Why on Earth was OP's D2 so neglected? Why hasn't it recieved any major fixes since the day it was released? Sure lends credence to some of the people who say OP was just a money grab by Taldren and that they not only didn't know how to make it work, couldn't make it work after the fact after having slapped it together. Anyway, here's hoping that's all just hogwash and someone can find a way to make sense of it and finally make the game work properly.
This is a list I found in an old archive of OP issues. There are some bugs not present, and some have been fixed, but it's a nice general overview of the overlying problem:
I. OP D2 Map and Mission Bugs
A. Neutral Coop Bug -- Allied players ONLY affect DV on first mission ever run in a given hex. Thereafter no coops affect DV. All coops should affect DV if the same mission would affect DV when flown solo. ----PRIORITY ONE----
B. Empire/Cartel Map Interaction Bugs
1. Players cannot boost DVs with missions if cartel control is "Neutral" or sometimes even if co-owned by an enemy cartel/empire. In fact, if a hex is cartel-neutral, the owning empire (or its allies) will actually HURT their DV by running successful missions under the current implementation. Results are irregular and some scripts act differently, which may show that this is more of a script bug than a bug in the server kit itself -- or maybe not. Some scripts even boost DVs if you self-destruct against the AI, strangely enough. However, the majority do not affect DV correctly. One suggested way to have hex DV effects work would be to totally separate the cartel and empire DVs and effects, so that only empires can affect empire DVs, and only cartels can affect cartel DVs. Coop would be based on drafter. Another solution would be to eliminate the cartel layer altogether and enable the cartels as essentially 8 more empires competing with space on the empire map -- this is an extreme solution. Regardless, one layer of ownership should not have an effect on the DV boosting/lowering of players affecting the opposite layer. As it stands currently, if empire teams wish to expand their territory effectively, they must have the players for allied cartels expand into the same hexes to be able to boost DV and consolidate their holdings. This is difficult to manage and makes progress nearly impossible to monitor due to B-2 below. ----PRIORITY ONE----
2. Cartel DV can not be tracked under the current system. Only the empire DV is ever shown in the hex description, and it further confuses players who do not realize that Defense Value means "Empire Defense Value" and never "Cartel Defense Value," regardless of which mode you using to view the map. If the cartels are to continue operating on their own map layer, then the cartel DV should be shown in the hex description. ----PRIORITY ONE----
3. Mission selection for pirates can be very difficult when using the mandatory missions in enemy space setting. For instance, if a Syndicate player goes to a Syndicate base or planet hex to resupply, but that hex is also owned by ane enemy empire (say the Romulans), then they will often be forced to play mandatory base/planet/shipyard assault missions, in addition to patrols and whatnot. This makes it very difficult for the already-weak pirates to compete because they must occasionally go up against very stiff odds just to get to a resupply point. Also, this effect means they cannot fly freely through their own space on the cartel map if that space is co-owned by an enemy empire. While this is not nearly as big a problem as the 2 above, it does make things difficult for pirate players. Perhaps mandatory mission status should be determined solely by map ownership by empires for empire players and cartels for cartel players. ----PRIORITY THREE----
C. Mission Bugs
1. Scripts report incorrect DV effects to server upon completion. Some of these problems may actually be caused by B-1 above, or perhaps the mission scripts themselves are the source (or partial source) of the problems. Another problem in this category would be the Patrol Bug, where a fleeing player wins the hex because they are smaller than the opposition that did not disengage. Also, hex wins have been observed against the AI in some missions when a player self-destructs before even engaging the AI opposition (particularly the Met5_FleetAction.scr, plus some of the OP-only missions, such as Epicenter). ----PRIORITY ONE----
2. The Convoy Escort mission will draft the closest (empire?) race, either AI or player, as opposition based on nearest player or base/planet of a race different than the drafting player. A similar bug, but most likely unrelated is that sometimes when missions begin, the game incorrectly labels allies as enemies. This bug seems to happen most often when there is a noticeable delay in connecting players to the mission. As a result, allied AIs will begin attacking each other, or allied players can fire at each other. Also, once the enemy is defeated (if the mission manages to run that long), then it will not end, or will only end if only one of the should-be-allied players stays on the map while the rest disengage. If it somehow manages to get to that point (rare, but possible), then inaccurate results are sent to the server due to the messed-up alliance data. ----PRIORITY ONE----
3. Pirates cannot be drafted as allies into several missions, primarily the base/planet/shipyard assault missions -- ones where help is most needed. This draft problem happens regardless of whether or not the drafting ally is an empire or cartel player. ----PRIORITY TWO----
4. Patrol missions crash game if player's ship is destroyed. I've personally run into this problem a lot, on all versions of OP from CD fresh install through each patch. This doesn't happen to everyone, but I've had this happen to me in several patrol variants if I self-destruct at the beginning of a mission, and sometimes even if killed by another player or the AI. This could be one of the phantom bugs that causes hard feelings between players as a result of accusations of "dropping" or using alt-f4 to stop the game and prevent a losing player from losing their current ship(s). ----PRIORITY TWO----
5. Base Assault missions currently spawn bases apparently at random. They should spawn a base that matches the general type that has been assigned to the relevant hex, so that if a player places a BS, their opponents don't get stuck with BATSs or SBs as opponents on occasion. Similarly, Asteroid Base Assault/Defense missions should only appear in hexes that have been tagged as Asteroid Base hexes on the map at creation, or at the very least only in asteroid hexes. ----PRIORITY TWO----
6. Some missions act in strange ways, even though they don't appear to be real bugs, but rather things that might be made better if they worked a different way. For instance, players should not get a mission complete for simply reaching the listening post in the Data Recovery if they don't kill all their enemies. They should have to run for the border for a completion, as they do when they destroy all their enemies. Perhaps when all enemies are destroyed, the mission SHOULD end upon reaching the LP, but that's less of a concern. ----PRIORITY THREE----
7. Assorted "broken" missions should be fixed. Not all of them are actually broken, but may have unbalancing conditions. For instance, the AI warship in Epicenter will not attack unless fired upon, and does not move to aid its freighters. The Engine Anomaly mission has been scrapped by most admins because of damage bugs at completion, plasmas and other energy weapons losing charge while drone racks can fire at any time. The Negotiations mission is nearly impossible to win -- I've never heard of anyone winning it by any means other than destroying the enemy ship before it reaches a certain destination, yet unless you are flying a bigger ship or an X-ship (and usually not even in those cases), you have pretty much no chance to get close enough to the enemy to do enough damage, tractor them, or in any way slow them down. The Recharge mission and Cargo Box patrol missions don't generally have any opposition in the mission. The first is nearly impossible to get to work (few if any players can find a way to get the dock to recharge them and the game to score a win), while the second is way too easy (you get a win regardless of what you do -- you can leave the map immediately, grab parts, just destroy the cargo boxes -- whatever). There are probably other issues I'm not remembering right away. ----PRIORITY THREE----
II. OP D2 Game Bugs
A. Speed Adjustment Bug -- Since the first round of OP patches, Federation and ALL cartel players have been able to adjust their mission speeds in-game on the D2 regardless of whether or not the mission is against the AI or includes allied or enemy players. This bug first appeared when people patched from 2.5.0.1g or h (not certain) to 2.5.0.1i (the final first patch). At the time, only players who patched from a previous patch saw this problem, and only the Federation was reported as able to do so, though the lack of cartel reports may just have been due to low player numbers for pirates. If players patched directly from 2.5.0.0 to 2.5.0.1i, reportedly they could not use this cheat (cannot verify since I never tried repatching directly to 2.5.0.1i). However, now it may be the case than anyone who patches to 2.5.2.5 will find this bug. Again, I can't verify that, but since so many players ONLY patch from their current version up to the latest version, rather than from scratch, this must be eliminated in the next patch. It is causing an extremely high level of frustration for many players, either because they feel like others are exploiting this cheat, or because they have been falsely accused of doing so themselves. One note: all players in a mission will see the current mission speed in their slider, even if they do not have the ability to control it. As players who CAN control the speed change the speed, others who can do so can change it back and forth as well, and the current speed is reflected in everyone's sliders. ----!!!!PRIORITY ONE!!!!!----
B. Host-Only Transport Bug -- Only mission drafter/host can beam items off of other ships, planets, or bases. All players should be able to transport spare parts (the main transport target) regardless of who is hosting and who is drafted. ----PRIORITY TWO----
C. Spare Parts Bug -- Ships are limited to a maximum of 8 spare parts at the supply screen. Since this is reportedly fixed in EAW, it will most likely be ported over to OP, and therefore I rate it just a ----PRIORITY FOUR----
D. Missing Assault Shuttles -- Players have requested access to the assault shuttles. Since this appears to be implemented for the next EAW patch, and should be ported to OP, I'm rating it just a ----PRIORITY FOUR----
E. Starbase Destruction Bug -- Again, this has been addressed for the upcoming EAW patch, and should be ported to OP. ----PRIORITY FOUR----
F. In advanced era all Federation base hexes regradless of type pull SBXs as the defending base. This has been seen espcially in Romulan v Fed engagements. In general defending base assignment is broken, hexes that are taged as 1 particular base type do not pull that base in the mission, often it's more based on BPV matching (note: this could also be a campaign mission bug). ----PRIORITY TWO----
G. Planetary assaults in home worlds of non Federation races not pulling the correct planet from shiplist. It's been verified that assaults on Homeworld hexes in Romulan space recieve the Pl0 planet almost everytime. This could be an error in the server identifing the correct race homeworld or a error in the script in picking the correct planet, it's unknow which so I submit it here. ----PRIORITY TWO----
H. When set to capture mode two issues:
a. the "indicator" on the fleet control panel doesn't stay. It "drifts" to the next selection which is "defend".
b. the wing ships will often continue to fire all weapons at full strength.
So far from testing the ability to correctly control ships is not fully working. Transport of marines seems to be consistent but not wing weapons settings. ---- PRIORITY FOUR ----
III. OP D2 Server or Mission Stability Bugs
A. Multiple Player Instability Bug -- Missions cannot handle more than 2 players in a given mission reliably. 3 players total often results in alliance bugs, disconnections, and other oddities. 4 or more players almost never (and I mean NEVER) last with all participants present and lag-free to the end. More often than not, some of the players will be disconnected at startup so there's very little data to go on with more than 3 players in a mission. This appears not to be any better when players have just one ship each, though it may get even worse with multiple ships per player -- it's hard to tell. ----PRIORITY ONE----
B. Premature Mission End Bug -- Missions often close with "Mission Complete" or "Mission Incomplete" messages right at startup, both in solo missions and multiple-player missions. This most often happens right after a buggy mission for one of the players (especially drafter). ----PRIORITY TWO----
C. Host Left Bug -- Players get "Host Left, New Host ..." messages at the beginning of missions. In these cases, the host/drafter is generally still there, but the game no longer recognizes them as host, and reports 0 prestige results to said host, even though they are able to complete the mission with their drafted allies without further problems. ----PRIORITY TWO----
D. Long Mission Disconnect Bug -- Long missions (say 15-20-30 minutes or more) will result in player(s) being disconnected from server, even if server has not crashed, been taken down, or made unavailable by directory server problems. This can be especially problematic in base and planet assaults, particularly for non-drone races that have to take longer times to run missions. This does not happen all the time in long missions, but it does happen. ----PRIORITY TWO----
E. Server Stability/SQL Support -- Servers cannot handle more than 40 players reliably with the flatfile DB. Since EAW is getting SQL support, which reportedly improves stability of the server/DB at high player counts, OP needs the same improvement. ----PRIORITY ONE----
IV. General OP Game Bugs
A. Plasma-D fire extra rounds into space immediately after their target is destroyed. (Reportedly addressed in EAW.) ----PRIORITY TWO----
B. Cloaked ships can still be targeted and fired at by some seeking weapons. ----PRIORITY ONE----
C. Weapons fire for 0 damage bug -- even when fired as a single weapon, there is still the tendency for weapons to do no damage, this is most evident with plasma, which requires high loading costs, and load times. (I have no knowledge of this subject, but include it because others have noted it. There's also a similar problem where sometimes weapons will fire but retain their full charge and be able to fire another round immediately -- usually energy weapons, never noticed it with drones or ESG.) ----PRIORITY ONE----
D. Defensive Tractor/Point Defense Bug -- When running at high speeds it doesn?t work reliably, although there are times when it doesn?t work right anyway, not firing at some targets at all, or trying to tractor too many items, and shifting between all them in quick succession, leaving them to inch forward until they hit. As to the speed problem, we all know that speed is life, so? (Again I have little knowledge of this, except that I've seen fast drones hit even when PD is on and phasers are available, or defensive tractors are on and available -- may be a lag issue?) ----PRIORITY ONE----
E. Heavy Phaser-B appears to have damage bugs. Reportedly it will not do the extra hull damage through downed shields as advertised, though it may work on ships with no shields at all, perhaps ships that don't have shields in their specs? ----PRIORITY ONE----
F. Broken or missing weapon arcs -- there are reports that either the LWX or RWX (I think the latter) does not work (PRIORITY ONE). Also, it would be very good to have additional arcs that are not currently available. ----PRIORITY FOUR----
G. (FROM CASTRIN) Considering that the weapon is already present, the TRB(H) damage chart is not correct. Currently it does 20 pnts at all ranges, the correct damage chart is as follows:
TRH (in SFC the TRB)
| Die Roll | Rng: 0-3 | 4-5 | 6-8 | 9-12 | 13-18 | 19-25 |
| 1 | 20 | 20 | 18 | 12 | 8 | 3 |
| 2 | 20 | 20 | 15 | 9 | 5 | 2 |
| 3 | 20 | 18 | 12 | 6 | 3 | 1 |
| 4 | 20 | 15 | 9 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| 5 | 18 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| 6 | 15 | 9 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
----PRIORITY FOUR----
I'd also like to see the TRL if possible. I know that this may not be but in the interest of completeness here is the damage table for that as well:
TRL
| Die Roll | Rng: 0-3 | 4-5 | 6-8 | 9-12 | 13-18 | 19-25 |
| 1 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 2 |
| 2 | 10 | 10 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
| 3 | 10 | 9 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| 4 | 10 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| 5 | 9 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 6 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
H. The effective range to a cloaked ship is no longer (TrueRange*2)+5 anymore. Now it's only TrueRange+5.
In previous versions of SFC2, the effective range was being computed correctly (R*2+5) in 2.002 and 2.013.
V. OP D2 Chat/Player List Bugs
A. Players now get numbers after their names if they surpass a character limit (10?) or other reasons. As a result, they cannot be whispered to. ----PRIORITY THREE----
B. Because of the 10-channel limitation, cartels are not able to use their own private channels, even though the server kit supports them. It would be nice to have cartel channels and even customizable alliance channels, if possible. ----PRIORITY THREE----
C. The player list does not always correctly show players as grayed out (in-mission/afk) or present. Some of this may be due to A. above. ----PRIORITY THREE----
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OTHER ISSUES LISTED IN PREVIOUS POSTS
These may already be on the fix list, or may already be taken care of, or may be just not possible with the time available -- feel free to chime in on these and their priority levels:
Fighter Bugs
1 - Disappearing Icon ? Icon disappears in shuttle bay. This usually leads to their destruction as they speed off to attach the enemy, without the ability to be recalled. After the mission, you must then replace the fighters even if they survived.
2 - Frozen Fighters Bug ? Often, fighters will just stop and stay at speed 0.
3 - Fighters ignore ECM of target (taking into account their inbuilt 2 ECCM)
4 - Fighter squads direct fire weapons seem to use a narrow salvo solution, i.e. 1 attack roll is made for the whole squad. Combining this with the ECM bug means that phaser 2s fired from fighter squads can take a full shield down from outside of range 8 through a +2 shift (6ECM ?2 ECCM). This also increases the effectiveness of the Hellbore fighters beyond what they should possibly be.
5 - PFs don?t start with plasma already charged. This makes tehm very vulnerable after launch.
6 - Lyran PFEs don?t seem to be able to fire the ESGs in many occurances.
7 - Fighters fire weapons outside of their ?effective? range
8 - Non-regenerating fighters ? sometimes fighters refuse to regenerate.
9 - Traitor pilot bug ? fighters see your allies as an enemy and attack.
The Wishlist - A quick list of things people have expressed an interest in during the forming of this list.
Flagship Selection - Self Explanatory.
Ship Class Control - The ability to control the purchases of players, i.e. escorts only show up in the shipyard if the player is in command of a ship that is eligible for escorts. Also control of what a player can purchase, i.e. one carrier per player, or one DN, an so on. Plus, the possibility of controlling what the can purchase based on rank. Commodores can only purchase up to a CA and so on. Also relate this to number of ships.
Ship Number Controls - The ability to run a single ship campaign, and still have the players able to purchase new ships.
Starbase Construction - A separate slot just for Starbases. This way it could run with a single ship campaign, as well as making it possible for three ship fleets to place a base.
Hex Control Interrelations - Although it is desired to have the Cartel/ Empire map operate in a different manner than it does now, for default campaigns, a switch is desired to make it interact as desired. Whether it be like it is now, with the pirate ownership controlling boosting ability, or something different.
Plus some of the following additions:
Some races can't have plasma D and others can't have ADD, they should be able to have both.
Mauler is now Destroyable, but should not be.
Vessel Library will not show odd-number shield values, but instead rounds down to an even number.
----- Priority Levels were set by those who created the list and sent it to Taldren, and reflect in no way the actual priority that Taldren (or whoever may do fixes in the future) may have placed on any individual bug.
As stated before, some of these things have been fixed already, so a few items are taken care of. Most remain, as far as I remember though (especially some of the major showstoppers).
Topic: Orion Pirates D2 veterans- (Read 7047 times)