Borg Reminders

[APWhite]

Just a quick note about the borg.

The borg is still being actively developed. Right now most of the work is going into the 320 borg, but those improvements are being ported to the 340 code. The 340 borg is not ready for release yet, but don't worry, the borg will not die out. I have working on the borg since 1995 and I don't plan on quitting anytime soon.

I have been doing a lot of work on the zangband240 borg. It is so much fun to work on that version since my time can be spent on behavior improvements instead of 'catch-up' to the next game version.

Also, reminding you that the borg has:
twitter account
facebook page
blog

When I make updates and changes to the borg, posts are made on all three.

Andrew

[Magnate]

Hi Andrew,

I'm pleased to say that the borg has now been ported to the 3.4-dev code as well as v4, so I hope that will make it much easier for you to stay abreast of code changes and focus on its behaviour (because if we introduce a change that breaks it, we can fix it straight away, instead of you having to wait for a release and fix loads of changes at once).

As I've noted in the v4 forum, the borg's capability in v4 is severely diminished because of the changes to item generation which it doesn't yet understand - this can be fixed in the longer term, of course (it was just interesting to see if it could be made to run at all). In V it should be pretty much as good as ever, but noz (who did the port from the version you sent him) noted that it had a problem with destroying its spellbooks, or something. I hope we haven't broken too much by porting it!

Long live the borg!

[Nightmarjoo]

How do you run the borg in 3.4?

[Magnate]

How do you run the borg in 3.4?

crtl-z I think

[takkaria]

crtl-z I think

'ctrl-z z', in fact!

[Nightmarjoo]

Hmm it tells me I don't have a proper borg txt; what do I need to do? Also what do I need to do to make it a screensaver (windows 7)?

Thanks.

[Magnate]

Hmm it tells me I don't have a proper borg txt; what do I need to do? Also what do I need to do to make it a screensaver (windows 7)?

Thanks.

I'm afraid I have no idea how to make it trigger as a screensaver, but borg.txt should be in the standard install. If it's missing, you can get it from https://github.com/angband/angband/b.../borg/borg.txt

[takkaria]

Hmm it tells me I don't have a proper borg txt; what do I need to do? Also what do I need to do to make it a screensaver (windows 7)?

Thanks.

It needs to be in the user directory. If you're on Windows, then it used to be in the 'lib' directory. It might have changed while I wasn't looking though!

[Timo Pietilä]

It needs to be in the user directory. If you're on Windows, then it used to be in the 'lib' directory. It might have changed while I wasn't looking though!

user directory in lib directory. Not the borg.txt in lib directory (just for clarity).

[Nightmarjoo]

lol can the borg not dig through rubble? This one is stuck in an infinite loop going back and forth between a rubble blocked hallway and a pack of jackals (which he can easily kill).

It's a lot slower than I remember the borg being; any way to speed it up?
Any way to make it automatically start a new borg game after death?

Thanks.

[HallucinationMushroom]

I liked to slow mine down. Been a while, but I think I changed base delay to '9', so I guess you would want a '0' or '1'. There might be better ways though.

edit: I think I opened him up in regular style and went to game options to do this, then exited out. Bound to be a better way.

[takkaria]

lol can the borg not dig through rubble? This one is stuck in an infinite loop going back and forth between a rubble blocked hallway and a pack of jackals (which he can easily kill).

It's a lot slower than I remember the borg being; any way to speed it up?
Any way to make it automatically start a new borg game after death?

Thanks.

The borg can't dig through rubble in V3.4, no... it's something someone needs to fix

[PowerWyrm]

The borg doesn't work in 3.4 (see my post elsewhere) because of the new item cap at 40. It still assumes it can pick 99 items up and gets stuck in an infinite loop.

[APWhite]

The borg can't dig through rubble in V3.4, no... it's something someone needs to fix

Did you guys need me to take a look at this for you? There are three points where the rubble will need to be examined. First is in borg6.c in borg_play_step(), and in borg_flow_spread(). there are calculations on whether or not the borg might be successful in digging. If he has low strength and low dig skills, he won't even bother trying to dig rubble. The formula are easy to read. The two formulae need to match. The borg_flow_spread() will see if the borg ought to create a pathway walking through the rubble, while the play_step() is the actual movement.

In the case described, the borg needs to alter the formula for borg_play_step(). I would recommend adding a special consideration for the FEAT_RUBBLE. It is typically easier to dig than the seams.

Anotherr spot is in borg_flow_interesting(). It will determine if the rubble is an interesting grid and ought to be explored. If the borg has a hard time digging, then he tends to not consider those things interesting. This area of the code does not solve your bounce, but it does have the formula for determining if the borg should dig up rubble.

As far as the jackals. They are considered scaryguys and the borg will attempt to avoid a fight as much as possible. If the borg is cornered by a jackal, then it will turn to fight, otherwise, he will flee as much as it can.

Whenever you find borgs behaving oddly, send the savefiles to me. I will check them out and make corrections to the code. Remember, though, all the code changes I make are on code 3.2. Those things are easy to port over to the newer versions, but I don't have the software to use the newer versions.

I am happy to help anytime you guys need it. I don't always check the forum. But if you send an email. I will get on it right away. I still work on the borg daily. I just spend most of my time on the zangband borg. Check with me anytime you need, its no trouble at all.

APWhite

[Magnate]

Whenever you find borgs behaving oddly, send the savefiles to me. I will check them out and make corrections to the code. Remember, though, all the code changes I make are on code 3.2. Those things are easy to port over to the newer versions, but I don't have the software to use the newer versions.

I am happy to help anytime you guys need it. I don't always check the forum. But if you send an email. I will get on it right away. I still work on the borg daily. I just spend most of my time on the zangband borg. Check with me anytime you need, its no trouble at all.

Thank you - that's much appreciated.

What we'd really like is to enable you to be able to work on the 3.4 codebase. Can you remind us what's keeping you stuck at 3.2? What did we change?