples):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 11: Meet The Me...  
Part12(Harvesting Wood):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 12: Harvesting ...  
Part13(Harvesting Stone):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 13: Harvesting ...  
Part14(Walking Around Wallls):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 14: Stop Walkin...  
Part15(Multiple Unit Types):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 15: Preparing f...  
Part16(Manipulate Terrain):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 16: Manipulate ...  
Part17(ResourceBuilding Upgrades):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 17: Resource Bu...  
Part18(Camera Fly-through):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 18: Camera Fly ...  
Part19(Animated UI):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 19: Animated Us...  
Part20(Automated Farming):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 20: Automated R...  
Part21(UI Anchors, Buttons, ToolTip):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 21: UI Anchors,...  
Part22(Linking Graphics, Mechanics, UI):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 22: Linking Gra...  
Part23(Segmenting Hexes):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 23: Segmenting ...  
Part24(Smooth Irregular Movement):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 24: Smooth Irre...  
Part25(Pathfinding on Segments):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 25: A* (A-Star)...  
Part26(Avoiding Unit Collisions):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 26: Avoiding Un...  
Part27(Inverse Movement):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 27: Inverse Mov...  
Part28(New Textures):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 28: New Versati...  
Part29(Assigning Workers):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 29: Assign Rand...  
Part30(Tasks Fly-through):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 30: Automated T...  
Part31(Progressive Building Preview):    • [Unity3D Hex Map Game Dev] 31: Progressive...  

I figured that all tasks would have to be broken down into simple chained steps to make saving the entire system easier. We’ve already implemented this idea with our harvesters, although it was quite cumbersome, and required every unit to make decisions based only its own state, without taking the rest of the map into consideration. For example, the woodcutter had a strict regime of walking to a tree, chopping it, sawing it and carrying home the logs, repeating this chain of actions indefinitely. For some unit types, this may be all that is required, but we will eventually need more complex units and tasks, which would not work properly given the limitations of this simple, independent cycle of tasks.
So, I’ve defined the most basic task to consist of possibly walking towards a target and starting an animation when arriving. If you save the game knowing where your unit is currently located, which segment the unit is heading towards and which animation needs to start when he gets there, you can quite easily put your unit in the same situation upon loading, without having to save an excessive amount of information. But there’s a bit more to it than that. Let’s consider my new UnitTask class. The task should be completed at a certain target segment on the map, which is the one the unit needs to walk to first. We also allow a position offset in case the unit shouldn’t aim for the center point of the segment, and we also need to specify a target position for the unit to look at when he gets to the segment. This ensures the task is performed with the correct rotation in place. Each task can only be performed by a certain unit type. Additionally, we may want to assign a task to a specific unit exclusively, for example not just any woodcutter, but one living in a specific cabin. Then, each task could apply to a specific building, or to a specific hex on the map, which is not necessarily the hex of the target segment the unit is walking towards. Finally, we need to know what kind of task this is. We use this double-identifier since a task like putting down your carrying basket could be a part of different chains of tasks, which should be managed differently. Knowing not only the sub-task type, but also the type of the longer chain of tasks it forms part of will allow us to decide which task should follow this one upon completion, as we’ll see later.