Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[nsg21]

I would like to (optionally?) have ALL log messages, especially, including the terminal/machine interactions dumped into the score file in the scores directory. Then after game over, it would append a final score and you have some nice memento.

Mostly I need it right now as I am overwhelmed with the amount of different stuff incoming. It would be nice to go back and read all those lore-related queries and step-by-step battles in peace to see if I may learn something.

Even if this file grows to 100k, it is still peanuts in today's world.

[Kyzrati]

Good idea, we're already most of the way there! Check your options--it's off by default, but you can have the entire log output to either a text file or even colored HTML!

It does not, however, record terminal output. I'll have to add that. Noted and will be done, though I'm not sure about the details yet--injecting hacking results directly into your in-game log would be quite easy, but wouldn't that be slightly annoying while playing? Or would that be okay?

As for the "nice memento" concept, I eventually want to look at overhauling the score sheet and also possibly including a "summary" of everything notable you did, which would be a better read than the full log which can have a lot of random messages in there.

[nsg21]

I found the option and turned it on, but where does the output go? I wandered around for a while to accumulate some messages, then quit with Alt+F4, but I cannot find a file with the messages (EDIT: nvm, I found out that it is written only after death).

It does not, however, record terminal output. I'll have to add that. Noted and will be done, though I'm not sure about the details yet--injecting hacking results directly into your in-game log would be quite easy, but wouldn't that be slightly annoying while playing? Or would that be okay?

I have no problem with injecting hacking results to main log -- that would be nice way to review them after the terminal is closed.

[Kyzrati]

Alright, I'll probably do that before long. I remember considering it, but then dropped that feature for some reason, maybe just due to limited time...

[nsg21]

O reviewed several of my logs and I would like to suggest "{item} equipped" and "{item} unequipped" entries. And maybe "{item} failed to equip because {reason}". That would be more telling on what is going on.

[Kyzrati]

While I wouldn't want that in there by default because it would really clutter up the log, what I can do for you is add a way to activate a "verbose log" in the options which will record more details like that.

[nsg21]

Verbose option could work.
Actually, to think of it, it should not even go to log window, just to log file.
Same goes for terminals/machines interactions.

On a related note: how hard would be to add a final ascii snapshot of a map right before death into score/log file?
I mean just the portion of a map visible on a screen, not the entire map and not the logs/huds.
It will not be quite right with aspect ratio of characters are different and the missing colors are important too, but this could be a great tool to job a memory a bit.

[Kyzrati]

Verbose option could work.
Actually, to think of it, it should not even go to log window, just to log file.
Same goes for terminals/machines interactions.

True about skipping the in-game log window, though it's a lot easier to put it in the log first because that's the source of text that's dumped to the file--they're not stored separately as is.

On a related note: how hard would be to add a final ascii snapshot of a map right before death into score/log file?
I mean just the portion of a map visible on a screen, not the entire map and not the logs/huds.
It will not be quite right with aspect ratio of characters are different and the missing colors are important too, but this could be a great tool to job a memory a bit.

That's an interesting idea. The file itself would have to be converted to UTF8 rather than a basic text file.

I could make that a separate option that dumps the last map to a separate similarly named file, rather than in the score sheet itself. Even then, I would almost certainly want to have it only dump the part of the map you explored, not the entire thing.

Perhaps even better than ASCII, what about dumping it to a png? I already have a method that does that, which is used for testing. Then you don't have the aspect ratio problem, and it's in color

[nsg21]

I would almost certainly want to have it only dump the part of the map you explored, not the entire thing.

Perhaps even better than ASCII, what about dumping it to a png? I already have a method that does that, which is used for testing. Then you don't have the aspect ratio problem, and it's in color

I originally meant just a part of map visible on the screen at the time of death. But entire revealed map in .png is even better. Actually, in addition to that, just like a printscreen, it may be interesting to have a "mapscreen" that dumps a map.  Is that compact form that I've seen in the blog (like this http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/gsg-content/uploads/2014/11/factory10_1280x1024.png) available? That would be grand.

The point of this is to get a feeling of what levels look like from bird's eye view. There is some pattern to different levels, and looking at a small scale map is a good way to teach brain what it is.

EDIT: Just realized, this is not a special form, just one of the smaller font and the result is scaled by the browser

[Kyzrati]

Correct, I was just using the size 10 font there. Really the size doesn't matter since you can always scale it to whatever you want.

I may add a command to dump maps later, though I sort of don't want players to have such easy access to that bird's eye view just yet. So not now, at least, but maybe once we already have a lot of experienced players...

You are absolutely right that there are patterns to levels. They're procedurally generated but based on some general rules which would be useful to players who can decipher them.

[JackalStyx]

Hi,  I just found out about this game today, and was reading up on it.  I saw this thread, and while I haven't bought the game yet, I thought I could add an idea about "verbose or not" on log file versus screen logs.  If it is WAY off, I apologize in advance.  From the looks of what I have seen, this game appears to be a MUST PLAY as soon I get some time to do so. Please to don't be to harsh if I'm totally off base with this idea, it comes from a good, if ignorant, place.


     I read computer logs a lot at my job.  Syslogs, event log, and such. Those usually contain level info at the start of the line so they can be sorted easily.
ie :  (1) critical , (2) warning , (3) info, (4) debug    and such schemes.  So, when I view them either in realtime or reviewing old logs, I can have it only display the level I want to see, but still have the other levels still in the log.  If I select level 1, I only see level 1.  If I select level 2, I see both 1 and 2.  If I select whatever the largest level is, I see every detail.

   Since you said that the message log is only stored in one place, you could place this info on each line there, and still have it in one place.  Then you can have an option where the player could select what is shown on the screen log, and it would just parse out and not display the unwanted lines, and possibly not show the "level" meta tag either. ( You could also use the meta tag to colorize the log) You could even make the option available for what is written the final log file, so the level of verbosity could be controlled there also.
Levels could be things like : (1) general , (2) terminal output, (3) equip action, (4) battle actions,  and so on.  You could do a simple select level and show  all < selected, or a discreet selection of items by checkbox,  like  just general and equip action, but not hacking terminal.

   As added bonus, if you leave the the meta tags in the final txt file, there lots of ways/tools to filter text out there.  Players could use that to quickly just view haciking terminal text lines, battle reports,  or whatever they want to see post game. Or even use the tags to colorize it, like a I do with those system logs.  


TL;DR - use line tags to classify/sort/filter/display log entries

  On a different note, even though I see that the text file is only produced on death, the systems geek in me would love for it, or a currentgame.txt,  to be appended on event/realtime.  Then I could setup something to follow the file and display it realtime on the machine/monitor I already have showing various logs. (think tail -f ) I could even setup something to colorize the lines using meta tags in realtime.    But of course I'm used to looking at things like that, and think it would be cool putting this into other tools I use, or displaying on my tablet.  Not  something for everyone tastes, I know, but I also love it when games allow me to display info outside of main display. 

     Hope I'm not too out of line here, but since the idea has been around a long time for monitoring logs, I figure it should not be to hard to find examples of how to do all that.  Plus for simple logs, I prefer this to using XML or some such. Easier to parse, and easier for people to read, since it is looks like a play script.   Thanks for reading!
 

[JackalStyx]

Oh, I just saw the thread about logging turn counts.  This would work well with my above idea, as syslogs usually contain meta tag and date/time before the info data. Just replace date/time with turn number.
   I'm beginning to think I read WAY too many syslogs. 

[Kyzrati]

Hello syslog nerd, I mean JackalStyx!

I use line tagging for my run logs, though in another departure from traditional roguelike design my intent with Cogmind has been to try to de-emphasize the log, using it as little as possible where the same information can be shown directly on the map. However, it's obvious that some players (I'm thinking of several people here already) really like their logs.

It does seem like it would be nice to enable player-designated filters on the log, though there might be issues with the in-game log itself allowing changes on the fly. It's kinda... stubborn. It should all be possible in theory, for sure, just something I'd have to throw enough time at to make sure it doesn't break anything else.

Thanks for the input and I'll see what I can do!