Ascent Combat Framework
Build Ascent Combat Framework abilities, characters, items, data assets, dialogue and quests by asking, through ACF's own AI tools.
Ascent Combat Framework (ACF) by Dark Tower Interactive is a combat RPG framework for Unreal Engine. It includes the Ascent Dialogue System and the Ascent Quest System.
From Unreal Engine 5.8, ACF ships its own AI tools. Ultimate Engine CoPilot picks them up and gives them to its AI, so you can ask for abilities, characters, items, data assets, dialogue and quests in plain words, and the AI builds them with ACF’s own tools.
What you need
- Unreal Engine 5.8. ACF’s AI tools use Epic’s Toolset Registry, which first ships in 5.8.
- Ascent Combat Framework for UE 5.8, installed and enabled in your project.
- Ultimate Engine CoPilot 2.4.0 or later, with the Plugin Toolsets extension switched on.
ACF normally switches on Epic’s Toolset Registry plugin for you. If the AI reports that the registry is not loaded, enable Toolset Registry in Edit > Plugins and restart the editor. Epic marks it Experimental in 5.8.
Turn it on
- Open Settings > Extensions and search for “toolsets”.
- Turn on Plugin Toolsets. It is off by default.
- The card reads LOADED once the extension is running.
You can also ask the AI to turn it on. It asks you to confirm first.
Then ask the AI to “check which plugin toolsets are available”. It reports whether the Toolset Registry is loaded, which toolsets it found and which tools it can now use.
What the AI can build
ACF’s tools come in six groups:
| Group | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Abilities | Ability and action classes, abilities, ability sets |
| Characters | Character data and character fragments |
| Items | Item classes, item fragments, items |
| Data assets | ACF data assets and the objects inside them |
| Dialogue | Dialogues in the Ascent Dialogue System |
| Quests | Quests in the Ascent Quest System, with their objectives, actions and conditions |
Each tool keeps the name, description and checks ACF gave it. In the chat they appear as tools such as acf_ability_save_ability or aqs_quest_save_quest.
How the AI works with ACF assets
For every kind of asset, the AI follows the same four steps:
- Discover. It lists the ACF classes it can use and reads their properties.
- Read. It reads an existing asset from your project and uses it as the template for the new one.
- Validate. It runs ACF’s own validation on what it built and fixes everything ACF reports.
- Save. It saves through ACF’s own code, which fills in the references between assets. It only overwrites an existing asset when you ask it to.
Because saving goes through ACF, the AI uses ACF’s tools for ACF assets instead of building the same assets with general Blueprint tools.
Dialogue and quests
- Writing dialogue. The AI starts from ACF’s writing brief for the dialogue and checks the text with ACF’s validator.
- Previewing dialogue. ACF’s preview opens a window in the editor. Your dialogue graph only changes when you click Import in that window, so the AI tells you when to do that.
- Voices. The AI can pick a voice for each participant. Generating the voice lines spends your text-to-speech credits, so it asks you before every run.
- Quests. The AI can list the objective, action and condition classes your project has, and build quests from them.
What you can ask for
- “Make a dash ability like our existing one, with a 2.5 second cooldown.”
- “Create a fire sword item based on the iron sword, with more damage.”
- “Write a short dialogue where the blacksmith offers the player a quest.”
- “Make a quest to collect five wolf pelts and bring them to the hunter.”
- “List the character fragments we can use and show me the properties of the health one.”
Other plugins’ toolsets
The same extension works for any plugin that registers AI tools with Epic’s Toolset Registry, not only ACF. Epic’s own toolsets in UE 5.8 are reachable too, but where Ultimate Engine CoPilot already has its own tools for the same job, such as Niagara, UMG, GAS or PCG, the AI uses those.
Limits
- Unreal Engine 5.8 only. On 5.7 the extension card shows as locked.
- Epic’s Toolset Registry is Experimental in UE 5.8.
- What each tool can do is up to ACF. The AI reads ACF’s tools from the editor while it runs, so when an ACF update changes a tool, the AI uses the new version without an update to Ultimate Engine CoPilot.
- Dialogue changes need your click on Import in ACF’s preview window.
- Runtime behaviour and multiplayer are not covered. The tools build and edit assets in the editor.
Permissions
Reading is free: listing classes, reading assets and validating never ask. Saving follows your Ask Before Edit or Auto Edit setting, the same as every other tool. Generating voices asks every time, the same as deleting assets.
How it works
- No link between the plugins. Ultimate Engine CoPilot reaches the Toolset Registry by reflection only, so it builds and runs the same with or without ACF installed.
- Everywhere at once. ACF’s tools work in the CoPilot’s chat, in external MCP clients like Claude Code and Cursor, and in coding agents. See MCP Integration.
See Extensions for how extensions work.