Spring RTS Engine

AF wrote:Try adding the repeat keyword to the end of every buildtree. Units should repeat buildtrees by default but it's not always the case....

That's what I did but sometimes units still refuse to repeat. That might've been fixed since though.

hmm have you looked at the logs? noticed aircraft building floating buildings/submerged buildings? (can be known to cause hangups in buildtrees).

For that reason i think it's also a good diea you remove any references to shipyards since they'll ultimately lead to the same stalls, adn I believe that there are shipyard entries in the commander and con aircraft buildtrees. Try using hovercraft instead and perhaps just adding shipyards to map specific buildtrees.....

I only have the shipyard in the commander buildtree; it is the 2nd plant the commander tries to build. I reasoned that if there were water on the map it would build the shipyard and not have enough resources for the vehicle plant immediately afterwards, but if there wasn't water, it would skip the shipyard and go straight to the vehicle plant.

I'll do some testing tomorrow and see if changing to land/air only helps.

But I think that would cripple the AI on the multitude of thecoldplace type maps with mostly land but some water.

edit:

Did some testing, and it happens with construction planes and necros. I'm trying to fix it, but I'm going out of town tomorrow until friday.

So maybe you'll get a fix next Saturday.

hmm, XE8 is going to be released soon:

Quick Change log (susceptible to additions at short notice)

- now uncrashable, crashes are caught with exception handling and the AI continues as usual
- Commander cannot be confused into not dgunning when multiple units are attacking
- Commander will dgun units on sight rather than waiting for them to attack, thus it can now fend off lvl 1 armies single handedly
- Improved metal maker and moho mex handling
- Improved threat matrix handling
- all units and Defences target units based on efficiency or targeting weights and focus fire for maximum efficiency rather than a disarrayed attack based on the engine sub AI
- AI.tdf now allows users to move the NTAI folder somewhere else (requested for users on linux who want it in their home folder so they can keep the spring folder read only)
- Units will now take their firing range into account and launch ranged attacks if necessary, keeping their distance.
- Default cheap_multiplier changed from 1.3 to 1.7 for better compatibility
- Increased range on closest build site
- Fixed scouters stopping and doing nothing sometimes
- Increased randomizing on scouter target selection...
- Changed threat matrix update routine to attempt to take into account radar blips (an engine interface change is required to take full effect)
- Scouters now head to the empty position around a target spot, and not at the target spot possibly wasting time as it tries to walk into a mex...
- units getting damaged affect the threat matrix now...

- Improved metal maker AI V2 is to be bundled along with altarics lobby and metal heck/comet catcher remake

Currently working on and fine tuning:

- Dgunning that predicts the path of the enemy (see the KAI demo where the commander dguns the hawks)

AF wrote:- now uncrashable, crashes are caught with exception handling and the AI continues as usual.

If thats true youll be going up quite a few notches on my book!

One of the 0.27 betas was uncrashable, onyl ti told the user, which ended up with it spamming the console, so I took it out to track the bugs and never put ti back in, untill now.

That version still crashed though because spring wasnt stable at that point and the AI interface had bugs which ahve since been fixed (such as closestbuildsite crashing on smalldivide)

krogothe wrote:

AF wrote:- now uncrashable, crashes are caught with exception handling and the AI continues as usual.

If thats true youll be going up quite a few notches on my book!

this reminds me very much of the saying of a technician of the soviet army concerning repairing choppers: "well, if there's something broken, we just repaint it and everything looks new"

Whats with the pointless feud Submarine and AF have going on? I don't get it.

I'm looking forward to NTAI XE8! The AI's coming out over the past couple weeks have really been amazing, you guys all do great work.

More exception catching is a nice idea, af, just remember that it isn't an actual fix, you're just patching it up. If something really screws up, then exception handling will not solve it (Such as really messing up the stack so it can't unroll). Or it ends up doing logic you can't anticipate.

nice work though...

Whats with the pointless feud Submarine and AF have going on? I don't get it.

Just little things mostly, adds a little drama to the forum.

* grabs his crisps and leans back *

http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=2943

Those are updated learning files for XTA, they'll bring with them improvements to how NTai plays in XE7.5 or XE8 if you have that somehow.

It'll affect what it builds and how it attacks and percieves the enemy. These buildtrees have been trained to eliminate bad building choices and give priority to certain units, such as goliaths in targetting, and fusion reactors etc...

Put it in the 'springfolder'/NTAI/learn folder for instant improvements.

2 days left

- OTAI style dragon teeth ring building
- Double the number of universal keywords
- Instant SWTA support with no extra modifications required
- Instant Gundam Annihilation support
- Cheat mode option for harder difficulty
- New XTA buildtrees
- Attack units search the surrounding area in some situations...
- Vastly Improved threat matrix handling (NTai no longer forgets bases its seen or goes after nonexistant enemies like some of the other AI's)

I hope I'll be done with the buildtrees in two days...



[edit]

I absolutely will not be done until Tuesday at the earliest due to Easter, so... yeah... I think the release date will have to be pushed back.

Either that or you will have an inferior XTA buildtree.

[\edit]

release? AA buildtree?

AF wrote:2 days left

- New XTA buildtrees

Lindir has delayed my release untill at least tuesday.

Nobody is working on AA buildtrees, despite em asking for people to work with them. PM me and I'll send you the last copy of lindirs XTA tree and a new copy of NTai, and you can start changing lindirs tree for AA

Hi AF,

in your version history you say, that this AI should work with FF, but i installed the newest version and it does nothing. Did i made something wrong, or doesnt NTAI support FF?

here is one log file:

:: NTAI XE7.5 Log File
:: Programmed and maintained by AF
:: Copyright (C) 2006 AF
:: Released under the GPL 2.0 Liscence
:: Game started: 23.3.2006 19:13:19

:: Final Frontier 1.15
:: Final Frontier 1.15
:: OptimusPrime : player :: 0
:: AI DLL's in game
:: aidll\globalai\NTAIXE7.5.dll : AI :: 1
:: aidll\globalai\NTAIXE7.5.dll : AI :: 2

:: Found 63 Metal Spots
:: mod.tdf failed to load, assuming default values :: Using abstract buildtree

:: FF-Surrounded.smf
:: FF 1.15 S.sdz
:: map size 30 x 30
[00:00] Chaser::Add()
[00:00] new attacker added :: ARMCCRUS
[00:00] issuing mobile unit :: ARMADVSOL
:: Closing LogFile...

XE8 is all that matters.

However I have buildtrees for V 1.11, and I've totally lost track of the latets version of FF.

In future add the tags to the Ff mods so NTAI loads from the FF fodler rather than say FF1.11.sdz folder

AF wrote:XE8 is all that matters.
In future add the tags to the Ff mods so NTAI loads from the FF fodler rather than say FF1.11.sdz folder

whats that? How can i do that?

look in the XTA pimepd thread, I'll post it again here if I come across it.

That is what Noize has started using...