Tuesday, 24 March 2015
Friday, 20 March 2015
Development Blog #0015 - Making It Playable 2
The Playable update is ready.
Download here
In this update, it's possible to craft 3 types of weapons, tools, and armor, and 3 types of bases. You will run around with about 30 other AI players, fighting for survival. Build your base, raid your competitors, and take over the island. Please send me your feedback, I'll use it to make the game a better simulation of Rust. If you'd like to be a pre-release tester, please email your iOS device's UDID to thompson.codes@gmail.com.
Why make this?
In order to better model Rust players decisions, I need to collect data on how real players would play the simulator. With better AI, I'll be able to create a more realistic model of Rust. This version of Wool does not collect your data, but it will be an option in the future.
Download here
Kill People
Gather Resources
Build Bases & Craft Weapons, Raid.
In this update, it's possible to craft 3 types of weapons, tools, and armor, and 3 types of bases. You will run around with about 30 other AI players, fighting for survival. Build your base, raid your competitors, and take over the island. Please send me your feedback, I'll use it to make the game a better simulation of Rust. If you'd like to be a pre-release tester, please email your iOS device's UDID to thompson.codes@gmail.com.
Why make this?
In order to better model Rust players decisions, I need to collect data on how real players would play the simulator. With better AI, I'll be able to create a more realistic model of Rust. This version of Wool does not collect your data, but it will be an option in the future.
Friday, 13 March 2015
Development Blog #0013 - Making It Playable
I've been working on making Wool playable.
-You'll be in full control of one newman.
-The update will fix any and all crashes some users are experiencing, (the map used too much memory).
-You will no longer be able to view the entire simulation omnipotently -- but I might bring this back.
-I need pre-release testers, if you're interested, send me your UDID through the "send feedback" button in Experimental Island, or to thompson.codes@gmail.com.
Wednesday, 25 February 2015
Development Blog #0013 - Download Experimental Island
DOWNLOAD iOS App
It's out! Get it while it's hot!I'll be using this app to push out updates about the development of Wool, and my other experiments. Since I plan on doing more Rust related experiments, I've called the app Experimental Island. Please download it, watch the simulation, and tell me what you think!
What's next?
Friday, 20 February 2015
Development Blog #0012 - iOS Application Waiting For Review
Ready For Download
This week I coded and packaged WOOL into an iOS application that anyone can download.
But it's awaiting review from Apple, stay tuned for its public release (hopefully) early next week.
It will be available on iOS 8 for the iPhone and iPad. Download Here
This week I'll make it playable.
So you'll be able to run around as one of the guys in this simulation. It will be pretty cool. I want people to send me the replays of their games so that I can analyze the data and figure out the best values for resources and crafts.
This week I coded and packaged WOOL into an iOS application that anyone can download.
But it's awaiting review from Apple, stay tuned for its public release (hopefully) early next week.
It will be available on iOS 8 for the iPhone and iPad. Download Here
This week I'll make it playable.
So you'll be able to run around as one of the guys in this simulation. It will be pretty cool. I want people to send me the replays of their games so that I can analyze the data and figure out the best values for resources and crafts.
Friday, 13 February 2015
Development Blog #0011 - Measuring up to Rust
The developers of Rust agreed, and raiding is now possible at all base tiers.
On Monday this week, the state of raiding changed. It's now possible to mine your way into player's bases, no matter what tier base you have. I love it. This is what I've been pining for. This system is getting closer to how Wool works. Specifically, in Wool, players can build tools inside their base, then spend them on an opponent's base of equal or lesser tier. In Rust, tools are used in exactly the same way. But, Wool is still significantly different than Rust. The two main differences between Wool and Rust are tools and the blueprints system.
Blueprints
Blueprints are fun. It's thrilling to find blueprints hidden randomly in barrels. It's fun to scour the landscape looking for them. It's even more fun to compete with someone for a barrel you both are barreling for. But, there are some things that aren't great about blueprints; it can be very difficult to find a particular blueprint you are looking for -- so difficult that unlucky players may never find what they're looking for. An especially unlucky player could spend unreasonable amounts of time searching, and make zero progress. It's for this reason that Wool gives you some of the blueprints you need at each tier. At tier 1, {the wood base}, you can build wood stuff {like a wood hammer, a wood spear, maybe some bark armor}. Similarly for tier 2 and 3. Not only are you be able to progress consistently, but Wool's system has better style -- you won't see players with a wood shack crafting guns like you will in Rust.
Tools
In Rust, it costs 100 wood and 50 metal to build a hatchet, then about a minute to hack down someone's tier 2 {wood board} base. Building that base cost the owner somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3000 wood (cupboard and all). Metal is fairly easy to come by, about as hard as collecting 500 wood, so the cost of a hatchet to break someones base is roughly 600 wood {when you finally have a furnace}. Thus, it costs about 20% of a new base cost to break into someone's base. In Wool, it costs 50% of someones base in resources to break into it. I'm not sure if this is better or not, but I feel like it's too cheap to raid tiers 1 and 2, and too easy to build tiers 1 and 2.
Tier 3 {stone walls} is more interesting. I haven't had time to do a full investigation into the details / most efficient way to raid tier 3, but I would roughly equate tier 3 in Rust to tier 1 in Wool.
This week's work on Wool was dedicated to AI conciousness.
Newmans are now aware of other newmans, they will chase and flee appropriately. It's pretty cool to watch, and it looks like newmans survive a lot longer now. Unfortunately, you might notice a couple bugs in the AI code due to these upgrades. I'll do my best to see to them before next week is through.
Enjoy the time lapse video, and a short real time video!
Consciousness In Action
Time Lapse
Download Wool for iOS
Not yet, but next week. Since I'm not sure what values are the best for raiding, I'm going to let everyone play the simulator and tell me what they think about the difficulty of raiding. I'm going to put together a version of Wool that lets you be one of the players over this weekend {if I'm not too busy killing you in Rust, I play on Facepunch - Seattle under the name "Dude"}. It should be on the App Store by Friday next week if all goes well. If you'd like to get an email about it when it goes live, send me an email at thompson.codes@gmail.com with the subject "Wool", I'd love to hear from you.
PS: Life is hectic, I'm moving, and I didn't have time to work on Wool last week, and even missed my weekly post. Sorry, I'll make it up to you.
Friday, 30 January 2015
Development Blog #0010 - Server Population
If you don't know Wool, click here.
This week I made newmans log on and off the server.
Newmans will now go back to their base and log off after they have played for between 2.5 and 3.5 hours. If you watch this week's video, you'll see newmans disappear after they have logged off. Newmans will come back online at the same time each day and play. To keep the model accurate, I updated the AI and the combat system so that newmans will attack sleeping enemies without hesitation, and are guaranteed to win combat. Cool, now I've got a baseline model of Rust!
Server Population
I got in touch with Bugs, the guy that runs Rustafied. Using some estimates he gave me about the server base, I've programmed Wool to model the average server. The Wool server sees a peak of about 60 players at 12:00, and a low of about 20 at 0:00. I also looked into Steams stats for Rust, and to no surprise, found a bell curve player distribution. So I programmed this trend into Wool's server.
Raiding is not common, but is possible.
If you watch for Garry's base in this week's video, you'll see that it survives about a day and a half before being raided. A couple people managed to build a tier 2 base before their ~3 hours were up, and all of those bases survived the first 24 hours. However, some people with tier 1 bases did get raided, and they'll wake up dead and poor. I'm going to change things so that over 50% of people get a tier 2 base for three hours of work, because that's what I set out to do. I'll probably tweak the base cost to get the desired result.
Bugs
There are bugs affecting the AI. I've programmed AI logs to see where they are making the wrong decisions, and it's going to take time to sort though that. However, most of the time, they're quite capable. I'll make this a priority next week.
Conciousness
Newmans are not aware of other newmans unless they run into them. I'll update the AI to make intelligent fight / flee decisions. I'm thinking that, since most people KOS, I'll make newmans KOS if they have equal or better weapons and armor than their target, and flee otherwise. Newmans will flee for a random duration before deciding to turn and fight, and conversely, their pursuer will only chase for so long too. This should be done next week.
Data Mining
After the AI is in good shape, I'll draft up which graphs I want to show, program the data collection for it, bring the collected data into Matlab, manipulate it, and finally display it. These graphs will provide evidence that this progression system is fun to play, and well balanced.
This week I made newmans log on and off the server.
Newmans will now go back to their base and log off after they have played for between 2.5 and 3.5 hours. If you watch this week's video, you'll see newmans disappear after they have logged off. Newmans will come back online at the same time each day and play. To keep the model accurate, I updated the AI and the combat system so that newmans will attack sleeping enemies without hesitation, and are guaranteed to win combat. Cool, now I've got a baseline model of Rust!
Wool Devblog 10 - 5 Days @ 20x speed
Server Population
I got in touch with Bugs, the guy that runs Rustafied. Using some estimates he gave me about the server base, I've programmed Wool to model the average server. The Wool server sees a peak of about 60 players at 12:00, and a low of about 20 at 0:00. I also looked into Steams stats for Rust, and to no surprise, found a bell curve player distribution. So I programmed this trend into Wool's server.
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| Online Steam Users |
Raiding is not common, but is possible.
If you watch for Garry's base in this week's video, you'll see that it survives about a day and a half before being raided. A couple people managed to build a tier 2 base before their ~3 hours were up, and all of those bases survived the first 24 hours. However, some people with tier 1 bases did get raided, and they'll wake up dead and poor. I'm going to change things so that over 50% of people get a tier 2 base for three hours of work, because that's what I set out to do. I'll probably tweak the base cost to get the desired result.
Bugs
There are bugs affecting the AI. I've programmed AI logs to see where they are making the wrong decisions, and it's going to take time to sort though that. However, most of the time, they're quite capable. I'll make this a priority next week.
Conciousness
Newmans are not aware of other newmans unless they run into them. I'll update the AI to make intelligent fight / flee decisions. I'm thinking that, since most people KOS, I'll make newmans KOS if they have equal or better weapons and armor than their target, and flee otherwise. Newmans will flee for a random duration before deciding to turn and fight, and conversely, their pursuer will only chase for so long too. This should be done next week.
Data Mining
After the AI is in good shape, I'll draft up which graphs I want to show, program the data collection for it, bring the collected data into Matlab, manipulate it, and finally display it. These graphs will provide evidence that this progression system is fun to play, and well balanced.
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