NTai Toolkit 0.3

[AF]

There are lots of tips scattered around this thread and the NTai thread. If somebody could just pool them all together into a general tips & troubleshooting page...

In the mean time I have one or two improvements to make and that fix for b_resurect.

[Hoinkie]

Is there a sort function coming? so you can seperate core and arm for making of buildlists or even separate builders and economy? just wondering if you were busy with something like this

[AF]

I did intend at some point, namely tech levels.

[penticrack]

is there a page with ntai mod aiconfigs for download?

[AF]

Sadly nobody has given any configs at all. Not even unfinished ones.

I'd think that spreading the unfinished ones would be extremely important to prevent endless repeated work that never gets finished would be very important.

[tombom]

Sadly nobody has given any configs at all. Not even unfinished ones.

I'd think that spreading the unfinished ones would be extremely important to prevent endless repeated work that never gets finished would be very important.

Here's the really bad unfinished one I was doing for AA.

http://www.unknown-files.net/index.php? ... &dlid=2126

It's not good at all but I intend to do some more work on it soonish.

[Hoinkie]

just some more questions. Do you have a doc that explains it all a bit more concerning build rules spacing that sort of thing? what making some unit attacker does changes it behavior etc. cause trying to find it all out by fiddling is a bit slow. if you have stuff about it im willing to make a doc/guide.

[AF]

It determines if a unit is an attacker or not by looking to see if you checked the "Attacker" checkbox for that unit

There's a load of stuff at the end of the NTai thread.

[Hoinkie]

yeah and its like 40 pages full of it

not everybody can be arsed to go through it. i have but i forget at least half of it. so a nice doc would be something.

and if it is attacker what does it change? does it change its behaviour or does it move more agressif? its real clear

ps thats sarcasm, that means its not clear to me.

[AF]

Well its treated as an attacking unit, hence its sent out to attack rather than building or scouting.

And I said towards the end, namely the last 2 pages not the last 40 pages. If you'd bothered to read this thread you'd have even found a link to where they start saving you any bother searching the NTai thread at all. There're no excuses if you dont read threads in full if they're under 3 pages in size.

In the mean time I've made a few more GUI changes to the next version of toolkit aswell as to NTai, however I'm still running tests to make sure one or two issues are removed from the next version that have cropped up in the changes I made. And for those too lazy to look up the thread 7 or 8 posts I've put in some more stuff on the quickhelp tab (now changed to "Help and troubleshooting")

[AF]

Work with quantum and the uncommenting of some visual debugging code has lead to the discovery of a major flaw in the task cycles NTai runs, best reproduced by making URC and GD conbots in EE under forebodings unfinished config.

Thus I am designing a replacement task cycle so that I can fix it and keep things all neat and tidy, and possibly allow further expansion with multistage tasks and more complex behaviours, and maybe even binding custom keywords to lua scripts in the future.

[AF]

http://spring.unknown-files.net/?page=browse&dlid=2176
NTai XE9.5 test build

This build runs via the new task system, and as such some of the bugs have been eradicated. It also has a few other improvements. However there is no new build placement algorithm at the moment, so placement related issues are better but they still exist.

This download contains just NTai.dll Backup your old NTai.dll before using it.

IF YOUR LOOKING FOR A SKIRMISH AI TO DOWNLOAD AND PLAY AGAINST MOVE ALONG, THIS IS NOT INTENDED FOR YOU.

This is intended for people using toolkit to build configs.

[tombom]

I've tried that with the config I've uploaded to unknown-files and it never ever builds a factory. I've tried putting in armvp in place of b_factory, no luck. It's build order is always a solar - mex - defence - another two solars - another mex - 3-5 solars - mex and then it repeats the last two forever until there are no more mes spots. Half the time the com completely stops after building defence. A set of logs from one occassion are here. The AI config I was using is here

Forboding's EE config does something similar, URC building way too much power, although it does eventually build a factory.

[AF]

Try to make specific tasklists for kbot or vehicle starts rather than a single oen involving b_factory. And check the logs. The logs contains the reasons for it not building the factories, it will clearly state what happened, even though that may need a little knowhow to interpret.

Also remove is_builder or is_factory or is_hub type statements as this build has them removed as they no longer have an effect, and thus they may be causing errors.

Again to make it clear, try to sue a unitname instead of b_factory if you have antistaller algorithm turned off and you have a good idea of what you want it to build for now. Universal keywords are an aide and sometimes human judgement is much better, especially where defences are concerned.

[AF]

defence_spacing=7;
power_spacing=6;
factory_spacing=4;
default_spacing=5;

Also try to lower these values. I suspect its a problem with building placement like my warning but you provided no logs and you've not read them either. Logs can give valuable information, especially if you have antistall turned on, and especially if your hand editing values in notepad.

[tombom]

Also try to lower these values. I suspect its a problem with building placement like my warning but you provided no logs and you've not read them either. Logs can give valuable information, especially if you have antistall turned on, and especially if your hand editing values in notepad.

1) I put logs in my post. http://download.yousendit.com/979B2F0972A34096
2) I have not been hand editing stuff and I said I'd tried putting armvp in instead of b_factory.
3) The logs look like this mostly:
[00:14] < Frame: 447 >Command: ID: -143 Timeout: 1014 params: 152, 18.2791, 4056, 0, source of command: CBuild
[00:14] < Frame: 447 >issuing command in update() succeeded
[00:28] < Frame: 856 >CManufacturer::UnitFinished
[00:29] < Frame: 893 >Given the go ahead :: armmex
[00:29] < Frame: 893 >Given the go ahead :: armuwmex
[00:29] < Frame: 893 >CBuild() :: armmex
[00:29] < Frame: 893 >Given the go ahead :: armmex
[00:29] < Frame: 893 >Error::Cbuild G->OrderRouter->GiveOrder(tc)== true :: armmex
[00:29] < Frame: 893 >Error::Cbuild wiping and creaiing the plan :: armmex

and then this

[05:47] < Frame: 10432 >CBuild() :: armsolar
[05:47] < Frame: 10432 >Given the go ahead :: armsolar
[05:47] < Frame: 10432 >bad vector returned for -1,0,0
[05:47] < Frame: 10432 >GetBuildPlacement returned UpVector or some other nasty position
[05:47] < Frame: 10435 >CBuild() :: armsolar
[05:47] < Frame: 10435 >Given the go ahead :: armsolar
[05:47] < Frame: 10435 >bad vector returned for -1,0,0
[05:47] < Frame: 10435 >GetBuildPlacement returned UpVector or some other nasty position

4) I removed is_factory and stuff and it made no difference.

[AF]

Ok, first of all sue a pastebin and just send me the relevant log rather than all of them at once in a zip on a filesharing site.

http://ntai.from-hell.net/pastebin.php

Very useful script indeed.

Also, your spacing values are bad. Stuff like:

Code: Select all

[05:47] < Frame: 10432 >GetBuildPlacement returned UpVector or some other nasty position 

shows it up. This sort of emssage means "The spring engine couldnt find a palce to stick the building", hence a building palcement problem, but looking at your config again, your spacing values are very high. The lower they are the higher the chance a place will be found, albeit the more cramped your base will become.

I will repeat again, building spacing values do not work as you would expect, why they work this way, I dont know, its just how the AI itnerface handles it.

A 2v2 factory with a spacing value fo 1 should get an extra square of free space around its border right? Wrong! What it actually means is I should have !* unitfootprint worth of free space. So thats 2*1 = 2 squares. If it where a spacing value of 2 it'd be 4, value fo 3 it'd be 6 squares, etc.



Forebodings tasklists suemuch lower values. I'd suggest values in the range of 1-3 possibly 4 for factories.

[AF]

http://spring.unknown-files.net/?page=browse&dlid=2180
XE9.5 testbuild 2

fiddles a few values and constants, with the odd little change here and there. Removes autogeneration of exclusion zone values and repair ranges for configs that dont have any values defined.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

I cant get the AI editer to work, no matter what I do, where I save files, NTAI just sits there. and I have read the whole forum, I have read your posts and done as it said. it just hates my pc.

AF, no1 priority should be to get a working config for a mod, assumably XTA or BA so people can start testing and finding the bugs. you should halt dev and compile a profile with lindir and whoever will help as atm its just another emptyai for me

[Lindir The Green]

I'm still working on porting the XTA config...

It was complete, but then I accidentally overwrote about an hour's work. Once I have an hour though I can re-do it.