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[Arx]

Qae (Sylvan's player) has been offline for almost a week now. If, after a couple of days, they still haven't logged back in, you might want to consider some surgical strikes at those garrisons. This game really needs more skullduggery...

A neat feature (possibly for a setting one higher than 'full') would be hitting the 'continue' button as well after combat. That's currently the most time consuming part of moving across the landscape for me.

That aside, I'm having a lot more fun dungeon crawling now that it's not a massive schlep. My XP/T is dropping pretty fast, but that's just because I have ridiculously few turns used for the amount of XP I have.

Edit: The full autocombat currently breaks if a character dies, because that character's attack can no longer be targeted. I don't know if it's possible or computationally affordable to check for dead characters every turn or every combat, but it would be nice.

Edit 2: Okay, it's now the weekend and I have some free time between study sessions. If I switch allegiance, what happens to my garrisons? Do they start claiming land for the Bloody Baronies? If so, should I move them all out to temporary garrisons, switch allegiance, and claim Bloody Barony garrisons?

I'm thinking about claiming a city or two, but there aren't any left to get without stepping on toes, so backstabbing is the only viable course of action right now. It's not urgent, there are a number of other things I want to do when I get more turns (like upgrade my garrisons' buildings and stuff), but it'd be nice to have some idea of what might happen.

[Reelya]

I think if you switch alleigences all your existing garrisons should be fine as long as you don't remove them. You just won't be able to put them back without seizing the castle.

There actual should still be an NPC city in Staberinde's far north, called Mirk Upland. It was NPC right up until 2 weeks ago, so worth a shot. If you claim that for yourself it might be a good idea to declare it for Staberinde so that you don't get it conquered by StormTroopers. A good goal would be to take over Undermouthe and Upperbit from StormTroopers (make sure to give every character a pile of scrolls of Entangle just in case he has powerful garrison characters in there, and keep as many characters entangled as possible).

~~~

I update the script with a fix for the dead person issue. It is already checking for dead people and not trying to set a target for them, but it wasn't subtracting those people from the number remaining, like it should have. So grab the script again, it's got that and a couple of other minor improvements. (I started logging the stuff that's being worked on, on the third post of this topic). I also improved the movement system, and have some ideas for things to add/improve next:

Spoiler: Improvements to the auto-movement system (click to show/hide)

I made it a little more "Auto", so less clicking overall, especially for moving to things which are more than one screen away, it should now recenter on the party then start moving straight away. I also made it check the move cost of every tile it can move to. It's not complete path-finding, but it computes step-by-step. What it does is it counts how many "steps" would need to be taken from each possible tile to the destination. So it always takes a route that takes the minimum player-time. If there are two possible tiles that are equal in "steps", then it picks the one with the cheapest terrain cost. If there are still two that are equally good, it picks the straightest one in an as-the-crow-flies sense. This is to prevent it zig-zagging even if there's no difference in cost. It just looks nicer and is more predictable if the party moves in straight lines.

Later, I plan to make the movement stop if you come across interesting things. It will be based on the Autocombat setting. The Off setting will ignore everything, the Middle setting will stop when you encounter a monster group. And it would be nice if the Full setting completely exteminated every monster group you happen upon, then keeps walking

Spoiler: Autocombat Revamp Ideas (click to show/hide)

I'm definitely planning on revamping the autocombat a little. So far it doesn't respond to battles being over, so I'd need to put a new check in for that situation.

- the middle level "Round" is not very useful, so I'd probably ditch that. It was the version I made before "Full" so it's sort of a prototype anyway.

- the old "Full" level would be renamed as "Fast", and would have clicking on continue added to it. The only issue letting you know whether the enemy was destroyed or fled. I'm thinking to recolour the Autocombat button based on the outcome of your last battle. e.g. Green for destroyed, Red for ran away. So, no more clicking "continue" and no need to read the text to decide what happened.

- I want a new higher level, which I will now call "Full", which will do all the above, bit also start the auto-heal script after each battle. You can still move around etc while auto-heal is going on, and doing it for every battle would mean there are less periods where you're waiting for many heal spells to be cast, so this would streamline things to the max and minimize the chance of your guys dying.

Spoiler: Automatic Scroll Scribing Idea (click to show/hide)

Something else I just started looking into was automatically scribing scrolls. I noticed that sometimes my priests could scribe more scrolls than they have inventory slots! I'm not sure how repeatable that is, but it is obviously a bug and could means you can save up a few hundred extra heals per priest, meaning smoother dungeon crawling. I'd have to combine that with getting the auto-heal script to check for heal scrolls, and start using them if you run out of spells.

Today I delved into a level 4 dungeon and despite having level ~28 characters with fully upgraded armor and weapons, and using the retarget system all the time, my two priests burned through almost 400 heal spells and still didn't clear out this dungeon, it was big. So some way to boost the amount of healing I'm carrying without the ridiculous micro-management that normally entails would be pretty handy!

[Arx]

I think if you switch alleigences all your existing garrisons should be fine as long as you don't remove them. You just won't be able to put them back without seizing the castle.

I see. I'll think about it some more and try to work out a plan.

There actual should still be an NPC city in Staberinde's far north, called Mirk Upland. It was NPC right up until 2 weeks ago, so worth a shot. If you claim that for yourself it might be a good idea to declare it for Staberinde so that you don't get it conquered by StormTroopers. A good goal would be to take over Undermouthe and Upperbit from StormTroopers (make sure to give every character a pile of scrolls of Entangle just in case he has powerful garrison characters in there, and keep as many characters entangled as possible).

I saw that, but was nervy of going so far afield. I may as well, though. Edit: When I have turns, anyway. Currently stuck in deep home territory.

Edit: Le Templiers have beaten me to the punch, but their player's been offline for a good while too, so I'm very tempted to gank the city anyway. I'll wait until tomorrow, to use a couple of farsights and get some turns built up, and see what's happened.

Edit 2: "Threat level: They'll barely touch you." I get sent packing. Welp.

Edit 3: Actually, this is worth a bump.

[Arx]

After being thoroughly served by Templiers' guards three times (I need to send him a congratulation...), I found a free town in Bloody Barony territory, which I have taken. When the uprising happens, let me know; for now, the allegiance is Baronies to keep a low profile.

I have a couple of requests for the map: the first is some kind of indicator if a tile is a road, since those are actually pretty useful (and could potentially be a boon to the movement algorithm), and the second is some way to make the buildings/towns of the currently logged in player more visible, although I see the rings kind of already do this.

[Reelya]

If guards are a problem, consider loading every character up with entangle scrolls. Scrolls get the level of their creator, but anyone can cast the scroll once it's made. You can then entangle every guard in the first round. Then, focus attacks on whichever guard is not entangled first. Unfortunately the auto-combat as it presently stands won't let you single out guard in this specific way, but you can still entangle everyone then click auto per round.

Spoiler: Arx' Map ideas (click to show/hide)

For the roads thing, I could add a single road icon, then you just need to add a location and pick the road option from the drop-down. That would be quicker and less buggy than trying to automate it. For adding a special indicator to the map, I'd need to change how the map knows who is looking. The simplest and most versatile way would be to add a "user=" field to the URL itself. Then you could have it highlight yourself, or any other player you like, which would give more options than just "highlight current viewing player", and you just add the user field to your bookmark.

I'll do map changes once I'm back in college since they're things I can do in a spare moment, whereas I can only do the dungeon-delving and combat automation during my vacation.

The movement algorithm works by reading the move cost directly from the map sectors in the world, this is far better than trying to have this data on the server, because depends on how much loot you are carrying and your base movement rate. It's currently letting the game tell us that by itself. Right now, the auto-movement is guaranteed to get there in the minimal possible time for the player, but to side-step expensive terrain when possible. Anything more advanced would involve taking longer routes, so would actually slow down the player experience, for the sake of saving in-game turns. Personally, I prefer my party to get there as fast as possible in real-time, even if it takes a couple more "turns".

Spoiler: Latest Script Additions (click to show/hide)

I uploaded more additions to the script, based on my dungeon-delve today. The auto-combat levels are now "Off", "Quick" and "Full". "Quick" is the same as the old full setting. The new "Full" setting does pretty much everything. It auto-attacks any dungeon enemy you land on (so you only have to click once per mob), does the auto-combat, then at the end it checks whether you killed them or they ran away. It then clicks "continue" and colours in the Autocombat button Green for a kill or Red for fleeing enemies. And then it clicks auto-heal for you, so it does a quick scan and some heal spells after every battle while you're deciding on your next move. Just be aware that if you move into the next battle too fast, sometimes it won't have time to cast many heals. Mostly, it wasn't a problem, but you might want to keep an eye on health all the same and wait a second after big battles for the healing to kick in.

As well as the green/red thing, I added a sound-effect of a short "beep" for a runaway, or a "boop" for a kill. This is because I tidy up or read while the battle is ongoing, so I don't have to keep looking up from my book to check the outcome, i just wait for the beep. The sound volume is set to zero by default, so you have to adjust that in the settings part of the script if you want the beeps.

Next up for auto-combat is getting the Autocombat: Full level to auto-engage enemies outside dungeons, destroy them and keep walking. I'll probably add the "boop" sound effect for when movement ends too. Also, the ability to single-out enemies for targeting by clicking on their portraits. This will make combat more effective for close battles where you don't want everything on auto.

Also, I had a go with Auto-Scribe. It definitely works, but from a usability point of view, it's in a very priimitive state, you'd have to specify which spell to scribe manually in the script in a variable "scribedSpell", and reload the page if you want to change it. Eventually I'll have a drop-down box for that so you can scribe some of one spell, then scribe some of another. Also, it doesn't yet do anything to take heal scrolls into account when it does the auto-heal thing. I'm going to try and get that working in two days time. The main goal is being able to quickly stockpile heal scrolls (which is working), then they get automatically depleted in big raids (which is not coded yet), but you could also use automatic scribing to make scrolls to sell to shops for some extra money. Heh, I'd like to try automating buying and selling stuff at some point too, so automating scribing some 10-point scrolls and selling them for cash could be a great time-saver and money-maker.

[Arx]

If guards are a problem, consider loading every character up with entangle scrolls. Scrolls get the level of their creator, but anyone can cast the scroll once it's made. You can then entangle every guard in the first round. Then, focus attacks on whichever guard is not entangled first. Unfortunately the auto-combat as it presently stands won't let you single out guard in this specific way, but you can still entangle everyone then click auto per round.

Ooh, I didn't think of this. Yeah, part of the problem was that I only had one mage in the party at the time, so when he went down four or five turns in I still had several enemies to contend with.

For the roads thing, I could add a single road icon, then you just need to add a location and pick the road option from the drop-down. That would be quicker and less buggy than trying to automate it. For adding a special indicator to the map, I'd need to change how the map knows who is looking. The simplest and most versatile way would be to add a "user=" field to the URL itself. Then you could have it highlight yourself, or any other player you like, which would give more options than just "highlight current viewing player", and you just add the user field to your bookmark.

The roads thing would be fine, I should think. It's not really a priority, I just sometimes sit and plan routes while I wait for more turns or whatever, and seeing roads on the map is something I thought would be neat.

The user= fields actually already exists, for the waypoints, so that should be pretty simple.

The movement algorithm works by reading the move cost directly from the map sectors in the world, this is far better than trying to have this data on the server, because depends on how much loot you are carrying and your base movement rate. It's currently letting the game tell us that by itself. Right now, the auto-movement is guaranteed to get there in the minimal possible time for the player, but to side-step expensive terrain when possible.

Logical enough. If I'm worried more about turns than time, I can always micromanage it slightly.

[Reelya]

With the scrolls thing, it actually makes a lot more sense to leave the mage(s) at home, and just have them scribe a stack of scrolls when you run out. Then 100% of their points can be for the expensive things too. Also, if you plan to use a mage like this, it could make sense to literally put 100% of their stat points into Int, raise their recall to level 10 and fletching to level 10 too, and arm them with a bow / crossbow. Then they are a scroll-making machine and an ammo repository for your archers.

In terms of other city targets, there's 54,16 which is just north of your other city. That's held by The Unfortunates, who hasn't logged in for 4 weeks now. I think if you drop out for over 4 weeks mayors seem to drop really fast, so there might be a thing that detects inactive players and kicks their mayors out. When an NPC takes over, it would be the perfect opportunity to take it over, and you can say you were protecting it for the Bloody Baronies, if questioned.

[Arx]

Hah, yes, you're right. It's just flipped now. I need to level another character or two for another level or two (I have a zillion level nineteens, but I'm short on twenties), and I'll sieze it too.

[Reelya]

Every 3 level 20's gets you one additional mayor up until about 12 or 15, at which point it starts to slow down. Sometimes I notice it takes a day to kick in, so be patient. I think the check for number of level 20 characters happens daily, but before each character gets their daily XP.

~~~

EDIT: Completed todays tweaks and updated to script version 1.27.

- General
  - Reworked the buttons. Less text, and more colour changes. Added some tooltips to things like the heal button to show spells remaining

- Combat:
  - Autocombat: Full now kicks in, when you travel above-ground, so you can fast-travel and have fights along the way

- Shop Scanning
  - added "Book" to the default settings shop item search terms, because someone said Book of Past Lives can appear in shops
  - added "Potion" too since there are rare potions that could in theory spawn in shops.
  - You'd need to add these to your item filter if you want them, if you customized it

Scribing:
  - Can now choose spell to scribe from a drop-down menu
  - Got rid of inventory check, since overflowing scrolls turned out to be fully usable.
  - Scribe scrolls should be cast by the autoheal when you run out of spells, but I haven't tested it.

TO DO LIST
  - add targeting system attached to the monster portraits, so you can pick targets in a tough fight

So, that would be it for combat and healing, since I can't really think of any more features that would be useful for combat after that's done.

Next up, the main improvements will be for adventuring. These are some ideas:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

- integrate waypoint system and move system, so you can specify a travel plan and the game will execute it, stopping at each city for you to check the shops etc. Some uses would be adding all your cities and garrisons to a route, so the automatic gold collection collects everything for you, while fighting wilderness battles in between and you can keep an eye on enchanted item goodes while you're at it. This will involve modifying the waypoint system to be much more useful. I'm thinking to make a right-click on any tile add a waypoint or edit a waypoint, so some sort of editing system will have to be implemented which is easy to use, and versatile. I also want to make "save route" and "load route" functions, with the idea that your current waypoint will set as the closest waypoint in the loaded route, so you could plan out travel itineries and click a couple of buttons to execute them in the game.

After that, I want to play around with automatic buying and selling of items and services. These would be optional though:
- Auto-Sell non-magical junk to the shops. This would likely involve a filter similar to the shopping one
- automate repairs at the blacksmith when entering a town. so no more back-to-town because you forgot you gear was broken.
- automate raise dead on any dead characters when in town, because why else would you be in town with dead guys in your party?
- it'd be nice if the script could keep your archers equiped with just the right amount of arrows/bolts by automatically buying them from shops
- the same thing for stocking up on blank scrolls.
- for gems, it would be nice if I could designate a character and they always get the gems bought up to some quota

if there are gem quests in the town, it would be awesome if we could automate every step of this process:
- buy gems
- check for quests that match existing gems
- accept quest
- sell gem
- report quest complete.
So this would be an extra source of XP and money without needing micro-management.

[Reelya]

EDITED: Well bump because the script has new features, and I had some interesting stuff in testing. It turns out that you can in fact overfill your inventory with unlimited scrolls by scribing. But unfortunately, I don't know if it's fully repeatable. One of my priests currently has 172 heal scrolls usable (Only 64 of which are in normal slots) because my first version of the script script didn't take into account inventory space. The additional scrolls are sort of in limbo however. Their weight probably still counts for inventory however, but they only weigh 0.1 so that's not a big deal. 200 weight is 2000 scrolls.

Unfortunately, trying to replicate the effect used up a pile of blank scrolls but didn't use up the spells or provide extra healing scrolls. So I am able to overcharge scrolls sometimes, but I don't know if it's repeatable or predictable, and other times it seems to just waste blank scrolls.

[Reelya]

Final script version for another week or so. I got the retargeting working on monster portraits, so if you take it round-by-round you can single out any monster you don't like for death just by clicking their portrait. This could be handy for tough fights and/or fighting against other players. Plus, smoothed out a couple of remaining bugs and visual issues. So that's all the dungeon, healing, scrolls and combat stuff taken care of.

Things to try next week:

- auto-repair for the blacksmith and maybe auto-raise-dead.
- show encumberance values when your are in a shop
- basic automove / map waypoint system integration. A map system overhaul will come later.
- automatic shopping options, e.g. stock up arrows, scrolls, gems to a specified limit without opening the shop screen.

For anything that automatically spends money, there could either be a on/off button, or you could specify a reserve gold amount in the script and it doesn't spend below that. The reserve gold amount sounds better since you won't have to click anything in the game.

[Arx]

Those all look pretty useful, especially the waypoint one. I've actually been thinking about that for a while.


Took over Oxness. Discovered this:

Elite Town Guard (80 gold per day)    7    7

Heck yeah, I inherited the previous guards! That's 49 000 I don't have to spend.

Edit: better than I thought, it's got a level eight market and level five barracks. Neato.

[morlicar]

I just updated from 1.24 to 1.28 of the script.

I am getting a popup message when in the two towns I had time to visit: Enchanted Count = null

After clicking OK on the message, everything seems to work as normal.  I'm not too familiar with javascript, but it looked like it would be safe to ignore that alert so I commented it out. 

I'm finally getting around to experimenting with the auto-leveling.  I like what I've seen, and what little I set up worked as expected.  When I have time to set it up properly, this will be quite the time saver.

In case it matters, the towns I visited were Diverwich (93,15) and Jewel Cities (98,6)

[Arx]

As far as I've been able to tell, that popup comes up when there are no enchanted items in a town you enter. I've also commented it out, since much of my gameplay time is currently spent trying to clear the areas around my super-small towns that have no enchanted items.

[Reelya]

It was something I forgot to edit out from when I did the debug. it normally only turned up in towns where there are no shops that have enchanted tabs, which is pretty rare normally so I missed it.