P.U.R.E. 0.55

KDR_11k · Post by **KDR_11k** » 16 Dec 2007, 17:28

AFAIK OTA didn't initialize any variables, Spring initializes defined vars to zero but obviously not function params. Uninitialized vars will cause desyncs so you should really accept Spring's help there.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 16 Dec 2007, 17:38

@KDR_11k: Yeah, I'm fixing it.

@Tobi: Due to StartBuilding() now accepting a Pitch parameter, all scripts that just call heading are now going to cause that error. Easily fixed on the animator's end, of course.

AF · Post by AF » 16 Dec 2007, 17:45

Argh, I assume you haven't tried NTai out, but what map would you suggest for a 3 way NTai skirmish as a showcase?

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 16 Dec 2007, 18:00

I haven't tried NTAI since I moved away from 0.75b2. In 0.75b2, NTAI and RAI were the only AIs that played PURE well enough to bother with, for serious testing. AAI is the only working AI ATM, in SVN builds. Which sucks, because it plays PURE very poorly, until it's been trained a lot.

Anyhoo... I have played it on all sorts of maps. It plays quite well on just about anything, from SpeedMetal to Frozen Triangle to DSD to Tabula. I played it on Road_To_Rome last night, and that was a visual spectacular- there aren't many metal spots, but they provide enough income, per spot, that you can actually have a heck of a game. If the map is mainly water, it won't play well ATM, because the only unit that can ferry stuff across water is fairly borked until the fundamental problems with its MoveType have been addressed.

AF · Post by AF » 16 Dec 2007, 18:15

I haven't tried NTAI since I moved away from 0.75b2. In 0.75b2, NTAI and RAI were the only AIs that played PURE well enough to bother with, for serious testing. AAI is the only working AI ATM, in SVN builds. Which sucks, because it plays PURE very poorly, until it's been trained a lot.

You do know buildbot builds svn NTais now? You must have missed the blog post link a page back linking to a rar archive containing new toolkit NTai and a P.U.R.E config for svn builds of spring.

KDR_11k · Post by **KDR_11k** » 16 Dec 2007, 18:31

Param underuse doesn't cause an error as far as I can see, just using more params than provided will.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 16 Dec 2007, 18:37

@AF: Yeah, I read that, but meh... it's been a rather busy time here IRL, I haven't had time to fire it up and test yet. Soon as I'm done with everything else on my list, I will give it a go and see what transpires. Hey... waitaminute... old configs still work, right? I think I put one up to you awhile ago... do you have that around? If you have it, or the link to it, lemme know, it'd save some time, if I don't have to redo that.

@KDR_11k: That's what I observed. However, I decided that if I was going to clean stuff up, I might as well clean it all. All params have been moved to local-vars, unless they are reserved params (heading, pitch, piecenum, etc.) to ensure that I will not be causing sync problems. I'm about done with that, then I need to tackle the graphics problems, test the Assault Shell nerf, and see about making a crude NTAI config and giving it a go. I'll put up a new beta after that testing is done...

Satirik · Post by **Satirik** » 16 Dec 2007, 19:12

units animation are not smooth if you don't host

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 16 Dec 2007, 19:34

@Satirik: I really doubt that has anything to do with PURE itself. UnitSync must be causing that, due to COB timing issues. I'm not doing anything weird or unique in terms of COB timing, to put it another way. This is probably just something in the SVN builds that isn't quite ready for prime-time yet.

@AF: I found, d/l'd, and set up PURE to use NTAI. Worked just great, until I blew up a Unit, then Spring hard-crashed. More when I have tested further.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 16 Dec 2007, 19:57

@AF:

NTAI keeps returning messages about "junk in buffers". Lemme look at the logs...

Hmm. It's not entirely clear, but it may have hit a small error in the TDFs somewhere, maybe a namespace issue or something? It's been running through early tests just fine, since that initial hard-lock... I'll try with the very latest SVN build, see whether this improves or not.

Also, I see lots of error messages being returned because Units don't have Task Lists assigned. Er, if it's a mine or whatever, does that matter? Aren't those buffers just being set to a 0 and then it just moves through them on each run through the stack? Or is assigning a command queue that's blank a good idea? Seems like a lot of extra mucking about, for such a simple issue.

Peet · Post by **Peet** » 16 Dec 2007, 20:21

Argh wrote:@Satirik: I really doubt that has anything to do with PURE itself. UnitSync must be causing that, due to COB timing issues. I'm not doing anything weird or unique in terms of COB timing, to put it another way. This is probably just something in the SVN builds that isn't quite ready for prime-time yet.

Last time I checked, unitsync had nothing to do with anything ingame ^_^

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 16 Dec 2007, 20:30

@Peet: Sorry, you are correct, I am mis-using a name. I meant that COB is tied to the framerate of the sim, which my understanding is now locked a lot more to the host in order to maintain sync and allow for various things. At any rate, none of that is stuff I have anything to do with, and it's not a fault in PURE's COB code- timing issues are Spring, not game.

Whatever's causing that will almost certainly be causing it in other games- and if it's not happening, when people are testing with CA/XTA/BA, then it means that it has to do with one or more of the new features I'm using, within COB... which one, though, I can't say from here yet.

@AF: Just had another crash... lots and lots of this in the log:

Code: Select all

[04:06]|14:24:27| < Frame: 7409 >next task?
[04:06]|14:24:27| < Frame: 7409 >CUnitConstructionTask::Init :: fusion
[04:06]|14:24:27| < Frame: 7409 >no cells: 0
[04:06]|14:24:27| < Frame: 7409 >bad pos(1)6
[04:06]|14:24:27| < Frame: 7409 >BuildPlacement returned UpVector or some other nasty position, a build location wasn't found!

Moreover, it crashed right after I killed the Commander. Maybe something isn't handling the death of units gracefully?

[BIG GIANT EDIT]

I'm going to pause, and make all of the unit-dropping sounds use Air LOS, so that they're semi-private in the future. That should be the last major bit of coding, for now, other than fixing the load-screen. Then it's time to put out a new build and see if that addresses most of the fundamental issues with the beta, hopefully taking care of desync issues.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 17 Dec 2007, 06:41

Posted update, 0.51. Took 0.5 down, please download the very latest SVN installers if you want to play P.U.R.E., I'm making use of s'more of the latest code.

Changelog:

LandFactory is now the half the cost, half the time.
All mobile and defensive units have a sightradius of 1024.
All COB issues (build heading, pitch, var issues, etc.) have been fixed, should no longer spam errors in SVN Spring.
All units now use a randomized explosion system, with better usage of sound.
All walkers now have sound effects, localized to the unit and based on mass.
Rebalanced Assault Shell slightly, to nerf a bit. May have to cut down autoheal a bit more, dunno yet, I'd like to hear more from players who are actually using the counters that already exist.
Fixed the loadscreen so that the acronym is correct.
Corrected small issue with height of one model, was clipping healthbar.
Cleaned up COB code in general.
Wrote a sound class, to be used for further customization / extension of Lurker's sound patch capabilities, which btw ROCK.
Moved all building dropping sounds to public, LOS-dependent sounds. No longer uses Spring's defaults, which allowed any player to hear regardless of LOS- should improve performance and gameplay simultaneously.
Various other small fixes.

Overall, it seems to be playing better and more smoothly, in the latest SVN builds- with shadows turned off, and medium settings, even this rig I built for my parents 2 years ago, with a Radeon 9800, is playing at acceptable framerates. Should make for decent games.

Smiff · Post by **Smiff** » 17 Dec 2007, 10:19

love you Argh

i just renamed some NTai files (PURE0.51.sdz.tdf etc), seems to work, but do the stats need editing for these changes? maybe someone who knows NTai can post properly updated configs, i don't want to guess at it.
still need to change bot team to overmind, are there supposed to be two races in this game?

i liked the "error" in the acronym btw :)

(just wish SVN was more stable, so we could play this properly on the LAN...)

edit: AAi doesnt seem to work so well either:

Code: Select all

Map: Mars.smf
Mapsize is 1024 x 1024
10 sectors in x direction
10 sectors in y direction
x-sectorsize is 816 (Map 102)
y-sectorsize is 816 (Map 102)
175 metal spots found 
 
Playing as Resistance

Team 1 could not add sector 0,0 to base, already occupied by ally team 1!

Base has now 2 direct neighbouring sectors

Adding land sector 1,0 to base; base size: 2 
Base has now 3 direct neighbouring sectors

Shutting down....

edit2: make it the other faction, then it works? the bots only like playing Overmind it seems, probably just config?

AF · Post by AF » 17 Dec 2007, 11:13

Junk in buffers is very likely a tdf syntax error somewhere, but in my tests those messages occured at the start and could be safely ingored.

If you get a crash you should be getting stack traces from too.

Pressure Line · Post by **Pressure Line** » 17 Dec 2007, 12:19

hmmm. one minor observation.

the walk animation for the command unit doesnt fit. everything about PURE has this wonderful gritty techy future feel about it, all except the way the comm moves, it feels far too cartoony imo.

oh, and the rocket turret has three holes on the back of the launcher but 2 on the front... what gives?

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 17 Dec 2007, 13:41

Just thought I'd drop in and say I'm impressed with the visuals of the mod, I really like the attention to detail. Explosions and effects are very nice too :)

rattle · Post by **rattle** » 17 Dec 2007, 14:12

The track animations for the Tank and UltraAssault are too fast, I'd slow the script down to 2/3rd. Rocket tank is much better now, though the artillery mech could need some fixery. I'd use WeaponMainDir for the y-roation so it turns itself instead of the turret.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 17 Dec 2007, 15:37

the walk animation for the command unit doesnt fit. everything about PURE has this wonderful gritty techy future feel about it, all except the way the comm moves, it feels far too cartoony imo.

The Overmind Commander's joint system is most like a turtle's, with the exception of the camber of the leg joints. The problem with slowing it down, since speed is why it looks "cartoony", is that the speed of the resulting unit has to go down, too. You just cannot go that fast at anything less than a canter, with a 4-legged unit and a leg design like that. I tried a lot of variations before settling on that one, frankly. All solutions at the same velocity that required half the number of cycles result in enormous movement up and down of the entire model, to maintain the fiction that it's striding over solid ground.

If the legs could swing outwards, for example, a longer stride is possible- or with more traditional, horselike / elephant-like legs. Either way, we're talking a rebuild, not a minor retrofit. Depending on how things go this week, I'll probably have time to tackle this- it's one of the minor ironies of my current situation...

Erom · Post by **Erom** » 17 Dec 2007, 16:31

Having fun with this.

A crash for your perusal. Very well might be spring related. A bomber was attacking a commander at the time:

SNIP - caused by AAI

Spring RTS Engine

P.U.R.E. 0.55