Contest: Name my upcoming combat script!

Which is the best name for Zarqon's upcoming combat consult script?

  • Total voters
    60
  • Poll closed .
I hope you feel better soon.

zarqon said:
My current BatMan project is a fight.php override, displaying a table of sortable combat options, with a button to perform it. It's easier than finishing BatMan since no decisions are involved, and will be ridiculously awesome for relay play. Also, finishing that up will inspire me to finish BatMan.
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Oooo. You mentioned that idea to me before, but I'm still all shivery about it. I may even like it better than the eventual consult version.
 
This entire project sounds awesome, I'd considered working on something similar (hell, I've considered working on a lot of scripts if not for the fact that I hate reinventing the wheel with all the good scripts that are already out there) but opted out of it.

Whatever you happen to finish up, I'd be happy to see the results.
 
I have added links to appropriate threads to my previous post about needed improvements to mafia for BatMan to work properly, in case anyone would like to help contribute (or research further).

The thread about monster heals no longer exists -- it was a feature request in the old bug report software. There was quite a lot of Wiki research posted in that thread... anyone know if there is a way to get that particular thread back? Did fewyn back up those old threads, perhaps send the tables to someone, or are they lost forever to the bitbucket in the sky?
 
1: As noted, skills are already taken into account. Regarding familiars: wasn't Veracity working on that? And for everything else: what about that map for all combat items (and other things)?
2: http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Talk:Gaunt_ghuol has some data regarding heal amounts for ghuols (est. either 1-15 or 1-10 HP, random distribution), although I'm leaning toward 1-10 (it falls within the range from my previous spading attempt).
3: I suppose those could be custom-coded... Probably not worth the hassle, for some of them (at the very least), though.
 
1: No; as noted, only some of the deleveling skills are accounted for, making it a huge chore to track ML in-script. I doubt familiar deleveling has been added yet, given a) the evidently spurious quality of the deleveling formulas on the Wiki and 2) how much other stuff has been on Veracity's plate lately. I haven't seen anything about this in the build notes. For everything else, I posted all of the relevant detection strings in the thread, so they could conceivably be added without people needing to do all the research themselves. The only difficulty would be creating the matchers to accept both singular and plural monsters.
2: Thanks!
3: I'd say it is worth the hassle -- it's fine if mafia doesn't savvy temporary monsters like Crimbo monsters, but mafia should give accurate statistics about monsters which are a permanent part of the game.
 
Since my main broke the prism today, I'll see what spading I can do on behalf of familiars... even though I don't have an emo squid, llama, penguin goodfella, raincloud, riftlet, or WAF, I should be able to get a good amount in. (Gogo dwarvish war gear!)

Edit: Moronic me didn't realize that... the only one that updates each round seems to be the mattock. Oh well, clockwork detective skull?
 
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It would also be nifty if mafia had a way of reporting "fairly well defined" vs. "guesswork" data for these things. If it did, any new scaling monster could just be added in as a guesswork-type scaling monster to match the current toughest scaling monsters. This would be useful as well for reporting ML on monsters deleveled by variable amounts that are difficult to check.
 
Hi, I was wondering when you are expecting the first copy of BatMan to be released? I'm not trying to nag about it, I realize all the work that needs to be done and data that needs gathering. I check every day to see if it has come out yet, so I am just wondering if you have a guestimate. Thanks for all the work your putting in the script, good luck on getting it done.
 
See here for a small preview. I'm guessing it's going to be all we hope it's going to be.

And who knows, with the KoL combat macros, it might even be better!
 
Right now, I suspect that releasing BatMan would

1) generate a slew of bug reports (to me) about problems which are actually caused by mafia not tracking +/- ML during combat.
2) generate yet more bug reports to me for monsters that have healing moves, or items that heal the monster (potion of healing?), due to mafia not tracking +monster HP in combat.
3) make some mistake in an untested special case that cost someone something important.

I don't want to deal with all the false bug reports. Nor do I want to cause all my script users to hassle the devs about adding support for tracking these things. I've already made the requests, we just have to wait for the devs to get around to it.

That's why I'll release the relay script first, since the decisions will still be up to the player. Relay players will hopefully identify any cases where BatMan's predictions or other information are incorrect, thus making the actual consult version fairly error-free even before it's released.
 
Any chance of the Relay version being able to offer on the fly combat macros already?

From what CDMoyer posted here, it's already possible to propose a script-build macro for the user to use.

This other post seems to indicate that building and using a macro will be possible through visit_url() too, but I don't know if it's good for Relay Browser Overrides.
 
Without having looked much into it, I doubt BatMan will have anything to do with macros. One of BatMan's strengths will be adaptability -- it recalculates all of your options every round. Using macros multiplies the margin of error.
 
I was under the impression that once the optimal strategy was found, it would be followed all the way through. Maybe making a 'light' version (or it could be a whole new project based on the work already done in BatMan) that does that would be great if you decided you wanted to look into using combat macros in consult scripts. Until then it's just food for thought.

Of course, this would also have to wait until Jason and Veracity decide how Mafia will actually implement them.
 
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You insult a pirate as a moxie class. Either the pirate is embarrassed and your regular attack still works just fine, or you are embarrassed and you may need a new strategy.

You are fighting a tough monster and BatMan whips out a bigger gun, something with a large damage range. Drat that RNG, it only did min damage, leaving it very much alive. Now you need a different strategy than if it had done max damage and left it barely alive.

You are fighting an unknown monster. The monster, due to an unknown mechanic, gives you an unknown effect which lowers your to-hit stat so low that you have very little chance of hitting unknown_ml. You now need a new strategy.

Just a couple of the many RNG/unknown reasons that BatMan will almost certainly never submit more than one round at once.
 
It might be interesting to see a BatMan that calculates a strategy at the beginning of the fight, generates a macro for that strategy and then runs it.

Interesting, but obviously another whole deal that zarqon probably wouldn't want to program.

That would be faster, but lose some of BatMan's adaptability.
 
zarqon said:
You insult a pirate as a moxie class. Either the pirate is embarrassed and your regular attack still works just fine, or you are embarrassed and you may need a new strategy.
Click to expand...

That case is trivial to handle for macros, at least. In the ideal case, maybe a year from now or something, all of those might be possible with macros (which doesn't help right now).
 
I need debuggers for the relay script. I assume I will have no shortage of volunteers. :)

Disclaimers/info for this very alpha version:
  • This is quite scrodged-together at the moment, since I made a very hasty adaptation of BatMan: the Consult Script to create BatMan: the Relay Override. Don't stress if you find code that doesn't seem to be used anywhere.
  • This is not a release, so don't download this expecting it to serve you. Download it only if you want to help debug, or you're curious and want to check it out -- but if it disappoints, don't whine here.
  • When the page loads, it calls FTF's act(), so there may be reactions taken before the page loads in your browser (look at FTF to know which ones -- they're all desirable/harmless), but other than that, this is purely info-only. Clicking the options in the actions table will do nothing.
  • The table can be sorted by any column. Sorting by the "Action" column (the default sorting) will give you the options sorted by which single action kills the monster most profitably. Eventually the algorithm will be much better developed.
  • Doesn't know about hobo special attacks.

I would like your help with the following:

  1. I'm not the best with CSS. Why in the heck are the <th> fields in <thead> not lining up with the <td> fields in <tbody>? I set some widths manually in the HTML for now (line 531) just so that they wouldn't be all crammed over to the left. If it helps, I copied the CSS for scrollable tables from here, and then removed parts I didn't need. That CSS manually specifies the widths for every cell, but can't I just leave width alone and it will line up automatically? Evidently... not? Perhaps a web-dev sort of person could lend a hand here.
  2. Any item/skill inaccuracies. Skill that appears in KoL dropdown doesn't show in action table? Incorrect estimate for item/skill results? Note that skills do not show up as having -MP, because the MP => meat conversion is already made by the time they show up in that list.
  3. Any math/formula inaccuracies.
  4. Improvements to the table HTML/CSS/layout.
  5. Monster knowledge inaccuracies.

Basically, I want to make sure that the core code that builds the list of available combat options is spot on. Please do not make suggestions that don't have something to do with the actions table. There's a lot left to do, but first I want a dependable list of options.

If you'd like to help debug, here's what to do:

  • Make sure you have a recent build of mafia; this uses the very recent assignment operators.
  • Put both of the files below in your relay folder. Rename "batman.txt" to "batman.css".
  • Make sure you have relay overrides enabled in preferences, and then go fight something in the relay browser. A sortable, scrollable table of all your combat options should appear. Ooh! Nifty!
  • BatMan will create quite a few data files, all starting with "dmg_". If you find formula errors for any of the items / skills and know how to change them in the data file, upload a fixed version on the Map Manager (link in my sig). If you find errors and don't know how to fix them, mention them here.
  • Contribute your fixes/suggestions here.
Thanks and happy loathing! I look forward to your honing of the script.
 

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woot!

EDIT:
FTF isn't firing off for me (adventuring in hobopolis main square). shouldn't
PHP: 
results.append(act(visit_url()));
be
PHP: 
results.append(ftf(visit_url()));
?

Oh wait... no it shouldn't... I just needed to select (show old combat form)!

EDIT2:
This looks really great!
Unfortunately, I'm curently too high level for anything other than attack with weapon to be on top, but I will definitively be trying this out when I ascend into BM pasta.

Only little suggestion: hardcode scented massage oil to restore ( my_maxhp() - my_hp() ) HP (as far as I know, it's the only combat item that restores all HP, so no need to create a special type for it).
 
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