Here we take a look at how you make a bot see anomalies and other pilots in the overview. You can use the functions introduced here to get more information about your surroundings in the game. These building blocks are also useful if you want to make your bot remember in what anomalies it found other pilots on arrival.
Also interesting for developers in general: In this video, we also see how to use simulations to quickly test new reading and parsing code without the need to start a game client.
I have news for developers regarding app-settings:
You can now use line-breaks to organize settings strings for your apps. Version 2020-08-07 of the botengine for Windows supports encoding line breaks as \n in the app-settings string. To make it easy for users to compose these strings, the configuration interface on the catalog entries for apps now contains this multiline textbox for the app-settings string:
Version 2020-08-14 of the botengine for Windows brings a new feature to simulations.
Replacing App-Settings in a Session Replay
When developing a new feature for your app, you sometimes want to add a new app-setting to let users configure that feature. But how do you test this with a session replay? The app-settings are defined in the session events, so we don’t want an exact replay but one with modified events.
To make modifying the app-settings events easy, the simulate-run command offers the --replace-app-settings option. When you use this option, the engine replaces the app-settings string with the new value for each app-settings event in the loaded session, before giving it to the app.
Forgot to mention this earlier: @Threepwood shared numerous functions for parsing the user interface of the EVE Online game client. Many of these support running missions, including reading the agents in the station window and information about the current solar system. You can see the new parsing functions here:
There is a new version of the AppSettings module to build configurable apps. The latest version provides more specific and more detailed error messages when parsing settings strings, so users don’t get stuck trying to figure out the configuration.
What is the AppSettings module? Many apps support configuration with an app-settings string like this:
The AppSettings Elm module contains functions to parse settings like these, to get the individual assignments and finally transform them into a strongly typed value that you can use in your bot decision logic:
type alias BotSettings =
{ hideWhenNeutralInLocal : AppSettings.YesOrNo
, anomalyNames : List String
, ratsToAvoid : List String
}
But the role of the AppSettings module is not limited to parsing. It also generates error messages for the user if they try to enter settings that don’t match your app.
This week I got around to examine that module and improve the messages to guide users on how to configure your app.
The parseSimpleListOfAssignments function now provides users with several new messages that are more specific than the older ones.
For example, in case we misspell the name of a setting. In this case, the app automatically identifies the most similar setting name and also lists the available setting names. Here is the full error message from parseSimpleListOfAssignments:
Failed to parse these app-settings: Unknown setting name 'rat-avoid'.
Did you mean 'rat-to-avoid'?
Here is a list of supported settings names: 'anomaly-name', 'hide-when-neutral-in-local', 'rat-to-avoid'
(In case you see a particular way of misspelling appear frequently, you could also define it as an alternative name for the same field)
I updated the example apps to use the new version of the AppSettings module. You can see the code changes here:
I got around to compiling a guide on running bots on multiple clients. It describes the most common type of multi-client support and how you use bots following this approach. You can read the full guide at https://to.botengine.org/guide/running-bots-on-multiple-game-clients
@Neled77 expanded the libraries for developing for the EVE Online game client.
Neled had a look at the EVE Online game client and collected training data for the fleet window and watchlist panel to help you keep track of other pilots:
The resulting new shortcuts to these UI elements are useful for a lot of multi-account players.
Have you seen problems when running multiple bots at the same time?
If you saw bots messing with each other’s sending input to a game client, you will want to use this new feature.
This month, I added built-in input focus scheduling functionality to the botengine for Windows software. Input focus scheduling is a technique to resolve the contention for device input focus between multiple bots. This problem occurs when we run multiple bots requiring input focus on the operating system level in parallel. To make sure this feature is enabled for your bot instances, see the guide at https://to.botengine.org/guide/input-focus-scheduling
@Mohano has published some functions to work with drones in EVE Online. These functions let you choose subsets of your drones to return to the bay or to launch and engage:
@Zalain and @Mohano explored how to use cloaking devices in EVE Online. One outcome was discovering new, more robust functions to check if the module is already active.
I realized that the name ‘BotEngine’ doesn’t describe well what we do here. So I’m changing it.
I started with BotEngine about six years ago. Since then, I have learned a few things. Some of these learnings made me understand that there are better names for a platform like ours.
‘BotLab’ seems a more appropriate name.
I expect this name to save new arrivals time because it better summarizes what we do: Learn about and develop bots.
How does the renaming affect you?
As part of the renaming of BotEngine to BotLab, the website address will change to botlab.org.
However, you don’t need to update programs or bookmarks right away, as the old links will continue to work for the time being.
Introducing Elm Editor - a web-based IDE for Elm programs
We made a big step in improving development tools for bots and other apps with the introduction of Elm Editor.
In the past, we asked developers to set up tools on their machines for working on code. These tools help explore libraries, view documentation, and get feedback on our creations. For example, one crucial feature of a development environment is pointing out problems in the program code.
While these tools are very helpful, setting them up was complicated, which was a great barrier to getting started.
To solve this problem, I started developing a new web-based integrated development environment. This work began circa one year ago. Now Elm Editor has reached a level of sophistication that makes it the better choice for beginners.
Instead of installing a specific program on your system, you can use Elm Editor like any other web page in web-browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.
I updated the guides on bot development to skip the work for setting up tools and bringing readers right into the action.
The guides currently point to the instance at https://elm-editor.com
In the future, we might have a customized version that adds features specific to bot development and botlab, like configuring the bot-settings or starting a bot session directly from the editor.
First Graphical User Interface of the BotLab Client
The November releases of the BotLab client introduced the first graphical user interface.
While the functionality for automation remained the same, this new interface improved usability. Users frequently struggled with the command-line interface. The graphical interface removes friction in many use cases with more straightforward navigation and specialized visual elements.
Some of the highlights in Novembers’ version include:
A dedicated dialog to help report a problem with a bot or share a session.
Visual separation of the status text generated by the bot and other status information.
Hyperlinks to help reach catalog entries and sessions.
Dedicated controls for Devtools to import artifacts to inspect with an open file dialog.
Dedicated dialog for installing the client.
Below is a screenshot of the view running a bot in a live session:
And here is a screenshot of the new interface to import session recordings in Devtools:
I have already updated the most popular guides to match the new UI, and the work on documentation continues to update everything for consistency.
In January, EVE Online developer @CLEMARC tirelessly tested the framework and engine and shared and analyzed session recordings to improve bot performance.
This work improved both botlab client and the frameworks for EVE Online. The botlab client evolved over several iterations in January, finally resulting in version 2022-01-25: Improve response times for agent tasks from bot in play session · Viir/bots@6577a13 · GitHub
The performance improvements in the client also removed blockers that could delay the execution of tasks started by a bot.
On the framework side, we improved readability and introduced unique task IDs so that bot developers can easily track tasks in inspection tools.
@Abaddon introduced support for Korean localizations of EVE Online. This change enables bots to understand the game state better when working with a game client in the Korean version.
Software like bots and local monitors often use textual labels in the game client to understand what is going on in the game world. These labels can vary depending on the language settings in the game client.
Abbadon shared multiple sessions with training data for Korean, enabling the use of apps with Korean EVE Online game clients.
In September and October, the user interface of the BotLab client evolved fast. Most importantly, the last few months saw the introduction of a new graphical user interface (GUI). The new GUI is a complete rewrite and replacement of the previous GUI. Based on a new technical foundation, it enables more efficient development and, as a result, the addition of functionality that reduces the complexity for gamers and bot developers.
Transitioning from the main menu into the session review is already much easier in the new version: The DevTools views are now inside the main window, so switching to a separate window is no longer necessary.
And for bots working on websites, there was another addition simplifying the usage of these bots: As of version ‘2022_10_23’, the interface for bots supports opening a web browser window directly inside the BotLab window. This new way of hosting web browser instances brings several benefits: Since the web browser component is integrated with the BotLab client, the separate download and waiting period when starting a bot is now obsolete. And when running many bots at the same time, the integration helps us see which browser window belongs to which bot instance.
When comparing the BotLab client from August to the newest one, you will also see a striking difference in the colors. While reimplementing all the views in the BotLab client, I also made the visuals consistent with other BotLab GUIs, like the one in the Reactor.
One of my favorite improvements in DevTools last month was supporting using the up-and-down arrow keys to scroll through the timeline: No need anymore to move your mouse for that: Press ‘up’ or ‘down’ to get to the previous or next event in the timeline.
Many thanks to the early adopters who helped test the new interface and squash bugs over the last weeks.
I hope you enjoy the simplified workflows and improved usability with the new interface.
As always, I am keen to hear about your experience, as these reports enable me to make bot development even easier in the future.
In December, we reached another milestone in the evolution of the interface to run bots. In November, we already reported on the new graphical interface to run bots. The latest update expands that graphical interface with controls to configure bot sessions. You can see the expansion in version 2022-12-10 and later of the BotLab client: After selecting a bot to run, you will arrive in the new ‘Configure Session’ view. Here you can customize the parameters of the new session, including the bot settings, to customize the behavior of the selected bot.
Despite the addition of the graphical interface for session configuration, you don’t need to change existing scripts or integrations to start a bot via the command line: The new interface will then reflect the arguments given with the command to start the process.
A significant improvement regarding bot settings is the new live feedback: Since the settings language is specific to the selected bot, it sometimes takes a few tries to find the right prompt for your situation. The new interface makes it easier to refine the bot settings prompt: After entering a prompt, the interface shows you the response of the bot right away. This response shows if the bot understood the prompt, so you know if you need to rephrase it. Since the response from the bot is displayed inline, you can see if it works without having to start a session.
You can also see a quick overview of the new graphical interface in this video, showing the complete process of running a bot:
Marcos did it again. Over the last two months, Marcos Macedo contributed many improvements to EVE Online, demonstrating how to automate tasks in the game.
Following is a list of some of Marcos’ recent contributions:
