Able Ability System Info and Support Thread

[Duenner_Hering]

Is there a way to set settings of the spawned Actor over Able?
I have some variables, which shall change everytime, a projectile get launched!

[ExtraLifeMatt]

@Duenner_Hering

Is there a way to set settings of the spawned Actor over Able?
I have some variables, which shall change everytime, a projectile get launched!

Yes, there’s an OnSpawnedActor method that gets called on the Ability BP if you enable the “Fire Event” option in your Spawn Actor Task. You can use that to set any extra parameters anytime you spawn an actor.

[Rush3rx]

@ Hi again and thank you for your latest answer!

What could cause an ability to still fire even though I’ve set “Requires Target” to true? Basically I want my boss character to only use specific abilities if any targets are within range. The targeting works fine when a character is within range, but it doesn’t stop when I run out of range. I am positive that it has no targets because the projectiles I spawn throw out errors like no tomorrow due to no targets being sent through.

[AngeIV]

@ - mate For the last weeks I haven been posting any questions as I managed to do EVERYTHING I ever wanted with an ability system with ABLE. The newest update added very important feature for me faster than expected. If anyone have any doubt about picking picking ABLE vs UE4 Ability System… I would recommend ABLE in all cases scenarios and all type of games 10/10.
So… a big thank you for all the work you put into it. All the hours of support. all the answers to all my silly questions!

[ExtraLifeMatt]

@Rush3rx

@ Hi again and thank you for your latest answer!

What could cause an ability to still fire even though I’ve set “Requires Target” to true? Basically I want my boss character to only use specific abilities if any targets are within range. The targeting works fine when a character is within range, but it doesn’t stop when I run out of range. I am positive that it has no targets because the projectiles I spawn throw out errors like no tomorrow due to no targets being sent through.

I’m not sure. Turn on Verbose mode on the Ability itself and it should give you a print out of the targeting logic.

@AngeIV

@ - mate For the last weeks I haven been posting any questions as I managed to do EVERYTHING I ever wanted with an ability system with ABLE. The newest update added very important feature for me faster than expected. If anyone have any doubt about picking picking ABLE vs UE4 Ability System… I would recommend ABLE in all cases scenarios and all type of games 10/10.
So… a big thank you for all the work you put into it. All the hours of support. all the answers to all my silly questions!

Awesome, glad to hear it

[GrandAlchemist]

Has anyone done tests for Able + Multiplayer? Wondering about performance with 20-40 players per server.

[Jose_Gabriel]

Hello,

Found a bug since the new update I cannot use the overlap watcher task a collision dependency for Apply Damage Task.

To replicate just create a overlap watcher task mark copy to context and collision channel to pawn and then add a apply damage task.

plz since update i broke the whole project

[ExtraLifeMatt]

@Jose_Gabriel

Hello,

Found a bug since the new update I cannot use the overlap watcher task a collision dependency for Apply Damage Task.

To replicate just create a overlap watcher task mark copy to context and collision channel to pawn and then add a apply damage task.

plz since update i broke the whole project

I haven’t changed anything with Overlap Watcher in a LONGGG time. Is Verbose mode telling you anything?

Able v3.32 Submitted, notes below:

• Rewrote Custom Tasks save/restore functionality. Now properties are completely serialized and re-added if the Custom Task is re-compiled for whatever reason. This has the added benefit of just being more robust in general. So, you should no longer see any Custom Task fields reset if you re-compile your Custom Task.
• Fix to Sub Objects not being accessible outside of the package (h/t Jeremy). You saw this if you had a child ability, you’d likely get a warning about trying to link to private objects and then the editor would just hang and then end up failing anyway. Now those flags are properly propagated down. The fix up code is executed automatically once you launch the UE4 Editor. Any Abilities that get fixed up will be marked as dirty (but should be fine after that).
• Added new Context Menu (Right-click) options: Copy Task, Paste Task (h/t Jeremy). This will copy the Task temporarily to your clipboard and you can paste it into another Ability (or the same). This just copies the path of the object to the clipboard, so don’t delete the Task until you finish copying it around (you also can’t just CTRL+C/V in discord or whatever and have that work).
• Added “Always Forward to Server” option in the Able Settings. This option will always send the Ability requested by the client to the server. This is how Able works by default, and thus is enabled by default. However, if you want to decrease your RPCs, you can disable that option and Able will only send Abilities that the Client successfully executes locally to the server (who will still do it’s own validation). I would only change this option if you see failed ability RPCs as a lot of your bandwidth.
• Play Animation Tasks can now have a user specified length. There is also an option to treat the manual length as an interrupt when it finishes so you can stop the animation / clear the queue, etc. This is just to give users more control over how long their animation plays. Play Rate is still applied to manual time.

[AngeIV]

@GrandAlchemist

Has anyone done tests for Able + Multiplayer? Wondering about performance with 20-40 players per server.

Done ABLE with 100 AI agents with no problem. Over 200 running on tests in SpatialOS (and it works with spatialOS without issues) its good to run events on client and server in case of latency. I am using the oldschool replication method of ABLE. the original one. Where every ability have 1 instance. Havent tried the other mothods.

[GrandAlchemist]

@AngeIV

Done ABLE with 100 AI agents with no problem. Over 200 running on tests in SpatialOS (and it works with spatialOS without issues) its good to run events on client and server in case of latency. I am using the oldschool replication method of ABLE. the original one. Where every ability have 1 instance. Havent tried the other mothods.

Thank you for much for those figures. What does SpacialOS have that’s different than AWS or Azure??

[AngeIV]

@GrandAlchemist

Thank you for much for those figures. What does SpacialOS have that’s different than AWS or Azure??

Spatial OS is a framework not server types. It has its own interpretation of replication. And their servers are actually hosted on Amazon.

One of my projects with ABLE at its core was hosted in Azure windows VM’s with great success.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Able v3.35 has been submitted. Notes below.

Able v3.35

• Fixed “Paste Task” pasting the wrong task (it always copied the currently selected task of the Ability you were pasting into). Don’t use two abilities with the same Tasks in it when testing features, kids.

• Fix to crash when using Paste Task (related to above).

• Query/Sweep/Raycast Tasks now have “Copy to Context” on by default.

• Set Collision Channel Response now takes in an array of channels/responses so you can consolidate all those current tasks.

• Added a new Task; “Modify Context”. With this task you can pass in a new target location, or call the “CustomFindTargets” method again and add new targets to the context. If you’re using this while networked, make sure both the client and server end up at the same results - or you’ll have a de-sync. There’s delegates on all the fields if you want some game logic to drive when you want to modify the context.

• Fixed crash in Dedicated server with Verbose logging turned on.

• Added a new setting; “Prediction Tolerance”. This is a window for you to allow predicted abilities to be valid for (basically we have a recording of this ability, but the order was slightly off). If you see prediction failing (i.e., abilities are being played twice) - you can try tweaking this setting. See the setting for more details.

• Branched Abilities now properly check for local prediction before being queued. This should prevent any dupes when using branched abilities (again, in combination with the new setting).

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Able v3.36 submitted.

• Fixed a crash with the new Branching code.
• Fixed Branching code not being marked as locally predicted.
• Added a new Vector field to “Turn To” task. You can override this at runtime (along with the bool to use it). Use this if you don’t have an Actor to turn towards, but instead a simple vector.

[JimPhoenix]

Hey there ,

the Output Log gives me these warnings if I build my project:

UATHelper: Cooking (Windows): LogInit: Display: LogSavePackage: Warning: G:\Project_ALVUS_424\Project_ALVUS\Content\Gameplay\AISystem\Abilities\01_Minor\Able_AI_Minor_Ranged_Attack.uasset: Non-deterministic cook warning - PreSave() has modified CDO 'Default__Able_AI_Minor_Ranged_Attack_C' - a resave may be required
UATHelper: Cooking (Windows): LogInit: Display: LogSavePackage: Warning: G:\Project_ALVUS_424\Project_ALVUS\Content\Gameplay\AISystem\Abilities\01_Minor\Able_AI_Minor_Melee_Attack_Child_01.uasset: Non-deterministic cook warning - PreSave() has modified CDO 'Default__Able_AI_Minor_Melee_Attack_Child_01_C' - a resave may be required
UATHelper: Cooking (Windows): LogInit: Display: LogSavePackage: Warning: G:\Project_ALVUS_424\Project_ALVUS\Content\Gameplay\AISystem\Abilities\01_Minor\Able_AI_Minor_Melee_Attack.uasset: Non-deterministic cook warning - PreSave() has modified CDO 'Default__Able_AI_Minor_Melee_Attack_C' - a resave may be required
UATHelper: Cooking (Windows): LogInit: Display: LogSavePackage: Warning: G:\Project_ALVUS_424\Project_ALVUS\Content\Gameplay\AISystem\Abilities\01_Minor\Able_AI_Minor_Melee_Attack_Child_02.uasset: Non-deterministic cook warning - PreSave() has modified CDO 'Default__Able_AI_Minor_Melee_Attack_Child_02_C' - a resave may be required
UATHelper: Cooking (Windows): LogInit: Display: LogSavePackage: Warning: G:\Project_ALVUS_424\Project_ALVUS\Content\Gameplay\AISystem\Abilities\01_Minor\Able_AI_Minor_Melee_Attack_Child_03.uasset: Non-deterministic cook warning - PreSave() has modified CDO 'Default__Able_AI_Minor_Melee_Attack_Child_03_C' - a resave may be required

I tried to resave all of them one by one and tried to resave the folder, etc., but the result is the same, nothing helped.

Can you look at it, please?

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Ah, interesting. Yea, I can get a fix for that.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Able v3.37 has been submitted. Notes below:

• Fixes warning about non-deterministic cook when packaging Abilities (we were always sorting tasks before save, now we only sort if needed).
• Fix to crash in the IsLocallyPredicted callback. Happened when 2 or more players were on a server and fired an Ability. ::

[JimPhoenix]

Able v3.37 has been submitted. Notes below:

Thank you ! :)​​​​​​​

[mnorris54]

First off thank you so much, I love your plugin.

1. For some reason when I run the game client vs client online, the range on my collision querys is much shorter. When I play on a listen server and the server is involved in the collision query, wether being the attacker or the one getting hit, the range is correct.

I am using a 2d cone collision query. Everything else is working fine besides…

2. My ability has 2 collision querys that deal separate damage. When the first attack lands the second is guaranteed to deal damage even though clear targets it enabled.

[AngeIV]

whats the setup of your query? whats the realm? Maybe you should only check on server? or one is running on client? maybe both query’s are setup differently… also… why would you need 2?

[intoxicat3]

@ any chance you can look at thumbnails? They aren’t saving for me @ 4.25.
repro:

• create thumb,
• save ability,
• close editor,
• open editor again and your thumb will be null,