8 replies to this topic

[thudo]

Over the passed couple of days, I have been chatting with Gnarif re: his RDG tool that can spit put all the necessary stats on a faction (new or vanilla).

The problem was: how to get everything needed for AI building with minutes rather than taking hours to do it.

Gnarif coded for me an incredibly amazing tool that can:

Take an entire \attrib folder and within a minute and..

o break it down into its individual .rdg files
o for each .rdg based in its own dirs (ie. \addons or \research) I can completely specify WHAT criteria to take out (ie. requisition or power costs).
o once accumulated it dumps it cleanly into one large file that is 100x easier to read and multiple times more code-viable as it represents the actual script lines in the rdgs.

Now..

Corsix..

Is it in the realm of possibility to say.. build an app that could take this report.txt that has everything for the faction in question and build AI scripts from?

I mean, it would not build everything needed but the more important time-consuming aspects. Gnarif might be able to do it as he can extract RDGs right off and dump em to text.

I can submit the report that the AI needs to build the more crucial scripts. To say this would be a massive revolution in DoW/WA AI building would be an understatement. Collecting the data in one file with incredibly precise info was a big deal. Now.. can we take it to the next level? Lets discuss.

[Corsix]

I've got my own RGD loading code already
As I said earlier, automatic AI generation was on my list of golas for my tool.

[thudo]

Yes but can it translate a mod from the ground up, sort it into useful sections for the AI's use then, next step: possibly build scripts from it using those various sections?

ie. Research..

These are the key areas that are important for the AI to know how and when to research the research item:

File: my_cool_power_up.rgd
GameData[requirements][required_1] [structure_name] = my_big_building
GameData[time_cost][cost][power] = 10.00000
GameData[time_cost][cost][requisition] = 20.0000

Certain variables will be tweaked as the above is a generalization but that isn't hard to discuss. The app would sort out the above and create a line like this:

{ 1, 20, 10, 0, 1, "Research", "my_cool_power_up" },

How easy is it to build an app that can at least do that?

Edited by thudo, 19 January 2006 - 03:43 PM.

[Corsix]

When you write the AI for a mod, what do you use a a base? The DoW vanilla AI? The WA vanilla AI? DoWAI mod 1.6?

Also, happy belated birthday for 9 days ago.

[thudo]

I use older builds of our v1.6. Its real simple and I would have to go through just a few area where the automatic scripts would be generated using this large report.txt.

Corsix.. let me create one as an example using the vanilla factions (ie. IG) and I'll send it to you. You'll see the entire report and how it can sooo be used a base to quickly generate an AI script.

The hardest part would the unitstats.ai as it would have to link the EBPS and SBPS names of one unit to its weapon systems (under Hardpoints). It would have to search for a similar name for the unit, bind it together then search for the HardPoint rows to find the weapon names at the end of it and generate the unitstats.ai. We would discuss this. Also.. weapon values would be tricky and more or less subjective.

No biggie. Unitstats.ai are generally a one-time deal that can be inputted manually anyway.

[LarkinVB]

Ask Excedrin for help. He already has an automated unitstats.ai creator we use for DoWpro.

I'm looking forward for this tool as it is very time consuming and boring to gather data from all files and put them into shape for buildbasestrategyinfo.ai

Thumbs up !

Edited by LarkinVB, 20 January 2006 - 09:06 AM.

[thudo]

Actually.. three people: Excedrin, Corsix, and Gniarf. Gniarf is an app builder and made changes for me within minutes to build the \attrib dumper. Having an entire faction's info right there in ONE text file filtered with all the info one needs to build AI is simply incredible. Next step is to be able to build scripts using key pointers in the GameData lines based on the .rdg. This would save MASS amounts of time.

I'm on it...

[Corsix]

I'm on it...

 

Actually, I think you'll find that I'm on it

[thudo]

YuM!