46 replies to this topic

[thudo]

**Note: ONLY WORKS WITH Dark Crusade v1.2 Patch!!**

Its finally up for the testers!

- Thanks to Relics new patch, the garrison and transport code is now complete AI code instead of SCAR code
- Changed AI SCAR Support option back to AI Donations (for obvious reasons)
- Includes all heroes fixes
- Save bug should be fixed now (This has to be tested for all races...)
- IG Command squad built reliable now
- All factions will now build all units in their arsenal at appropriate times (ie. Orks build more Wartrakks/Trukks, Necrons will build more Destroyers/Heavy Destroyers, etc etc)
- Necron AI will not build too many Attack Scarabs from Tomb Spyder unless it has enough power. Wanted to allow the Necrons to tech more.
- Necrons will now build Generators not only @ main base but on LPs farthest away from the enemy.
- Some other slight fixes like usual...

Please post your results and impressions in this thread!

For testing please try to follow these guidelines:
o Play on official 1vs1, 2vs2, etc maps
o Play on HARD skill and no other since results with be skewed otherwise. Hard skill represents true 1:1
o Play against different factions
o Play more than 1 game trying to reproduce a bug/issue you noticed in another game on another map

Thanks all!

[Markoso]

Bleh, a little dead in the water here lately, I should be able to hop back on in a week or two...

[thudo]

Thanks Markoso! Try your best. The other testers are now working away.

[LarkinVB]

Tau vs Eldar, Titan ... map

1. 2 fire warrior squads were pawned by invisible rangers. Tau had no or too few detectors and the FW squads got broken but were still milling near rangers for a long time. They were useless, decimated, reinforcing etc for some minutes.

2. Invisible stealth suits were capping. Guardians were approching same point, waiting till point was capped. Then the got shot and retreated. This was a bad decision. They should either a) move on as soon as a point is capped and they can't shoot the capper or b) wait and decap immediatly even under ineffective fire.

3. Tau commander should not do early harass vs FS without jump ability. Her spell will kill him or render him useless due to low health.

[kreative]

Map: Valley of Khorne
Match: 1v1
Game Modes Used: Annihilate
A.I. Difficulty: Hard
Resources Rate: Normal
Resources Sharing: Off

Factions: Orks vs Chaos CPU
Winner: Orks
Comments: No comment
Replay: Download V2.3 B2 R001

Factions: Orks vs Eldar CPU
Winner: Orks
Comments: Dancing seems more consistent now, need to test more to verify.
Replay: Download V2.3 B2 R002

Factions: Orks vs Imperial Guard CPU
Winner: Orks
Comments: Basilisk are doing a great job staying away from enemy fire, they don't seem to chase as previously. Command squad is suicidal though, think it would do a much better job as a pure ranged/spell casting unit.
Replay: Download V2.3 B2 R003

Factions: Orks vs Necrons CPU
Winner: Orks
Comments: No comment
Replay: Download V2.3 B2 R004

Factions: Orks vs Orks CPU
Winner: Orks (Human)
Comments: No comment
Replay: Download V2.3 B2 R005

Factions: Orks vs Space Marines CPU
Winner: Orks
Comments: No comment
Replay: Download V2.3 B2 R006

Factions: Orks vs Tau CPU
Winner: Orks
Comments: No comment
Replay: Download V2.3 B2 R007

Edited by kreative, 06 April 2007 - 02:42 PM.

[thudo]

Thanks Kreative but replays are more a luxury. We need point-form experiences of the battle from you as well so the devs can get at the issues quicker. Your comments on what your experienced are "bullet points" to which we can more readily get right at and solve.

Also, was HEROES enabled during that game?

[kreative]

Thanks Kreative but replays are more a luxury. We need point-form experiences of the battle from you as well so the devs can get at the issues quicker. Your comments on what your experienced are "bullet points" to which we can more readily get right at and solve.

Also, was HEROES enabled during that game?

I haven't enabled Heroes since I don't know if it's commonly used by the DoS player base. If you want me to I will do so. So far I haven't found anything notable, but will comment as soon as I do. I would like to keep my post updated since it also gives me an overview of what I have played.

[thudo]

Thanks Kreative. Try with HEROES on and then off.

Essentially, we REALLY need the HEROES and AI donations game-modes turned ON during a multiplay test to ensure there are no synch problems. Otherwise, we always welcome additional testing. And yep HEROES will be apart of the Advanced AI project since its extremely cool.

Tau vs Eldar, Titan ... map

1. 2 fire warrior squads were pawned by invisible rangers. Tau had no or too few detectors and the FW squads got broken but were still milling near rangers for a long time. They were useless, decimated, reinforcing etc for some minutes.

2. Invisible stealth suits were capping. Guardians were approching same point, waiting till point was capped. Then the got shot and retreated. This was a bad decision. They should either a) move on as soon as a point is capped and they can't shoot the capper or b) wait and decap immediatly even under ineffective fire.

3. Tau commander should not do early harass vs FS without jump ability. Her spell will kill him or render him useless due to low health.

Just played that map with Eldar @ SP1 and Tau @ SP2. Result.. Tau pretty much dominated half way thru whereas the first part the Eldar were kicking butt. Tau are still a little uber'ed in DC 1.2 patch though. Eldar can do quite well against slower races like SM, CSM, and IG but Tau has alot of nasty crap in its Tier3+. Those are good points, though, Larkin. Excellent observations!

[ArkhanTheBlack]

I didn't see any comments about the saving problem, yet. Since that's the most important issue to fix in 2.3 I'd like to see any reports about that. Try to save skirmish and/or campaign games in the middle of a battle, reload them and check if you can finish the game without problems. Best try this with heroes activated. This has to be tested for all AI races, therefore if you play with and against 7 different AI races, then you can test them all at once.

Edit:
You can also zoom out with the mouse wheel now. Any comments about that?

Edited by ArkhanTheBlack, 06 April 2007 - 10:15 AM.

[kreative]

You can also zoom out with the mouse wheel now. Any comments about that?

I always could do that without any mods, but now my zoom range is altered. I can zoom further out than normal, but it's barely zooming in. I find the zoom worse now.
I still think having the camera files included with the mod is a good idea though. What would make it even more great was a little config app like for the AI where you could adjust the zoom in, out, and default camera positions.

I've only loaded one game yet but it produced a Fatai AI Error. Heroes enabled. Annihillate victory condition. Game timer enabled. No resource sharing. 1 vs 1. Valley of Khorne. Orks (me) vs Chaos. Only tried it once, will test more.

Edited by kreative, 06 April 2007 - 11:34 AM.

[ArkhanTheBlack]

I always could do that without any mods, but now my zoom range is altered. I can zoom further out than normal, but it's barely zooming in. I find the zoom worse now.

Of course, if you don't like to zoom further out than the default setting, you won't need the camera mod. So, what exactly would you change? Just allow a closer zooming? Altering the zoom speed?

I've only loaded one game yet but it produced a Fatai AI Error. Heroes enabled. Annihillate victory condition. Game timer enabled. No resource sharing. 1 vs 1. Valley of Khorne. Orks (me) vs Chaos. Only tried it once, will test more.

I need the console message. Without that I can't fix anything. You usually get it with strg + shift + ~, although it might be different if you are not using an english keyboard setting.

[kreative]

Of course, if you don't like to zoom further out than the default setting, you won't need the camera mod. So, what exactly would you change? Just allow a closer zooming? Altering the zoom speed?

Well after playing more with it I'm getting more used to it. Players have different tastes though, and I remember reading about players who had modified the camera files to their liking. Values that would be nice to have customized would be the default camera position, how close you can zoom in, how far you can zoom out, and perhaps the speed as you mentioned.

I need the console message. Without that I can't fix anything. You usually get it with strg + shift + ~, although it might be different if you are not using an english keyboard setting.

I'll surely be able to reproduce it and will post what you need when I do.

[kreative]

Blood River.
Orks vs Chaos.
Modes:
Annihilate, Heroes, Hard, No resource sharing.

Occurs upon loading a saved game.

SIM -- Setting SyncErrorChecking level to Low
GAME -- Local player (thorbeck, 0) finished loading (a.d67ad2b) (IS seconds)
GAME -- Starting mission..
SCAR -- ALERT: SGroup cannot be nil!
Lua Heroes/Core/heroes_manager.scar Ln 424 (ShowCurrentUnitInfo)
Lua Heroes/Core/heroes_manager.scar Ln 90 (Hero_MainRule)
SCAR -- Could not execute rule: Hero_MainRule
SCAR -- FATAL Scar Error while running rules - Execution has been paused.

Edited by kreative, 06 April 2007 - 05:39 PM.

[thudo]

@Kreative - When does that come up? What map? Occurs when you start a Replay? I want to try and reproduce it. Sofar, I cannot.

[ArkhanTheBlack]

It's okay, I know the problem. It appears that if a game is reloaded, then the squad groups of the heroes mod get lost. So I have to check for them at each rule cycle. I hope that's the only problem.

[kreative]

Would be possible to moderate this thread for tidyness?
Delete "solved" posts, let each beta tester edit his/her own post with updates, list current issues/bugs in first post.
Perhaps update first post with a "todo list"/assignments for testers.
I'm currently testing new maps vs all races and will update my post with whatever new findings.

Excuse me if I sound like a drillinstructor here, I just think it's important to make this stage of development as organized and tidy as possible since it's the last stage before a release. Slap me if I'm being too much of a nazi.

[Inquisitor]

Otherwise, we always welcome additional testing.

Let me know if you need help testing. I would like to help and I should be able to find some time for testing. I mostly play Necrons and SM, but I have some experience with playing the other races. I have been playing since a few days before DoW came out in Europe.

You know I appreciate your mod immensely and I like playing with it alone, online and on LAN with friends. We look forward to the new version and can't wait to see the new transport code in action! Using your mod just makes matching our teams so much easier.

Anyway, I think that the modding of the camera zoom sonds like a bad thing to put in this mod unless it is deselected during installation (i.e. it must be actively selected). I use camera zoom mod 1.3, and it would bother me if installing the Skirmish AI interfered with it. I think you should keep focusing this mod on AI and then maybe do other separate mods that improve the camera.

[kreative]

Aye must say I agree with you Inquisitor. It was actually in a post by you? at relic forums where I noticed several players have customized the camera mod to their liking. Having it optional is a great a idea, and a cute little interface for adjusting its values would be great too.
I could actually make the last part.

[thudo]

The Camera configuration can easily be changed. Just go into our mod's folder (\Dowai_mod) which is in your DarkCrusade folder and in the \data folder for our mod see those 2 .lua files? Just rename em to .lua.old or something then run our mod as usual. Done!

Arkhan was testing something and it doesn't impact the AI whatsoever. Its more for aesthetics. If you have your own camera enhancements then understood.

@Inquisitor - PM me if you wish to do some testing. Its both the Easter and Exam season so it seems we got some people offsite currently.

[Inquisitor]

The Camera configuration can easily be changed. Just go into our mod's folder (\Dowai_mod) which is in your DarkCrusade folder and in the \data folder for our mod see those 2 .lua files? Just rename em to .lua.old or something then run our mod as usual. Done!

I'm sure that it can be easily changed (I modded the camera zoom mod 1.3, so I did some research), but is it something you want to put in this mod to be installed by default? I agree that it would be great if we could "push" a camera mod to more people, since it would probably make them enjoy the game even more and thus make the game last longer, but I don't think it belongs in the skirmish AI mod.

Anyway, I think it's great that you keep improving and add new features and now you know my opinion about it. I look forward to the release of 2.3, with or without camera-mod.

@Inquisitor - PM me if you wish to do some testing. Its both the Easter and Exam season so it seems we got some people offsite currently.

Will do right after posting this!