Any more bug reports?

capnq · #1 October 10th, 2001, 05:01 PM

Dragonlord's comments made me review my test map more closely. He's right, putting multiple start points in one system doesn't work. I thought it had because I only looked at my own starting system, and not the AIs'. (And had misremembered which worlds I'd marked in my start system, too) Not only doesn't it work, but the multiple start points will override the "Can't start in same system" setting in the Set-Up screen, as well.

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Cap'n Q
My first mod! Hypermaze quadrant
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

Puke · #2 October 10th, 2001, 06:06 PM

to add on to AKs comments, this is a problem. not only what he said, but if two empires design a ship with the same name, it will (sometimes) show up on both their design lists. in multiplayer games, this is stopped because it will not let you use a name if someone else has it, but if you both design it on the same turn then it will cause the problem.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

Dragonlord · #3 October 11th, 2001, 03:03 AM

It seems almost impossible to stop this thread from degrading into a wishlist...but where better to post this?

Wish: auto-rename ships after a retrofit.
Example: Lets say I have a fleet with 20 warships of class "Challenger". I get new tech and upgrade the design to "Challenger II" , then retrofit all ships. Now I have to go and manually rename every ship from "Challenger 0001" to "Challenger II 0001" etc. Very mind numbing..
Solution: retrofitted ships should get a name from the class it has been retrofitted to, the sequential identifier (000x) can be the next available one in the list for the new class.

[This message has been edited by Dragonlord (edited 11 October 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Dragonlord (edited 11 October 2001).]

Puke · #4 October 11th, 2001, 09:44 AM

yeah, but what if you named your ship "Bob's Bucket of Bolts" even though it belonged to the "scrub" class, and it had a +50 crew, and the computer goes and renames it to "mrship003" after you retrofit it to the mrship class. the whole legend of the B3 will die out! who will remember them? who will make the movies? and what would you do about the crew with the broken hearts? sure they would still have the +50, but they would be crying on the inside.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

Deathstalker · #5 October 11th, 2001, 11:27 AM

Quote:

" 3.) Multiplayer
In a multiplayer battle the topmost player of the player list will always move and fire first in a battle. To be added Last to a game (and therefore be at the bottom of the list) is a huge disadvantage in a multiplayer warp point battle.
Solution: A solution would be to make the defenders (i.e. all ships already present in the sector) always move and fire first. If more then one �defender� is present, let the first �mover� be chosen randomly."

IMO this it the BIGGEST of the 'bugs', bigger than the 'intell bug'...We need an system of 'who goes first' based on ship speed/size/experience/and a random factor..Even the makers of Moo2 had to put out a patch with this type of system, otherwise, all things being 'equal' the topmost player will ALWAYS outfight you in multiplayer. Hence no real point in even playing!

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"We are all...the sum of our scars"....(paraphrased) Matt. R. Stover-'Blade of Tyshalle'.

"Human existance is all imagination...Reality is no more than a simple agreement among its participants that this is where we shall meet, and these are the rules that we shall abide by."- Kevin McCarthy/David Silva "The Family:Special Effects"..

Rollo · #6 October 11th, 2001, 11:41 AM

Yes, I agree. This is the biggest bug. Just make who goes first completely random. 50/50 chance. That would be the easiest (I am no programmer, but I assume this could be done in minutes), and also it would give the "weaker" player a fair chance of at least doing some damage. Has this been mailed to Aaron, yet? Perhaps this could still be part of the new patch (I wouldn't even mind waiting a little bit longer, if that means that it'll be included).

Rollo

geoschmo · #7 October 12th, 2001, 01:40 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Deathstalker:
IMO this it the BIGGEST of the 'bugs', bigger than the 'intell bug'...We need an system of 'who goes first' based on ship speed/size/experience/and a random factor..Even the makers of Moo2 had to put out a patch with this type of system, otherwise, all things being 'equal' the topmost player will ALWAYS outfight you in multiplayer. Hence no real point in even playing!

Well, first of all, the intel bug is fixed. So it's not a matter of having to choose which one to work one, becuase it's already fixed in the next patch.

Second, I totally agree with you that this is a problem. I have sent an email to Aaron about it. I know at least one other person has, possibly more. I have not heard anything, but hopefully this is something he can work into this patch.

However I think you are exagerating the impact of this bug. IMHO the intel bug was way more destabalizing. This is based on a whole lot of multiplayer games that I have played in. I have seen plenty of higher number plyers win these games. It's not always player one coming out on top. On the other hand the Intel bug has destroyed many, many games.

This problem really only affects warp point battles. And if you are aware of it, you simply avoid those kinds of battles unless you have an overwhelming force advantage. The intel bug is impossible to avoid. There is no work around except for disallowing intell.

The real problem with this "bug" isn't that the weaker player has no chance. The weaker player isn't supposed to have a chance in a battle. Where this bug is really nasty is when two forces of roughly equal strength meet. In a battle like that you would expect both sides to take heavy losses. But with this bug, the victor can come out basically unharmed, and the loser will be obliterated. This is wrong.

The key to you statement is "all things being equal". True. All things being equal, the higher number player will get pasted in a warp pont battle by the lower number player. The idea is to not allow yourself into a situation where all things are equal.

To borrow a phrase getting a lot of play recently. It's called "asymetric warfare". Applying your strength to your opponents weaknesses.

Geoschmo