Ascend.ash: hands-off ascension script

Bale said:
dj_d is busy with real life. Many other scripters on this forum don't like to tinker with something dj_d is paid for since we don't get a percentage of his take. So little chance unless you can do it yourself.
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Well I thought that when I pay for a script, I also get the support that I deserve as a customer. If dj_d cannot support his script anymore, he should let somebody else do it, and share the revenue of course.
 
To be fair, while I don't completely agree with the philosophy behind pay-for scripts, I also don't expect support until the end-of-time on any software I pay for. Heck, AutoCAD cost my company thousands of dollars, and it only has about 5-year support in any way, shape, or form. In fact, most software I know of with continued support beyond the first year or so requires a subscription fee to get said support, in addition to the original cost of the software.
 
To be clear, I'm not referring to the level of support, I'm talking about the fact that various parts of the suite simply no longer work, and the amount of tinkering you need to do to get everything working should be made clearer. To call the suite currently up for download hands-off is misleading at best. Not to disparage dj_d's work at all, as it's great groundwork for others, but for anyone not very familiar with tinkering with scripts, it should be made clear to stay away for the time being.
 
I would agree with that, depending on what kind of message is given when one currently attempts to pay for the script. If the transaction is completed without any caveats, yeah, that's misleading. If there are warnings given by dj_d when a new user goes to purchase the script, or if the script worked at time of purchase, I'd say it falls under caveat emptor.
 
fwiw

From dj_d (#155394) [reply] [quoted]
Date: Friday, January 22, 2010, 06:03PM

Thank you for the Mr. A! I hope you enjoy ascend.ash. The password is '[redacted]'. If you have any questions, just post them in the thread at www.kolmafia.us, which I check regularly. Enjoy! (note: this account is not regularly monitored)
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It's entirely possible it's changed since then.
 
Deathless Assassin said:
fwiw



It's entirely possible it's changed since then.
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It hasn't. This is what I got (for some reason the message was a bit mutilated):

From dj_d (#155394) [reply] [quoted]
Date: Wednesday, April 07, 2010, 02:58PM

Thank+you+for+the+Mr .+A% 21+I+hope+you+enjoy+ ascend.ash.++The+pas sword+is+[REDACTED].+If+you+have+any+ questions% 2C+just+post+them+in +the+thread+at+www.k olmafia.us% 2C+which+I+check+reg ularly.++Enjoy%21++% 28note% 3A+this+account+is+n ot+regularly+monitor ed%29

I would call it more than a bit unfortunate when a customer pays ten dollars and is told he will receive support, but in fact this turns out to be no longer accurate. It's also not so much that the script could do a lot of things better/in a more sensible way, but some stuff downright does not work properly anymore if you don't update it manually. If it were freely available, no problem at all - there are tons of obsolete scripts for KoL which don't cost a thing ;-)
But it's not free. This is seriously not cool and pissing me off, lemme tell ya.
 
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Honestly, the format of that message would have made me suspect that things weren't being maintained. ;) Though it was too late at that point. :(

Given that, yeah, I'd be annoyed too. Meanwhile, you're welcome to help in any way possible with my current project.
 
<veer>If I look at this as "I paid for it and support" I feel your pain. However I have been paid $10 for doing nothing more than sitting on a toilet and thinking of work, so there is certainly a perspective from which a Mr. A. is not a big deal, compared to the time involved. So from that perspective I would ask whether it is really worth whining about. That said I have offered my scripts for free and refused payment for customized versions precisely because my personal ethics would require me to actively support a script I wrote and charged for and I don't really want to be committed to that.</veer>
 
@StDoodle: Your project is interesting -- and would probably get better technical support here rather than there, in addition to finding willing guinea pigs.

You've seen my Hardcore Checklist script (now a wee bit outdated), right? That may be a good framework to plug the pieces into -- you could add a step execution method that calls other scripts, and condition checking could still be the same.
 
To be fair, I completely understand if somebody cannot continue with a project due to real life. It's just that taking the five minutes to edit the first post and stating that the script is no longer supported and requires manual editing by the user is certainly not too much to ask.
 
@zarqon It will make it here eventually. ;) For now, I'm concentrating on the logic behind the decisions made by the script. Which is why I'm sticking to the HCO board; this particular forum has, shall we say, a healthy mix of casual and optimal ascenders. I'm looking to lean as far towards the latter as possible. (No offense intended to anyone here; it's just that I really want the starting point to be as optimal as can be reasonably scripted.)

@MrCrac Yeah, knowing what I do now of the situation, I'd say you're justified to be a bit peeved. It really would be nice if either this post was updated to mention the hiatus, or the auto-response included something to that effect with a "msg me with [syntax] if you'd like to change your mind under the current situation," at least one of the two.
 
StDoodle said:
To be fair, while I don't completely agree with the philosophy behind pay-for scripts, I also don't expect support until the end-of-time on any software I pay for. Heck, AutoCAD cost my company thousands of dollars, and it only has about 5-year support in any way, shape, or form. In fact, most software I know of with continued support beyond the first year or so requires a subscription fee to get said support, in addition to the original cost of the software.
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When's the last time you purchased a piece of software with/without support included that didn't at least perform basic function out of the box? (out of the box in this context meaning installed/configured).

Also, although $10 on it's own is not a "sizable" amount necessarily, when put into context of the game $10 => 1 Mr. A => ~5mil. meat, it is arguably a very large amount. Considering the avg. player only has around a few mil. on-hand (if that) at any given time, it is handy to have that meat available, rather than sunk into a script that no longer works properly. But as with any investment, there is a risk. However it seems as though the risk involved in purchasing this script package wasn't very clearly displayed prior to purchase.

That is my $0.02
 
GhettoTrucker said:
When's the last time you purchased a piece of software with/without support included that didn't at least perform basic function out of the box? (out of the box in this context meaning installed/configured).
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Yesterday ;)
GhettoTrucker said:
Also, although $10 on it's own is not a "sizable" amount necessarily, when put into context of the game $10 => 1 Mr. A => ~5mil. meat, it is arguably a very large amount. Considering the avg. player only has around a few mil. on-hand (if that) at any given time, it is handy to have that meat available, rather than sunk into a script that no longer works properly. But as with any investment, there is a risk. However it seems as though the risk involved in purchasing this script package wasn't very clearly displayed prior to purchase.

That is my $0.02
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I think the issue here is that the game is not the relevant economy. A Mr. A is huge in the game, but hardly worth agonizing over in the real world unless you are unemployed or overextended. Since script writing takes time and time is a real world commodity I think that is the appropriate place to evaluate the economics. I violently agree with others that the feeling that you paid for something and didn't get what you paid for is huge and a factor but there seems to be a significant lack of perspective. I wonder if that is related to age and maturity?
 
I have offered to help dj_d with ascend.ash. I'm doing it for free because I'm learning and it makes me happy. I created a new multi and am running it with ascend. Obviously I have not even begun to test everything but it is at least executing with the current version of UR, zlib and a couple other scripts. Let me know (or remind me because I am not inclined to scan 55+ pages) what does not seem to be working because of changes in other scripts or mafia and I'll see what I can do about getting you fixes. No promises but at least you'll have a chance of getting more than you paid me for ;)
 
fronobulax, since you were asking for things which should be fixed (to be fair, this is from a Hardcore perspective):

1.) There are several mistakes in how Ascend.ash handles the Level 11 quest, which could probably be fixed by simply updating that part of the script and making this updated script compilation available in the first post of this thread. Erroneous behavior included (for me) adventuring in a zone after it made no longer sense to be there, namely at The Poop Deck after the Swordfish adventure was encountered and adventuring at the Arid, Extra-Dry Desert after Ed the Undying had been defeated.

2.) The script does a number of things which (mostly) do not make any sense. This includes, but may not be limited to:

a.) Resetting the Ballroom song after I have set it to +Noncombat manually (it should always be at +Noncombat, the only sensible exception being once you reach Level 12 and want to do the Sonofa Beach sidequest)
b.) Unlocking the Gallery as a non-Muscle class: A complete waste of turns. Only Muscle classes ever want to adventure at the Gallery. There is no exception to this rule.
c.) Hardcore: If a player is in Hardcore, they cannot use Hangk's (except for free pulls). So it would be nice if the script could detect the ascension style and stop trying to pull things when that is not a viable option.
d.) The script keeps resetting my MCD level. When I have enough skills to survive +10 without problem, I want that +10 Monster Level, dammit. A good solution would probably be to use a flag in the vars_playername.txt file which determines if the script should touch the MCD at all / which value should be used.
e.) The script keeps resetting my auto-attack. While I understand that some combat scripts need this behaviour, I use my own custom combat script. Again this might be solved by using a flag, like dont_mess_with_my_fucking_autoattack = TRUE ;-)
f.) The function checkFood(), which in turn calls eatDrink(), is called from something like fifteen places within Ascend.ash. This seems a bit... odd. I have completely turned it off and handle the eating/drinking myself, cause I couldn't stand seeing the script trying to pull spleen items anymore :-(
 
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Thanks. No promises but I think a couple of things can be addressed. I am in violent agreement that pulling from Hangk's and feeding the spleen need to work better than they do. I have not seen any of the Level 11 glitches yet but I will watch for them. Some of the decisions about where to adventure may be the result of choosing safety over optimality and some of the script's parameters such as how much damage (as a percent) you are willing to absorb per round.
 
The script desperately needs to work with a new version of a MacGuffin script, for the reasons Mr_Crac named and more. It will burn all your turns in the desert unhydrated after Ed dies. All of them. There is also a few problems with the version of the island war script it uses I think, especially in changing outfits during the filthworm quest (it kept getting beaten up because it failed to change out of the knob elite uniform). Also, depending on how well equipped the account using this script is, it may or may not struggle at low levels if you don't have Mr. gear. The multi I tested it on was unable to run the script at all immediately upon ascension because ascend.ash didn't think there was anywhere safe to adventure based on the gear it had, so I had to level it up manually initially. The other glaring thing from keeping it being hands off is that if you don't have a good Mr. store weapon, you have to keep updating the outfit the script uses to have a non-sucky weapon. Further, the version of Zlib packed with the suite doesn't work with newer versions of mafia, minimally that needs to be updated. I haven't used ascend.ash in a couple months, but in around a week I'll put said multi back through the gash and record all the problems it encounters.
 
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dj_d used MacGuffin.ash to deal with the level 11 quest. I'm sure Zarqon will chase and squash any bug in it if that's where they come from, although I doubt MacGuffin.ash burns all your turns in the desert unhydrated after Ed dies (LevelUp.ash might be the culprit here).
 
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