Round Start Simulator

[CFalcon]

I got bored while scripting another bushtarion related tool, so I threw this together instead in a few hours, and rather than keep it to myself, decided to make it public.

Basically, you can buy/sell seeds/plants, buy harvs/gards, buy/cultivate land, grow/plant seeds/plants, vote once, and make it tick when you want. The idea being to be able to try out various starting strategies without having to wait 3 months between each trial! There is no functionality for buying troops or stealing/losing land. It also assumes clear weather throughout (amongst other things).

It's packaged in a .rar file, so you will need winrar or some program that can extract rar files. There are several files along with StartSimulator.exe in the .rar that MUST be stored in the same folder as StartSimulator.exe otherwise it may well not work. ReadMe.txt has a few more instructions and the whole thing can be downloaded here: http://rapidshare.com/files/393129700/StartSimulator.rar.html
for the time being.

It's a very simple program, just text and text inputs, and runs in a command prompt window. I'm a mathematical engineer, not a graphics designer. Flight Simulator this is not!

It is not idiot-proof; I'm too lazy to make it so. If it is expecting you to put in a number for eg. bush seeds to sell, and you put in 'potatoes' then it will crash. You can't put in 'a' to sell/grow all seeds/plants. But you CAN ask to sell/buy/grow a stupidly large number, and it will automatically reduce this number to the maximum you can buy/sell/grow. So rather than putting in 'a', just put in 11111111111111. It is also made assuming the user has a reasonable understanding of how bushtarion works, there is no tutorial or handy explanations on what things mean.

Any bugs spotted or improvement ideas, let me know. The numbers used were found by testing in a private world, but it's quite likely I've made a mistake somewhere along the line.

Hopefully someone will get something out of this

 

[Iamsmart]

Just took a look, looks like it could be a bit tedioius to use. Will probably look at it a bit more later. Out of curiousity, is their a 'undo last action' button? (I haven't looked extensively )

 

[CFalcon]

Just took a look, looks like it could be a bit tedioius to use. Will probably look at it a bit more later. Out of curiousity, is their a 'undo last action' button? (I haven't looked extensively )

There's the save current data / restore saved data options. I did think about putting in an 'undo' function and decided it would be alot of effort to script. If it's something lots of people want though, then I can add it. Will just be rather tedious to program.

And yeah, the layout's a bit tedious, buuuut, writing something with nice buttons and drop down menus will take days and days, (well, for me it will) and tbh, I cba

 

[Iamsmart]

Well that would be my #1 concern if I were to use it. "Oh, crap. I just messed up once. Gotta restart from scratch. "

Edit: Although I'm not sure if it's worth coding if it's that much trouble, since DarkSider already has his Start Simulator which is probably a bit more convinient/easier to use. Although I don't think his has a undo feature or a save feature like yours does.

 

[CFalcon]

Well that would be my #1 concern if I were to use it. "Oh, crap. I just messed up once. Gotta restart from scratch. "

Much like the actual game

 

[CFalcon]

Well that would be my #1 concern if I were to use it. "Oh, crap. I just messed up once. Gotta restart from scratch. "

Edit: Although I'm not sure if it's worth coding if it's that much trouble, since DarkSider already has his Start Simulator which is probably a bit more convinient/easier to use. Although I don't think his has a undo feature or a save feature like yours does.

Hmm, now you mentioned it, I had a root around for DS's one, and it's much nicer to use than mine :'( Didn't know it existed tbh. Guess I'll pretty much have to make that Undo function now, to make mine in some way worth using over that

 

[Stegosaurus]

I spent my day creating a cruder version.

Thanks for both invalidating my days work and making me feel inferior as a programmer CF

 

[Coruba]

Hi

Where does one find the DS one?

Cheers

Coruba

 

[Steve_God]

Hi

Where does one find the DS one?

Cheers

Coruba

Info about it here
Thread with an upload link on it here (go to the 2nd page to the link I posted)

 

[WTFudge]

Anyone still got this? I'd like to run a few starting simulations working out the latest best starting harvesters/cultivating land etc.

Is it still:

1. Cultivate land to 2 tree & 3 bush.
2. Sell all seeds.
3. Sell surplus, keeping bush & tree seeds then planting them.
4. Buy 50 harvesters (costing 130k) and with what's left buy tree plants.
5. Plant seeds before sun rise tick.
6. Start buying harvesters/gardeners at a 3:1 ratio.
7. Profit.

*Edit* What do you start with again? I think it's 10 of each seed & plant, 250,000 funds & 25 gardeners/harvesters, 10 hippy/yobs & 10 wheelies? Memory kills me after 3-4 years lol.

 

[CFalcon]

Even I don't have the thing that started this thread any more, 'cos tbh it wasn't very good compared to DS' script which SteveGod linked to. I do have an updated one that's more accurate..... but I haven't made it all "user friendly". If you can still get hold of DS' one I'd say give that a go.

At the start you have 5 of each plant, 50 gards 50 harvs, £370,000 if you've done the tutorial, and seed number is entirely dependent on how many times you have voted.

 

[Elderveld]

upload this again pleas! sounds cool!

 

[WTFudge]

Even I don't have the thing that started this thread any more, 'cos tbh it wasn't very good compared to DS' script which SteveGod linked to. I do have an updated one that's more accurate..... but I haven't made it all "user friendly". If you can still get hold of DS' one I'd say give that a go.

At the start you have 5 of each plant, 50 gards 50 harvs, £370,000 if you've done the tutorial, and seed number is entirely dependent on how many times you have voted.

Thanks for the reply - So you start with enough gards for planting 5k seeds and enough harvesters for 1 full tree acre so it's probably worth buying another 100 harvesters and then buying plants with what's left.

 

[timtadams]

i reckon i might try write a script which models all income, buying troops etc, and then optimise the independent variables

would be fun to try and do

 

[CFalcon]

i reckon i might try write a script which models all income, buying troops etc, and then optimise the independent variables

would be fun to try and do

I tried and failed :<

So many variables that after a few ticks you're getting into the trillions of iterations.

 

[Davs]

i reckon i might try write a script which models all income, buying troops etc, and then optimise the independent variables

would be fun to try and do

don't forget pre-start DofG voting

 

[Steve_God]

I've developed a 'ongoing optimiser' that I use - it doesn't plan the perfect round start for you, because lets face it, everyone misses the odd tick and the original plan is then useless
But it's nothing special, for perfect results you have to tinker with it on every tick to get the 'optimum outcome' for what you can do with what you've got on that tick, while ensuring you've got enough gards/harvs for planting, etc... but it's VERY un-user friendly.

 

[WTFudge]

I've developed a 'ongoing optimiser' that I use - it doesn't plan the perfect round start for you, because lets face it, everyone misses the odd tick and the original plan is then useless
But it's nothing special, for perfect results you have to tinker with it on every tick to get the 'optimum outcome' for what you can do with what you've got on that tick, while ensuring you've got enough gards/harvs for planting, etc... but it's VERY un-user friendly.

Sounds cool, mind if I take a look?

 

[timtadams]

Well it does sound complex, but uni will be done in less than a month, and i'll have plenty of time to dedicate to useless stuff.

It seems like certain simplifications and assumptions will need to made if it really is too much to solve.

Im up for a challenge

I'll probably do it all in Excel

 

[Steve_God]

I've developed a 'ongoing optimiser' that I use - it doesn't plan the perfect round start for you, because lets face it, everyone misses the odd tick and the original plan is then useless
But it's nothing special, for perfect results you have to tinker with it on every tick to get the 'optimum outcome' for what you can do with what you've got on that tick, while ensuring you've got enough gards/harvs for planting, etc... but it's VERY un-user friendly.

Sounds cool, mind if I take a look?

Sure!
http://sites.google.com/site/garratt/Steve_God-Round-Start-Calc-V1.2.xls
If any bits don't make sence, let me know