Author Topic: Bug in attacking asteroid (Read 15879 times)

glubbar · « **on:** January 24, 2009, 07:13:14 AM »

Hello there,

I was trying Metarinka's maps, and came accross this bug.
I've managed to capture all asteroids but one, and for like 10 minutes, hundreds of dysons were turning around without entering the asteroid at all. In the end I had to end the game, there was no other way.
See attachment for proof.

Also, I noticed smaller asteroids are way harder to capture than bigger ones because dysons turn around their target without hitting a lot. This happens very often and it's frustrating to being able to call back attacking dysons to another asteroids. When they're attacking, there's no way but to wait for them to capture, or die...

Hope to see this improved in future version!
Great game btw!

crazeh.monkeh · « **Reply #1 on:** January 25, 2009, 03:28:29 AM »

I think I figured out that bug...

What level was it on? because in one of them he had the asteroid set to static, and for whatever reason that causes a glitch at this point in time.
Alex said he was trying to figure out why it does that, but I'm not sure if he has gotten anywhere with it.

If you really want to fix it, go in the source code for the level and go down to the bottom where he declares the asteroids. If one of them is set to 'static=true' change it to false. If I am thinking about the right level that should fix it. If that isn't the problem let me know which level it is on. I will go in and try to figure it out.

glubbar · « **Reply #2 on:** January 25, 2009, 08:31:50 AM »

The level where this bug occurred was the first level in Metarinka's map pack.

As for the other bug, where dysons have trouble attacking very small asteroids (only troubles, they do attack but have difficulties in finding the entrance or attacking the trees), it mostly occured on the last level of the original levels in Dyson.
But this one bug does happen on every map with small asteroids.

Not sure about the fix you're talking about, but I'll give it a try.
Edit: after checking, that one level had static="false".

crazeh.monkeh · « **Reply #3 on:** January 25, 2009, 09:24:24 AM »

yeah, the one that I found wasn't the one with attacking the small asteroids. that's not really a bug, but if you go into the level script there is a variable that you can stick in to change their hover distance. I can't remember what it is at the moment, though...

It should be something like

Code: [Select]

<dir name="HOVERDISTANCE" type="int" value="5" />
Maybe Alex will pop in and correct me on that...
Anyway, if you decrease it they stay closer to the planet, increasing it keeps them farther away.

Alternatively you can change

Code: [Select]

<dir name="ATTACKAGENTDISTANCE" type="int" value="80" /> to have a higher value to increase the range of the attack. That would be my last resort, though. I will try to figure out the Hover distance variable for you.

I will also play through his first level again.

Alex · « **Reply #4 on:** January 25, 2009, 03:10:57 PM »

That first one might be "MinimumDesiredAltitude", try reducing that (or adding it to the level in the agents dir if it's not there - just copy out the agents section from default.xml and paste it into the level xml). Also try increasing the agent turn rate. We'll look into a code fix for that, cheers guys. Alternatively raise the minimum asteroid size.

I think (once again) I've fixed the statics bug, but we'll see. Haven't had a chance to test it yet. It's been crazy busy guys, sorry about the lack of replies.

crazeh.monkeh · « **Reply #5 on:** January 25, 2009, 11:38:50 PM »

oh cool. I have had a good level idea waiting for that static fix... can't wait!

lol. I didn't even think of changing the asteroid size. Duh.

glubbar · « **Reply #6 on:** January 25, 2009, 11:53:46 PM »

Thanks for the heads up Alex!

I will try this tip if I get these problems again.

mabrev · « **Reply #7 on:** February 12, 2009, 11:52:46 PM »

Hi,

I got a bug that had the same result (a never ending attack...)

In the level 4 of dyson 1.10 the root of an ennemy tree always followed the wrong way ...
(see attachement)

cornerghoul · « **Reply #8 on:** February 22, 2009, 12:38:09 AM »

Same thing happened here - the little "spark" animation never made it to the core so no shoot grew but the game still registered 1/3 trees
I think it happened to me on level 6

crazeh.monkeh · « **Reply #9 on:** February 22, 2009, 04:20:14 AM »

Well from looking at Mabrev's screen capture, I can pretty safely say that it is NOT a problem with the asteroid being set to static... That being said I have no idea what it is.

Alex · « **Reply #10 on:** February 22, 2009, 06:22:36 AM »

I've rewritten this code now - all these awful problems ought to disappear. Here's a screenshot

Lord storm · « **Reply #11 on:** February 23, 2009, 06:50:40 AM »

Hi Alex

Do I need to donwload and re instal the game?? Or can you do a 1.11 versions => we will have just to clic on "the download new version".

Cheers

Lord Storm

Alex · « **Reply #12 on:** February 23, 2009, 04:14:22 PM »

I don't think I'm clever enough to do an auto-updater from the game itself. I can provide patches, but it may get complicated quite quickly and I've got a lot on my plate as it is. It shouldn't be too hard to provide a version without the music tracks (the bulk of the download), so that would probably work as they don't change too often.

wogan · « **Reply #13 on:** February 27, 2009, 01:14:42 AM »

If the updates are incremental resource files, you can have a WebRequest fetch them and dump them as files. It'd get tricky if you need to replace an entire file (main exe, for instance), especially if you're running it at the time of the update. What would be entirely possible is a seperate updater program, that simply checks the contents of a designated FTP resource, and if any new/updated files are found, downloads them.

Since the main dyson executable won't be active, and the updater itself shouldn't need any updating, it should be a relatively simple download-and-overwrite operation.

Stromfresser · « **Reply #14 on:** March 01, 2009, 01:12:43 PM »

back to topic...^^
I read through the whole thread but I couldn't figure out of if this is the same bug that appeared to me:
On the last asteroid to conquer, all the Dysons tried to shoot an non-existent invisible tree

Resulting in an asteroid impossible to conquer...
It was in lvl5, the roid on the very top of the map.

wogan · « **Reply #15 on:** March 02, 2009, 10:32:40 AM »

Ah, yes, the nonexistent invisible tree. I've had that one happen to me too. I guess the code for killing trees needs a look at

Alex · « **Reply #16 on:** March 02, 2009, 05:57:06 PM »

Invisible/indestructible trees are due to the fact that they're invincible when growing their root. The problem was that we needed a root that joined to the core for the seedlings to travel down to the core, so the tree couldn't realistically be destroyed until the root had reached the core. Sadly the root navigator code would sometimes fail and the tree would never start growing. All fixed now

Rudolf · « **Reply #17 on:** March 03, 2009, 04:13:24 AM »

Quote from: Wogan May on February 27, 2009, 01:14:42 AM

it should be a relatively simple download-and-overwrite operation.

In all my years as a professional game developer I have learned a few things. One nugget amongst them is that these things are never simple and almost never without serious risks. I myself have had my harddisk wiped (yes deleted from the root level) by one of these that was coded just a bit too nonchalantly. ;-)
(Not that Alex would ever code anything like that I hasten to add) ;-)

Alex · « **Reply #18 on:** March 03, 2009, 07:26:16 AM »

Depends how much you piss me off man!!! We all have our limits!!!!!

Rudolf · « **Reply #19 on:** March 03, 2009, 03:50:13 PM »

Quote from: Alex on March 03, 2009, 07:26:16 AM

Depends how much you piss me off man!!! We all have our limits!!!!!

Just do the work man, we need a skate boarding turtle in the game and that is final.

Alex · « **Reply #20 on:** March 03, 2009, 03:55:08 PM »

I could set the building on fire...

Rudolf · « **Reply #21 on:** March 04, 2009, 03:07:03 AM »

yeah... yeah... Before you do that I need you ... eh.. go ahead and come in over the whole weekend.... mkay?

ab aeterno · « **Reply #22 on:** March 04, 2009, 10:13:28 AM »

so you guys have some issues...

crazeh.monkeh · « **Reply #23 on:** March 05, 2009, 07:14:10 AM »

Oh gosh... I love you guys. Lol.

wogan · « **Reply #24 on:** March 06, 2009, 02:46:19 AM »

Quote from: Rudolf on March 03, 2009, 04:13:24 AM

One nugget amongst them is that these things are never simple and almost never without serious risks.

Obviously there are risks, that goes without saying. But the code for that would be simple, just as rm -r would free up all possible space on your harddrive.

IChrisI · « **Reply #25 on:** March 09, 2009, 03:59:50 AM »

Quote from: Alex on February 22, 2009, 06:22:36 AM

I've rewritten this code now - all these awful problems ought to disappear.

Ooh, root systems look prettier now. I like how they joined up before, but the smoothness looks nice.

Author Topic: Bug in attacking asteroid (Read 15879 times)

mabrev

cornerghoul

Lord storm

wogan

Stromfresser

wogan

ab aeterno

wogan

IChrisI