Wesband, MP dungeon-crawler (now for Wesnoth 1.9.14+ !)

[Exasperation]

Well, the stderr might give some clues. Last time this happened, it turned out to be an issue with some other add-on causing trouble, so you could try temporarily removing any other add-ons you have installed. Do you have any more info (maybe the terrain code that's causing the trouble)?

[zaimoni]

Well, the stderr might give some clues. Last time this happened, it turned out to be an issue with some other add-on causing trouble, so you could try temporarily removing any other add-ons you have installed. Do you have any more info (maybe the terrain code that's causing the trouble)?

Hmm...use of global variable that's normally uninitialized, but ends up being set by some other add-on or mainline campaign? It'd take some work to systematically check for that.
* I have had one case where playing the first scenario of the Hammer of Thursagan, coincided with my Wesband savegame going unloadable by illegal terrain.

I'll take more careful notes when I see it.
* 0.7.3 was immune.
* 0.7.4 had about a 50% chance of dying on entering a dungeon level for the first time by illegal terrain; the terrain code was the placeholder used during dungeon creation. 0.7.5 fixed this outright; I don't think that one is responsible for what I'm currently seeting.
* The code stabilization patches for 0.7.6 have made this triggering this harder, than in 0.7.5. Known triggers:
** manual cache refresh (F5 key) can suddenly cause a savefile to go from loadable to unloadable by illegal terrain.
** there is some way of killing an enemy that damages the savegame file representation. There is no visible effect in normal play, but opening the game in debug mode reveals the damaged hexes by displaying the outline of a peasant on a bright yellow hex. Killing an L4 monster has about a 50-50 chance of generating this kind of debug-only display error. Manual refresh has a much higher chance of triggering unloadable savegame when this is happening.

[zaimoni]

Illegal terrain code is Rd^Wel , which is referenced in DungeonTerrain.lua .

[Exasperation]

Hmmm... the ^Wel terrain is defined in Wesband/terrain/Terrain.cfg, and according to the changelog hasn't been altered since v. 0.2.0. Did these problems only start appearing in 1.8.6?

[zaimoni]

I've been running 1.8.6 for the past few months, so I can't say. I have archaic installers for 1.8.3, 1.8.4, and 1.8.5 locally. (Edit Of the 1.8.x line. I also have 1.6.5 and 1.9.10 installed.)

What I know is that under 1.8.6
* 0.7.2 was fine, never had this error.
* 0.7.3 had about a 50% chance of the generated map being unloadable by illegal terrain.
* 0.7.4 was somewhat more stable than 0.7.3
* 0.7.5 is more stable but not foolproof, and became even more stable with the lua error suppression fixes backported from a hypothetical 0.7.6 .

I'm checking that patching out Rd^Wel leaves the map completely legal, but this may take a while to build empirical confidence.

[Exasperation]

This behavior is really strange. Since all this has been under 1.8.6, it can't be a result of a change in the engine's handling of custom terrain types. However, the last version of WB to modify the terrain generation at all was 0.7.0, and this behavior only showed up in 0.7.2. Let me know the results of editing out the "^Wel"s from a save game that exhibits this behavior, maybe it will turn out that the actual source of the error is elsewhere, and removing the visible symptom will provide a more helpful error message.

[zaimoni]

I'll first have to start-scum a game that has this behavior for DL 1. Not exactly the easiest thing to do (I managed to start-scum a clean game with the suspect terrain Rd^Wel quickly, but that was a one-player human warrior; my normal game is 4 dwarf soldiers).

[o11c]

Sometimes a dungeon is generated that cannot be fully explored, due to lava.

Some monsters may be killed and drop items on unwalkable terrain.

[Exasperation]

Can you provide me with a save from a dungeon with an unexplorable part, so I can correct it?

The drops+unwalkable issue is known, but we haven't decided what to do about it (it gets trickier once the possibility for PCs to fly is considered; both drake characters and flight spells are planned to be added at some point).

[o11c]

Attached.

Also:

• Why isn't this thread's name changed to 0.7.5?
• error display: could not open image 'terrain/Well-tile.png' (note the capitalization)
  it presumably means data/add-ons/Wesband/images/terrain/well-tile.png
  (/me loves find -iname)
• It would be nice if more options were available in the top level right-click menu, instead of nested.
• It would be nice to be able to trade with someone by right-clicking on them, instead of right-clicking on yourself.
• It's kind of stupid that my mage changes image just because it equipped a crossbow (which does more damage than the staff?)
• There are tons of attack animation and sound problems, which you probably know exist but are overwhelmed ...
• I would suggest adding a "pick up all items" when the dungeon is cleared, which could handle the items-on-air problem for the player's benefit (but not realistically)

[Exasperation]

@o11c: thanks for the save, I'll take a look at it. As for the rest,

• Why isn't this thread's name changed to 0.7.5?
  - Only the thread owner can change the thread title, Ken Oh is currently busy IRL (last visited the forum in September).
• error display: could not open image 'terrain/Well-tile.png' (note the capitalization)
  it presumably means data/add-ons/Wesband/images/terrain/well-tile.png
  - Nice catch, that should indeed be a lower-case w in Terrain.cfg.
• It would be nice if more options were available in the top level right-click menu, instead of nested.
  - This is a limitation of the BfW game engine, there is a hard-coded maximum to the number of custom right-click-menu items.
• It would be nice to be able to trade with someone by right-clicking on them, instead of right-clicking on yourself.
  - I may be able to work that into my improvements to inventory management for the next version. Cross your fingers, I guess.
• It's kind of stupid that my mage changes image just because it equipped a crossbow (which does more damage than the staff?)
  - Base image is decided by highest-damage weapon (damage*strikes, ignoring most weapon specials). Right now, it doesn't take into account spellcasting when it performs that calculation. Not a high priority to improve this at the moment.
• There are tons of attack animation and sound problems, which you probably know exist but are overwhelmed ...
  - True, these are also not a high priority. Feel free to let me know about any particularly obnoxious ones, it does increase the odds they'll get fixed if I don't have to test for them myself.
• I would suggest adding a "pick up all items" when the dungeon is cleared, which could handle the items-on-air problem for the player's benefit (but not realistically)
  - Been discussed before, there are currently a couple of issues that would need to be worked out before this could be done, and there are good reasons why reachability of items would need to be considered by a "pick up all" command.

[Xudo]

- Only the thread owner can change the thread title, Ken Oh is currently busy IRL (last visited the forum in September).

You should try to ask moderator to change thread name.

[o11c]

• the upgrade item Magic: Dark Magic incorrectly lists both attacks as being of type "cold"
• Is it possible to run the line-of-sight check every step instead of just at the end? Specifically:
  • It doesn't make sense that I can walk through the enemies vision when they are not aware of me, and have my moves refresh on the other side.
  • I have to take one step at a time in order to maximize my movement refresh when walking into a controlled zone.
• Any game that generates Cyclops, Metal Slime, or Rolling Stones, as part of a group, within the first couple levels, practically guarantees at least one of your players will die.
• It makes no sense that upgrading from a basic human Mage to a Red Mage would decrease the attack.
• Magic: Plague is not visible (in red) before upgrading
• Magic: Illuminates is still visible in red as well as in white once you meet the requirements
• it would be nice if "Give item" when there is only one other player adjacent didn't prompt to pick from the list of one.
• "undead" saurians should have their resistances modified.
• The most jarring attack animation/sound errors are that females turn into males when casting most spells, the light beam spell sounds like a staff, fireball makes some sort of swish. Also, the lack of any "miss"
• Spells such as healing don't show the mana cost: "Action uses 2 casting time, mana"
• It would be very useful if potions stacked and increased the "uses" column
• the undead upgrade "Hasten" doesn't work (if it's relevant, it has -17 evade)
• the undead upgrade "WallPass" never appears.
• a number of units that normally have poison attacks don't have them in wesband, making them trivial to kill.

(Note that this post has been edited several times, until the next reply)

[zaimoni]

Just hit a lua error: Lich touch is not my friend. Switching to debug mode after saving the game manually (to prevent arbitrary savegame corruption) shows the lich appears to have a valid touch, fortunately. It could be very inconvenient for a player with lich touch, however:

Code: Select all

items.lua:80: attempt to compare number with nil

called from UnitConstruction.lua:780 , in the elseif clause for lich touch description construction. Bypass for item.lua:80 is obvious:

Code: Select all

- if wt.human_magic_adjust > 0 then
+ if wt.human_magic_adjust and wt.human_magic_adjust > 0 then

True fix isn't so obvious.

Unfortunately, I don't have a manual save from right before entering the dungeon; the error doesn't repeat when retrying from an auto-save (different monster selection so no lich).

[zaimoni]

• ....
• Is it possible to run the line-of-sight check every step instead of just at the end? Specifically:
  • It doesn't make sense that I can walk through the enemies vision when they are not aware of me, and have my moves refresh on the other side.
  • I have to take one step at a time in order to maximize my movement refresh when walking into a controlled zone.
• Any game that generates Cyclops, Metal Slime, or Rolling Stones, as part of a group, within the first couple levels, practically guarantees at least one of your players will die.
• ....
• It would be very useful if potions stacked and increased the "uses" column
• ....

1) Taking one step at a time confers stealthiness, which directly impairs the "general alert radius". A min-maxer wants to be moving one hex at a time into unsecured territory anyway; that makes it a rote calculation to determine the attack direction(s), in the very important "you hear a noise" case. (in particular, when advancing up a 3-hex wide corridor, a particularly tedious advancement pattern will ensure exact knowledge of the hex you got spotted along.
2) Impact is both common and bad. That said, I'm curious about the party composition, as on DL1 I die much more to outlaws and saurians than to slimes.
3) Fortunately, the buyback ratio of 20% prevents the price premium for stacks from turning stacking potions into a money-making venture.