Fixing SMACX Bugs

[scient]

@Blackcat: Ok, noted.

However, I thought it's a bit odd that the scrambling unit ("Tachyon Tactical" of the Drones) starts its flight from the north pole when it's displayed. Also, the message displayed reads "... near Iota Sector", but Iota Sector is on the other side of the planet. The Tachyon Tactical actually sits in "Echo Bay", a Caretaker base a few tiles to the SE.

It seems that the position of the scrambling unit isn't set properly. I don't know whether you regard it as a problem - the crash *is* fixed, so I'll rather be grateful for the fix than nitpicking about details. However, if you *do* want to fix the location of the scrambling unit too, then I'll gladly run some further tests.

Fixed. It will be in next update.

The first fix I did correctly set the values causing the crash however in the process it reset some others. That's why it scrambles from top center of map ~(0,0) but doesn't crash. I've refined method by setting only the values I need myself rather than using an existing function causing reset. The values causing the crash are x,y coord of scrambling unit. In vanilla game, certain globals that should have been these x,y coord were never set defaulting to value of -3. So when another section of the code retrieved these globals and tried to use them to locate tile data from MapData (see txt by Andux) since they're negative it would try to locate values above MapData memory. So depending on how the map data was loaded into memory determined if the game was going to crash or not. If there was "dead" buffer space above MapData, it would just obtain incorrect values to use in checks (byte 1 in MapData Struct). However, if there was nothing above MapData it would try to access invalid memory and crash.

Figuring this out will be useful to track down issues like that incorrect artillery bonus since I have a better idea about how tiles are set.


From BlackCat's saved game:

[Darsnan]

Here is a PBEM turn for the Probe bug whereby the person commencing the Probe action is then presented with the options that should be reserved for the player being probed.
No passwords are set in this, so just press enter at the password prompt and probe away!

Also, question: wasn't there a bug with the "Free imprisoned Leader" probe action?

[scient]

Here is a PBEM turn for the Probe bug whereby the person commencing the Probe action is then presented with the options that should be reserved for the player being probed.
No passwords are set in this, so just press enter at the password prompt and probe away!

Also, question: wasn't there a bug with the "Free imprisoned Leader" probe action?

Cheers will have a look. As for "Free Imprisoned Leader" not sure. I think Petek mentioned one that faction could reset like you had been set free but I don't think that pertained to dialog itself. If there is one, I'll look over that section of code.

edit: Is there ever an instance where faction does something and when other faction loads up game for next turn they are given a prompt? Say player 1 does something to player 2 that is worthy to declare war, the next turn would player 2 get a prompt? I can see there are messages like "so and so reloaded game" and "faction has accepted diplomatic solution" but is there ever one where faction 2 gets a choice rather than informative popups?

[BlackCat]

There is this situation where all your bases dissapears and you are left with a couple of colony pods and a scout ("start game" package). I can remember that I asked about this a couple of years ago and FiL was blamed for it. Problem is that if I recall right I hadn't caught any of the other faction leaders - hadn't even left my island yet.

[scient]

Erg, site is being really slow.

Well, my guess for that bug is maybe AI is triggering freeing your faction and thus you get reset. I doubt it's an issue with FiL code directly rather something that triggers it. So I'd need a saved game demonstrating it.

[Petek]

Erg, site is being really slow.

Well, my guess for that bug is maybe AI is triggering freeing your faction and thus you get reset. I doubt it's an issue with FiL code directly rather something that triggers it. So I'd need a saved game demonstrating it.

Unfortunately, I can't recall ever seeing a save file with this specific problem.

Petek

[Psyringe]

Thanks for refining the fix for the scrambling bug.

Regarding the "free another faction leader" mission, I recall a game where an AI freed two faction leaders from another AI. Both times, a message popped up reading "You have freed ...". The game didn't seem to check whether the freeing was done by me or by someone else. I'm not sure how it *should* behave - should (1) the message simply be suppressed if it's not me who's doing the freeing, or should (2) the message just read "Faction X has freed the leader of faction Y" in this case, or should (3) this depend on whether or not you have an infiltrator at one of the factions? I'd suggest handling this message in the same way that "faction eradicated" messages get handled.

I don't have a save unfortunately. How does it work in PBEM, which kind of message do you get when another leader is freeing a third leader?

[Darsnan]

Unfortunately, I can't recall ever seeing a save file with this specific problem.

Petek

I'll generate a scenario we can playtest against. Should be ready later this evening (about 15 hours from now).


D

[vyeh]

Following up on negative resources, in the attached image the game correctly displays a negative energy as a single energy with a null sign.

This was generated by modifying the following line in alphax.txt:

#TERRAIN
...
Forest, None, Sea Forest, None, 4, Plant $STR0, F, Shift+F

And then constructing a sea forest. Note that there is no icon to indicate the sea forest, so the square looks just like an unimproved sea square.

So if you can figure out why the game correctly indicates a negative resource in this case with a null sign on top of a newicon indicating one energy, then maybe you can get the game to indicate negative 2 nutrients as a null sign over a newicon indicating 2 nutrients.

For more information, look at this post.

[scient]

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of updating newicons.pcx to include icons for negative values. I've got location where it loads the pcx and parses the various sections in. There are only 6 areas loaded so that means a few in there aren't even used. It would be a matter of shifting over the offsets for anything to right of nutrient/min/energy icons and then increasing the loop for icons to include amount of neg values to be added. This bit is easy to do. I also know where the icons are loaded from memory it would just be a matter of figuring out how to give it the correct offsets.

They have to be contained in 40x40 box like the others. I think leaving "0" blank is ok and having something like "-1", "-2", "-3", "4-"? How low would these negative values conceivably go? If someone cared to make a sample version of modified pcx, I'll work on it some more.


On another note, regarding artillery bonus and sea squares. There are three different levels for oceans (trench, ocean, shelf) correct? I should be able to exclude it for sea squares by checking that level flag.

[vyeh]

You'd have to ask Darsnan about how low it would go. He has tried -2 nutrients in the past, so I think -1, -2 and -2+ might be enough.

I don't do pcx, but I think the best way would be to take the standard icons and surround them with red borders (just like the 2 resource is surrounded by a black border when there is still a resource limitation).

[Russia4Life]

Quite Impressed

Caught wind of this thread from a friend of mine, very impressed with the work you are doing. I have spent the past 45 minutes reading the whole thread.

I was wondering if any of your patched files are available for public download anywhere, or are they only available from you for testing purposes?

Thanks,
Dan

[vyeh]

I'll answer for scient.

There has been a problem with posting the patched files on this forum. The files scient uses do not have safedisc (copy protection). An Apolyton official feels that this would create liability for Apolyton.

So for now, they are being distributed by PM by scient for testing purposes. Obviously, this is a burden to the key individual in this project.

[Russia4Life]

Yeah, I got that much from reading the thread. There are file hosting sites that (s)he may have utilized. I do not want to name any as I am sure it would be against the forum rules.

From your reply though I am guessing it is not hosted by any site at the moment. Oh well, I've played this game for years with the bugs I am sure I can wait a bit longer for a version of his patch to be released.

[Darsnan]

Another possible bug, as noted in post 404 in this thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=136557&page=14

The Interceptor scrambled to defend. Since this unit has Psi armor the combat should be Psi based. However only the attacker was restricted to Psi combat, as the Interceptor still got to employ its 12r weapon.