Step modifier column in steps grid

[theis999]

We currently use the comment field for some special modifying behaviors which is a rather obscure way to handle such things.

Current

We currently uses the comment field for a fairly wide array of step modifying behavior:

• check-distance: "old"/"new" which goes into compatibility mode
• check-distance: "Override" which overrides the building interaction calculation
• Pick up: "COMP:" which does some special compatibility for pickup
• Tech: "Cancel" which cancels the current research queue before adding the new technologi to it.

then we also

• Save: comment is used for filename

and

• Mining: "Split" i am not sure what this does

Step modifications

This is in response to having Set recipe that blocks until the assembler is not crafting. However a few other uses also comes to mind:

1. No order - execute task in no particular order, for instance if you want to take items from a bunch of furnaces and just want it done as fast possible.
2. Wait for crafting - When you have queued up intermediate items for crafting the next item, then it could be useful to block&warn before adding a new item to the crafting queue.
3. Walk to - specifically for walking to a far away item to execute some task (mining it or take items from a wreck). Then we could cancel the walk.

[MortenTobiasNielsen]

Modifier suggestions:

• Use All Ticks: A warning will be raised if no step was executed in a tick. This is very useful in very large builds, where you need to use very single tick.
• Never Stop: A warning will be raised if the character isn't walking. At a certain point in an any% run you never want the character to stand still, but it can be extremely time consuming to go through every single tick an ensure that the character is not standing still for a tick.
• Finished amount: This is used on recipe to signal that the amount specified in the recipe is the amount of units which should be available in the assembler before the recipe can be changed.
• Always stone path: A warning will be raised if the character isn't walking on stone path.

[theis999]

I don't disagree that those could be useful. They do however sound much more like they are modifying the TAS state than a specific step.

[MortenTobiasNielsen]

Agreed. I think we can do both step and state modifiers in the same column.

1. No order: Would the LUA code keep on going to the next step and check if that can be executed until it finds one or it gets to X forward step and then stops?
2. Wait for crafting: Sounds pretty useful. It is pretty annoying to try to align that so it is tick perfect.
3. Walk to: I don't really understand this one. Why would you want to cancel a walk step - couldn't you just make the walk step to where you want to go?

[theis999]

I was thinking the lua could be allowed to "rearange" steps that had no order, to whichever could be completed first. So you would have to have a block of steps that could be done in any order. So if you had task A through E. A and E are both order steps, but B,C,D are un-order. So the TAS can execute them as C->D->B giving the full order as A->C->D->B->E.

[theis999]

Walk to, would allow a new walk command to override the destination. Which is useful if you don't care about reaching a certain destination, and only care about performing a task in that general direction.

[MortenTobiasNielsen]

I still don't really understand in what situation I would do that instead of just walking to the destination I actually want to go. :)

[theis999]

Well it is similar to mining ALL where you don't care about how long it takes but want to switch tasks as soon as it is completed. It is meant as something that makes it easier to use the generator, by giving you good precision without too much hassle.

For instance in this case. I want to run right until i can take the iron from the ship and then i want to change direction. In this case i can slowly search for the correct x / y, which takes some time as generator does calculate the distance to wreck parts correctly. Or i would use this modifier, to say go towards x,y until the plates can be taken from the wreckage.

[MortenTobiasNielsen]

So you would set the x to sometime much lower (or larger) than you expect and just let the character run until it is within distance - that would be pretty useful.

[theis999]

Exactly