State

The NPC's State and Condition, helps the NPC decide on an ideal Schedule. At any given time the NPC will only ever be in one state.

NPC_STATE_INVALID NPC_STATE_NONE NPC_STATE_IDLE NPC_STATE_ALERT NPC_STATE_COMBAT NPC_STATE_SCRIPT NPC_STATE_PLAYDEAD NPC_STATE_PRONE NPC_STATE_DEAD

One interesting method that deals with states is the SelectIdealState() method.

The SelectIdealState() method chooses a state based on it's current state and conditions.

The method implementation has a switch statement that reverts Ideal state selection to specific functions to the current state.

switch ( m_NPCState ) { case NPC_STATE_IDLE: { NPC_STATE nState = SelectIdleIdealState(); if ( nState != NPC_STATE_INVALID ) return nState; } break;

case NPC_STATE_ALERT: { NPC_STATE nState = SelectAlertIdealState(); if ( nState != NPC_STATE_INVALID ) return nState; } break;

case NPC_STATE_COMBAT: { // COMBAT goes to ALERT upon death of enemy if ( GetEnemy() == NULL ) { return NPC_STATE_ALERT; } break; }

case NPC_STATE_SCRIPT: { NPC_STATE nState = SelectScriptIdealState(); if ( nState != NPC_STATE_INVALID ) return nState; } break;

case NPC_STATE_DEAD: return NPC_STATE_DEAD; }

We can see the switch statement in the case of NPC_STATE_IDLE state selection will be reverted to SelectIdleIdealState() method.