code logs -> 2020 -> Sun, 25 Oct 2020< code.20201024.log - code.20201026.log >
--- Log opened Sun Oct 25 00:00:22 2020
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05:39
<&McMartin>
jerith: I've been revisiting MOLEK-SYNTEZ mainly for the solitaire...
05:40
<&McMartin>
... but I just hyper-optimized my solutions for Sulfur Hexafluoride, and the Modules and Speed bests are fun
05:40
<&McMartin>
I've still got one symbol to squeeze out before I get that into "top percentile" but that does *not* promise to be fun.
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06:08
<&McMartin>
... welp, that was in fact not fun, but it also wasn't difficult after I looked at it right.
06:11
<&McMartin>
also 52 games of Solitaire won, soon I will officially have the CHARLATAN acheivement
06:14
<&jeroud>
I am currently collecting CK3 cheevos.
06:15
<&jeroud>
About a century into one of the hardest, things are going reasonably well.
06:16
<&McMartin>
I apparently I don't have the attention for much beyond Solitaire.
06:18
<&McMartin>
And MOLEK-SYNTEZ's solitaire is definitely the second-best Zachtronics solitaire after Shenzhen.
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11:25
< Yossarian>
Nobody answered me, I must be crazy.
11:26
<@Tamber>
We're all mad here, and it's okay~
11:27
< Yossarian>
I'm guessing the majority are web coders or they work in a specialized field where the math for I suppose the proper name is 'machine learning' isn't relevant.
11:29
< Yossarian>
I would imagine a lot of in-game bots/AI are more like my decision/heuristic based state machine
11:29
< Yossarian>
but a lot of games have had their sources shared, so I could always take a look at that
11:30
< Yossarian>
commerical ones, I mean
11:33
< Yossarian>
Tamber: I am playing with the idea of writing client-side bots for certain applications (none bad, I don't want to farm digital currency but I suppose I could make them do that). Like, gathering the client side state of the game, which includes the current framebuffer and using image algorithms/machines like OpenCV.
11:34
< Yossarian>
I only wonder if I can make games where time is real-based (time domain is limited) and state is limited ('cheating' - using only the state known to any other human player, not the extra state that game "AI" uses).
11:36
<@ErikMesoy>
Yossarian: Does http://www.gameaipro.com/ look like the sort of thing you want?
11:36
< Yossarian>
...Make bots for games where if it is turn-based that it performs just as well as a human player by some metric and in real-time applications make it somewhat competent. Having lots of bots for IL-2 Sturmovik dogfighting would give me an excuse to have more cores, more RAM, possibly more GPU power
11:39
< Yossarian>
ErikMesoy: this link is a plethora of good information related what I'm talking about, just with the one semantic point I'm talking about externalizing the AI. Thank you.
11:42
< Yossarian>
I've always assumed growing up and being frustrated with lackluster or handicapped AI in games was, every dev studio had a Carmmack type guy on the team sitting in the corner and they made him do the bots/AI but this Carmack was limited in skill, not to mention I'm not mathematically certain but probably the more competent the AI naturally (without extra state information, like the FPS
11:42
< Yossarian>
bots in Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, Counter-Strike that insta-headshot you because they know moreso of the internal state of the game)
11:42
< Yossarian>
especially strategy games, making the AI insta-headshot you isn't so bad, I mean, sure they access internal state of the game because they're bots
11:44
< Yossarian>
but in every strategy game I've ever played, turn-based or real-time, any difficulty above 'normal' and they merely give the AI a handicap. Not to mention their weighted decision trees or whatever internal workings, they do know the internal state of the game.
11:44
<@ErikMesoy>
I especially like chapter 4 on player perception of AI behavior: players will accuse non-cheating AI of cheating, players will accuse AI cheating in the player's favor of cheating in the AI's favor, players will project strategy onto random AI...
11:45
<@ErikMesoy>
And most amusingly, an AI with the very simple tactic of "Attack the unit with the longest name" was perceived as having a distinct strategy that the players rated high on both realism and fun. :D
11:45
< Yossarian>
So you're playing Civilization or Stellaris and the next door AI player will know where to plant the next colony or city or in Civilization, especially Civ 5, AI will plant a city in a seemingly dumb spot that can't feed itself or has poor production but later in the game when you're able to see certain strategic resources...
11:45
<@ErikMesoy>
(The writers speculate it's because of lcompound names like "Black Dragon" getting attacked before "Dwarf" or "Imp".)
11:45
< Yossarian>
"Oh lookie, it knew where oil and uranium was to be struck in 3000BC, that's why he built in this sub-par spot!"
11:48
< Yossarian>
Well, in strategy games we know they've got handicaps, some games tell you at what difficulty rating what the AI will get faster (research, population growth, whatever game element)
11:50
< Yossarian>
I bet the phenomenon has a name, not omnipotence... crystal balling? Probably some term.
11:51
<@ErikMesoy>
Prescience?
11:51
<@ErikMesoy>
Omniscience?
11:51
< Yossarian>
That's a better word, I'm tired as hell but no rest for the wicked.
11:53
<@ErikMesoy>
It's a very good book overall. There's one small complaint I have about a topic they've missed, at least in the parts I remember reading - the fine difference between two kinds of "cheating" AI: the one that's handicapped, and the one that lies.
11:54
< Yossarian>
The one that lies?
11:55
<@ErikMesoy>
Honest easy difficulty: you have 50% base to hit, +10% from weapon, +10% from skill, +10% from difficulty level bonus.
11:56
<@ErikMesoy>
Lying easy difficulty: The game *shows* 50% base to hit, +10% from weapon, +10% from skill, then secretly rolls twice and gives you the better result, so your real accuracy is 90%.
11:56
< Yossarian>
Ohhhh
12:00
<@ErikMesoy>
And then there's the weirdass Fire Emblem, which rolls twice and gives you the average. :V
12:01
< Yossarian>
I'm too tired to think if the number you provided (90% by selecting 70% twice) is statisically correct or figure of speech. Heh.
12:01
< Yossarian>
My math-fu is weak.
12:01
<~Vorntastic>
91%
12:02
<~Vorntastic>
1-(1-.7)^2
12:02
<@ErikMesoy>
It is extremely hard to "roll" (get a 1d100 result shown) under 20 or over 80 in Fire Emblem.
12:03
<~Vorntastic>
(4% each)
12:03
< Yossarian>
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=7%2F10+chance+twice that's not right
12:04
<@ErikMesoy>
"At least one success" is the line you want there. 0.91
12:06
< Yossarian>
oh
12:07
<@ErikMesoy>
There was some FPS-like game, I don't recall which, where the developer talked about how he was trying to make it more of a fun experience for the player: getting shot in the back is unfun, so enemies will only shoot at you while they're in your field of vision!
12:08
<@ErikMesoy>
This proved to be *grossly* exploitable by turning the camera to the floor and looking away from the enemies so they can't shoot you. :P
12:08
< Yossarian>
Is that a skybox I see?
12:08
< Yossarian>
heh
12:08
<@ErikMesoy>
(Paging the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, someone is ripping off your shtick.)
12:11
<@ErikMesoy>
The Game AI Pro book talks about a similar condition, less exploitable though, where AI enemies will politely take turns shooting at you, with a weighted distribution of who gets a turn next, based on which enemies are important, near the player, recently attacked, and/or have waited a long time since they last got to shoot.
12:12
< Yossarian>
Vorntastic: I haven't studied statistics or probability it feels a bit like being a little slow.
12:14
<~Vorntastic>
The Lynel in Breath of the wild insists on being on center stage, and will move to get in front of the camera. I haven't seen this exploited to make them easier to beat but I have seen some troll video where it just runs around a lot
12:14
< Yossarian>
yeah I suppose if I want to explore the topic I'm going to have to read and write code
12:17
< Yossarian>
It's appealing I guess, I never wrote anything this specialized - I understand having a weighted decision making tree, as a concept... I wonder what that would translate to in a neural network of some kind
12:17
<~Vorntastic>
Weirdly, the Fire Emblem thing makes the probabilities feel more like what a person not versed in statistics would expect
12:21
<@ErikMesoy>
XCOM:EU had a bizarre fudge factor on lower difficulties to help avert the "death spiral" phenomenon: if you had fewer than 4 soldiers left on a mission (normal squad is 4-6), your survivors would have +15% to hit and dodge for every casualty that mission.
12:21
< Yossarian>
My brain is so slow and I've been playing games for yonks that af a certain age I learned to min-max things, coupled with exploring the behavior of the software/game in question.
12:22
< Yossarian>
I kinda see my own heuristics and decision trees in certain situations
12:22
<@ErikMesoy>
Inverse Ninja Law in action, but for protagonist characters. Last soldier alive against the alien hordes is an untouchable aimbotter. :D
12:23
< Yossarian>
After the first new XCOM reboot, did they add the geoscape back and remove the linearity to the game? Can I get lucky and find a heavy plasma early like the original Microprose classic?
12:23
<&Reiver>
ErikMesoy: ... can you invoke this on purpose, and only send Rambo to clear the alien nest? :)
12:23
< Yossarian>
One of the first games I played on PC.
12:24
<@ErikMesoy>
Reiver: The bonus is calculated based on *casualties taken that mission*. You'd have to send Rambo and five expendable rookies hired yesterday.
12:25
<@ErikMesoy>
Yossarian: There are so many sequels, reboots and sequels of reboots that I'm not sure which one you mean, but XCOM:EU (2012) has a geoscape.
12:27
<&Reiver>
ErikMesoy: Ah, so it is not Rambo, but Avenging Buddy Cop...
12:27
<&Reiver>
Were rookies as cheap as the original, that could actually have been a hoot
12:28
<@ErikMesoy>
"They were going to retire tomorrow!" "...you hired them yesterday." "We have very generous retirement plans here!"
12:28
<&Reiver>
Top-tier XCOM commando, preferably something like the Sniper that gets free shots for landing hits/kills/whatev, five morons that get sent out to deliberately trigger badguys and get slaughtered in the process
12:29
<&Reiver>
A whole pile of bloody curdling screaming... and then the Grizzled Badass steps forward, flicking away the stub of his cigarette. Showtime. :P
12:29
< Yossarian>
soldier is only $40k, right?
12:29
<&Reiver>
Yeah. Chump change, soon enough.
12:30 * Reiver still fondly remembers making his satellite bases be carefully arranged kill boxes that proceeded to be staffed by a couple rocket tanks, a handful of rookies armed with naught but laser rifles and, oh my, that's a /lot/ of proximity grenades, what are you... oh dear...
12:31
< Yossarian>
$200,000 for five, I haven't played the newer X-COM games, I stopped at Apocalypse. I saw it being played and my understanding is the research is all linear
12:31
<&Reiver>
Rocket Tank Job: Charge to the front, bathe the world in Cleansing Fire.
12:31
< Yossarian>
no RNG or skipping around a lot in the research tree was my understanding but I could be wrong
12:31
<@ErikMesoy>
It's §10/§15 for a rookie in the 'big' remake of 2012. They stripped off the zeroes and stopped charging you for ammo.
12:31
<&Reiver>
Rookies Job: Charge to the corners, bath the world in Proximity Mines. Then stand by with their puny rifles and, er, pray you don't fail the mind control checks?
12:32
<&Reiver>
This is why I left much of the defense to automated explosives of varying sorts. :p
12:32
< Yossarian>
tank/rocket launcher used to be $480k, not including ammo
12:33
<&Reiver>
Yeah, but still not expensive, for a secondary base.
12:33
<&Reiver>
That was mostly there for the radar room and the hangars anyway.
12:33
<@ErikMesoy>
The 2012 remake also made every soldier a pseudo-RPG-protagonist with a class and level scheme and class abilities at levelup, like "fire twice in one turn", "move full distance and then shoot", "reload as a free action", and, weirdly, "carry more rockets for your rocket launcher".
12:33
<&Reiver>
And hangars have a nasty habit of being expensive. :p
12:33
< Yossarian>
nah just in the beginning before you start intercepting your first few and sell off the excess bodies and weapons
12:33
<@ErikMesoy>
I understand the theory that a veteran soldier maybe knows how to adjust load and carry more comfortably... but still, it's weird that the game abstraction gets so close to having inventory space be a class ability.
12:34
< Yossarian>
and in the 2012 remake can you manufacture stuff and be X-COM: Shady Arms Dealer?
12:34
<&Reiver>
ErikMesoy: The one that got me was 'carry a second grenade', which was, uh
12:34
< Yossarian>
we protec, we sell you alien artifac
12:34
<&Reiver>
Are you playing with inventory slots or not
12:34
<&Reiver>
You insisted we weren't, you just got One Thing Per Dude as an abstraction
12:34
<&Reiver>
Then you de-abstracted your abstraction
12:35
<&Reiver>
It was your abstraction
12:36
< Yossarian>
Unpopular Opinion: X-COM Apocalypse was rushed but if you read a guide/understand how to deal with the alien ship attacks, it's not a terrible game altogether.
12:37
<@ErikMesoy>
I liked Apocalypse.
12:37
< Yossarian>
I hate the mechanic of how the corporations can run out of ammunition, weapons, though... luckily there is that thing where you can raid their facilities and not hurt your standing with them. It's been such a long time, I don't even know.
12:38
< Yossarian>
Was it stunning them in combat, perhaps?
12:40
< Yossarian>
I remember I got Apocalypse when it came out as a gift, on a CD! Not floppies! The game wasn't real clear on how you were supposed to deal with the alien ship attacks but later on in life I read the general strategy is to get the hovercars that can equip certain types of missile laucnhers and spam the hell out of them until you can get some alien tech and reverse engineer it
12:41
< Yossarian>
also doing missions in real-time with pause and slow modes is another guilty pleasure, those cultists and the like... they hide often and some of the maps of buildings are pretty damned large
12:42
< Yossarian>
might be blasphemy, I know... I'm sorry :(
12:43
< Yossarian>
TFTD can suck a big fat one, though... also, doesn't it have a bug or had a bug where at a certain point all aliens have the TFTD equivalent of Smart Rocket Launchers?
12:43
< Yossarian>
and the cruise ship terror attacks, barely scraping by in the underwater part and then having to fight above water D:
12:45
< Yossarian>
mix of weapons, I 'member some guns only work underwater or above or some suck above water, absolutely horrible performance but do well underwater
12:46
< Yossarian>
Apocalypse with real-time and the mix of various terrestrial weapons feels/felt more organic than the original where eventually everyone had a heavy plasma
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16:00
<&ToxicFrog>
TFTDExtender fixed a lot of those issues, and, IIRC, let you disable cruise ship missions entirely because seriously fuck those so much
16:01
<&ToxicFrog>
(I believe those fixes are incorporated into openXcom now too, but don't quote me on that)
16:04
<&ToxicFrog>
I actually enjoyed TFTD a lot, but it does have a lot more issues than UFO.
16:04
<&ToxicFrog>
(I hated Apocalypse)
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17:21
< Yossarian>
ToxicFrog: Not surprised. Like I say, when I got the CD when it was released when I was a youngin' I couldn't get beyond the alien ship attacks... the whole Future Gunray look + classic Americana (in certain hover cars) + some of the art was strange, too.
17:22
< Yossarian>
Last time I tried to get OpenXCom working on Linux, it's packaged as an AppImage and it was a no-go. :(
17:22
< Yossarian>
Best damned thing, ever.
17:23
< Yossarian>
As a loose rule of thumb, you can judge the quality of a game, music, or some other things by appeal and via long-term cult appeal.
17:24
< Yossarian>
I missed Jagged Alliance and JA2 as a kid but I was right into Fallout and Fallout 2. Jagged Alliance 2's source code was released and a community maintains that.
17:28
< Yossarian>
The JA2 mod has a multiplayer feature if I'm not mistaken. I think there is an X-COM engine port that has multiplayer... not sure what one could add to X-COM to make it a better game. It would be nice to know the status/health of an armored tile, like UFO hull... can't you eventually heavy plasma your way through? I mean...
17:28
< Yossarian>
A blaster launcher round gets the job done :)
17:32
<&ToxicFrog>
At least on SUSE and Nix it's packaged, so you just install it through the package manager.
17:33
<&ToxicFrog>
And the AppImage shouldn't require any special setup, just chmod +x it and run it.
17:37
< Yossarian>
Ernt, it goes "No X-COM installations found". I have owned this game on 5.25" floppy, 3.5" floppy... CD (collector's) but I have the Steam version installed. Hmm.
17:40
< Yossarian>
I think I've tried passing a path via -data flag and -user but eh, just made me think that Apocalypse was literally rushed, wonder what things could be done like OpenXCom has done for xcom/tftd
17:41
<&ToxicFrog>
Did you read the instructions about where to copy your existing X-COM install to, and do so?
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17:42
< Yossarian>
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Cut_items_and_features_(Apocalypse)
17:46
< Yossarian>
ToxicFrog: oh, https://github.com/OpenXcom/OpenXcom#linux
17:57
< Yossarian>
Yeah, I'm not so sure I like Debian repos
18:31
< Yossarian>
Oh dear, more non-sense. So OpenXcom doesn't have a straight up makefile with install option, sub-directory is /install/debian | gentoo | opensuse | win
18:34
< Yossarian>
and debian has some tool that is supposed to help called `dh` debhelper command sequencer, script hashbangs make and it has the install rules here... strange stuff
18:35
< Yossarian>
I suppose it is to build a package
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19:23
<&ToxicFrog>
Why are you trying to build it from source?
19:24
<&ToxicFrog>
If you're on Debian, just `apt install openxcom`
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22:48
<&Reiver>
Does TFTDExtender also adjust game difficulty to something more sane?
22:48
<&Reiver>
Like, IIRC the devs heard "Ugh, XCOM is too easy, even on super hard mode" and adjusted accordingly
22:49
<&Reiver>
Unaware there was, in fact, a difficulty bug in the original that Super Hard Mode did not survive a save game
22:49
<&Reiver>
(The most insidious of bugs; every time /you/ open it up and try, it's certainly harder!)
22:49
<&ToxicFrog>
I don't remember and yes, you are correct
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--- Log closed Mon Oct 26 00:00:23 2020
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