Progress at last! Well, that may be me being overly optimistic. I had another look through the wiki, which is, with the best will in the world, a bit vague. I also took another run through a couple other, slightly better put together mods (or at least, better distributed!), and altered some of the layout of my interactions to match. I did have a few tags misplaced, but some of that may just have been a bit of desperate improvisation.
After cleaning everything back up to spec, I ran a few more simulations. The units will use their abilities, randomly, only when completely at peace. In my largest arena test, it took six days for one of the group of twenty to use a single ability. It was three months before any of them used any power other the first one, and at the end of the test (read: when I finally got bored ~ten minutes later) two of the group still hadn't used a single ability. At no point did any of them use any powers on each other, despite my best efforts to coerce them to do so. This is an improvement, however - at no previous point have I gotten any AI usage, but see again the bit about improvisation.
A couple similar, shorter lived groups, placed in combat situations, used exactly none of their abilities. I tried to manually activate a couple of them, to see if that would jump-start the process by some arcane luck, but that too had no effect. (That is to say, it had no effect on the further usage of their abilities; it did have an effect on the battle, as it should)
For reference, I will put up some select portions of the RAWs of that the abilities in question rely on.
The Interaction itself:
[INTERACTION:CURE_DISEASE]
[I_SOURCE:CREATURE_ACTION]
[I_TARGET:A:CREATURE]
[IT_LOCATION:CONTEXT_CREATURE]
[IT_AFFECTED_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]
[IT_CANNOT_HAVE_SYNDROME_CLASS:HEALING]
[IT_CANNOT_TARGET_IF_ALREADY_AFFECTED]
[IT_MANUAL_INPUT:wounded]
[I_EFFECT:ADD_SYNDROME]
[IE_TARGET:A]
[IE_IMMEDIATE]
[SYNDROME]
[SYN_CLASS:HEALING]
[SYN_NAME:healing]
[CE_PHYS_ATT_CHANGE:DISEASE_RESISTANCE:1000:0:START:0:END:120]
The CDI data for the syndrome I have set up to give them the ability in the first place:
[CE_CAN_DO_INTERACTION:PROB:100:START:0]
[CDI:INTERACTION:CURE_DISEASE]
[CDI:ADV_NAME:Cure Disease]
[CDI:VERB:remove disease:removes disease:NA]
[CDI:TARGET_VERB:have all diseases purged:has all their diseases purged]
[CDI:USAGE_HINT:CLEAN_SELF]
[CDI:USAGE_HINT:CLEAN_FRIEND]
[CDI:BP_REQUIRED:BY_TYPE:GRASP]
[CDI:TARGET:A:SELF_ALLOWED]
[CDI:TARGET:A:TOUCHABLE]
[CDI:TARGET_RANGE:A:1]
[CDI:MAX_TARGET_NUMBER:A:1]
[CDI:WAIT_PERIOD:180]
Please note that the interaction, when accessed and used manually from the ability menu, both in the Arena, and in Adventure mode, works as expected. I just can't get the AI to use it properly.
A few notes on some of the other trials I ran:
With the tag line [CDI:USAGE_HINT:GREETING], the ability was never used.
With [CDI:USAGE_HINT:ATTACK], the ability was never used. This issue is mentioned on the wiki as being a known interaction between the ATTACK and SELF_ONLY tags, but I had to try.
With the [:FLEEING] tag, out of a couple dozen trials, an ability (not this one, but a similar one, same tags and layout) was used, but far to late in the fight to be of any use whatsoever.
My first set of trials did not include the [:TOUCHABLE] or [:GRASP] tags; I added those recently, and they don't seem to have had any effect on the situation, but I haven't been testing for those specifically.
I still don't understand what, real-time, 'on the ground' events actually trigger the use of any of these tags; I couldn't see anything different about the one fight the [:FLEEING] tag was used, other than the fact that the guy hadn't yet passed out, and I haven't been able to replicate the result, despite replicating the circumstances. Left to their own devices, something in either [:CLEAN_SELF] or [:GREETING] will trigger the activation of random abilities over time, but I can't tell when or how or why.
My initial thought was, from what I could glean from the wiki, that [:CLEAN_SELF] and/or _FRIEND] might trigger based on the presence of coating of say, blood or vomit, which would trigger them a short time, but hopefully not too long a time, into a battle. I have never seen this to occur, and in fact, cannot definitively say that those tags have
ever triggered any interaction usage, or if they did, what precipitated it.
I am, in short, at an utter loss for understanding how this system works. How does the AI make decisions? Do the tags used have any appreciable effect at all? [BRINK_OF_MADNESS]Is there any form of logic left in this cruel world!?[/BRINK_OF_MADNESS]
May the God of Random Numbers be kinder to you than it has to me,
Urist