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 Geek2Nurse    |
So I've come up with my first actually useful original code snippet. This reduces the population of an agent (eg. dragonflies) by 50%, rather than wiping them out completely when they start to get out of control. I'm really interested in seeing if anyone has suggestions or a slicker way to do it; feedback will help me learn! 
(I'm actually using this in the game itself, so it all gets typed on one line, but I broke it up for the sake of legibility here.) Advice / comments / suggestions? (Also, how do you indent within a code block using the forum commands?) --- Optimist: the glass is half full. Pessimist: the glass is half empty. Engineer: the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. |
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 Liam |
Possibly something that might be a bit more precise:
- Liam / K'aeloree Spellhold Studios, a Baldur's Gate II, Neverwinter Nights and Oblivion Modding Community |
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 Malkin Manager |
The thing with the dragonflies, though, is that they come in two sexes - a problem with the original dragonflies was that the sex balance was severely out of whack in game. My TCR Norns |
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Geek2Nurse |
Ooh, thanks, Liam; that's much better. Malkin, I didn't know about the sexes; guess I can challenge myself by figuring out how to reduce them evenly. Is there an ideal ratio of male to female other than 50:50? (I know nothing about dragonfly mating habits!) Do other agents (birds, etc.) have sexes? I'm still trying to work out what the relationship is between the birds and their nests. I'm kind of stuck on the nest creation script in hummingbird.cos; it makes 7 nests of varying sizes in the same location with incrementing timer settings (1, 12, 23, etc.) and I haven't figured out yet what's really happening, or whether the nest is necessary to keep a population going. Any enlightenment would be welcomed! --- Optimist: the glass is half full. Pessimist: the glass is half empty. Engineer: the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. |
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Malkin Manager |
50:50 might be good for a start. According to the CDN, OV06 might be a good place to start looking.In Vamp's modified cos, hummingbirds collect grass, which they use to create the nest. Hatchling hummingbirds eat the nest before turning into juvenile hummingbirds, who flutter around, pollinate flowers (in the original, they EAT flowers), and grow up and become adults who build nests, etc. It seems logical to me that they have sexes too, but I can't remember off the top of my head. My TCR Norns |
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Geek2Nurse |
See, I've wondered about that sort of stuff too. Like, the trout need dragonfly larvae to live, but I've never actually seen them EAT one. I know that would make the scripts all the more complicated, but not having the interactions be visible makes it hard for a newby to figure out the ecosystem. I suspected the hummingbirds needed flowers somehow, but had no idea which flowers, or how they know what's a flower, and they don't seem to gravitate to any in particular. I've also wondered, if I'm trying to get them started in a metaroom, do I need two, or is one enough, etc. I wonder if the COB I'm looking at is Vamp's, or the original? I may just have not gotten far enough into it to discover the interactions with the nest, etc. Yesterday I actually SAW the kingfisher catch a fish and carry it off. I was so excited! The complexity of this thing just keeps amazing me.  --- Optimist: the glass is half full. Pessimist: the glass is half empty. Engineer: the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. |
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Liam |
I haven't tested this, but if ov06 is the gender variable (you might want to check this), then something like this should work:
This will work for any agent with a variable population of male/female objects, as long as you change ov06 to the proper variable. - Liam / K'aeloree Spellhold Studios, a Baldur's Gate II, Neverwinter Nights and Oblivion Modding Community |
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 Moe |
This wouldn't work for dragonfly's, because apparently they have issues with their gender ratios, but for any other agent where you're reasonably sure that half are male and half are female at any given time, you could simply add a random, 50/50 variable roll to decide whether or not to kill the enum'd agent.
In theory, the above code should randomly kill half of whatever you look for, male or female. Although it isn't selective, and might kill more or less of a particular gender, it isn't likely to eliminate all of either. It lacks the elegance of Liam's method, but it is quick and dirty, and should be effective--theoretically, for agents with equal gender ratios. |
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Geek2Nurse |
You guys are awesome. This is the kind of thing I can really learn from. Liam, is there a reason you used STAR rather than RTAR? I'm still a little shaky on what's owned by what, so I'm not sure. Also, I don't see where va01 is defined, so I'm a little lost, although overall I see what your script is doing -- basically killing half of each gender of the agent being reduced, right? Moe, that's an interesting approach...maybe not as precise, but definitely less typing, if you're doing it using the in-game CAOS command line. I do aspire to learn to compile stuff and make agents, though! --- Optimist: the glass is half full. Pessimist: the glass is half empty. Engineer: the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. |
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Liam |
Whoops, fixed. Should make more sense now. It should be RTAR rather than STAR, yep -- so used to working on actual objects that it's hard to disengage! You should definitely download the CAOS tool, however, and use that rather than the command line. It really makes things a lot clearer, and colour codes/indents your code as well. It's awesome. - Liam / K'aeloree Spellhold Studios, a Baldur's Gate II, Neverwinter Nights and Oblivion Modding Community |
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Geek2Nurse |
I'm using the CAOS tool, but having a hard time figuring out how to debug with it. So far I haven't gotten anything to show up in the error/script output windows. :/ Are there instructions for using it anywhere? I was a coder back in the days before all these fancy windowed tools helped you figure out what you were doing wrong, so I'm kind of lost! I've enlisted the help of my norns with the SEZZ command to see the contents of string variables, but it's not a very useful solution. --- Optimist: the glass is half full. Pessimist: the glass is half empty. Engineer: the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. |
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 Prodigal Sock Ghosthande |
With the CAOS Tool, you just click the New button and start typing in the window that comes up. The error output window updates itself every time you finish/leave a line, so if there's an error it should print there automatically. You can also use OUTV and OUTS to figure out what things are, eg. "targ hots outv ov00" for a typical variable or "targ hots outs ov00" if it's a string. It will print the value right in the CAOS command line.  |
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Geek2Nurse |
I'm not sure I'm getting it yet...I've got the part about creating code in the CAOS Tool. And I just realized that if the error window is open while I'm creating the code, I get feedback there (I was only looking at it after I injected...) But I never get anything in the script output or viewer windows...I have to inject my script into the game to run it, right? There's no CAOS command line for it to print values in because I'm playing with the Magic Words Template* -- if I have a CAOS command line open, I can't type things in speech bubbles. Am I missing the whole point somehow? * I thought I'd see if I could type something in a speech bubble like "kill half 2 13 1" and have it execute the "reduce population" script for that family/genus/species. Turns out string manipulation is a bit tedious. --- Optimist: the glass is half full. Pessimist: the glass is half empty. Engineer: the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. |
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Prodigal Sock Ghosthande |
Yeah, the error window has to be open or it won't tell you anything. Like I said it updates real-time, although if you've created something with an error before opening that window, you can choose File -> Refresh Syntax and I believe that will make it print whatever it finds. I've never even used the script output/viewer windows, so I don't know what they are actually supposed to do. Possibly they may make things easier, but I think it's safe to say you can still make do without. |
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Liam |
They don't do anything, really. I'd recommend using the DBG: commands in tandem with the CAOS Debugger which you can download from Gameware. - Liam / K'aeloree Spellhold Studios, a Baldur's Gate II, Neverwinter Nights and Oblivion Modding Community |
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 Amaikokonut |
^ This. This so hard. Once you learn how to use the debugger (and learn how to avoid crashing it) it will seriously be your best friend ever.  [Naturing :: Nurturing] |
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Geek2Nurse |
Got it. No crashes yet, despite VMWare Fusion and everything. I've got the most bizarre mixture of OSX and Windoze stuff scattered around my screen right now! So my script is working...as far as it gets. It just kind of stops partway through. I've removed and reinjected it, and even changed the script number to try to start fresh. No matter what, the debug codes show up down to the part marked in the comments, and then nothing else happens. Well, the debugger monitor goes back to spitting out 7-digit numbers I don't know anything about, which feels like nothing, anyway. Here's the code:
--- Optimist: the glass is half full. Pessimist: the glass is half empty. Engineer: the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. |
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Amaikokonut |
Ah, you'll just need to turn autokill off, heh. When I run this script without autokill, I get a "Slice attempted outside string" error on the line where the script is hanging up (sets va06 subs va03 va05 va02), so that might be where you want to look. Usually that means your subs count integer (va02 in this case) is larger than the string length (strl va03) minus the start integer (va05) Maybe you mean to "subv va02 va05"? Adding that line just before "addv va05 1" seems to produce a result closer to what you're looking for. Does that help any? Strings are a serious pain and I honestly hate working with them, but they have a lot of potential. I admire your ambition to stick with it! [Naturing :: Nurturing] |
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Geek2Nurse |
Dangit, it's always so simple. Yup, I was thinking "substring from this position to this position," and it's supposed to be "from this position for this length." Thanks for catching that! And I don't think it ever would have occurred to me to turn off autokill. More thanks! I think it's more stubbornness than ambition. I hate to let things get the best of me. Woohoo, it works, it works! #happydance I am killing half of everything in sight right now. :-D Next up: proportional population reduction by gender. --- Optimist: the glass is half full. Pessimist: the glass is half empty. Engineer: the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. |
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Malkin Manager |
Great work!  I'm looking forward to seeing this in action! My TCR Norns |
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Geek2Nurse |
Y'know, I think I've decided against proportional reductions, for now...killing every other one in the ENUM loop has a pretty good chance, statistically, of reducing the population while maintaining whatever the current ratio is, so I think I'm just gonna leave it the way it is, and see how it goes for a while. Is this potentially useful enough for me to post for other people to use? I'm not even sure how that happens around here...guess I'll go look and see. --- Optimist: the glass is half full. Pessimist: the glass is half empty. Engineer: the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. |
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