Spring RTS Engine

What do you mean by OTA style maps?
And yes, I guess the score calculation of the build table is not very correct. Apparently this:

res.buildtime + res.metal * 20 + res.energy;

Returns a lower score for corap than for corvp. I guess I should put these weights in the config too.

This is what I got for Classic TA:

Log started on: Wednesday, October 12, day 285 of 2005.
The time is 12:53 PM.
Running mod OTA_Classic_TA.sd7 on map 4Skulls.smf
BuildTable: Can't open cache file aidll\globalai\jcai\OTA_Classic_TA.modcache
Calculating build table for 279 build types...
MapInfo: 32x32, GameStateInfo: 16x16

Extractor Radius: 31.250000, w=9, h=9, blockw=124, metalblockw=62
Metal info map calculated: Highest metal val=254, Number of spots: 39, Average production/spot: 2702.241699
Building weights: Resources=0.322581, Forces=0.645161, Defenses=0.000000
Parsed force group: RushForce
Parsed force group: BasicForce1
Parsed force group: KbotForce1
Parsed force group: AdvForce1
Parsed force group: AdvForce2
Parsed force group: AirForce1
Parsed force group: AirForce2
Error: No unit called x1corminifus was found
Error: Failed to load resource config
Closing AI...

it wont load the WD.cfg for WD in much the same way, however it doesn't read the WD main file...the classic TA file I tried to run here used an exact copy of the XTA cfg file with the filename changed to the OTA classic file...

Nevermind, it does return a lower score
It is caused by the recon stuff that immediatly starts putting aircraft tasks in the system.

Error: No unit called x1corminifus was found
Error: Failed to load resource config

OTA doesn't have a mini fusion, and the config loading just fails completely when one thing goes wrong. I'll make that somewhat less strict in the next version.
But eh, now I still don't know what happens with the WD.cfg

Something that might cause problems:

section = { blahblah }, I often forget the = token here, maybe it's something like that...

Maybe it's not finding the right units, and just dying straight away?

And I'd love to have a video recorded of the battle between the AI's. I'm going to chase down a copy of XP, so I can play this blasted game, if it's the last thing I do.

well i tried
obviously AF's doesn't work, and i think i was using a outdated vsn of Zaphods (on the .65b1 client that is, AFs works OK normally)

The ellusive NTAI bug I've been tracking was onyl udner 0.64 b1 but now I can get source for 0.65 I'm sure I'll ahev better luck, and you lto can finally run NTAI vs JCAI games, bug or not.

Also zaphod, I suggest you make JCAI check if wind generators give more than solars.

It already does that

then our AI's must use different thresholds, NTAI uses widn on brazil battlefields but JCAI uses solars.....

Log started on: Wednesday, October 12, day 285 of 2005.
The time is 09:06 PM.
In aidll\globalai\jcai\wd_mosp_forces.cfg on line 67:Expecting an identifier instead of '2'
Error loading config: aidll\globalai\jcai\wd.cfg
Closing AI...


line 67: category=2

I don't get it...

Is anybody else having problems with their screen distorting and shaking when running JCAI? it generally starts to happen around 5min into the game, I have tried and got the same results with .64b1 as well as with .65b1. Normal multiplayer works fine though.
It seems to be interfering the vertical sync -traces are going off the screen (beyond the hardware limits) Some sort of weird ai -> spring -> dx9 -> hardware interaction? very strange.

Zaphod, it's odd, I can run the AI perfectly when I add ihccom in the xta file and run spring's globalAI script...I just drop WD in the main spring folder and I can play, otherwise it freezes on me

i'm stumped...atleast I can play that way...the AI builds everything! planes, tanks...I just need to expand the AI profile a bit...

this is just a thourght... but it looks like Alantai Firestar and Zaphod or the only AI programers in spring at the moment.

Why dont you 2 work together as a team, make compromises to what happends in the AI and stuff.

with you to working i am willing to bet the AI will be more then brilliant you 2 could do amazing things so why not work together?

dunno they are kind of helping each other, AF pointing out nething Zaphod might have missed and Zaphod giving AF a hand with C+ code

Zaphod, I got some ideas for ya.

I don't know if you are already planning this but when the AI matures, could you add the following?

-Combat Air Patrol for AI aicraft, the AI would actively defend it's base wit aircraft patrolling the perimiter of the base.

-AI's using transports to transport units, esspecially slow units, this would be great for WD, maybe you could tell the AI to take certain units that are build?

-AI commanders capturing enemy ore mines when they come acrossed it rather than kill them.

-AI's replacing regular mines with moho's.

I could give you some more suggestions, but i'm just trying to help make the AI even better.

-Combat Air Patrol for AI aicraft, the AI would actively defend it's base wit aircraft patrolling the perimiter of the base.

That a good idea, I'll add this as another force group type (next to attackdefend/raid)

-AI's using transports to transport units, esspecially slow units, this would be great for WD, maybe you could tell the AI to take certain units that are build?

Nice, even if it somehow would not be an advantage, it would still look very cool to see an army being transported by the AI. Speaking of transportation, does WD have any transport units with isAirbase=1? It would be very cool to have infantry in transport choppers shooting their way into the base :D

-AI commanders capturing enemy ore mines when they come acrossed it rather than kill them.

I guess I can add that, it will always be more efficient than building a new one...

-AI's replacing regular mines with moho's.

Yes I was planning to do that sometime.

Some things are currently more important, like making it reclaim map features so it doesn't get stuck in the trees. And ofcourse defense building and geothermals. But after that I'll think I can start focusing on adding these kind of features. These kind of suggestions are very welcome, even though I can't implement them right now.

deathknight, more people working on a project doesn't always mean it will be done faster. Especially in the first alpha versions, 2 people working on the same thing just get in eachothers way and have to coordinate everything.

Zaphod wrote:What do you mean by OTA style maps?

it crashes on maps with OTA style metal distribution like CometCatcher..

I see now, in case that was a division by zero, it's fixed in the next version :)

I wouldnt work on a collarboration with zaphod, triaxx2 would eat me alive for eliminating the element of comeptition.

I believe that there's a problem that lies much deeper than JCAI. NTAI is suffering froma problem that cannot be tracked thus far, I've traced one cause of instability to the metal maker AI SJ wrote, so that'll need the ocne over by soemone, and I have only Cains metal AI class to check out. I ran after removing the metal maker groupAI code and it played for 80 minutes instead of 8, then I changed a few lines of code, nothgin that shouldaffect it, and it played for 11 minutes. I got a crash playing against JCAI on riverdale yesterday too that remidned me of NTAI crashes. And whenever NTAI or JCAI crash for me the hardrive wizzes for 5-7 seconds while spring is frozen then ti stops and the crash dialog comes up.

And SJ's metal AI is definately not 100% stable, I copied the groupAI code into NTAI and recompiled and it became much more unstable.

As for using transporters, I suggest you read the lengthy topic on transporting units and transport zones in an AI at darkstars.co.uk, most people seem to ahev forgotten it and mentioned things briefly that I've mentioned in detail there.

Sorry I don't really like your lengthy topics over there. Algorithms should not be so complicated to require multiple pages of text.