Bugs

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 12:06 am

(Note: I'm playing WCU, today's release, and my PC is Athlon XP 3200+ 512 megs ram, 6600GT gpu, Win98.)

If you press J at a jump-point and immediately switch to a turret, you end up jumping to hyperspace creek without a paddle.

If you have a load of cargo, say luxury foods, furs, pets and save the game, quit, then restart the game, each of the items is then found under a category (green) by the same name as the item.

Flyint to New Detroit, sometimes it looks like the old NewDet, full of lights; sometimes it looks like a brown ball, no ligths.

B&S OMNI radar appears red in the list of upgrades, even though the Centurion is supposed to take it, and I got the money and the space.

Whenever there are ships around the game starts, stops and stutters. Inbetween stutters the frame rate is nice and smooth, so this is definitely cpu-related. When I'm at a base I get long waits sometimes, when, say, I first click on the upgrades computer screen. If afterwards I leave and come back, it shows the upgrades immediately.

I was in New Detroit and took a mission to deliver pets and furs to Ragnarok. So I loaded extra pets and furs in my cargo, assuming a demand for them. Turns out the planet in Ragnarok was Agricultural. Makes 0 sense.

If I'm pressing afterburner going North and then press Auto to a jump point East, the ship is still moving North inertially, after auto-ing. Makes 0 sense.

I was at the pirate base in Pentonville, and the Info screen didn't show any factions; only a number 1 followed by empty space.

This milita was following me around shooting at me through 3 systems but he looked blue on my radar.

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 3:13 am

thanks for the bug report!!!! Can you check whether you get the "stuttering" with a known-good VS executable?

writing down a recap list so i can edit it as i fix them:

DYN_MISSION FIXED# * python: stdout prints out way too much stuff, possible slowdown, remove printouts for stuff that is known to work

* change "jump pull" so that we do not collide with buoy (or move buoy. or something. "buoy" is a funny word.)

FIXED# scrambled gladiuses occasionally don't appear?

FIXED# Confed should use stilettos or arrows for interception in base defense

FIXED# SWACS not appearing when called by escort mission (I probably typoed the mesh name)

FIXED? * minimal planets should use the "satellite" landing anim and not have missions that go to them (Check dynamic_mission.py for what to do if export=0, it crashes base screens on planets that don't export anything, bad randrange)

FIXED# * cargo faction shows up in infoscreen

* FIX AUTOGEN REALLY

* add units.csv column specifying if and how much to refuel ships that dock with this unit (0~all)

#NEED IMAGE EDITOR * some backgrounds way too gaudy, impede visibility so tone down

* "dock with me" order for cargo fighters!

* clean up my room

* comm noise/blurb for "request docking" it should say something on affirmative

#FIXED * check isnotworthy against system owner faction too (prevent pirate SOS messages from appearing in confed bases? or reword them as "i'm willing to turn myself in"? i don't like leaving people to drift in space)

* other ships cause intermittent slowdowns (investigate: trac beam, escort fighters, missing AI table)

* jumping in a turret causes messiness (known VS bug), force transfer to main unit before jumping.

* planet lights sometimes do not appear

* cargo icategory issue??? unclear, can't replicate

* centurion template needs radar fix

* cargo sometimes still does not make sense when randomized (not sure if this CAN be fixed... especially on planet, some expect randomness. food to an agri base? why not, maybe they don't have that variety there.)

* pirate info screen broken (investigate faction relations)

* auto should adjust accel to heading when functioning

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 5:22 am

Looks good!

EDIT:
With the "known_good" executable, I just tried, it's even worse: Coming out of Joplin there's a militia on my butt again, and now the game runs for like 0.2 seconds then remains frozen for a full second, runs again for 0.2 seconds, and so on...

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 5:51 am

Thanks! I was afraif I messed something up in the exe... I have half a idea as to what it is now. I think I'm writing too much stuff on stdout.txt and stderr.txt

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 10:50 am

Update: Those stutters were due to problems with my soundcard. If I rund the game with No Sounds setting, it runs fine.

One more little game bug. Make that two... three!

1) Second mission for Tayla, she tells me to run brilliance to NewCons. But now there are garrisons around NewCons, so there were probably 100 or 200 ships coming at me. I barely made it afterburning and steering in circles.

1) After fixing the ship, I checke my stats, and Confed are at -59. What chance is there I'll *ever* be able to change so many hard feelings?

So much over a run of brilliance?

Add to that the fact that now militias and confeds follow you around across jump points, and we have a recipi for unplayability. Because it used to be that I could just take some missions against kilrathis and repair my relations with confeds, or kill some pirates and make the militias happy; but now I can't even go fight the kilrathi in peace, without militias or confeds following me around. It's hopeless.

3) Add to that the fact that the faction of ships is no longer shown in the HUD (I can't fathom why

), so now I can't take a mission against pirates or retros and be able to tell them from militias or confed scrambles...

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 11:40 am

The "factions no longer show" was decided by hellcatv in 1.2 and as such I don't feel I am authorized to fix it... I think it's a way to make you use the C key.

As for the "being stalked by police", I can see how that is an issue. Tayla's mission needs to be edited to make it so the garrisons temporarily have inert AI (maybe that's where the bribes went).

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 12:00 pm

That's why I'm opposed to "quick and dirty" solutions for anything...
I can see where Hellcat's coming from, but you have no time to use C in battle. As soon as you get into the situation where militias don't like you, the missing faction just makes the game unplayable. There's just no way to restore a good relationship with the militias, where their following you around is almost forcing you to fight them, when no matter how much I press 1 it seems to make no difference, and where, if you want to kill retros and pirates instead of militias, you can't do it because you can't tell them apart.
Anyways, I can't play this anymore. Maybe if I find where to hack the save file and make confeds friends again, I'll go on testing.

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 12:39 pm

Maybe use a different HUD image for each... (I think that the Talon actually already does this for the militia/pirate/retro variants).

I can put the factions back in, but I want to make sure that this is easy to toggle.

Moonsword · Post by **Moonsword** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 2:28 pm

Uhm, Chuck, there's a problem with your logic there: '1' on the comms in WCU either doesn't calm them down or it really shouldn't.

The soothing, conciliatory message should be on '3' like it was in Priv. And I've managed to calm them down with it.... eventually.

There's something in there that seems to specifically trigger increased militia patrols, though. I managed to talk a couple of them down but there was a "Shadow" flight group triggered. That one was completely hostile, no matter what I did.

smbarbour · Post by **smbarbour** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 5:19 pm

"Shadow" flightgroups are mission spawned and will always be hostile.

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 9:23 pm

"Shadow" is indeed a placeholder name for mission enemies.

In WCU as i Priv 1 and 2 are random chatter, 3 is compliment / plead for mercy, and 4 is insult.

About showing factions... I guess that "faction" is transponder based, so I'll see to set it up so the faction shows if you're friendly with them.

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 10:42 am

Thanks to everyone for the clarification about the comm numbers.

Spirit, if faction id is transponder-based, but transponders can be rigged,
a) There should be a way for the player, at some point, to get a hacker to rig the transponder, or to buy a rigged transponder at a pirate base, or somewhere.
b) Only some of the enemies should have them
c) Authorities (confed/militia) would definitely NOT use them
d) Perhaps there should be various 'qualities' of transponder riggings:
d1.- blocks id to enemies
d2.- fudges id to "neutral" in the presence of enemies
d3.- fudges id to a faction friendly to most ships around

Just brainstorming...

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 11:42 am

d3 stands a big chance of unbalancing the game... this said, it's worth looking into. I do know that FF missiles supposedly work from transponder codes (if a ship isn't emitting a friendly one, it's a valid target).

Moonsword · Post by **Moonsword** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 1:56 pm

Okay, you wanted bugs, I'll get you some bugs.

a) First, this is a fairly annoying balance issue, and one that crops in the Remake as well. Missiles are underpowered, and I believe that the tachyon cannons are as well. A Talon in the source is going to die after four missile hits. I've seen them take five or six and still require a strafing run to be taken out. Most of the time in Priv, a Talon, at least for me, died after a single pair of Imrecs. This fact is sometimes the only way to win certain missions, at least for me.

I don't have anything quite that egregrious with the balance of shields vs. guns, but I think we might be able to rebalance that a little bit.

Also, a hint: to make them balanced, divide WC3/4 statistics by ten or multiply the others by ten. It'll at least get them in the same ballpark and the differences can be written off at that point as the ruthless advance of technology in wartime.

I can try to produce a rebalanced weapons.xml with valuse consistent with the games (the laser's had the same damage, with those adjustments, for the entire series!).

b) Moving away from game balance, which is a matter of changing some numbers, I do have some program issues to report. Asteroids are a severe pain in the backside for several reasons. First, they are fast and seem aggressive at times. And yes, I know to adjust the things. I have, in Pentonville.

Beyond that, they put a severe strain on my system. Another issue with them is that after I encounter 'roids in a session (executable running continuously, not flight between bases), when I autonav the little animation is slowed down to a crawl... by a one-legged dog, sometimes. Other than the speed, there's nothing wrong, graphically, so I can't point to anything and say, "There, that's what I'm talking about!"

c) The Shadow flight groups from Tayla's missions are annoying as hell, but I've noted that before. You might want to decrease their size, though, even if you do keep them, since unless Confed or the militia has an extremely solid lead, you're going to be dealing with a standard patrol, which is one or two birds.

They should also be pulled after the mission is over. Otherwise, they're still hanging around wherever you ditched them (unless you blew them away, of course, which I don't, personally) until you close the program, even if your relations with Confed and the militia are back in the green.

d) This one is transparent to both the Remake and WCU. In the campaign, your alignment is constantly jerked back and forth. I can understand why, but when I've just spent a few hours working my alignment with both the pirates and Confed/InSys into the green, I don't want to have my alignment jerked out of my grasp. I'm not sure anything can be done about it, though.

e) I haven't noticed any reliable indicator about who is who when dealing with "special" ships, such as Kroiz or Miggs. It would be nice to be able to ID them and blow them away immediately.

f) In Kroiz's case, I'd like to do this so I can kill him without having to kill his friends. That way I don't get the whole hunter faction on my but for wasting two of them in self-defense! These people were backing up a gun-runner for the most wanted crime boss in the sector! At the very least, they themselves are guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, if not armed assault or cold-blooded murder.

If it sounds like I'm condemning the whole of Priv Remake/WCU, I'm not, just a few specific elements. I just want to bring some things into line with the other games, that's all

. I love most of the additions.

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 2:23 pm

I'm not going to touch the campaign (this way someone else can, wink wink nudge nudge) but thanks for the report. I really need to fix the asteroids

Moonsword · Post by **Moonsword** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 4:08 pm

I don't even know where in the directory tree the campaign is or how to work with it, unfortunately.

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 4:45 pm

The campaign is in (wcudir)/modules and it's written in Phyton, which is fairly readable as languages go and very quick to learn -- the only quirk it has is that indentation is signficant, as in, it decides where an IF block ends or similar.

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