[GS] NoCarGoal

[Zuu]

Update - Version 3

• Fix bug that delivery to industries was counted twice
• Use user friendly units in the strings (tonnes, litres etc.)
• Possible to configure if progress news should show every month or every year
• Progress news show cargo transported + percent completed
• Goal window now show the bronze + silver + gold goals in the global section (making them visible also to spectators in MP games)
• For companies, there is only one goal at each time showing the next medal level. This goal include a percentage completed figure at the end. The company goal is updated monthly.
• The news message that show when you complete a medal level now includes a suggestion to continue with the next level and the end year as a reminder.

[Alberth]

\o/

[3iff]

I'll give it a try...thanks for the quick update.

*********

I haven't yet had time to give this a thorough test but my brief game yesterday confirmed that the double delivery problem was gone. I should be able to test further over the weekend.

[Kjetil]

I have a suggestion:

Autogeneration of new goals as the previous goals expire.

Maybe even combined with some sort of scoring system where missing goals are penalized and achiving goals faster than opponents are rewarded. Missing some goals while outperforming the competitors on other goals can then be allowed. Missing too many goals will make a competitors score too low and his/her company will be shut down.

[Yexo]

Another suggestion: make it possible to request the goals and current status via the admin port

[Zuu]

OpenTTD bug that affects NoCarGoal
If you use NoCarGoal on a server, please be aware of these issues:
https://secure.openttd.org/bugs/task/5283

Namely, preferable don't use the pause setting that forbids all actions when the game is paused. At least if you would like to be able to unpause the server after that the goal has ended.

I have a suggestion:

Autogeneration of new goals as the previous goals expire.

Maybe even combined with some sort of scoring system where missing goals are penalized and achiving goals faster than opponents are rewarded. Missing some goals while outperforming the competitors on other goals can then be allowed. Missing too many goals will make a competitors score too low and his/her company will be shut down.

Those are good possibilities if one want to build upon NoCarGoal and extend it further. However, for the moment I think it is fairly complete as a functional goal script that adds a lot of fun with a game that has a finite length. Also I hope that at the moment it is fairly easy to understand the goals and how it works.

A problem with more complicated goals and formulas is that they tend to be very hard to explain in a few words to players.

I might extend it further later, but for the moment I will probably focus on how OpenTTD can be extended to allow game scripts to show progress of goals in a better way than spamming the player with news items.

Another suggestion: make it possible to request the goals and current status via the admin port

Sounds like a good idea to allow server owners to have a website showing status etc. if they wish to do that.

[andythenorth]

However, for the moment I think it is fairly complete as a functional goal script that adds a lot of fun with a game that has a finite length. Also I hope that at the moment it is fairly easy to understand the goals and how it works

+lots

NoCarGoal is simple, and that is important

[3iff]

Finally managed to complete a small test game (v3). Seems perfect for a short game challenge. No problems encountered.

Thanks for the script.

[Zuu]

Update - Version 4

• AI API using Script Communication Protocol (see readme.txt)
• Sends a monthly update to Admin Port (untested)
• Fix: Give better information about game end date in the goal gui strings

There will come an example AI and/or CluelessPlus with support for NoCarGoal AI API. With it an AI can get the three goal cargo ids, target and amount of transported. They can also get number of days left and total game length in years. Basically enough data to compete with humans on the three cargoes that count towards the goal. The AI itself decide if it want monthly updates of goal progress or if it want to just poll the GS for information eg. twice a year.

[Zuu]

Update - Version 6

Change log:

• Feature: Use color highlight in goal GUI (inspired by Silicon Valley GS)
• Feature: Show time left in progress news
• Feature: The selected cargoes have been constrained so that at least one cargo come from a raw industry and at least one from a processing industry. The third cargo is obtained by random from the remaining cargoes. Hopefully this should balance the cargo selection better.
• Feature: Show current medal status of each company by placing a sign at their HQ. If there is no HQ, no sign is placed.
• Fix: Show correct end date information in the goal info news that is shown when a new game starts.
• Fix: Pause game after all game end dialogs have been shown. This works around that FS#5283 can block the game end dialogs from appearing.
• Add: ChangeLog.txt

[Zuu]

Update - Version 7

This update only contains visual tweaks and fixes:

• Fix: Number of years left was not shown when there was a year and some days left. Only when there was 2 or more years. Now it show also for 1 year left.
• Fix: Use 'days' instead of 'day' as it is far more frequently correct.

[3iff]

Fails for me. I'm using nightly 24495 (I know it's a bit old, perhaps this is the reason?)
Am I doing something wrong? Older versions (V4 I think) work fine.

Unnamed, 1st Jan 1950.png (23.27 KiB) Viewed 5566 times

[frosch]

Fails for me. I'm using nightly 24495 (I know it's a bit old, perhaps this is the reason?)

Yes, you will need at least r24513 for "IsProcessingIndustry". But better use something even newer

[3iff]

Thanks. I update my 'current version' every so often (a few months) rather than updating it every week...

Maybe I'm due for a new latest nightly.

[Zuu]

Thanks for your version info. With that I could update bananas to hold this information.

I tend to update just before starting OpenTTD.

[3iff]

Grabbed a later nightly (24758) and things work fine.

I wonder if you could add an option for the progress update to be every 3 months. Every month is just too often and yearly is a bit too far.

Thanks for your efforts on this script.

[3298]

I managed to crash OpenTTD with just NoCarGoal (no AIs, no NewGRFs). Steps to reproduce:
- turn on "pause on new game"
- start new game
- click on the middle of the status bar.
With other scripts or no script at all OpenTTD simply shows no news message. Same with a NoCarGoal game saved and re-loaded between starting it and clicking on the status bar.
I am currently using an unmodified r24947 and the latest NoCarGoal from BaNaNaS. I tried it on 64-bit Win7 (at home) and 32-bit Lubuntu 12.10 (on my laptop), same results (except for the window informing me about the crash, which is missing on the laptop).
My guess is that the news message about the goals is only partially created.

[Zuu]

Update - Version 8

For users with today's nightly or later, an intro message is displayed in the new Story Book window. For users with older versions of OpenTTD, the new intro message is displayed in a blue info window.

This update do not make fully use of the Story Book window, however at this point I value keeping backward compatibility and also getting a GS out that uses the Story Book at all.

[2006TTD]

Sorry for nitpicking, but I'm wondering if you meant 'scarce' resources instead of 'scare'.
Overall it's nice to see this feature.

[Zuu]

Sorry for nitpicking, but I'm wondering if you meant 'scarce' resources instead of 'scare'.
Overall it's nice to see this feature.

Thank you for noticing it. I'll fix that in the next update along with some commas that are missing.