Topic: GW3 Bug and Issue reporting thread thingy

[el-Karnak]

Unfortunately, there isn't much that can be done at this time. There isn't even a working method to fetch the date from within the script so it's somewhat difficult to gave the year correctly.

WRONG.  Time warping happens when you try to shove in really high BPV values in ship classes that have limited ships available like the BCH classes.  It can be alleviated by moderating the values put in, widening the class bands and fiddling with the variant settings.

2- it depends on Magnumman's shiplist API which can slow down the script's startup (and cause problems) if improperly used.

WRONG.  Enemy Sweep Patrol running on GW3  is using Magnumman's shiplist API for ship lookups and fighter shiplist lookups. Just have not used it for the final step of ship creation due to the lack of accurate stardate fetching off the dyna.  The fact no one has complained about mission load-up times means everything is peachy with MM shiplist API.

Rules:
- If *any* of the ships has drones of a certain speed, then it's at least a certain year.
- The results need to be saved onto the HD and reset if the game is exited and restarted (doable). This way the results can be further refined between missions.
- the mGetEra function from within the API is accurate. It will tell you if it's "Early", "Med", "Late" or "Advanced" era.

So,...
Logic of date refinement:
-------------------------
Early: -999 to 0. Slow drones all.
Mid: 1 to 7. Slow drones from 1 to 3. Medium from 4 to 7.
Late: 8 to 36. Medium drones from 8 to 16. Fast from 17 to 36.
Advanced: 37 to 999. Fast drones all.


Method:
What you do is you look at all the player ships in the mission and check out the YFA for it. You cross reference with the Era that the script can supply. You then reference some more with the dronespeeds used, if any drone ships are present.

Because of the slowdowns such calculations may cause, it might be best to do this after the script has already started to save the results for the next mission to use.

It's an interesting idea, but I see 2 big problems here:

1)  I don't think any mission scripts should be writing to player Hard-drives PERIOD. 

2)  What about races that don't use drones?  I don't think all the hoops to jump through are worth the trouble.  Tweaking of the stand-alone mCreateShip() routines should get it to a tolerable state which will be done after GW3. It actually used to be a lot worse. I remember on SG3 when there were Fed BCHs showing up in 2270.   I went a little OTT with high-end ships like HDWs and  BCHs this dyna go-around.

 J'inn kept saying the EEK mission matching was "light" on GW2.  *snicker*

[FPF-DieHard]

The time warping does not occur in the ED missions, Karnak are you checking the Era at all in your scripts?  When in Mid, we were drawing C7s which should not even show up until Late.

[el-Karnak]

The time warping does not occur in the ED missions, Karnak are you checking the Era at all in your scripts?  When in Mid, we were drawing C7s which should not even show up until Late.

Based on what I've seen, ED is using the dynaverse info mCreateShip() call which does a lot of the work for ship creation. Unfortunately, it does not work for AI stripping otherwise I would have chucked these aggravating standalone mCreateSHip() calls.  Checking for Era won't do anything. All the ship creation stuff happens in the mCreateShip call. 

Just give me the #)(#*#(* stardate off the dyna and MM shiplist API would work awesomingly.  It's 90% done on ES Patrol already.

One idea I have is setting up a text file on the server that updates the stardate. Just an itty, bitty text file with the 3 digit SFB year. Typically, on most dynas, the stardate flips every 24 hours.  So, update the text file once every 24 hours.  You can setup a scheduled windows batch job to perform the daily SFB year update operation on the NT box the server is running on. Or, better yet, read a SQL DB and grab it off a table.  Most SQL DBs have automated SQL jobs to run batch processes that could update the SFB year table entry on an daily basis.

[FPF-DieHard]

One idea I have is setting up a text file on the server that updates the stardate. Just an itty, bitty text file with the 3 digit SFB year. Typically, on most dynas, the stardate flips every 24 hours.  So, update the text file once every 24 hours.  You can setup a scheduled windows batch job to perform the daily SFB year update operation on the NT box the server is running on.

Not a bad idea with minimal administrative hassle.

Any way to determine the year based on the ship that the drafter is flying?

[FireSoul]

Aww man. Check in the attitude at the door, Karnak. I'm just plain tired of it. I don't wanna play today.

Unfortunately, there isn't much that can be done at this time. There isn't even a working method to fetch the date from within the script so it's somewhat difficult to gave the year correctly.

WRONG.  Time warping happens when you try to shove in really high BPV values in ship classes that have limited ships available like the BCH classes.  It can be alleviated by moderating the values put in, widening the class bands and fiddling with the variant settings.

You're still getting time warped ships. You can "alleviate", but the problem still exists.

2- it depends on Magnumman's shiplist API which can slow down the script's startup (and cause problems) if improperly used.

WRONG.  Enemy Sweep Patrol running on GW3  is using Magnumman's shiplist API for ship lookups and fighter shiplist lookups. Just have not used it for the final step of ship creation due to the lack of accurate stardate fetching off the dyna.  The fact no one has complained about mission load-up times means everything is peachy with MM shiplist API.

No, I'm still right.  "if improperly used".  "can". It's not like I haven't thought of it.

Rules:
- If *any* of the ships has drones of a certain speed, then it's at least a certain year.
- The results need to be saved onto the HD and reset if the game is exited and restarted (doable). This way the results can be further refined between missions.
- the mGetEra function from within the API is accurate. It will tell you if it's "Early", "Med", "Late" or "Advanced" era.

So,...
Logic of date refinement:
-------------------------
Early: -999 to 0. Slow drones all.
Mid: 1 to 7. Slow drones from 1 to 3. Medium from 4 to 7.
Late: 8 to 36. Medium drones from 8 to 16. Fast from 17 to 36.
Advanced: 37 to 999. Fast drones all.


Method:
What you do is you look at all the player ships in the mission and check out the YFA for it. You cross reference with the Era that the script can supply. You then reference some more with the dronespeeds used, if any drone ships are present.

Because of the slowdowns such calculations may cause, it might be best to do this after the script has already started to save the results for the next mission to use.

It's an interesting idea, but I see 2 big problems here:

1)  I don't think any mission scripts should be writing to player Hard-drives PERIOD. 

That's fine. Then you tell me how you'd refine the results between missions then, instead of taking pleasure of just slamming down every idea I VOLUNTEER. That's the thing about ideas, they too can be refined.

2)  What about races that don't use drones?  I don't think all the hoops to jump through are worth the trouble.  Tweaking of the stand-alone mCreateShip() routines should get it to a tolerable state which will be done after GW3. It actually used to be a lot worse. I remember on SG3 when there were Fed BCHs showing up in 2270.   I went a little OTT with high-end ships like HDWs and  BCHs this dyna go-around.

I know. That's why they're not the primary method of estimating the year, but just a refinement if they're available. If there are no drones in a mission, then you stick with the results by looking at just the ships. Anything has got to be better than just going by Era like we're doing now.

The main idea for this process is this: If a player is flying a certain ship, then the year of the mission is at least that ship's YFA. Do that for all the players and figure out the highest YFA.

The result is just refinement, as I just said.

-- Luc

[el-Karnak]

One idea I have is setting up a text file on the server that updates the stardate. Just an itty, bitty text file with the 3 digit SFB year. Typically, on most dynas, the stardate flips every 24 hours.  So, update the text file once every 24 hours.  You can setup a scheduled windows batch job to perform the daily SFB year update operation on the NT box the server is running on.

Not a bad idea with minimal administrative hassle.

Any way to determine the year based on the ship that the drafter is flying?

We can get the drafter's ship class designation (ie. F-BCH, K-C7, H-CHC, etc.) and Xref it with MM Shiplist API to get the YFA for his ship (I think, we'll need to dbl-check tonite)

Holy crap!! 

That's it.  We got it.  As long as I can grab the YFA for the drafter's ship. I remember seeing it vaguely in the MM Shiplist API.  Most people fly up-to-date ships anyway so it should be pretty accurate.

DH, you're a genius.

[FireSoul]

One idea I have is setting up a text file on the server that updates the stardate. Just an itty, bitty text file with the 3 digit SFB year. Typically, on most dynas, the stardate flips every 24 hours.  So, update the text file once every 24 hours.  You can setup a scheduled windows batch job to perform the daily SFB year update operation on the NT box the server is running on. Or, better yet, read a SQL DB and grab it off a table.  Most SQL DBs have automated SQL jobs to run batch processes that could update the SFB year table entry on an daily basis.

Yes. I had the same thought, but had to push it out of my mind as a 100% acceptable solution:
- the single-player campaigns use the same missions but don't have a SQL server to ask
- a stable SQL serverkit does not yet exist.


Remember the single-player people out there. There's a lot of them and they're part of the reason we can still have people to play against and with: some of them "graduate" to online games after enjoying what we've done.


-- Luc

[FireSoul]

One idea I have is setting up a text file on the server that updates the stardate. Just an itty, bitty text file with the 3 digit SFB year. Typically, on most dynas, the stardate flips every 24 hours.  So, update the text file once every 24 hours.  You can setup a scheduled windows batch job to perform the daily SFB year update operation on the NT box the server is running on.

Not a bad idea with minimal administrative hassle.

Any way to determine the year based on the ship that the drafter is flying?

We can get the drafter's ship class designation (ie. F-BCH, K-C7, H-CHC, etc.) and Xref it with MM Shiplist API to get the YFA for his ship (I think, we'll need to dbl-check tonite)

Holy crap!! 

That's it.  We got it.  As long as I can grab the YFA for the drafter's ship. I remember seeing it vaguely in the MM Shiplist API.  Most people fly up-to-date ships anyway so it should be pretty accurate.

DH, you're a genius.

Some people cheat. Be aware of that.

[FireSoul]

That's it.  We got it.  As long as I can grab the YFA for the drafter's ship. I remember seeing it vaguely in the MM Shiplist API.  Most people fly up-to-date ships anyway so it should be pretty accurate.

Isn't that what I'm saying above?
.. anyways.. yes, all of the data from within the shiplist is readily available with the MM API.

*checks*    ship->yearFirstAvail

[FPF-DieHard]

One idea I have is setting up a text file on the server that updates the stardate. Just an itty, bitty text file with the 3 digit SFB year. Typically, on most dynas, the stardate flips every 24 hours.  So, update the text file once every 24 hours.  You can setup a scheduled windows batch job to perform the daily SFB year update operation on the NT box the server is running on.

Not a bad idea with minimal administrative hassle.

Any way to determine the year based on the ship that the drafter is flying?

We can get the drafter's ship class designation (ie. F-BCH, K-C7, H-CHC, etc.) and Xref it with MM Shiplist API to get the YFA for his ship (I think, we'll need to dbl-check tonite)

Holy crap!! 

That's it.  We got it.  As long as I can grab the YFA for the drafter's ship. I remember seeing it vaguely in the MM Shiplist API.  Most people fly up-to-date ships anyway so it should be pretty accurate.

DH, you're a genius.

Some people cheat. Be aware of that.

So you think people will fly and early era ship on purpose to avoid drafting late era stuff?   might give the F-DD some usefulness 

Let's see them try that on one of my servers where all the old crap is phased out as soon as a refit is avaiblable.  Anyone else notice how little crap is in the shipyards on GW3?   

[FireSoul]

One idea I have is setting up a text file on the server that updates the stardate. Just an itty, bitty text file with the 3 digit SFB year. Typically, on most dynas, the stardate flips every 24 hours.  So, update the text file once every 24 hours.  You can setup a scheduled windows batch job to perform the daily SFB year update operation on the NT box the server is running on.

Not a bad idea with minimal administrative hassle.

Any way to determine the year based on the ship that the drafter is flying?

We can get the drafter's ship class designation (ie. F-BCH, K-C7, H-CHC, etc.) and Xref it with MM Shiplist API to get the YFA for his ship (I think, we'll need to dbl-check tonite)

Holy crap!! 

That's it.  We got it.  As long as I can grab the YFA for the drafter's ship. I remember seeing it vaguely in the MM Shiplist API.  Most people fly up-to-date ships anyway so it should be pretty accurate.

DH, you're a genius.

Some people cheat. Be aware of that.

So you think people will fly and early era ship on purpose to avoid drafting late era stuff?   might give the F-DD some usefulness 

Let's see them try that on one of my servers where all the old crap is phased out as soon as a refit is avaiblable.  Anyone else notice how little crap is in the shipyards on GW3?   

I was actually thinking about single-player people here..  or other campaigns. Broader picture.

[FireSoul]

Here's a question:

Can a D2 mission detect it's running for a multiplayer campaign, or a local single-player D2?

[FPF-DieHard]

I was actually thinking about single-player people here..  or other campaigns. Broader picture.

Who cares if somebody cheats in single-player? 

FS, since LYA only affects ships produced in the shipyards and have no affect on AI draw, while bother with any overlap at all?  I eliminated it completely in GW3 (took me less than 10 minutes with only 3 races).  New ships would be built with existing refits and shipyard "Spamming" is really annoying.

[FireSoul]

I was actually thinking about single-player people here..  or other campaigns. Broader picture.

Who cares if somebody cheats in single-player? 

Hey. *I* care.. 

FS, since LYA only affects ships produced in the shipyards and have no affect on AI draw, while bother with any overlap at all?  I eliminated it completely in GW3 (took me less than 10 minutes with only 3 races).  New ships would be built with existing refits and shipyard "Spamming" is really annoying.

Realism. Not all ships recieved refits at the same time.

[FPF-DieHard]

I was actually thinking about single-player people here..  or other campaigns. Broader picture.

Who cares if somebody cheats in single-player? 

FS, since LYA only affects ships produced in the shipyards and have no affect on AI draw, while bother with any overlap at all?  I eliminated it completely in GW3 (took me less than 10 minutes with only 3 races).  New ships would be built with existing refits and shipyard "Spamming" is really annoying.

Realism. Not all ships recieved refits at the same time.

True, but it only affects PRODUCTION.  All new ships are built with the latest refits.

[FireSoul]

I was actually thinking about single-player people here..  or other campaigns. Broader picture.

Who cares if somebody cheats in single-player? 

FS, since LYA only affects ships produced in the shipyards and have no affect on AI draw, while bother with any overlap at all?  I eliminated it completely in GW3 (took me less than 10 minutes with only 3 races).  New ships would be built with existing refits and shipyard "Spamming" is really annoying.

Realism. Not all ships recieved refits at the same time.

True, but it only affects PRODUCTION.  All new ships are built with the latest refits.

Hm. I'll have to think about that. I've always considered the shipyard pool a list of ships that are currently available, including those that are in service at that time.

[FPF-DieHard]

I was actually thinking about single-player people here..  or other campaigns. Broader picture.

Who cares if somebody cheats in single-player? 

FS, since LYA only affects ships produced in the shipyards and have no affect on AI draw, while bother with any overlap at all?  I eliminated it completely in GW3 (took me less than 10 minutes with only 3 races).  New ships would be built with existing refits and shipyard "Spamming" is really annoying.

Realism. Not all ships recieved refits at the same time.

True, but it only affects PRODUCTION.  All new ships are built with the latest refits.

Hm. I'll have to think about that. I've always considered the shipyard pool a list of ships that are currently available, including those that are in service at that time.

Maybe just make some exceptions, like the R refits which isn't really a refit.   2275 goes NUTS for the Kzin, Klingons, and Federation shipyards as a billion new variants all come out at the same time.

[el-Karnak]

So you think people will fly and early era ship on purpose to avoid drafting late era stuff?   might give the F-DD some usefulness  

Let's see them try that on one of my servers where all the old crap is phased out as soon as a refit is avaiblable.  Anyone else notice how little crap is in the shipyards on GW3?

If they draft out-of-era then I'll shut off the checks so they'll get full EEK AI fury that only in-Era ships can handle.

It won't happen more than once, hehe.

[FireSoul]

So you think people will fly and early era ship on purpose to avoid drafting late era stuff?   might give the F-DD some usefulness 

Let's see them try that on one of my servers where all the old crap is phased out as soon as a refit is avaiblable.  Anyone else notice how little crap is in the shipyards on GW3?

If they draft out-of-era then I'll shut off the checks so they'll get full EEK AI fury that only in-Era ships can handle.

It won't happen more than once, hehe.

That works. Go for it.
You have the ranges of years the game uses for the eras?

[el-Karnak]

So you think people will fly and early era ship on purpose to avoid drafting late era stuff?   might give the F-DD some usefulness 

Let's see them try that on one of my servers where all the old crap is phased out as soon as a refit is avaiblable.  Anyone else notice how little crap is in the shipyards on GW3?

If they draft out-of-era then I'll shut off the checks so they'll get full EEK AI fury that only in-Era ships can handle.

It won't happen more than once, hehe.

That works. Go for it.
You have the ranges of years the game uses for the eras?

I think it's Early Era :  163 to 172
Middle Era:  173 to 182
Late Era:  183 to 192
Advanced Era: 193 onwards.

These changes are going to flip D2 on it's derriere.  Now any BPV bumps for drone and fighter add-ons done by the  shiplist guys are going to have real teeth.  Plus, if I put on real fighters/PFs on these ships instead of the normal type Is then it will look really realistic.