Trip to Dallas last weekend to work on the game with Chris. We have a deadline. Really. A DEAD line. We will make a beta available to our testers on 1 January 2004.

Chris and I reaffirmed our dividing line for the work on the AI: he will work on the lower level AI (that takes higher echelon missions and converts them into orders for the individual units), while I work on the high level AI that generates those missions. During our meeting, I showed Chris the work I had done during Origins 2k3 through September on a scripted AI, so that he'd know where to plug his code in, and so that he could test his code in the absence of mine.

OK. I'm taking four more days vacation in November in order to crank out the AI. I did the design work on the decision-making infrastructure back at Origins 2003 in the small hours of the morning. (Many thanks to Java's Cyber Espresso Bar for making coffee and snacks all night long during the convention.) The design work having been done, I need only implement that design, and come up with some clever evaluation functions.

I should have this completed by mid-November. The rest of November I plan to use on integration, cleanup, memory leak sweeps, bug fixes, and a few gratuitous UI enhancements. If Chris gets held up on his part of the AI, I will instead help him out. Better to release a feature-complete AI to test with a few more bugs than to have no AI at all.

I had some great barbeque at Sonny Bryan's in Richardson, TX. Outstanding sliced brisket, great sauce, good sides.

I also had a good run at River Legacy Park in Arlington. 4.5 miles on pavement at an overall 8:45 pace. I do luuuuuv that park! Great for skating, running, biking, and picnics. Great scenery, and awesome people watching.