4.2.4 Borg

[Estie]

It plays! But it is super slow. I checked the list of Borg commands and cant find anything that looks like it might change the speed; delay is at 0, if that matters.

So is this its maximum speed or is it slowed down somehow ?

[Nick]

I have actually done pretty much nothing on this, so I don't know

[Estie]

So I started it with a HE priest; it made it to clvl5 sofar, staying at dlvl1 at about 1 sec/turn. It uses oil flasks but hasnt equipped a launcher.

[backwardsEric]

This is from one of agoodman00's comments in https://github.com/angband/angband/pull/5676 :

"speaking of "zipping" there are two delays in place, one in the game ('=' 'd') and one in borg.txt. When I run borgs, I set both to 0. Makes him zip around much faster. I may end up making it ask on starting the borg for the first time but right now, it just keeps what you have. I find the default delays horribly slow... but then, I am not working on the machine when I am running a borg."

From a quick glance at the code, the borg-specific delay should default to zero if there's no borg.txt in your user directory (if this is being done on Angband.live, I don't know if you can upload or modify something there readily). A sample borg.txt file is at https://github.com/angband/angband/b.../borg/borg.txt .

The borg I'm running locally (early 2015 MacBook Pro; compiled with no optimization and with some sanitizers) is also completing a turn about once per second; that's with the in-game delay set to 40 milliseconds and a borg.txt setting the borg-specific delay set to zero.

[Estie]

At 1 turn every second the borg is too slow to watch for me. It used to be so fast you had to slow it down to be able to watch, why has it become so much slower ?

[Jay]

If you change the delay (from the main screen, "=" then "d" then "0" or some other low number), it zips along quickly.

Also, I've got a bug to report: I just had a level 24 warrior die of starvation while carrying five slime mold juices.

[Estie]

Ok, I swear I had it set to 0. It was the default 40 which is too slow.

I was downloading borg.txt files, investigating if my pc was working properly and whatnot while all this time the delay was still at 40.

Yay, time for borg spotting.

[Estie]

Noes, he replaced his sling of power +15 with a shortbow of extra shots +6 (+2).
Someone needs to tell him to ignore extra shots :/

[agoodman]

I am glad people are using the borg. If you have delays at zero I find it still slow, but not a turn a second slow. When I worked on it ages ago it zipped around so fast you couldn't tell what it was doing finishing levels in a flash. Now even on new hardware it isn't so fast. I have "do performance analysis" on my todo list, with a few things, like item array handling (lots of memory copying) as likely suspects. Might not get to that for a bit though.

Right now I am working on getting the dynamic formulas working in borg.txt again, with a new prettier format. I really hate the design of the current formulas and think it could be done much more easy to understand way. I am probably going to post a proposal on that and get peoples ideas soon.

As for the starving borg... perhaps we need a thread for borg bug reports. I will be looking into some of it but encourage people to hop in and play with the borg code.

[agoodman]

Noes, he replaced his sling of power +15 with a shortbow of extra shots +6 (+2).
Someone needs to tell him to ignore extra shots :/

If you want to see why the borg is picking equipment 1 vs 2, you can stop him, have him wield 1 and do ^z p and it will print out his "power" with that, then switch to wielding 2 and hit ^z p and see the change in power level. Shots vs per shot damage calculations might be off. They are very old I think dating back to the original borg. If the calculations in the game have changed they may need updating.

[Estie]

Very interesting. I suspected that he still counted extra shots the original way.
He also replaced a longbow of power with one of accuracy though (an obvious downgrade), so there's maybe more going on. I'll try to catch him and check next time.

The borg often stops when activating or zapping something, for a few seconds, at the direction/target prompt. He also seems to love activateable items; he carries many offensive wands/rods and his rings went from flames/poison resistance to flames/flames. The poison resist ring is stored in his home (and he has no other source for res poison).

I started another borg (halftroll priest) with no selling; he doesnt seem to understand that mode (for example, he was carrying around +0 weapons he found for a long time; also, he ignored money piles that were close to his path). He was always broke and spent a lot of time scumming lvls 1-2 to get money for fundamental consumables. At some point he found a digger of digging and started clearing out ore nodes and became rich.

And @agoodman, you seem to be responsible for the new borg, so thank you!

[Estie]

The selling borg (HE priest) just died in town, standing in lava and trying to flee the level by recalling (which caused an error message).

[Jay]

As for the starving borg... perhaps we need a thread for borg bug reports. I will be looking into some of it but encourage people to hop in and play with the borg code.

First off, thanks for resurrecting the borg! I used to enjoy running the old borg overnight and seeing what sort of condition it was in by morning. It was always fun when he turned up with some unusual randart. I suppose it's like bitcoin mining for Angband nerds.

A place to report bugs would probably be helpful. I'll add one here: he got stuck in a loop in the black market trying to sell a lantern of shadows. It's a) a new item to 4.2 and b) no stores want it, so that should probably be noted somewhere.

[Jay]

I think I've spotted another bug, LOL.

My borg was at DL41 with a 9-8 level feeling and I knew he'd just bail so I hit escape and intervened. I took out Ar-Pharazon the Golden and was rewarded with a +15 RoS and equipped it, replacing a +7 ring of flames. Nice upgrade, I was thinking. I restarted the borg, checked back 30 minutes later, and the RoS is gone — not equipped, not in his inventory, not in his house, not in any of the stores. Instead, he's wearing a +11 ring of flames.

Sigh. You give them life, you raise them, help them along once in a while, and then they do things like this.

[Pete Mack]

The borg really should trust the existing power ratings for objects before it's own estimates. I also wonder if the tval for ring of flames was at one point ring of something very good, before the sval/teal system was replaced with object names.