Testing archive at Daikon Forge

Archive for the 'Testing' Category

OMGBOTS! - Using bots for unit testing

Jun
05
2008 in Testing, Software Development, C:SI and omgbots!.

It’s been one of those days… On top of still dealing with the stress of Albertsons.com losing my order and having all of my grocery money locked up and unavailable for a week, I’m still working on my RL project even though I’ve been at it since about 5:00 this morning.

And yet, a conversation I had with Ayame recently keeps coming back to me, even while I’m working. She’s got some ideas and some projects she’s working on which utilize bots built on libsecondlife code which will, I believe, be a very nice benefit for the C:SI community. I’m going to be assisting in any way that I can, and I’m quite excited about the idea.

Thinking about her ideas keeps bringing me around to the idea of how I could do so many things with bots to make my own life easier, unit tests being a prime example.

I’m still very much trying to come up with more objective methods to determine whether a weapon is balanced, and I can think of several ways that automated testing via a bot running a predefined script of actions can assist in that process.

Unfortunately, my schedule being what it is, I haven’t really had time to think on this too deeply. The technical details of how to implement the tests are not the big challenge, really. The big challenge, as I see it, is coming up with a valid and reasonably complete list of tests that should be performed for all C:SI weapons.

I will continue to think on this topic as time allows, and should have some time this weekend to really dig into the topic, but I wanted to post this now in order to elicit feedback from the community as well.

I know that many C:SI members are software devs, and even many who are not have repeatedly shown that they have a pretty solid understanding of ways to test the weapons for balance and "correctness", so I’m asking anyone and everyone who has ideas to go ahead and submit them.

So whatcha think, got some good ideas for ways to objectively test C:SI weapons for balance and correct function? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Think the Naginata has a long-range kick?

Apr
30
2008 in Testing and C:SI.

22 Comments

kick Well, it just might turn out that you’re absolutely correct. I admit that I haven’t spent a great deal of time fighting with or against the naginata, and that may be a part of why I was unaware of the long range of the naginata’s kick. With all of the comment’s I’ve read lately on both sides, I decided to see for myself and headed to Meiji to nab the nearest volunteer (I forget who it was now though, because Second Life has the most annoying habit of forgetting my chat log preferences and it didn’t get recorded as I expected it to).

In order to test this, I took one of the non-phys vehicles that I recently coded up, and changed the code so that I could sit on it and specify a distance and it would move precisely the distance specified from a given avatar. This allowed me to very precisely control the distance in order to find out what was or was not in effective range, and I felt that it was more reliable than measurements taken using prim rulers or other similar methods.

So here’s what I found : I was able to be kicked at distances up to 3.8 meters by the Naginata. Yup, more than a meter more than the Taketori and Wave.

And that brings up another interesting point, actually : I have now checked and double-checked the code on the Taketori and the Wave, and they are specifically coded to have a range of 2.5 meters, but today’s testing showed that they worked up to 2.7 meters. Not much of a difference, perhaps, but it does indicate yet another way that Second Life doesn’t typically do what you tell it to do

I don’t feel that this was a really robust test, since it’s possible that other factors came into play. For instance, sitting on an object changes your bounding box size to include the object being sat upon, but it shouldn’t change the center of mass that is supposedly what is actually tested for using this method, but I wouldn’t bet too much money on that since Second Life has any number of quirks that don’t exactly follow the documentation.

Also, I only performed the test on a single region and on a single day, so it’s also possible that it’s an issue with that region’s server-side simulator code that may or may not exist in previous or subsequent versions. Again, I wouldn’t bet any significant money on that, it’s just an idea that occurred to me.

Still, at least I’ve been able to independently verify that reports of the naginata having a longer kick range are true. Now maybe it’s supposed to be that way, I’ve never been curious enough to ask Archanox before now, but Esprite’s comment on the CombatSI forums leads me to think that it’s not supposed to be that long.

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Working on an update for the Taketori Katana

Apr
21
2008 in Product Updates, Testing, Bug Reports and C:SI.

6 Comments

Sorry for the lack of news these last few days, I’ve been sick

Somehow, despite a profound lack of energy and overpowering brain fog, I’ve managed to come up with some code changes that I think will help people who are experiencing issues with jump-slash, jump-kick, and a few other issues.

I hope to be testing those changes tomorrow, and if they aren’t complete crap, I will distribute a few updates to some of my beta testers. Ideally, I’d like beta testers that are experiencing some issues so that they can tell me whether there’s improvement in those areas, but I also need beta testers that are not currently experiencing any problems who can tell me whether I’ve introduced any new ones.

Assuming all goes well (yes, I know that’s a big assumption) I plan on moving on to a new special attack and the ability to hide and show the tsuba, and some other "missing" features.

I’ll keep everyone posted.

Popularity: 20% [?]

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Some feedback on Taketori Katana V1.0.3

Apr
16
2008 in Testing, Bug Reports, C:SI and Second Life.

9 Comments

I’ve received some interesting feedback for the latest update. Most of it is positive, which is great, but some of it is negative as well.

For instance, Keen Nitely reports that he cannot properly jumpkick; When he tries to jumpkick, leaving the kick button pressed, he slashes instead. I cannot duplicate this, which I find very frustrating, since I know he is telling me the best way he knows about how to cause it.

entraxx Winkler reports :

if you are in a fight the combo kick slash slash do not work. You even do not here if you are slashing in this combo. That is why i cannot here if i am stunned.

Untill this bug is fixed this kat is for me useless, and i will not use it with a serious spar.

Rakka Owatatsumi had even more to say about the update in a notecard :

Hello Robby,

first I want to tell you that I generaly really LOVE your Taketori. I would like to have this as my main Katana… but… there is one issue what makes the Taketori more or less useless for me.
That issue is the block animation/ script.

The block of the Taketori is WAY the slowest of each Katana I ever tested (I know all Katanas beside the Ashes V3 and the Dragon Katana from Archatek). What do I mean with this… hmm, I try to explain (since I am not really into creating animations and scripting).

If I am in block pose and want to do a counter hit, I get always "stuck" in the block pose. Yes, this happens with each Katana if your fingers move too fast from C to W (or A, D, S), but with the Taketori this issue is just too big. I need 5 or 6 tries to make a hit, in this time I got kicked almost to death by my opponent ^^ If I wait a bit longer with hit the W (or A. S, D) button then the hit comes, but way way way too late.
I don’t know why that is but it feels like that the block pose is having too long for to stop and it "disables" my hit I want to do. I kinda just stay in block pose.
I do not expect the Taketori as so fast like the Musashi’s (where you can hit the W button in almost the same moment as you left the C button) but it should at least be possible that I can do my hit fast enough.

Kenshin Sonada doesn’t has this issue. No clue why. I talked to some other fighters and some of them agree with me that the block pose needs too long and it disables/ neutralizes your hit, so you just stay in block pose.

The odd thing is: if I am in third person mode, this issue is not there(!?). I can hit faster (off the block) then with the Musashi Katanas. The block pose stopps immediately and allows me to hit. But not in mouselook. It is that slow in mouselook that it is even almost impossible to go through the medium level of Eyana’s reflex pole.

But again: beside this issue is the Taketori absolut fantastic to handle. It feel good in the (virtual) hand and it has a good weight (feels not that heavy like the Archateks).

If your Taketori would go faster off the block pose it would be for sure the best Katana in CSI. I would even prefer it over the Musashi Black Rose and Dynasty Flame.

I hope I do make sense.

Rakka Owatatsumi, Tendai Samurai ^^

Again, that’s another issue that I cannot reproduce. Nor can I understand why the behavior should be different in mouselook than it is in third person, though I know that I’ve seen differences in responsiveness for *all* swords on the left and right slash between those two viewing modes. It’s a mystery to me why that could possibly be true, and I’m not super motivated to go through the Second Life Viewer code (again!) to see if the viewer handles keys differently in mouselook.

I am looking into these reports (and some others that I’ve gotten less detail on) to see what I can do about them, but what might help is knowing how many others are also experiencing such issues.

Perhaps if more people report these problems, it might lead to finding some commonality that I’m currently not seeing. And, perhaps, if few others are experiencing these issues, that might be significant as well.

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