[MOD 0.14] AAI Programmable Vehicles

[Earendel]

I think its time I remove what i need from this mod and not the other way around.

Did you read the licence terms?

[bgbvskrubb]

Hi Earendel.
I have been speaking with Angel about his Crawler vehicle that behaves a bit weird with the AAi installed.
He tolled me he sent you a link, with the description, but I´m also pasting it here.

When driving the vehicle with AAI Unit remote controller, the setting "Enable logistics while driving" gets enabled.
Also the robots "lost" connection to the vehicle roboport, and stopped moving. Had to collect them manually and insert them again.
Also at the same time the "Vehicle burner generator lost all of it´s fuel.

Let me know if you want some more information.

[robertpaulson]

I think its time I remove what i need from this mod and not the other way around.

Did you read the licence terms?

You may make alterations for private personal.
You may post partial modified sections of this mod in the mod portal discussion section or official forum thread for this mod (and only those locations) for the purpose of providing bug fixes or enhancements.

Am I in trouble?

[robertpaulson]

Also the robots "lost" connection to the vehicle roboport, and stopped moving. Had to collect them manually and insert them again.
.[/i]

this is what i was talking about- it happens due to the vehicle going through different modes, and its being recreated over and over (when using path-finding it turns into a ghost entity, then when near target or when stuck it turns into whole/solid) i forced it to stay in ghost mode but that caused it to be invisible to inserters and now you need to aim so the turret vehicle (yes its a separate vehicle here that gets teleported) hits inserter area so it can actually be unloaded. this might cause alot of logistic issues, but if you only use crawler to build stuff then you can just run a check if its a crawler for other modes not to apply on it. to clarify the robots loose connection because when the vehicle gets recreated into a different state it disappears and appears with and is reloaded with all the equipment, therefore resetting to robots that were deployed

[Wetapunga]

So first time posting here, but wanted to show off something I built with the AAI mod set

Infinite Waypoint Engine

circuit.jpg (1.26 MiB) Viewed 12050 times

So what it does is it tracks and controls a unit relative to waypoints you lay down with the zone tool. It will drive in order from first to last of the tiles in the waypoint set. When the reversing circuit is engaged it will reach the highest number in the sequence and retrace it's steps following the waypoints in reverse order. If the reversing circuit is inactive it will proceed from highest number waypoint zone tile to first. This gives you the handy option of setting your vehicle to follow a looping track such as a perimeter patrol, or a path such as a road avoiding obstacles and silly AI shortcuts.

Most useful feature is that is can handle effectively infinite waypoints, lay down waypoint zone tiles and it will follow them. You can add and remove waypoints with the zone tool and it will continue along happily without stopping (may get confused if reversing circuit is active when changing waypoints, just deactivate the reversing circuit and turn it on again and it should sort itself out)

It can handle multiple vehicles following the route if you want as long as the extra unit signals are just slaved to the output and aren't fed into the unit tracker.

Built to be easily changed in settings, the waypoint zone can be changed with only 3 edits. Vehicle data stored in single location


It's a bit of a mess, the primary loop function is on 3rd revision for tidying up but the reversing circuit stuff is first gen.

Future additions i'm thinking of could be additional condition circuits for tracking unit data, like fuel, ammo, cargo, ect and the data of a target unit/building. In theory it should be a relatively simple logic circuit to change the waypoint zone being followed based on conditions. So a single vehicle could have multiple waypoint routes and choses between which one to follow. "Floating waypoints" could be laid down by a zone controller following a target vehicle such as a miner to prevent "kissing" when linking up and automatically adjusting route for miners moving to new fields.



Blueprint for anyone that wants to play around with it. Any changes/improvements/suggestions appreciated.

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[jmickle_]

Hi,

I just recently picked up AAI Programmable Vehicles again, and I'm now getting huge FPS drops when placing any vehicles from the mod. Even when holding just one automatic miner in the hand, on a compeletely new save, my FPS drops to around 15~20, and my UPS is down to 60. As soon as it's back in my inventory everything returns to normal.

[tommygunner70]

So far I love this mod. it allows me to mine stuff without having to build train stations and supporting infrastructure, I just cordon off my little area and have the mine for inside that area.

I manually declare zones not accurately I might add, I let the 'Clear Empty Resource Zone' setup refine the selection for me but, I noticed it would need several passes to accurately refine the actual resource area down. when you get up to the 3k number of marked tiles that takes quite a while for even a single pass.

with how the system works, when you delete mark number 4, number 5 because the new number 4 but the logic will already be on number 5 which was the number 6 before the original number 4 got removed. (cant explain it any better then that really. not native to English.)

To prevent this, I modified the Design of the 'Clear Empty Resource Zone' unit a bit to instead of counting up to count down. this will mean that if it should delete an empty zone it won't skip over the next one.



I'm no good at making diagrams out of this Spaghetti, and I think others may want this as well so here is the blueprint string;

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[mrvn]

I started experimenting with AAI recently and I wonder about a few simple things nobody seems to use:

1) Many examples filter out X/Y from a scanner using a combinator. Why not simply select the scanner and disable the signals you don't need. I have several cases where I only output X/Y because that is all I need. Most often the current zone can be disabled, which seems to be the signal most harmful to usual setups. So why waste resources (both to construct and the wasted tick running them) on the extra combinators?

2) The examples use one setup to send the miner to an ore patch and a second setup to scan the zone for tiles without ore to remove them. In my setup I scan the zone for the first tile, then I scan the tile for resources. If there is ore then I send the miner, if not then I clear the tile. There is no need to constantly scan all tiles in a zone to see if magically the ore disappeared. Normally it will only disappear where the miner is. Also once a tile is mined out it only takes one cycle to move to the next tile (assuming you didn't mark tiles without ore).

3) To empty out miners the examples send a Hauler to the tile the miner is on. Why not send it to follow the unit ID instead? Saves a unit scanner and means the Hauler will follow automatically if the Miner moves.

I've also run into some problems. Maybe someone can give me a tip:

3) The Haulers keep trying to drive through the base and bump into things. Or they get stuck on a transport belt making no headway. I've added walls around structures to keep the Haulers out. But then they still bump into the walls. Any trick to get them to stay clear of obstacles?

4) I can't scan or move to tile (0, 0) since that's no signal. But X=0 or Y=0 seems to work. But not always. Scanning seems to always work but sending units to such a tile sometimes works, sometimes not. What's the deal there?

5) I've set up a Hauler to refuel everyone else. But that seems to only work on miners. One hauler won't send fuel to another Hauler. Is that intentional? How do I refuel Haulers?

6) There seems to be a "Minimum fuel" signal. But vehicles don't seem to emit that when they run low. What's the idea there?

Any tips are welcome.

[Berkys32]

1) This feature was added over time. Maybe some players didnt notice it maybe some (as me) are just doing things as they are used to. But considered as tip is it really helpfull. Thanks!

2) Those examples were not meant to be best sollution Again, thank you for your tip

3a) Same as 1)



3b) I personally use vehicle only OUTSIDE of walled my base. All goods are unloaded to depots, from there are belts leading into my base.

4) Well, usually 0 means no signal. Once I wanted to stop vehicle, so I tried to send speed=0. But usually if signal is equal to 0, it vanish

5) It depends on Unit data setup. I suggest using RC control and play a little. But maybe it will need dynamic setup with structures

6) Idea behind is minimum fuel they should have in inventory when unloading it. I.e. they wont drop all coal to depot and run out of fuel few moments later

[mrvn]

1) This feature was added over time. Maybe some players didnt notice it maybe some (as me) are just doing things as they are used to. But considered as tip is it really helpfull. Thanks!

2) Those examples were not meant to be best sollution Again, thank you for your tip

3a) Same as 1)



3b) I personally use vehicle only OUTSIDE of walled my base. All goods are unloaded to depots, from there are belts leading into my base.

4) Well, usually 0 means no signal. Once I wanted to stop vehicle, so I tried to send speed=0. But usually if signal is equal to 0, it vanish

5) It depends on Unit data setup. I suggest using RC control and play a little. But maybe it will need dynamic setup with structures

6) Idea behind is minimum fuel they should have in inventory when unloading it. I.e. they wont drop all coal to depot and run out of fuel few moments later

1) Thought so. It's a very useful feature.

3b) I've setup the depo outside my base too. But I still have ore patches around my base so for some the hauler needs to drive around the base. It happily takes of from the depo at full speed directly towards my base, drives into the wall and then it grudgingly follows the wall to the ore. Or it takes of from an ore patch that is between my base and the depo, drives straight into the base and then turns around and heads to the depo. Seriously, it is going 180° the wrong way. *DERPY*

4) I understand that 0 means no signal. So X=0 and Y=0 is plain out. But tutorials say that X=0 OR Y=0 should work, since the other will have a signal and the missing one will be assumed as 0. Still, I had a tree at X=80, Y=0 and I send the unit ID and X=80 to a unit controller and the unit just sat there doing nothing. Maybe if it happens again I will save the game for debugging.

5) How do I see the unit data with the RC controller? Or even standing next to the unit? I think the units inventory should have another tab with the unit data (Inventory, Grid, Unit Data).

The problem I face is that I have a miner gathering wood and one mining coal. So I have set the unit data on the Hauler to 12k wood and 12k coal (defaults) so it takes away the gathered items. But when the Hauler is running low on fuel and I drive by the wood dispencer depo it also gathers 12k wood. It seems there is no setting to have it grab just 500 from a depo but all from a miner. Does that need dynamic unit data as you suggest?

6) I've set a fuel value with the unit data controller but I was expecting the unit scanner to output a fuel signal too. Then I could send a fuel Hauler to it once it is low. Instead of having to check for raw wood, coal, solid fuel, (chests, wooden power poles, ...) or vehicle fuel.


Another thing seems to be performance. As in NOT. Seems like something in the mod is O(n) with the number of tiles marked in a zone, maybe computing the count in the zone scanner? It is not a good idea to mark 800k tiles with a zone. Why did I do that?

I implemented a zone classifier. It takes a zone (black cross), checks the resources and entities and then resets the zone according to tile content. So when I find a forest or ore patch I just mark it liberally with a black cross and it will rezone it to the right color and delete all the excess tiles. After I finished it I was rather liberal with marking areas for testing. Now, with 800k tiles marked, the UPS is 10. And deleting zones manually takes forever too. But the more zoned tiles get deleted because they are empty the faster it runs again.

[Berkys32]

3b) Pathfinding is ingame feature, meant for biters, and they dont need to find way around your base. So only option is have your base walled completely, or find any other way around (like zone-control movement highways)

4) You can try add "of X=0, add 1". Not perfect, but its all I can get know...

5) Select unit - on left upper corner there are two buttons. On of them it is

Yes, i think you have to set "pick up all wood" when close to miner, otherwise set it on 500, so it wont pick wood from depot

6) Actually Im not fueling with AAI, so cant tell you my experiences, but I can suggest using "time since moved". If its too high, its probably without fuel. You can add 0 fuel too...

Maybe you can set up limit to all zones. Like stop zoning iron ore if iron ore zone > 1000 or so...

[Nightinggale]

1) while it is useful to filter output signals, I usually use the zone output because that way you can connect output to input and then using a constant combinator on the other wire to input to add one. This is the simplest loop you can build. In other words use the filters according to your needs and do not consider one setup fits all your needs.

5) so you are saying you need one value when dropping off/picking up at the depot and another when interacting with miners? Sounds like you need a unit data controller to alter the settings depending on the hauler location.

6) I usually add fuel (like 1000) to drop off depots. This will fuel the haulers and give them enough to fuel miners. No need to make fuel movements.

[mrvn]

1) while it is useful to filter output signals, I usually use the zone output because that way you can connect output to input and then using a constant combinator on the other wire to input to add one. This is the simplest loop you can build. In other words use the filters according to your needs and do not consider one setup fits all your needs.

5) so you are saying you need one value when dropping off/picking up at the depot and another when interacting with miners? Sounds like you need a unit data controller to alter the settings depending on the hauler location.

6) I usually add fuel (like 1000) to drop off depots. This will fuel the haulers and give them enough to fuel miners. No need to make fuel movements.

1) You loop the zone? You mean when you loop through a zone. But that will only loop once and then exceed the zone count ... Oh, and then there is no zone output so it resets to one. Clever.

5+6) At least I think you do. Worse, when the Hauler comes back with 12k raw wood then you need the depo to accept the wood. But when it comes back low on fuel you need to set the depo to -1 wood so it fills up the hauler. And I don't see a "Set data" option when I connect a circuit to a depo. They don't seem to be programmable.

I think my problem was that I tried to fuel the Haulers and Miners with wood. Using vehicle fuel makes things simpler since you only ever pick up vehicle fuel at the depo at a set amount and then the Hauler shares it with the Miner. So I just have to make the Hauler drive by the fuel depo once in a while to fill up. Or 2 depos, one for wood in and one for wood out and use a different hauler to collect wood (and never refuels).

[Berkys32]

Of course you can programm Depot. There is no Unit data, but it accept signals from circuits. You just have to conect it to right spot. But than you can use any setup to get there signals you need.
I even didnt know you can set up depot directly, so I was using constant combinator for some time...

[mrvn]

Of course you can programm Depot. There is no Unit data, but it accept signals from circuits. You just have to conect it to right spot. But than you can use any setup to get there signals you need.
I even didnt know you can set up depot directly, so I was using constant combinator for some time...

I have constant combinators connected to the two parts where it shows red/green wires on the depot and set to 100 wood. But the depot data still just shows 100k iron ore. So is there a third spot that isn't obvious?

[Nightinggale]

1) You loop the zone? You mean when you loop through a zone. But that will only loop once and then exceed the zone count ... Oh, and then there is no zone output so it resets to one. Clever.

While it shouldn't be a problem in this specific case, generally speaking failing to restart a loop shouldn't be a problem. Connect scanner input to a decider combinator input and combinator output back to scanner input. Next set the decider combinator to output X=1 when X==0 (providing you loop X). This should make it impossible to stall your setup on a no-input failure.

[mrvn]

I have programmed my haulers unit data with the amount of resources I need so depots never run full. I have programmed a hauler to fetch items from a miner each so it only should get what the miner produces and then I could send each hauler to the depot for that item.

Unfortunately it is not that simple. With Bob's mods e.g. coal also produces diamonds. And sometimes an ore miner picks up wood and stone too. And since I've programmed the hauler to pick up anything with a depot that has space it also picks up other stuff if it happens to drive by another miner on the way. So overall each miner can pick up pretty much anything.

How do you send the hauler to the right depots?

I have some ideas but I wonder what you do.

* Do you simply have one depot accepting everything and sort the items later?
* Do you have a large decider chain that checks for each item? What does it output and how do you get X/Y coordinates from that?
* Do you dynamically create drop off zones for each hauler depending on content?
* Do you drive each hauler across all depots every time?

[Earendel]

I just recently picked up AAI Programmable Vehicles again, and I'm now getting huge FPS drops when placing any vehicles from the mod. Even when holding just one automatic miner in the hand, on a compeletely new save, my FPS drops to around 15~20, and my UPS is down to 60. As soon as it's back in my inventory everything returns to normal.

Someone else reported that problem on but then said it was a mod compatibility issue and that it was fixed after an update, I don't know what mod it was though. Can you try with only AAI and it's dependencies installed?

I have programmed my haulers unit data with the amount of resources I need so depots never run full. I have programmed a hauler to fetch items from a miner each so it only should get what the miner produces and then I could send each hauler to the depot for that item.

Unfortunately it is not that simple. With Bob's mods e.g. coal also produces diamonds. And sometimes an ore miner picks up wood and stone too. And since I've programmed the hauler to pick up anything with a depot that has space it also picks up other stuff if it happens to drive by another miner on the way. So overall each miner can pick up pretty much anything.

How do you send the hauler to the right depots?

I have some ideas but I wonder what you do.

* Do you simply have one depot accepting everything and sort the items later?
* Do you have a large decider chain that checks for each item? What does it output and how do you get X/Y coordinates from that?
* Do you dynamically create drop off zones for each hauler depending on content?
* Do you drive each hauler across all depots every time?

There is no right way. Once I had a decider chain for the main resources and then if it got too full of junk then it went to a generic junk depot that offloads to active providers.

On a refuelling note, I found it quite awkward to manage haulers picking up wood and coal to deliver to a base but also providing fuel using those items. Using the dedicated 'vehicle fuel' from AAI industry makes that a lot easier.

Also just to manage peoples expectations, probably I won't be able to do any updates until September, but then I intend to take a look at a proper path / repeatable waypoint system using the remote controller.

[mrvn]

I'm having huge issues with the path finding of the vehicles. If vehicles have to travel longer than a short distance they can't find their destination and start to roam around randomly. Also they seem to bug themselve through walls which makes it very hard to prevent them from getting into crowded areas.

Are there any solutions to this? Or would it be possible to limit them to only walk on zones?

I was having the same problem and ended up designing my base around vehicles being able to get through it. This mean pretty much walling off every main area of the factory and leaving areas that vehicles can drive through. It helps pathfinding a bit but they do have a habit of passing through objects they cut close to. They don't automatically trigger gates which means it wasn't too much of a hinderance to set up walls everywhere.

The vehicles won't get stuck on underground belts either, so you can bridge areas of the factory together using long strips of underground belts. Until new pathfinding is coded specifically for the vehicles (which is a huge task in itself and likely wouldn't be very performance friendly) you'll have babysit the vehicles through most complex areas.

However makes me think, there ought to be a way to pack up a vehicle, the opposite of a vehicle deployer, automatically. Then you could simply pack a vehicle and its cargo up at one point, move it via conveyor or train to another point, then unpack and re-deploy it there. Would be pretty needlessly complex but probably cool.

You can transport cars by transport belt. So you could move them to the start of a belt, wait for the belt to carrry them through your base and then drive off again.

Problem is that you have to implement waypoints for this. You have to know the car is going through the base and needs to take the belt. When I tell a miner to "go X,Y and fell that tree" then I don't usually know it's going through my base.

[mrvn]

Has anyone measured the speed of the different miners and compared it to the hauler capacity?

As in how often do you have to send a hauler to each miner type assuming it's empty?

And how far can a hauler drive between depot and miner without the miner overflowing? At what distance do you need a second hauler?