Project Specifications for The

Software Engineering

Project Specifications for the

Alien War Game Simulation

January 10, 2007

Project-A: Alien War Simulation.

Problem Description

It is the year 2100 and the myth about aliens has finally been dispelled – they have invaded Earth!! They are among us! However, all is not lost. While the Aliens appear to be superior to Humans in many ways, and although they are hostile toward us, they have been successfully captured - alive. Experiments conducted with captured specimens have found they are vulnerable to high-energy anti-matter lasers (AML) just recently developed.

Your firm, Galaxy Security Inc.(GSI), has been contracted by the US Government to hunt down and exterminate these intruders. GSI has perfected the AML technology and has produced a portable weapon to be used as standard equipment for all agents assigned to conduct the mission to search out and destroy the invaders.

Here is what we (GSI) know about the enemy. The bad news: Aliens possess weapons much more deadly than GSI’s AML gun – that is, their weapon has a range 50% greater than the AML gun and is just as lethal. The good news is that the re-charge time on Alien weapons is three times longer than the re-charge time for AML guns. More bad news: an Alien is twice the size of a GSI agent, has skin tougher than kevlar, and has claws as large as a velociraptor; in hand-to-hand combat a Human is no match for an Alien. Thus Humans must be careful to avoid immediate contact with Aliens. But there is some good news: Aliens are 50% slower than Humans in ground speed. Our agents may have time to move within our weapon range of an Alien, attempt a kill, and then retreat before the Alien can respond.

Before GSI embarks on this very dangerous mission, we have decided to develop a battle simulation to evaluate various tactical strategies for engaging the Aliens to reduce the risk to Humans and maximize our chances of survival. This is where your company comes in – GSI is proposing to hire your team to develop this simulator. Dr. Workman, GSI’s primary POC and SME (Subject Matter Expert), will be working closely with you on requirements for the simulator and will provide test data. Refer all questions to him.

Initial Simulation Requirements

Figure 1 illustrates the virtual battlefield. In addition to Aliens and Humans (GSI agents), there are a number of fixed Obstacles. Obstacles provide refuge for our agents as well as for the Aliens.

The simulation shall allow a distance parameter, Dk(for kill distance), such that if an Alien and a GSI agent approach within that distance, the GSI will be terminated immediately.

A GSI agent is at least twice as fast on the ground as an Alien. The range of an Alien’s weapon is fifty percent (50%) greater than the effective range of our AML weapons. However, the Alien’s weapon takes three times as long to reload. Battle tactics shall take this advantage into account as part of any modeling and training.

Figure 1. Alien War Virtual Battle Field

A GSI agent or Alien is terminated when they are in line-of-sight and range of the attacker's weapon, and they have been fired upon. Once they have been determined to be terminated they will be removed from the battlefield. When terminated, information is stored about the deceased, recording the entity’s position and time of death. Similarly, the entity responsible for the kill shall maintain a record of the names and kill time for each of its victims.

Obstacles cannot be destroyed and cannot move; therefore, they will never be removed from the battlefield and will always be in a fixed position defined at runtime. Obstacles shall always have the same shape; however, they may have different sizes.

A battle will continue until either all GSI agents or all Aliens have been terminated. When the simulation has completed, the following battlefield statistics and simulation data shall be posted to the simulation log.

Total number of events, Total simulation time, Total Humans killed, and Total Aliens killed.
For each Alien: identification, total kills, total shots fired.
For each Human: name, total kills, total shots fired.
For each terminated entity: identification or name, battlefield location, time of kill.

Simulator Overview

Figure 2. Alien War Simulation System

The AWSS user interface is very simple. The user must prepare an ASCII input file defining the simulation parameters necessary for creating the modeled instance of the AWS. The AWS Simulator is then executed from the command line with no additional parameters. During execution the Simulator will prompt the user for the external names of the simulation input and output files. Once this is complete, the Simulator will run to completion. Error messages will be sent to the standard error device while all simulation output will be captured in the simulation output file (simulation log). Optional graphic libraries and video card are necessary to utilize the graphical representation of the simulation.