Think of a scheduler. For each incident on the track or with
your car (eg. "Ok, bring it in next time around") the spotter has
something to say.
Each incident has its own "line" (eg. "You're back in fourth"),
and when many incidents happen at once there may be, say,
five incidents put on the scheduler in the order the incidents
occured. All the time the game engine checks if there's anything on
the scheduler. When there is, the game engine will make sure that
whatever is on the scheduler will be dealt with.
So when there are five "incidents" on the scheduler,
the spotter will be "called up" five times. The spotter function
will then say a line until the scheduler stops "calling" the spotter,
ie until scheduler is empty of incidents that the spotter is
programmed to report on.
The problem is how to make the scheduler(or some other part
of the programme) smart enough to erase, say, some incidents
from the scheduler because of incidents that make those
earlier incidents (and hence spotter lines) invalid.
Eg. there is no reason to report on low fuel if the
engine has blown. This is a simple example, but it can get
much worse as you seem to have experienced yourself already.
No matter how well Papyrus makes N2, and particularily
the spotter function, it will come a time when the spotter
vomits, so to speak. The spotter function would need really
good AI in order to estimate a given set of incidents and take
the right decision, ie what lines to say and what lines not
to say, or better, generating a new line that fits to the
action. This would need advanced interpretative skills, which
isn't feasible in games, and maybe not at all.
But some "conflicts" should be possible to deal with:
The simple "conflicts":
- Eg. "blown enigne"/"low fuel",
"two laps to the chequered flag"/"low fuel, pit within five laps"
Some of the apparently complex ones:
- Eg. if you're in a big pile up, cars all around you(low and high),
the spotter should just report on your
own car (like damage, fuel, engine, tyres, etc.)
and ignore the position of other cars relative to you.
But then, what is a "big pile up"? And when are you
in a "big pile up"?
As to the disappearing AI cars I have no idea, but I don't
think the spotter have anything to do with it. :)
--
--- Terje Wold Johansen
--- http://www.ifi.uio.no/~terjjo/
--- "I am your inferior superior." O.W.
