Topic: Yaaaaaaahhhhhooooo!!!! BUG FOUND!

[Herr Burt]

The "Squadron Commander bug" turned out to be more general-case than I first suspected -- and it has one really weird caveat -- so all prospective D2 admins might want to take note.

The problem:  Lyran Fi-Cons worked fine.  Everyone's PFL's worked fine.  However, all non-Lyran Fi-Cons and *ALL* interceptor leaders were broken.  They could not launch the ships/fighters that they carried.

The solution:Well, it took for freaking ever, and I had to strip down a full carrier, system by system, to work it out, but I found the bug that keeps some ships (donated or otherwise) from being able to launch their fighters.

The bug is transporters, but only on self-sustaining ships.  If the ship itself is carried by another ship then the bug doesn't exist.

Specificaly:  If your ship does not have transporters, you can't launch shuttles or fighters. Both the transporter and the shuttle icons appear as blacked out on the UI and you cannot fix them.  It makes sense that you can't fix the transporters (since you don't have any) but it is definitely a bug that you can't use or fix your shuttle bay.

Caveat 1:  If the ship is itself carried by another ship (ie.  a Fi-Con based on a PFT) then your shuttle bay works just fine whether you have a transporter or not.  Thus in Squadron Commander the Lyran  Fi-Cons (which had been the ones I was worried about and tested) worked just fine.  Everyone eles Fi-Cons (which operated as a self-sustaining ship) were broken. 

Caveat 2:  In skirmish mode, the transporter bug does not exist.  You can launch all of your fighters and PFs, regardless of whether or not you have transporters.


THE FALLOUT
I was much too tired last night to do the cleanup after having pulled everything apart.  I will do that tonight (Tuesday) and the server will start tomorrow (Wed) at 8PM.

I promised Hooch a firm end date, so the server will still end Sunday after this coming Sunday, a week and a half instead of two weeks.  However, on the upside, this almost balances the number of week nights and weekend nights, and the two sides have each shown a history of "owning" one of those types of nights.  So, in the end, this may help balance things even though it costs a couple of days.

-Herr Burt

[KBF-Crim]

 

[Herr Burt]

Oh, yeah, another point of fallout from this bug.

*ALL* PF's now have a transporter.  However, as most can't be beamed onto and most don't have any transporter bombs, this shouldn't affect anything.  I'd already added transporters to the Mine Warfare PFs, as mine racks don't work in SFC.  However you will now get to beam "surprises" off of derelicts and you won't need to have a PFL to pick up or drop off agents or diplomats.

In SFB terms, this isn't really so bad.  All PFs had a passive transporter pad, but the leaders had the active componets installed as well.  It's not too much a stretch of the imagination to think that if fleet command assigned a non-leader to the mission of dropping or picking up something important, they'd take the time to install the active elements of the transporter to make the mission possible.

-Herr Burt

[Dizzy]

On SG3, I had a monster that carried 'decoy' PF's that were dropped from the mothership's PF's. It never crashed on the dyna. It worked fine in skirmish mode. WTF are u talking about?

[Dizzy]

Ok, HB, you're confusing the hell out of me. 30 words or less bro. Lets have it.

[FPF-DieHard]

Herr Burt, I got this to work without doing that. Must be the phase of the moon or something . . .

[Herr Burt]

On SG3, I had a monster that carried 'decoy' PF's that were dropped from the mothership's PF's. It never crashed on the dyna. It worked fine in skirmish mode. WTF are u talking about?

I think that would fall under Caveat 1, listed above.  If the ship itself is carried by another ship (like your mothership's PF's were or my Lyran Fi-Cons are ) then the bug does not affect them.  They will be able to launch their decoys or fighters with no problem.

-Herr Burt

[Dizzy]

::beats the crap out of HB::

WTF are you talking about!

Look, what is a Ftr-Con? Another PF?

A PF Tender can carry 4x PF's. Those PF's can then carry more PF's or ftrs if its a donated FTR PF with no problem.

If you want to use a PF as a self sustained ship, then you make it a ship. Like a FF.

I still dont understand wtf u are talking about.

[Herr Burt]

A PF Tender can carry 4x PF's. Those PF's can then carry more PF's or ftrs if its a donated FTR PF with no problem.

Agreed.  No problems here, which is why my Lyran Fi-cons worked.  (They are PFs carried by a "PFT", and can launch their own fighters.  And as you say, this works.

If you want to use a PF as a self sustained ship, then you make it a ship. Like a FF.

That is exactly what I did, and that is where the problem comes in.  Take a PF.  Change its hull from FTR to FF. Change its class from PF to Frigate.  Suddenly, it can't launch fighters unless it has a transporter.

I still dont understand wtf u are talking about.

Does this help?

-Herr Burt

[Age]

     I am glad the problem is solved Tracey you have a PM

[FPF-SCM_TraceyG_XC]

Very interesting, and very difficult to track down too. Nice job! Very methodical and logical approach. A Gorn with pointed ears!

[Strafer]

Look, what is a Ftr-Con? Another PF?

Fi-Con. Special type of PF that has minimalistic weapons and four mini-mechlinks so it can deploy fighters in the battlefield. I think it's full name is fighter conveyor.

[Dizzy]

u changed the name too, right?

[Herr Burt]

u changed the name too, right?

Yes I did.  Technically this wasn't necesary, as the original PF entry was deleted, but I changed the name of almost all the PFs.

With "x" representing the lower case letter denoting the variant:

Gorn became G-PTRx for pterodon and G-PTDx for pterodactyl
Lyran became L-BCTx for bobcat and L-LNXx for lynx
Romulan became R-CEN for centurian and R-STH for starhawk and R-DEC for decurian
Fed got F-THBx for thunderbolt and F-MSTx for mustang
Klink got K-G1x for the G1 gunboat and K-H1 for the H1 interceptor
Kzinti got Z-SPKx for spike, Z-NDL for needle, and Z-MRNx for multi-role needle
Hydran got H-HWLx for Howler, H-HLNx for hellion, H-HARx for harrier, and H-HBRx for harbinger

And the ISC, sadly, just gets to use PF and INT because that is how they are listed in module K.  As far as I know, ADB has never gotten around to giving them names. 

-Herr Burt

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

Very interesting, and very difficult to track down too. Nice job! Very methodical and logical approach. A Gorn with pointed ears!

Scippy did start out as a Romulan you know Tracey.

[Herr Burt]

Herr Burt, I got this to work without doing that. Must be the phase of the moon or something . . .

Hi, DH:

I'm sorry I didn't answer your posts yesterday.  I got caught up in answering Dizzy.

When you say you got this to work without trnasporters, did you have Fi-Cons as standalone ships, or were all of yoru Fi-Cons carried onboard PFTs?

If you got Fi-Cons to work as standalones without transporters, I'd love to look at your shiplist and compare our entries.

-Herr Burt