Alpha Test Game 4

Since you're the only one who seems to have it working at the moment, Quail: you sure you're not looking at a cached copy, or something? Just wondering.

Either that, or something weird on the server that is allowing you access, but not to the rest of us.
 
Haha... sorry guys... I haven't even *tried* to get it working. I bet it won't be hard. Honestly, I got busy with a different project and I forgot to fix this. I'll try to get on it 'soon'. (This isn't the only game I'm half-coding right now, *and* I just started designing a real-life board game. To see my other programming project, visit http://www.redemptionmud.com. No site yet for the board game, as right now it is in the cut-out-pieces testing phase with friends)

edit: wow, I first posted that this was an unknown bug 2 months ago. I *have* been slacking!
 
Well, it's certainly good to have you back! ;)

I'm also curious about that board game... Hope you'll put up a website soon, or at least share some more infos with us (about the setting, goals or genre). :)
 
started some preliminary exploration of the issue. I was surprised to find hundreds of explosion objects in the database; it looks like when it hangs, it is trying to create more of them!

The program is hanging on the orders of the Quail 4 (Ferret) ship object. Maybe it has already blown up and my code doesn't know how to handle it (which would be odd). That's just a first cut shot in the dark. As I explore it line-by-line, we'll get a better sense of the issue. Clearly there's an infinite loop *somewhere*.

edit: nope; didn't have to do with that ship's orders, we got past the order loop. Next guess: has to do with missiles!
 
Okay, after a fair bit of debugging, I now know the issue is in the heat-seeking missile chase routine (a missile only uses their chase routine if their target has taken evasive action). Not sure yet why the heat-seeking missile one is hanging....


Okay found the bug! I had a pair of nested loops, but they were *both* using the same index (i) and one was incrementing, one was decrementing... renamed the inner loop to 'j' and the problem is solved! That said, this entire issue came up because we have a heat seeking missile trying to follow someone who is going more or less opposite to it, so the bearing and range is way outside the missile's range to follow that target for the current turn and next turn...

I am happy to announce, the GAME IS BACK ON.

edit: Sadly, we just missed out on a great opportunity for a test of the tailing system. Quail 4 succeeded, but because Sierra 2 took evasive action, we're not seeing Quail 4 in orange (instead of red) nor are we getting to test the rest of that system :(. I'll be curious to hear if Quailpilot still gets a tailing report anyway.
 
Thanks for fixing the bug - nasty getting caught in a nested loop. That's why I try to use useful names for my variables, but the i/j combination is very common when looping through 2-dimensions and such.
 
Thanks for fixing the bug - nasty getting caught in a nested loop. That's why I try to use useful names for my variables, but the i/j combination is very common when looping through 2-dimensions and such.
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Yeah, but I do enough coding that I'm generally immune to a repeated index. Looking at the context, I think it happened because I copy/pasted existing code from elsewhere, and then stuck that within another loop. At least as soon as I worked my way through the code to that section, the problem became evident immediately.

That said, no thanks necessary! I really should have fixed this a while back!

I did get a tailing report.
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Interesting, and not entirely wrong, although perhaps a bit redundant. Did the tailing report at least make sense? I guess since you perfectly tailed, it probably just repeated what showed up in the field report? Or did it freak out in some weird unpredictable way since the tailing report is reporting on the movement done on a previous turn (due to evasive action)?

I'd love to see it quoted here, since those strings aren't stored, but generated on-the-fly, I can't see what you see.
 
Yay, we're back in business! :D
I noticed there's still a missile hanging out in the bottom left region of the map. Is that the HS missile which caused so much trouble? If yes, why is it still visible?
Also, a roll-over info for missiles would be nice... For now, though, I'm glad the game is working again. ;)
 
Ironduke said:
Yay, we're back in business! :D
I noticed there's still a missile hanging out in the bottom left region of the map. Is that the HS missile which caused so much trouble? If yes, why is it still visible?
Also, a roll-over info for missiles would be nice... For now, though, I'm glad the game is working again. ;)
Click to expand...

Actually no, two missiles were fired last turn. That missile is doing its best to chase Quail 4, but since he left the engagement zone, it just took its max motion in the direction it last saw Quail 4 (aka forward, left 1).

The missile that was a problem chased Sierra 2 right off the map, in the top-right area.

As for missile mouse overs, I can do those pretty easily; in fact I'm probably surpressing them right now or something, since all indicators generally do have some sort of dialogue screen.

In truth though, I popped back in to fix the bug, but I don't really have time to do new features for another 2-3 weeks. After that, I promise to put in some more noticeable time to get things like missile pop-ups going, and perhaps add another missing feature (such as line-of-sight issues, or perhaps finally get to Cap ship weapons).

As always, I'm also still looking for a volunteer who wants to write up some fairly independent code/interface work to be a scenario/mission creator. They wouldn't need to interact with anything I've written thus far code wise, but they would need to become familiar with the database format.
 
Do you guys want me to re-assign the locked up ships so the game can continue? I could give each of you one of them or something...

Meanwhile, I do still intend, at some point this summer, to get some more work done on the project, *and* I may have found someone I work with IRL who could make us the mission editor. (Not that that is something I couldn't do, I just really don't want to for now)
 
Yeah, its been a while now so would be nice to move on with the game.

Sorry I couldn't end up helping, I've still got at least 2 weeks left of my project at work.
 
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