Feature - Implemented Failed maximize returns a "true"

[Theraze]

I was told that running

> ash cli_execute("maximize? 4 clownosity");

Maximizing (1st time may take a while)...
128 combinations checked, best score 0.0 (FAIL)
Returned: true

should return false, if it failed... as you can see in the quote above though, it returned true. Having this return false would allow for validating values and checking if minimum scores can actually be reached safely.

As a potential different item, if there was an easy way to get something similar to last_item_message and last_skill_message... maybe a last_maximizer_value or something like that to return the float of the score, it could be used to verify how close you came, and help plan how much more is needed.

 

[holatuwol]

cli_execute returns whether or not an error was encountered, so that's the correct return value.

 

[Theraze]

Hmm... is there any way to actually return that the maximize was a failure? Besides making a new ash command that has all sorts of issues with people incorrectly guessing values?

 

[StDoodle]

Does "maximize?" pass values to "_spec" similarly to "whatif"? If so, that'd be a way to go, in combination with 'numeric_modifier("_spec","Clownosity")'.

But, I dunno if that happens, and it's rollover.

 

[Theraze]

Nope...

> ash cli_execute("maximize? 4 moxie min"); print(numeric_modifier("_spec","moxie"));

Maximizing...
505 combinations checked, best score 352.0
0.0
Returned: void

 

[StDoodle]

Harumph. Having that version of maximize pass stuff to "_spec" would be quite useful...

 

[Bale]

Harumph. Having that version of maximize pass stuff to "_spec" would be quite useful...

Not useful at all. If you want to see if it was successful you can just check your current stats. In this case numeric_modifier would tell you if you reached clownosity. If you want to see if it is good enough BEFORE switching gear, then you use whatif.

 

[StDoodle]

But suppose you don't know exactly what you'd like to do for whatif? That's what I'm looking at wanting to use; what would modifier X be if I did maximization Y?

 

[Winterbay]

"whatif maximize clownosity" would be a brilliant command since I can never remember which items give what and which of those I actually have in myinventory.

 

[That FN Ninja]

It would be pretty useful. I asked about using the maximizer with speculate quite awhile ago, but I didn't actually make any feature requests. The maximizer wasn't to a point where Jason was ready to implement such a thing at the time.

 

[Fluxxdog]

No kidding. Do you know who many scripters would freak once he did? It's about the only thing standing between full automation. Like Theraze advised me, patience...

 

[Bale]

Right now we can do maximize and check the values it produces, so we can get the full effect of a "whatif maximize" along with determining every piece of equipment it will swap. dj_d's farm.ash does exactly that -- many times!

The only drawback is the extra server hits. It is almost criminal when you consider how many extra server hits it produces to test several different sets of parameters for maximize. That's the one thing I really dislike about farm.ash. Unfortunately without "whatif maximize" it is necessary to do this to gain the functionality.

 

[Winterbay]

Yeah, a whatif in farm.ash would be great. It would also speed up the execution of the script enormously...

 

[holatuwol]

Well, I can make maximize() have meaningful true/false return values, but I have no knowledge of modifier maximizer to do anything more than that without refactoring the code to figure out what makes it tick.

If you would like a 'whatif maximize' function or command or something similar, feel free to open a feature request, but ... for this particular feature request (maximize having a meaningful return value), I think I'll just say it's already done and move forward. =)