Falko Poiker Interview
In December 1999, Relic AI programmer Falko Poiker talked to Relicnews. This is the conversation that ensued.
1. For the record, name, alias(es)
Name: Falko Poiker (yes, Falko is my real name. My parents were drunk, playing scrabble, whilst coming up with my name) :)
Aliases: Flako, Fluko, Amadeus, Rock Me, Phallic Poker. In addition there are a bunch that I can’t put in here. My name starts with “F” and has a “k” near the end, use your imagination.
2. What’s your favourite game? (other than Homeworld)
Choplifter. I also really liked Lode Runner, VGA Planets, Command and Conquer, Diablo and Half-Life, but Choplifter is my all time favorite.
3. What exactly do you do at Relic?
I’m a player level AI programmer: I programmed the computer player for the CPU skirmish, wrote the Tutorial, and scripted four of the Single Player missions (Missions 3, 7, 8 and 16).
4. What development suite do you use?
We use Visual Slickedit for our editor, and Microsoft Developer studio for debugging. No integration here… we even compiled our code on the command line! This works very well for me, because I come from a University Unix background, where IDE’s are not very commonplace.
5. What languages did you use for Homeworld? (C++, asm, etc)
Homeworld is programmed in C. I coded the tutorial and single player missions using our in-house scripting system called KAS (Kick Ass Script).
6. How many lines of code in Homeworld?
I think Homeworld is around 500,000 lines of code. I probably wrote one or two of them. Maybe three.
7. What was the most daunting challenge you faced when writing Homeworld?
The swarmers in Levels 7 and 8. I had to recreate the AI for those buggers 3 times until they worked properly. They still seem to have a mind of their own - half of the stuff they do I didn’t program specifically… they just became sentient or something and took over those missions. Coolest missions I created, though, so it was well worth the effort.
8. Do the AI players in Homeworld cheat? : )
Well… When I created the AI players, I tried really hard to keep them from cheating. Unfortunately, there was one feature that would have taken too long for me to guarantee it being cheat-free. Here’s how it works: every time a computer player’s Resourcer drops its load at the Mothership, the AI saves a little bit of its RUs in a “hyperspace bank”. When the AI player needs to use hyperspace to attack a player, it digs into the bank for the cash. At this point, if it doesn’t have enough RUs, it’ll go into “hyperspace debt” (negative RUs). Until the debt is paid off, the AI player can’t build anything, so it’s handicapped. But considering a human player can’t go into RU debt at all, most people (including me) would consider this cheating. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen all that much — the fact that the AI players pinch pennies during the game ensure that most of the time they can pay the steep hyperspacing costs. The AI players don’t cheat anywhere else in the game. They see what a player sees (and occasionally misses stuff as well, like a human player would), and can only do what the player can do.
9. What got you into game programming?
I got hired at Relic. I programmed a game at University (a space shooter for Sun workstations), but I didn’t really get into games programming until I started here.
10. Did you work for any other game/software companies before Relic?
Relic is my first game company, but I’ve programmed at other companies before, most notably Motorola and Dornier Aerospace (in Germany). I worked at those companies as work terms while I was going to University for an Engineering degree.
11. Anything else you’d like to mention?
I would like to dispel a myth for all you rabid fans out there. Here it is… are you ready? …Alex is not a Greek god. Really. I have seen human traits in him on several occasions. For example, once I even caught him biting his nails. Is this the way gods should behave? Certainly not! So please, all those people making sacrifices to their Homeworld shrines, please stop. It’s making a mess, and none of us here at Relic are all that fond of the dead rats we keep getting in the mail.
12. The NSP is like…
…a cool glass of iced tea (with ice in it, and an cheesy umbrella), on a nice hot summer day while lounging about on your patio.
or
…a cool glass of water in a plastic cup sitting beside your computer screen on a beautiful hot summer day while sitting inside Relic working your ass off trying to get the next awesome game ever out the door for the drooling masses. Don’t worry… you’ll love the NSP. We’ll love getting it to you.