The Unofficial Ascend.ash support thread.

[zarqon]

Verbosity 0 is not a script bug... it's that you've managed to set it improperly at some point.

To clear things up: actually, that was a ZLib bug for a while, but it was fixed months ago when Alhifar cleverly ascertained its cause.

The second issue is that the versions of my scripts which were bundled with Ascend were modified. dj_d removed the update notifications from my scripts when he bundled them with Ascend. I understand why he did it (my updates could conceivably break Ascend, requiring him to make an update promptly), but I wish he wouldn't have. It leads to problems like you just had -- not to mention other problems when something like mafia's recent XOR change comes down the pipe and requires a current version. And then sometimes people have these older versions sitting in subdirectories, and since a subdirectory named "ascend" would be searched before most everything else, people think they're running newer versions but they're actually running older versions. "Update ZLib!" say the helpful people on the forums, for the 1,000,000th time. "I did!" says the user. And everyone is annoyed.

Thus, I do not want old versions of my scripts to be available at all, anywhere. It's for reasons like these that I use the (hopefully very annoying) update notifications in the first place. The alternative is worse.

Thankfully, it appears that the Ascend thread no longer contains dj_d's Ascend, but rather frono's updated version which 1) works with my scripts unmodified, thus avoiding user confusion, and b) has been maintained so as to be current (there have been roughly 3.52 bajillion KoL changes since dj_d last updated Ascend). Hopefully all of these problems are now a thing of the past.

Thanks a lot fronobulax!

 

[LordDerby]

First of all, I'm running daily build 9143. Also, forgive me if I come off sounding needy and noobish here--this is just all the stuff that I'm having trouble with, and I don't expect answers to everything.

1) It has told me several times that it returned a blank page from knoll.php - should I change this line to something else? Also, I found that ascending under a muscle sign, it wouldn't just buy the meatcar parts. I had to do that myself. I did eventually fix the code for the Untinkerer quest, but after I had already done the quests manually.

2) Using farm.ash gives me: "Bad location value: "Typical Tavern" (canadv.ash, line 135)". What should I change this to?

3) When it finishes the quests available to me, the script stops, telling me there isn't any safe place to adventure... even when I have enough moxie that anything I can hit will not be able to hit me. This problem came up frequently with my multi that doesn't have a lot of stuff, but even came up with my main account that is loaded with Mr. Store equipment. The script seems to be running through a list of leveling/farming zones that aren't available until level 7 or 8. I think I might be able to fix this issue by raising the value for how much of a hit I can take (it's at the default of 25% of my max HP), but I won't have a chance to test this until rollover. While I'm posting here, I'm curious to know if there is a solution I'm not aware of.


Specific problems aside, I started messing around with the script package yesterday, and so far it's been a frustrating experience--even using the newest release of each script, I am getting error messages left and right. Many of the solutions are in this thread, but there seem to be several tweaks and fixes from the past few months that have not made it into the current version of the script. Does someone have a version they can throw my way that is going to save me some trouble in the future, or at least a comprehensive list of changes I need to make? I have a feeling that I'm going to start having more issues when I reach the Friars, so I downloaded Azazel.ash, but have no idea how well that one is going to work yet.

Overall, the script feels fairly "hands on" so far, somewhere in between the "hands off" functionality I had envisioned, and me just lazily automating with basic Mafia functionality.

 

[Theraze]

For 2, update to a new version of the canadv script.

Easiest thing to do if you want more hands off at the moment is using bumcheekascend. Especially if you're a moxie class. If you're melee or magic... it's a bit more complex.

 

[fronobulax]

@LordD - I am way behind on getting the tweaks I have back out there. I blame Real Life, a day job and more changes to KoL content in a comparatively short time than I can handle.

1) I have no clue about the blank pages but it sounds like the script doesn't "understand" a Muscle sign. Can't say that I have tried that. The Untinker is a known problem that might get fixed in mafia which means the script should work again.

2) As Thereze says, track down a new version of canadv. That said, I have very little experience with farm. ascend has been getting my cycles.

3) This started happening to me in the last couple of scripted ascensions. Not sure whether it is a problem with Moxie classes or what. I got around it by autoadventuring in mafia, rather than letting Ascend run but changing the acceptable damage threshold might also work.

Other - I am running with no errors so part of the problem is just that I have been slow to push out my updates. On the other hand, the Tavern, Spooky Forest and whatever the post Friar's gate area is called have all changed enough to break scripts so it's not like the changes are trivial and I'm not really interested in pushing out something that I have not tested. Icon's Azazeal script works well with Ascend but I am not sure that will be the Unofficial solution. I need to talk to him. I think we are in a time of transition and that eventually bcc's script will replace ascend as the automated ascending tool of choice. Some of the reason for that is just most things are better the second time and there are a lot of thing people learned from Ascend that bcc's script incorporates. Second, bcc's script is free and maintained by the community whereas Ascend is for pay and is somewhat controversially maintained by an unpaid volunteer.

Stay tuned.

 

[fronobulax]

I have decided the best way to support EatDrink is to take advantage of my elevated editing privileges and restore discussion and maintenance to the original thread.

 

[fronobulax]

At least one other person has noticed that Ascend is having problems finding safe places to Level Up. Turns out that some location names have changed and as a consequence Ascend is working on an incomplete list. Knob Goblin needs to be changed to Cobb's Knob in the data files locs_by_meat and locs_by_xp and I have just deleted the Friar's gate line (and renumbered) in order to get things to work. I'll eventually post new files but wanted to get the information out.

 

[Theraze]

For Friar's Gate, wouldn't it be better to replace it with Pandamonium Slums since that's the same location as the old Gate?

 

[tebee]

I too noticed the untinker quest was not working. Looking at the code in ascend.ash it's not caught up with the fact he's moved to the forest village or that you now have to press the button to accept the quest.

This is my currently untested change for the untinker function in ascend.ash

void Untinker(int level)
{
  if (!contains_text(visit_url("questlog.php?which=2"), "Driven Crazy"))
  {
    if (contains_text(visit_url("plains.php"),"Degrassi"))
    {
      string tink = visit_url("forestvillage.php?place=untinker");
      if (!tink.contains_text("I lost my screwdriver somewhere"))
		{
		visit_url("forestvillage.php?place=untinker&action=screwquest");
		wait(1);
		}
      if (!tink.contains_text("terribly busy"))
      {
	visit_url("knoll.php?place=smith"); //for muscle signs
	if (advItemLevel($location[Degrassi Knoll], 1, 
			 $item["rusty screwdriver"], level))
	  visit_url("forestvillage.php?place=untinker");
	if (item_amount($item["bitchin' meatcar"]) > 0)
	  cli_execute("untinker bitchin' meatcar");
      }
      else
      { debug("No screwdriver quest yet");}
    }
    else
    { debug("Can't get to the knoll yet"); }
  }
  else
    debug("Already finished untinker");
}

 

[Theraze]

Is it even still possible to untinker the meatcar? Might as well save the server hit by removing that...

 

[fronobulax]

OK. OK. I'll try and squeeze some time out of this weekend and post an update. I think the Spooky Forest, Tavern and "Steel" quest are better than before. I keep hoping mafia will change to handle the Untinker although it is clear that my hope has not led me to do it myself.

 

[fronobulax]

See 2011_03_19.zip in the main Ascend thread for an update. New version should handle Spooky Forest, Tavern, Steel Organ and Untinkerer. Also works with "latest" versions of zLib et. al.

Now that I am editing that thread, I am going to close this one. Thank you.