TA3D 0.4.2 TEST 3

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zuzuf
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TA3D 0.4.2 TEST 3

Post by zuzuf » Sat Dec 22, 2007 10:28 pm

It features some improvements, but mainly bug fixes.

Tomorrow I'll go visit my grand parents and I won't have internet access until Thursday, that's why I am releasing TEST 3 now.

download it here:
TA3D 0.4.2 TEST 3

I wish you a merry Christmas :D
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Post by sieistganzfett » Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:19 am

Excellent Christmas present, thanks! Merry Christmas to you too..
my feedback is that the pathfinding in 0.4.2 test 3 is now a hundred times better that in 0.4.1. on "great divide" i could get tanks to slaughter the nearly nonexistent ai "default script" for the first time without everything locking on each and every other unit or every single map feature. a construction vehicle did have a problem navigating past the small bumps on the northern center side of the divide, however sending about 10 stumpys and rockos through the maze of trees did result in a few hard spots where units would slow down to a crawl going backwards and forwards/ left/right till they got out of the spot.. also, the commander successfully got down to the beach on "shore to shore" but getting back up was a different story, ;)

for map navigation, does a unit calculate the "best" path once then stick to it until it gets stuck? or does it only "see" several pixels ahead? when a unit gets stuck. if its a "feature" or map terrain, the unit should "remember" its a path to a dead end, back track just a small amount such as 10 pixel, and try again a different way (first was straight which failed, then try right, then try left from that original starting point where it got stuck.) but all of this should be before it starts moving from it's starting position.) it seems the pathfinding plays it as it comes in TA3D, but the map will never change when it ran a calculation, features might vanish while enroute, wreckage may pop up enroute, but none of that should matter if it calculated the existing detours the second it was told where the destination was. only time it ever really needs to recalculate is when something actually changed such as a dead unit's wreckage that forced the stop of a unit from going on it's path, but if its a unit in the way, have it wait then try again on the same path, then if it still failed recalcuate on the second or third failed wait attempt.

for bugs.
1. in skirmish setup, right click should decrement metal and energy, but it doesnt do anything. other than that, as i mentioned before, no changes to settings on the "skirmish setup" ever seem to save (side, metal, energy, ai difficulty)
2. when you highlight a group of units, and "track" it will not track any unit. in TA it seems to just pick any of the selected units and tracks that unit.
3. the commander should NOT be able to d-gun or attack with the laser under water.
4. when a unit gets stuck into a 3 sided trap of units surrounding the stuck unit, the unit has trouble getting out of the only path out of the trap. the unit keeps going back in forth until shown the way out with a new destinaton. (commander and surrounding solars)

5. Here are two more challenges for the pathfinding, which TA passed surprisingly, but TA3d fails on (play "over crude water" which is a maze of metal bridges, build a row of 4 solar horizontally just below starting position (your on bottom of map) just below that build 6 mex that are adjacent to the solars, then below that build another horizontal row of 4 solar, then above the top row of solar build a kbot lab, set destination to be the very top of the map (path is a simple straight line) gaurd the plant and have it bulid peewees so they one by one navigate the maze to reach the north. as the entire stream of peewees almost reaches the northern starting position (where player 2's base is) select all of the peewees and have them reach the far right starting position. In TA they shockingly did this without running into one another and going the wrong way (as in south!) or in small circles somewhere in the maze like in TA3d. another thing TA managed to get right is selecting about 40 peewees and having them all go from the far right player starting position to the bottom left position of the map, they successfully and quickly grinded into a column that played follow the leader to the destination. In TA3d, the units eventually get there, but ran around in circles at times "lost."

the fact that they will make it more than 40% of the time to a destination is a huge accomplishment in comparision to the older versions of the engine. keep in mind the "over crude water" test has to have the ai opponent be in an almost "nonexistent mode" since as soon as a few pieces of wreckage are introduced, even TA's pathfinding fails to navigate the maze with more than 1 unit at a time, and it must be micromanaged too. pathfinding goal is to almost completely do away with a human player micromanaging the pathfinding for a group of units to just reach the enemy.

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Post by Balthazar » Mon Dec 24, 2007 2:23 pm

Zuzuf, are there any FULL list of changes since last test 2 release? So we can test what`s new and don`t test that is already fixed. Now looks like D-Gun bug is gone, but particles distorsion is still there.

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Post by Balthazar » Tue Dec 25, 2007 11:14 am

Almost all of test 2 bugs are still present. But the most annoying one:

- UNITS CAN`T HAVE MORE THAN 2 WEAPON ID, BUT IN TA THERE WAS MANY UNITS WITH 3 WEAPONS ID PER UNIT.

That`s why almost all powerfull TA units and TA CC, and TA Excess and so on doesn`t work properly, since all of them have 3 different weapons ID per unit. This is a VERY bad bug. Should be fixed as soon as possible.

Almost all bugs with mods are stays. Especially with TA Excess. GOK Metal Extractors doesn`t animated, rate of fire not correctly displayed for several units (should be something like 0.1 sec reload time but in game it looks like at least 0.8).

Many other things, that should be fixed, but I don`t want to write it all at once, since it is hard to track what you need in a forum, so I`ll post new bugs as soon as old is fixed.

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Post by zuzuf » Thu Dec 27, 2007 1:44 pm

Ok, I'll track and fix those nasty bugs.

For the moment you'll be happy to know I've been working hard on TA3D these days :D . I fixed some big bugs (one of them about memory corruption), stability has been improved. I am still fixing one thing to improve stability with some big units and huge unit scripts (maybe you know about a unit called FatShrew...). Transporters work nicely, ... And I added a few things to the game GUI (pressing SPACE BAR ... ;) ).

I am fixing a few things and I'll commit my changes to SVN
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Post by Balthazar » Thu Dec 27, 2007 4:52 pm

Cool cool cool cool cool! :D Post bug fixing progress here.

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Post by Balthazar » Thu Dec 27, 2007 5:04 pm

Here`s two screenshots of bugs.

1. Particle distorsion.

Image

2. Building collision detection.
AI Metal extractor displacment.


Image

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Post by zuzuf » Thu Dec 27, 2007 5:17 pm

I'll try to list the changes I've made since TEST 3:
  • * improved GUI module
    * new Audio configuration tool
    * play list is autogenerated when needed
    * pressing SPACE will show game statistics
    * fixed transporters bug (units not being attached at the right height)
    * weapon model rotation bug fixed
    * fixed shortcuts in GUI ( 'A' & 'a' are recognized as the same key now)
    * fixed some unit script limitations
    * new LZW module (to test LZW efficiency on network packets) <- this is for testing purposes only
    * improved ListBox widget in GUI module
    * HPI cache system (yes, now we have a HPI cache to speed up file extraction from archives), the drawback is that you have to reset the cache if a file changes, otherwise the cache will still give TA3D the old version of the file
I also fixed a number of small things but I don't remember exactly what ... it's just better now :)

PS: the two bugs you reported above aren't fixed ... (they weren't the worse bugs at the moment)
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Post by Balthazar » Thu Dec 27, 2007 6:07 pm

You mean bug with weapons ID and TA Excess unit animation?

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Post by zuzuf » Thu Dec 27, 2007 6:10 pm

I meant particle bug, and AI metal extractors bug, but weapon ID & TA Excess unit animation aren't fixed either (as far as TA Excess is concerned I haven't tested it for a few weeks now so it might be fixed if it's linked to a script bug/limitation I fixed)
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Post by Balthazar » Thu Dec 27, 2007 6:18 pm

Maybe so :) If you`ll get your hands on TA Excess - you can also test all bugs conserning TA Excess, listed in animation bugs thread.

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Post by zuzuf » Thu Dec 27, 2007 6:33 pm

before going further, I'll release a test build so you can report new bugs and if old ones have been fixed ...
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Post by Balthazar » Thu Dec 27, 2007 6:37 pm

No problem :) Always ready!

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