Filtering units with no advancements (while - have_unit)

[Araja]

Hello all. I've been working on a macro to level up target units without leaving them with excessive experience or AMLA HP.

Essentially, it says "While there's a level 2 unit here, give it a bit of XP, then repeat until there's no longer a level 2 unit here, then set their XP to 0".

On the downside, the do-while loop promptly causes horrendous lag and crashes the game when it encounters a level 2 unit that cannot advance, such as a Javelineer or Saurian Oracle. I've been trying to include a filter into the loop that excludes units with no advancement options, but nothing has quite worked.

The entire definition is included here for the sake of completeness, but I'm only asking for help with the first [have_unit] filter.
Does anyone know the correct way of filtering out units with no advancements?

Code: Select all

#define PROMOTELEADER TURN X Y

[event]
name=turn {TURN}

[while]

	[have_unit]
	level=2
	x={X}
	y={Y}

		[and]
			[not]
				[filter_wml]
					[advances_to]
					advances_to=null
					[/advances_to]
				[/filter_wml]
			[/not]
		[/and]

	[/have_unit]

[do]

[modify_unit]
	[filter]
	x={X}
	y={Y}
	[/filter]

	[object]
	name=levelup1
	silent=yes
		[effect]
		apply_to=experience
		increase=10
		[/effect]
	[/object]

[/modify_unit]

[/do]
[/while]

[modify_unit]
	[filter]
	x={X}
	y={Y}
	[/filter]

	[object]
	name=cleanup
	silent=yes
		[effect]
		apply_to=experience
		set=0
		[/effect]
	[/object]

[/modify_unit]

[/event]

#enddef

[Pentarctagon]

Wouldn't it be easier to check for when the unit's xp ends up at a lower value after you gave them more xp? Or to give the unit only as much xp as it needs to level up all at once rather than looping?

[Araja]

The latter suggestion would be ideal, but I tried that in the past and it seems as though effect WML doesn't accept variables as valid input. Or at the least, it does so in some alien way that's unlike other languages I've dealt with.

I assumed it would be possible to save something in a container, then use a value from that container in place of standard input, something like this;

Code: Select all

[store_unit]
[filter]
x={X}
y={Y}
[/filter]
variable=xpvar
[/store_unit]

[modify_unit]
	[filter]
	x={X}
	y={Y}
	[/filter]

	[object]
	name=levelup
	silent=yes
		[effect]
		apply_to=experience
		increase=xpvar.max_experience
		[/effect]
	[/object]
[/modify_unit]

But, it evidently doesn't work out that way. I must be missing some key aspect, but to my great frustration I never found out what that aspect is. The do-while loop was a Plan B, intended to be a no-variables solution to the problem.

[Pentarctagon]

Does increase=$xpvar.max_experience work?

[Ravana]

Reference for previous post https://wiki.wesnoth.org/SyntaxWML#Variables.

[Araja]

Oh my god, that does actually work perfectly. That was all I was missing all these times I've tried? I just needed to add a $ sign?...

Despite my frequent visits to the WML reference pages, I'd never picked up on that critical piece of information.

Well, thank you for that, and for not just laughing at me :p

[gfgtdf]

Does increase=$xpvar.max_experience work?

Note that this code might advance a unit 2 times in case that the xp requirement for the level 3 advancemnt is less than the one for the level 2 advancement, so you need max_exp - current_exp.

Also it should be noted out that [object] is not the best way to apply these temporary changes (current experience) since it will put the useless [object] in the units wml.

[The_Gnat]

Hello, i might just be talking to soon, but perhaps wouldn't it be easier to just modify units like this:

Code: Select all

      [modify_unit]
          [filter]
	      id=$unit.id
          [/filter]
	    advances_to=""
      [/modify_unit]

I remember reading somewhere that this advances the unit. This doesn't help with your level 2 filter problem, but once you have filtered them out it seems like it would be easier than continually adding xp.

@devs - please correct me if i am mistaken in this idea

[Sapient]

Here is some sample code which shows how you can filter for units that have an advancement, then advance them until they no longer have an advancement:

Code: Select all

        [store_unit]
            [filter]
                [not]
                    [filter_wml]
                        advances_to="$empty"
                    [/filter_wml]
                    [or]
                        [filter_wml]
                            advances_to="$this_unit.type"
                        [/filter_wml]
                    [/or]
                    [or]
                        [filter_wml]
                            advances_to="null"
                        [/filter_wml]
                    [/or]
                [/not]
            [/filter]
            variable=tolevel
        [/store_unit]
        {FOREACH tolevel i}
        [while]
            [have_unit]
                id=$tolevel[$i].id
                [not]
                    [filter_wml]
                        advances_to="$empty"
                    [/filter_wml]
                    [or]
                        [filter_wml]
                            advances_to="$this_unit.type"
                        [/filter_wml]
                    [/or]
                    [or]
                        [filter_wml]
                            advances_to="null"
                        [/filter_wml]
                    [/or]
                [/not]
            [/have_unit]
            [do]
                {ADVANCE_UNIT id=$tolevel[$i].id ""}
            [/do]
        [/while]
        {NEXT i}

[Sapient]

Update: I have added a check for advances_to=null in my code above