Mass Driver ships losing weapon power against George

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defaultuser
Juggernaut
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Mass Driver ships losing weapon power against George

#1 Post by defaultuser »

Still playing 0.4.6 stable.

I was attacking an AI playing George. As ships would approach the homeworld, they were losing damage capability. They were equipped with Mass Drivers. At the homeworld ships continued to lose levels until some went to 0. Once the troop ships arrived and the planet was taken, the ships recovered the turn after. Rather similar to Experiment Zero effects.

I didn't remember anything like that regarding George.

Morlic
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Re: Mass Driver ships losing weapon power against George

#2 Post by Morlic »

Seems like the effect of the Head on the Spike special. It comes into play once you conquer an enemy homeworld.

IIRC, the initial intention was to reduce the maximum damage per weapon by 1. Instead, since the weapon rework it would now reduce the current damage by 1 per turn.

This PR should fix it.
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Vezzra
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Re: Mass Driver ships losing weapon power against George

#3 Post by Vezzra »

Crap, that's a quite serious bug in a release. We should really do a 0.4.6.1 bugfix release, but I don't know how to find time for that... :(

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MatGB
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Re: Mass Driver ships losing weapon power against George

#4 Post by MatGB »

Vezzra wrote:Crap, that's a quite serious bug in a release. We should really do a 0.4.6.1 bugfix release, but I don't know how to find time for that... :(
I agree here, this really should have been noticed and it's quite a bad one, I don't think I'd ever noticed it.

If we do do a bugfix, is there anything else that'd need to go in? Alternatively could we bring forward the next release given Fighters are done and play relatively well?

@defaultuser: very good catch, had missed this completely and the entirety of that special should have been rewritten when the refinement system went in, I hope there aren't other effects still using code referring to the old weapon system, will have to check.
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Vezzra
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Re: Mass Driver ships losing weapon power against George

#5 Post by Vezzra »

MatGB wrote:If we do do a bugfix, is there anything else that'd need to go in?
Definitely, there has been at least one other thing I considered serious enough to warrant a bugfix release, although IIRC it's not been quite as serious as this one. Don't have the time and nerve to go searching for it now.

But once I go ahead and prepare a bugfix release, I'll of course have to review all the fixes that went into master after the 0.4.6 release branch has been created and decide which ones to cherry pick into the release branch. I will restrict that to critical and/or very simple and straightforward fixes though. I definitely do not want to have several rounds of release candidates for a bugfix release.
Alternatively could we bring forward the next release given Fighters are done and play relatively well?
As that is a totally new and fresh feature which I still consider rough around the corners, I don't want to rush that release just because we need a bugfix release for 0.4.6. Getting it out until February won't be easy, we should take at least that much time to polish this thing.

defaultuser
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Re: Mass Driver ships losing weapon power against George

#6 Post by defaultuser »

I guess I didn't mention the important part, which you guys picked up. I had already conquered that world in a quick strike - then lost it back. This was a second attack wave. So the special was applying to those attackers.

I don't usually have cases where I am attacking a homeworld with the Head on a Spike special. You'd either need to have one where an AI took another, or one like I had where it's back and forth invasions.

Interesting.

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MatGB
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Re: Mass Driver ships losing weapon power against George

#7 Post by MatGB »

Exactly, Head On A Spike is something you don't see that often as a player unless the AI is actually doing well: it's been known to happen but there are a few glitches in invasion planning that the team are aware of (and are beyond me).

Having finally managed to work out how to Grep, the only other use of that sort of outdated code is freeorion/SH_EXP_OUTPOST_HULL.focs.txt at master · freeorion/freeorion, and Experiment Zero needs updating anyway, it only applies after you've been there for a round, my experience is it dies in the first round and never goes off.

I'll try to open an Issue later, think it should be toned down a bit but[/] made to apply to ships up to a jump away, so you get hit before you launch the attack (with a high priority number so it applies after, for example, the Starlane Bore).
Mat Bowles

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