My firm is looking to hire a developer. In addition to pursuing the normal channels I immediately thought of the pool of talent playing Screeps. Almost by definition they are smart people with a passion for programming.
I apologise if this is not an appropriate topic for the forum.
However if no one has any objections, how should I proceed? I'm happy to post a few details and a burn email.
I've found the steam client private server very useful for development, especially with the setTickRate mod which lets me run it super fast.
Could you extend the 'debugger' to pause execution (perhaps with a server option set?).
I find sometimes when running fast I rush past an error.
@tedivm Can you imagine this snowflake in EVE?
Is there a thread to ask for clarifications on the documentation? With a programming game like this, I think the documentation is a very important part of the gameplay experience. I'd rather look something up in ten seconds then spend half an hour experimenting.
Couple of things to start: Creep.transfer: Do I get ERR_FULL if the target was 100% full at the start, so can receive zero, or if there was insufficient room to accommodate the whole 'amount'? If 'amount' is omitted, will the creep transfer 100% of carried resources or as much as it can allowing for capacity of target?
Right now it isn't clear to me how to easily check how much was/will be transferred. Even the capacity of the target is different for different targets.
Private servers There is precious little documentation on managing a private server. I think running a private server is pretty mainstream as a good development / test platform - it's not something a handful of specialists would do purely to set up alternative game environments. I could only really find https://wiki.screepspl.us/index.php/Private_Server_Common_Tasks and nothing on the official site.
StructureLab.boostCreep What do different compounds do? It's listed here: http://docs.screeps.com/minerals.html - would it hurt to copy the information so it's in the reference?
Thanks. This didn't directly fix the issue but trying your approach lead me to a bug in my code: under certain conditions closestTargetRoom could be very inefficient and exhaust cpu. It seems no console.logs work when the cpu runs out.
This issue is resolved, and the fault was mine, not in Screeps.
I checked again but can't see a bad compare.
I've posted my code below. Obviously it depends on
code that depends on code... and I haven't posted the whole code base.
Some observations.
This works fine for a long time. There is only one
scout creep at a time. When it dies, a new one is made and picks up where the
old one left off. The scout(s) explores all 121 rooms and manages to re-check
previously scouted rooms after this.
I have a maxOps 50000 as
some of the paths get long. I fall back to map.findRoute
because routes can get longer than 16 rooms which causes other pathfinders to
fail. (The first iteration used findRoute as a first
resort, but I completely re-wrote the code more than once with different
approaches to try to solve this bug - each time I get the same thing. This is
why it might seem over-engineered - I tried more and more convoluted
approaches).
The code seems to execute fine even with a hard
reset. I get the final "Scout code executed" logged, and in fact I
have a final console.log as the last thing in main()
which also gets executed. The pattern seems to be that everything gets executed
but then there is a pause and a cpu
reset each tick. Everything seems to work OK, except that the scout gets jammed
on an edge.
There are two main branches: one where the scout
arrives in its target room and one where it it
doesn't. Note that the bug occurs when I can see that the scout has arrived
(bouncing on the edge) - but it doesn't recognise this and stays in the branch
for not being in the target room every tick.
Line 49 contains a work around that just kills the
creep when things go wrong:
if (moveResult
== ERR_NO_PATH)
creep.suicide(); // work around cpu reset bug
Scouting.closestTargetRoom
and oldestScoutedRoom return either a room name or
null. The debugging console logs do not appear to indicate anything wrong with
the values returned by these functions.
I emailed my db to you
in connection with another bug. I can email the whole codebase if you want -
although I think the code is in the db. I apologise if the fault is mine, which
is certainly possible since I'm new to screeps and javascript. I wouldn't dream of asking someone to fix my
code. But in this case, having spent a lot of time, I think it's at least
possible it's a bug in Screeps.
After the listing I include sample output from the
console.logs (this is after commenting out the suicide() above to re-introduce the error).
You can see that it is stuck at position y:0 in room W2N9 and never gets to the target room W2N10 from
a console.log(JSON.stringify(creep.pos)).
In fact I see it enter W2N10 (screenshot) and
bounce back-and-forth.
The last line of my script, in the main function
is:
console.log("Total cpu use " + Game.cpu.getUsed()
+ " limit "+Game.cpu.limit+" tickLimit "+Game.cpu.tickLimit+"
bucket "+Game.cpu.bucket);
This executes fine and we don't get close to the tickLimit on the private server.
var
Scouting = require('Scouting');
var
Pather = require('Pathing');
const
DEBUG = false;
var
roleScout = {
run: function (creep) {
if (Game.cpu.bucket < 1000)
return;
if (creep.spawning) return;
if (DEBUG) console.log("Scout: on entry target is
"+creep.memory.target);
if (creep.memory.target ===
undefined || creep.memory.target === null) {
if (DEBUG) console.log("Calling closestTargetRoom");
creep.memory.target = Scouting.closestTargetRoom(creep.room);
if (creep.memory.target === null)
{
if (DEBUG) console.log("Calling oldest
scouted room");
creep.memory.target = Scouting.oldestScoutedRoom(creep.room);
}
}
if (DEBUG) console.log("Target room: " + creep.memory.target + " and current room: " +
creep.room.name + " and pos " + JSON.stringify(creep.pos));
if (creep.memory.target ===
creep.room.name) {
if (DEBUG) console.log("Scout in target room " +
creep.room.name)
Scouting.generateReport(creep.room);
creep.memory.target = Scouting.closestTargetRoom(creep.room);
if (creep.memory.target === null)
{
if (DEBUG) console.log("Calling oldest
scouted room");
creep.memory.target = Scouting.oldestScoutedRoom(creep.room);
}
let destination = new RoomPosition(25,
25, creep.memory.target);
let moveResult = creep.moveTo(destination, { visualizePathStyle:
{}, reusePath: 10, costCallback:
Pather.costMatrixAvoidKeepers, maxOps:
50000 });
if (moveResult == ERR_NO_PATH) {
let path = Game.map.findRoute(creep.room.name,
creep.memory.target, { routeCallbakc:
Pather.findRouteAvoidKeepers });
if (DEBUG) console.log("Path: " + JSON.stringify(path));
creep.memory.target = path[0].room;
let destination = new RoomPosition(25,
25, creep.memory.target);
let moveResult = creep.moveTo(destination, { visualizePathStyle:
{}, reusePath: 10, costCallback:
Pather.costMatrixAvoidKeepers, maxOps:
50000 });
}
if (DEBUG) console.log("In room Scout move from "
+ JSON.stringify(creep.pos)
+ " to " + JSON.stringify(destination) +
" returned " + moveResult);
}
else {
let destination = new RoomPosition(25,
25, creep.memory.target);
let moveResult = creep.moveTo(destination, { visualizePathStyle:
{}, reusePath: 10, costCallback:
Pather.costMatrixAvoidKeepers, maxOps:
50000 });
if (moveResult == ERR_NO_PATH) {
let path = Game.map.findRoute(creep.room.name,
creep.memory.target, { routeCallbakc:
Pather.findRouteAvoidKeepers });
if (DEBUG) console.log("Path: " + JSON.stringify(path));
creep.memory.target = path[0].room;
let destination = new RoomPosition(25,
25, creep.memory.target);
let moveResult = creep.moveTo(destination,
{ visualizePathStyle: {}, reusePath:
10, costCallback: Pather.costMatrixAvoidKeepers,
maxOps: 50000 });
if (DEBUG) console.log("Scout (failed)
move from " + JSON.stringify(creep.pos)
+ " to " + JSON.stringify(destination) +
" returned " + moveResult);
if (moveResult ==
ERR_NO_PATH)
creep.suicide(); // work around cpu reset bug
}
//let path = creep.room.findPath(creep.pos, destination, { costCallback: Pather.costMatrixAvoidKeepers
});
if (DEBUG) console.log("Scout move from " + JSON.stringify(creep.pos) +
" to " + JSON.stringify(destination) +
" returned " + moveResult);
}
if (DEBUG) console.log("Scout code executed");
}
}
module.exports = roleScout;
[7:15:29 PM]Scout: on entry target is W2N10
[7:15:29 PM]Target room: W2N10 and current room:
W2N9 and pos
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"}
[7:15:29 PM]Path:
[{"exit":1,"room":"W2N10"}]
[7:15:29 PM]Scout (failed) move from
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"} to
{"x":25,"y":25,"roomName":"W2N10"}
returned -2
[7:15:29 PM]Scout move from
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"} to
{"x":25,"y":25,"roomName":"W2N10"}
returned -2
[7:15:29 PM]Scout code executed
[7:15:29 PM]Total cpu use 68.93355 limit 100 tickLimit
10100 bucket 10000
[7:15:31 PM]Script execution has been interrupted
with a hard reset: CPU limit reached
[7:15:31 PM]Scout: on entry target is W2N10
[7:15:31 PM]Target room: W2N10 and current room:
W2N9 and pos
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"}
[7:15:31 PM]Path:
[{"exit":1,"room":"W2N10"}]
[7:15:31 PM]Scout (failed) move from
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"} to
{"x":25,"y":25,"roomName":"W2N10"}
returned -2
[7:15:31 PM]Scout move from
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"} to
{"x":25,"y":25,"roomName":"W2N10"}
returned -2
[7:15:31 PM]Scout code executed
[7:15:31 PM]Total cpu use 48.874552 limit 100 tickLimit
10100 bucket 10000
[7:15:34 PM]Script execution has been interrupted
with a hard reset: CPU limit reached
[7:15:34 PM]Scout: on entry target is W2N10
[7:15:34 PM]Target room: W2N10 and current room:
W2N9 and pos
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"}
[7:15:34 PM]Path:
[{"exit":1,"room":"W2N10"}]
[7:15:34 PM]Scout (failed) move from
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"} to
{"x":25,"y":25,"roomName":"W2N10"}
returned -2
[7:15:34 PM]Scout move from
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"} to
{"x":25,"y":25,"roomName":"W2N10"}
returned -2
[7:15:34 PM]Scout code executed
[7:15:34 PM]Total cpu use 55.214741000000004 limit 100 tickLimit 10100 bucket 10000
[7:15:36 PM]Script execution has been interrupted
with a hard reset: CPU limit reached
[7:15:37 PM]Scout: on entry target is W2N10
[7:15:37 PM]Target room: W2N10 and current room:
W2N9 and pos
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"}
[7:15:37 PM]Path:
[{"exit":1,"room":"W2N10"}]
[7:15:37 PM]Scout (failed) move from
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"} to
{"x":25,"y":25,"roomName":"W2N10"}
returned -2
[7:15:37 PM]Scout move from
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"} to
{"x":25,"y":25,"roomName":"W2N10"}
returned -2
[7:15:37 PM]Scout code executed
[7:15:37 PM]Total cpu use 54.214553 limit 100 tickLimit
10100 bucket 10000
[7:15:39 PM]Script execution has been interrupted
with a hard reset: CPU limit reached
[7:15:39 PM]Scout: on entry target is W2N10
[7:15:39 PM]Target room: W2N10 and current room:
W2N9 and pos
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"}
[7:15:39 PM]Path:
[{"exit":1,"room":"W2N10"}]
[7:15:39 PM]Scout (failed) move from
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"} to
{"x":25,"y":25,"roomName":"W2N10"}
returned -2
[7:15:39 PM]Scout move from
{"x":8,"y":0,"roomName":"W2N9"} to
{"x":25,"y":25,"roomName":"W2N10"}
returned -2
[7:15:39 PM]Scout code executed
[7:15:39 PM]Total cpu use 57.702722 limit 100 tickLimit
10100 bucket 10000
I have made a 'scout' creep that explores the whole map over time. It works fine for a long time. But eventually the creep gets 'stuck' on the edge between two rooms. All pathfinding, including moveTo, returns ERR_NO_PATH even though the creep is literally in the target room with clear space ahead of it. I notice that visually the creep bounces between the target room and previous room, but creep.pos.roomName always gives the previous room name - it doesn't seem to recognise when it makes it across the edge.
My code executes completely, but then I get a cpu hard reset every single tick. Commenting out the scout code gets rid of the hard reset. NB I normally have a full bucket - the code is nowhere near to exhausting the cpu.
I have re-written my code in different ways and I always eventually get this problem. I can't rule out that the fault is mine, but I been over this carefully for a long time and not found a fault. Moreover, as above, things work fine for many many rooms and then suddenly don't work.
Using steam client private server 2.10.2 with setTickRate mod only. db.json emailed.
Steam client. Server version 2.10.2. db.json emailed. I am not using npm. I just installed Node.js and ran npm list. It returned `-- (empty)
On a private server: bots.removeUser('MichaelbBot'); gives "Error: no system user"
The bot seems to die, but leaves the room with blank owner (rather than none). Subsequently if a creep goes in the room and checks ownership of the controller I get a crash.
This