Spring RTS Engine

Is it possible to make it place hubs depending on metal concentration?

Why on earth would you want it to do that?!

For smarter base advancement I guess.

Well, hubs building mexes are a central part in an upcoming mod Im working on. It's important to how I want the economy to work, with strictly defined bases. Im curious what you think if it's possible for an ai to handle it.

And yes it would be sort of benificial to like, EE, if it puts its hubs near lots of metal since this lets him defend both assets more effectively.

XE9.66 appears to only build one of the tasks on the list then sit idle. If you force it to build a factory then the factory builds one unit then sits idle...

A little more info:
Whether the task list is made of random movement, building, whatever, it stops after doing one thing.
When the one unit the factory built was a con, the con moved out, and then did nothing on the task list, so maybe it just doesn't get the idle message. Pressing stop a few times doesn't help.

Edit:
Oh yeah, and none of the markers disappear.
I just noticed something. In a game with NTAI in slot #2, none of the units have virtual debug copies. Virtual units do appear before building, and on enemy units, but not on or around built NTAI units.
But whatever slot, it doesn't have blocking units.
(This was in Simbase, as before)

Edit 2:
Okay, so it did the same thing with virtual units from only slot #1 before. meh.

dont put random movement in a task list for the same reason I stopped it scouting, it produces bugged behaviour.

XE9.66A.

XE9.66B

Fixed up the first task issue.

As of XE9.66C:

Unfixed:
1. Hubs always try to build on their exact coordinates, and don't find an empty space.
2. Commanders often randomly head for the top-left corner, but it's rarer for the ones in slot #1 to do so.
3. I got a crash that I believe was caused by NTAI trying to set the fire and move state of a hub when I set it in the config.

Fixed:
1. Units only do the first thing on their tasklist.
2. Blocking units aren't shown.

Hey, just wondering, one of my favourite group AIs ever was your ETA ai. Is there somewhere I can get it for this version of spring?

When the 3 bugs lurker encountered are fixed, NTai will be stable, and the focus then will be to get people to make configs.

When configs for lvl 1 BA/XTA/EE are created and have maintainers, an NTai release will happen along with the installer, all the extra tools like spring SP, and the groupAI (ETA AI, etc but Adv metalmaker AI is obsolete due to fat controllers lua widgets so his widgets will be added instead unelss he objects)

But if you really want it I'll see what I can do and get it on UF in the next few days, or possibly make a lua version (much prettier)

Forgot about the toolkit. I've found two bugs with it. One major, one minor.
1. On the units tab, when I deselect properties, they aren't removed and are back if I move to a different unit and then to the first again.
2. When a different config is opened, whatever tasklist was loaded on the prior config stays open.

I'll go test if I was right about the crash on #3 now.

AF wrote:But if you really want it I'll see what I can do and get it on UF in the next few days, or possibly make a lua version (much prettier)

That sounds awesome . I can wait until the release of the next NTai if you'd prefer that, I just wanted to know if one was coming. I Like the idea of a widget version though. Thanks!

lurker wrote:Forgot about the toolkit. I've found two bugs with it. One major, one minor.
1. On the units tab, when I deselect properties, they aren't removed and are back if I move to a different unit and then to the first again.
2. When a different config is opened, whatever tasklist was loaded on the prior config stays open.

I'll go test if I was right about the crash on #3 now.

#1: Does this happen with certain configs or all, and does it happen with every control or certain controls?

#2: I never really anticipated people would load 2 configs in a row, I'll have to do something about that

I know this may sound pushy, but do you have an approximate release date? I'm really looking forward to it, probably too much for my own good

My main issue atm is the hubs trying to build ontop of themselves bug, however XTA/BA should work save for one issue, configs.

Lindirs config worked ok for past NTai but that was when most items in his tasklists where discarded or ignored, and economics in the AI was different.

Put simply, all the changes in the AI mean it isnt very good with the XTA config anymore, and some tuning up is needed using the toolkit program, for example, on cold place NTai will build lots of shipyards very close together when it should only build one, which can easily be fixed via the toolkit program by setting an exclusion zone so no other shipyards are built nearby, aswell as increasing factory spacing values.

Thanks go to lurker[] for testing things.

NTai XE9.7

This should work now. The visual debugging routines are still in place and in the next proper installer release it'll be ntai-debug.dll.

However, this build works! Hubs work, mobile builders work! All the essentials appear to be there and working properly.

So go off and build your configs!

Toolkit 0.25

btw we need a new XTA config

Gave this a test and it seems to work ok except for a couple of issues.

The AI doesn't move any assualt units from the factory until it is attacked and even then it seems very reluctant to use them. Think there must be something wrong here.

The peweee markers make it difficult to see but it did look like the markers were removed for some buildings that were destroyed and not for others so there could also be an issue there.

Let me know any specific tests you want tried, other than that it looks well on the way. As before even a simple config took control of nearly half the map very rapidly so when this is sorted i'll do one for BA that is a bit more carefully planned

ok, I managed to restore attack behaviour, at least for the very first NTai in a game. using ".give 10 core_krogoth" it immediatly sent them to the enemy base.

Woot!
Anyway, already told you some of this, but I've found two bugs:
1. Hubs try to build out of their range.
2. Whatever I specify for building spacing, NTAI adds one to the number in game. When I want to set it at 0, I can't, and if I set it at -1, there are no blocking units at all for affected units.
Yay working-at-simbase NTAI!