Spring RTS Engine

btw another tip:

I added the maximum energy thing to help lindir prevent solars once a fusion economy was up, by saying if we're producing more than this energy income then we dont need solars anymore. Sort of like forcing it to tech up.

Minimum energy was used to prevent teching up too early though, so it'd build the lower level stuff and then build tech 2 or 3 when the economy was more stable. Lvl 2 factories are good with this.

Wait wait, question, about "only build if energy income is smaller then":

does it mean the overall income MINUS usage (for example through metal mines) or pure income?

Just pure income

http://www.unknown-files.net/index.php? ... &dlid=2080

V0.21

The program itself hasnt changed but there are bugfixes for NTai.

the b_hub bug has been fixed
And I corrected the saving of learning files to add proper indentation and ending brackets.

When I was trying to port the nanoblobs config over I found that it skipped over multiple named units like this:

Lord=Wolf, Sheep, Sheep, Sheep, Sheep, Sheep, Sheep, Sheep, megasheep, Springer, Holder, SpireRook, AutoFac, SpireRook, Sheep, SpireRook, Knight, Archer, Archer, Archer, Sheep, Sheep, Archer, Archer, Holder, SquareRook, demon, strider, demon, Sheep, demon, strider, Sheep, strider, demon, repair, repair, repair, repair, demon, demon, Sheep, Sheep, demon, demon, sheep, sheep, repair, holder, Sheep, Sheep, Sheep, Sheep, Sheep, Sheep, Sheep, Sheep, Sheep, Holder, Holder, Demon, autofac, autofac, hodler, holder, trirook, trirook, megasheep, sheep, sheep, sheep;

The lord will not build more than one sheep when it goes through the first block of sheep, but it will build the next thing and will build another sheep when it gets to that again. Is there anything I can do to stop this?

I just wanted to note that Antistall is not saved into the config, so theres no way this would work (via the Toolkit). The same goes for Singlebuild, I did not test other options but I guess its the same for them.

Right now the Toolkit is no real use for me, in my opinion I have to less "real" options (the energy min & max is fine, but it is a setting in general for one unit as I see, instead a setting for each tasklist).

I'd rather set up these values IN the Tasklist for each Task and still have general Settings (like now for each unit which executes Tasks) and General Settings for each Task list.

I've underlined this three parts because they are all different, to prevent confusion.

Right now its not customisable enought for me. However I'm aware that it's a "work in progress".

I really appreciate your work, I don't want to sound like I hate it, it's just that I can't do what I want to do with it (or it is way to inconvenient) or some Options aren't saved at all (some are saved sometimes).

I'll still download and test new Versions, to give feedback.

However if you want to I could write down some suggestions into a document with explanations and usefulness of them.

Antistall and singlebuild were fixed in v0.21 or at least I think they where, there're some bugfixes I have here in the next version.

But what your asking for in the tasks with energy min and max is not necessarily a requirement. Lindir built a ncie XTA tree using per unit type min and max, and thats what they where intended for, to control teching up and when in an economy things are generally built. I advise you change tact bigtime on how you design your config untill as such a time as I implement a scripting engine (months).

And be aware that NTai already exposes a lot of stuff and its quite sick how powerful it can be if used correctly, and its by far the most configurable AI by a longshot.

tombom, Nanoblobz doesnt like the antistall algorithm at all. Disable antistall int he global tab and then up the initial handicap.

I would advise you all give NTai an initial handicap of 30-40 then lower it as you feel more confident with your configs economy balance. Forboding angel reports having very nice results with an initial handicap of 300 in EE.

It seems another version is needed soon. I just need to address one more of forebodings concerns.

Well the Toolkit is more of a problem here, because If I tick a checkbox it does not write the neccesary lines (for example the line for antistall is empty everytime). also sometimes the tasklists of units wont be saved (so the tasklist box remains unchecked even if I checked before) however this seems more "random", sometimes it works and sometimes not...

I can't set up the AI properly because some checkboxes add no lines in the config, so I' cant really say if the AI has a bug or if its related to the Tool.
Oh and sometimes the options like energy min & max are not loaded when you open a config which has these (so it displays them at 0 but in the config they are set at 90 for example).

Well the problem I have with min energy & max energy is:

Let's say I set min energy to 10 (ofcourse you have 50 at start because of your commander) and Max energy to 500, wouldn't that mean that the Commander wouldn't start any Tasklist if this is true (energy max >500). so The commander would idle?
Because as far as I understand its a Unit Option. Thats why I suggested to put optional options to each task and tasklist (so you can specific energy min, max and whatever for the list or for each building/ unit).

Maybe I'm thinking to much again, my concern is just that I want every unit to be useful even if the game already ran like 5 hours (so that the commander still builts some vehicle factorys to produce a bigger army and so on.
I have to admit that I don't like rushgames, I'd rather have a "clash of the titans" so to speak, with dozen of units produced in minutes, constant *boom bang* on the map then 5 Tanks driving along some path.

Just an example with AAI on Supreme Battlefield (i LOVE this map) they are constantly attacking, but there are never more than 10 units on the screen at once (no huge army rolling in my direction).

I'm gonna test every option in the Toolkit now and report back which had problems working (I'll test it 3 times via creating a new config).
May help more than constant "this is not working, that not". So you have a list for a better overview

I'm writing to much again (atleast that shows that I'm interested in your AI, eh? )

Your example is f a particularly poor usage of the values.

For one you wouldnt set energy minimum so low, you'd just keep it at zero for lvl 1 stuff.

Remember, the primary use of those 2 options is to stop NTai teching too soon, and to prevent it building lvl 1 economy lategame in an existing tech 2/3 economy. Some overlap is also required for sensible usage.

Something thats coem to light is that you may wish to reduce the values of spacing and the default values are going to be reduced in the next version.

Also I am aware of those UI bugs and have fixed them and then added to it.

0.25 has a new page/tab called 'quickset' which gives you a list of units and an option and it allows you to check all the scouters or all the attackers etc all at once rather than going through each and every unit..


And do remember NTai and AAI resource systems are very very different, working off of 2 opposite ideologies and methodologies. AAI is globally orientated. The AI wants a fusion who can build it? NTai is more unit orientated, I can build a fusion do we need it?, and as such what works for AAI may not necessarily be a good thing for NTai, albeit NTais system is more flexible and configurable.

http://www.unknown-files.net/index.php? ... &dlid=2081

V0.22

I still get the 100% impression that editing stuff on the unit list like "single build" "attacker" "defender" is 100% boned. it dosnt stick. best look at that.

The page with the checkboxes for units should include singlebuild and solobuild.

And it still crashes immediately after loading unit data, with the default XTA_BT2 config.

Lol I was somehow able to bug the whole Toolkit, I have each Entry in the Tasklist in the Unit Tab 3 times like

core_voodoo - Voodoo - Light Gunship
core_voodoo - Voodoo - Light Gunship
core_voodoo - Voodoo - Light Gunship

also When I assigned the tasklist "arm_commander" in the Cheat Tab (pressing on the box multiple times very fast) I had three entrys like this:

[CHEAT]
{
builder=list1;
commander=list1;
hub=list1;
factory=list1;
arm_commander=arm_commander, arm_commander, arm_commander;
}

I'm not able to reproduce this each time, but sometimes this does not work and you get nothing , not even a line which says arm_commander=.

I'm also sure it created the bug with one entry being displayed three times.

I still get the 100% impression that editing stuff on the unit list like "single build" "attacker" "defender" is 100% boned. it dosnt stick. best look at that.

Its no impression, some other options have these problems too.

lindir the 'default' XTA_BT2 config is actually the 'example' XTA_BT2 config.

But right now I dont wanna work on it today. It christmas day and I've brought out 3 versions, and a version of AFLobby in the last 24 hours.

Lindir send me logs, entire logs and configs and so on and so forth. And please test with a config and not the example XTA config I put up with the download (which I shall erase in the next version as it doesnt really serve any real purpose but to confuse atm)

Take your time, good things may take a while!

Another bug report:

When you load the tasklists from file, and then try to save the current config, it tries to save to the same place where you loaded the tasklists from file, plus an additional .\configs (I think) , causing errors when that path doesn't exist.

It's really annoying, and it caused me to lose a lot of work.

edit: sorry for these really short rude messages, but I'm really busy trying to get a working buildtree as soon as possible.

I'm putting my work on buildtrees aside until this is better ironed out, for other reasons. I do like where the kit is at now, and I must thank you, AF.

Ok Extract your archives into


*spring folder*/AI/

Such that you have:

*spring folder*/AI/NTaiToolkit.exe
*spring folder*/AI/NTai/
*spring folder*/AI/Bot-libs/NTai.dll


The following is bad:

*spring folder*/AI/NTaiToolkit0.22/

As is anywhere else.

Lindir, there should be a configs folder at

*spring folder*/AI/NTai/configs/

dont load configs from that folder
dont delete that folder
dont set it as read only
dont deny permissions to rite that folder for your username

If you open
*spring folder*/AI/NTai/EE.tdf

It will have a tag in it telling it where to find the learning data and where to find the configs raw data. Toolkit never saves to this file, it just loads its contents once to read these values.

The only file toolkit edits at the moment is the one containing all the config data like tasklists and options that you change.

Also I would check your logs and see whats making NTai crash. And check your learning file to see if it has all the correct brackets. If there are unclosed brackets it will crash. "Boost::spirit parser error" means SYNTAX ERROR. It means unclosed brackets, missed semicolons on lines, general syntax mistakes. Delete the learning file and NTai will generate a new one for you.


I would also make sure you have V0.22 and not an earlier version. Some of you are describing bugs I've already fixed and verified.

And adding NeverAntistall to quickset would be a good idea indeed, which I shall do soon.

May I also note that the config is loaded by NTai at the start, so if you have toolkit opened up while you test, saving the config wont make the changes reflect in NTai unless you restart spring..

Well then it's a syntax error that's caused by your program, not by me. The file that it spits out is really weird... Instead of newlines it has little squares. That might sound really stupid to someone who knows what the little squares are. But I don't, so I think of them as annoying little squares.

And I extracted everything to [springfolder]\AI\, and it mostly works. My problem is that I am trying to import the buildlists from:

[springfolder]\AI\NTai\XTA_OLD\[unitname].txt

I can import them fine, but then when I try to save the newly modified config, it tries to save it to:

[springfolder]\AI\NTai\XTA_OLD\configs\XTA_BT2.tdf

Which doesn't exist, so it spits out an error. This is an error on NTai's part. The only way for me to remedy the problem is if I put all of the contents of /XTA_OLD/ directly in /AI/, which I could easily do, but I don't want to do as it would cause clutter. This is not a critical error, but an annoying bug.

the little squares are line breaks i think...

im not sure why they appear, but i get them sometimes in files i get off the net...

try opening it in a different text editor...