Forums » Bugs
I got killed a couple of times today in Latos queen sectors. All the npcs were apparently unaligned,which made docking for reloads a bit tricky. Sectors J8,C12 circa 19:00 server time
I am assuming you took an HS mission out of Latos I8 - The npcs are all unaligned because the station is unaligned.
The problem is the station alignment - We may need to come up with a new alignment to handle these situation. One way would be to Create a new "Hive" alignment so that Unaligned would be Neutral by definition and Docking could be allowed.
The problem is the station alignment - We may need to come up with a new alignment to handle these situation. One way would be to Create a new "Hive" alignment so that Unaligned would be Neutral by definition and Docking could be allowed.
This isn't a bug, and it isn't a "problem" with the station alignment. If you are on the mission, the attacking force will see you as a friendly and not shoot at you. Otherwise, your presence is a liability to their mission and they are forced to treat you as hostile.
Unaligned should absolutely not be neutral, and anyone who thinks this clearly has a very poor understanding of this game.
Unaligned should absolutely not be neutral, and anyone who thinks this clearly has a very poor understanding of this game.
Yea.... I found this already, decided not to report it because it's not a bug. I'm roughly 80% sure its a new feature.
I'm roughly 80% sure its a new feature.
Yes, it's a new feature, and honestly one of the more interesting ones related to the new station. I'm 80% sure it's an intentional one, and if it isn't, I will extend GS the luxury of pretending it was.
Yes, it's a new feature, and honestly one of the more interesting ones related to the new station. I'm 80% sure it's an intentional one, and if it isn't, I will extend GS the luxury of pretending it was.
I asked a dev about the unaligned NPCs. He wasn't aware of them, and indicated that they would be gone after the last server restart.
I asked a dev about the unaligned NPCs. He wasn't aware of them, and indicated that they would be gone after the last server restart.
Well, that's disappointing. Large, game-breaking bugs sit for weeks while small, flavorful 'hidden features' get 'fixed' immediately.
Well, that's disappointing. Large, game-breaking bugs sit for weeks while small, flavorful 'hidden features' get 'fixed' immediately.
Well, evidently it is not fixed since they are still there.
It wasn't intentional, but it's not a "bug" per se, as I thought when Shna reported it to me. What reason is there for keeping it this way, though? Seems rather broken to me.
Ladron: what large game-breaking bugs have sat around for weeks? I'm aware of a few, over the last 5 years, that might qualify for your assertion, but in those cases, it was because everyone assumed we knew it was (still) broken, and no one reported it.
Ladron: what large game-breaking bugs have sat around for weeks? I'm aware of a few, over the last 5 years, that might qualify for your assertion, but in those cases, it was because everyone assumed we knew it was (still) broken, and no one reported it.
What reason is there for keeping it this way, though? Seems rather broken to me.
1) It is a break from monotony. My first reaction to seeing unaligned bots fighting the hive was "Cool! I'm going to 'do my part' for our station and shoot hive with these guys for a bit!".
2) It provides a (very small) real benefit to owning the station. More hive-grinding grounds!
3) Any excuse to have unaligned non-hive bots flying around is a good one. See reason (1).
What large game-breaking bugs have sat around for weeks?
I've only been here for 1 year, so I can't say much about the 4 prior to that, but here goes:
1) Deneb
1a) Capship behavior
1b) Countdown timer/mission spawning for the skirmish missions
1c) Itani border patrol has the wrong mission text. (This one still hasn't been fixed, btw, and I remember reporting it in May or so)
2) Convoys "cheat" by jumping into the wrong side of wormhole sectors, allowing them to completely bypass wormhole blockades. I have reported this multiple times personally, and know that others have as well.
3) Unresponsive static queen escorts
4) The CTC bots are still broken, and hang out in Sedina L2 harassing anyone who happens to be Serco hated. This has literally been broken since before I started playing.
5) NPC's end up with the wrong exit point in storms. I wouldn't classify this as game-breaking, but it is extremely annoying.
There are likely others that do not immediately come to mind, but that list should at least suffice to demonstrate that I'm not blowing smoke.
I can provide at least one more example of an interesting "hidden feature" that was quickly stomped on: the ability for the pilot of a turreted ship equipped with a shield turret to fire said turret forward without being able to aim it.
1) It is a break from monotony. My first reaction to seeing unaligned bots fighting the hive was "Cool! I'm going to 'do my part' for our station and shoot hive with these guys for a bit!".
2) It provides a (very small) real benefit to owning the station. More hive-grinding grounds!
3) Any excuse to have unaligned non-hive bots flying around is a good one. See reason (1).
What large game-breaking bugs have sat around for weeks?
I've only been here for 1 year, so I can't say much about the 4 prior to that, but here goes:
1) Deneb
1a) Capship behavior
1b) Countdown timer/mission spawning for the skirmish missions
1c) Itani border patrol has the wrong mission text. (This one still hasn't been fixed, btw, and I remember reporting it in May or so)
2) Convoys "cheat" by jumping into the wrong side of wormhole sectors, allowing them to completely bypass wormhole blockades. I have reported this multiple times personally, and know that others have as well.
3) Unresponsive static queen escorts
4) The CTC bots are still broken, and hang out in Sedina L2 harassing anyone who happens to be Serco hated. This has literally been broken since before I started playing.
5) NPC's end up with the wrong exit point in storms. I wouldn't classify this as game-breaking, but it is extremely annoying.
There are likely others that do not immediately come to mind, but that list should at least suffice to demonstrate that I'm not blowing smoke.
I can provide at least one more example of an interesting "hidden feature" that was quickly stomped on: the ability for the pilot of a turreted ship equipped with a shield turret to fire said turret forward without being able to aim it.
that turret thing was actually kinda cool. but that aside
Unaligned doesn't mean hostile in it self. It simply means, unaligned, as in not affiliated with any major faction.
I've been wondering off and on for years now as to why the hive isn't just "The Hive". If I remember right when momerath first made himself unaligned the hive freaked out in some way when he attacked them. Changing the hive to be "the hive" might fix that.
Hell, why not just either change the hive to a new faction thats -1000 with every other faction automatically or change the station to be "neutral" faction? Give players a neutral faction standing of either -1000 or +1000 depending on whether or not they have a key.
It probably wouldn't be worth displaying it in the character info, though a "local" standing would be nice. A built in way to easily tell what somebody's local faction standing is (ie corvus, orion, whichever captureable station). I suppose functionally it could be their N1 standing or N2 or N3 etc, for capturable station 1, 2, 3, etc.
Unaligned doesn't mean hostile in it self. It simply means, unaligned, as in not affiliated with any major faction.
I've been wondering off and on for years now as to why the hive isn't just "The Hive". If I remember right when momerath first made himself unaligned the hive freaked out in some way when he attacked them. Changing the hive to be "the hive" might fix that.
Hell, why not just either change the hive to a new faction thats -1000 with every other faction automatically or change the station to be "neutral" faction? Give players a neutral faction standing of either -1000 or +1000 depending on whether or not they have a key.
It probably wouldn't be worth displaying it in the character info, though a "local" standing would be nice. A built in way to easily tell what somebody's local faction standing is (ie corvus, orion, whichever captureable station). I suppose functionally it could be their N1 standing or N2 or N3 etc, for capturable station 1, 2, 3, etc.
Gotta go with ladron on the "Why keep it?" front - the worst thing you guys ever did for Grey was kill off the UnRats, Mom. This adds much needed texture -- a sense of danger and hostility -- to Grey. Keep it as is.
just seems kinda brokenish to me.
and i completly disagree with doc, the unrats were the worst thing that happened to vo since the turrets. I think adding danger to grey should be the players job. not some slapdash annoying bots' job. because overall thats what the unrats were, annoying. I really can't think of anything good to say about them.
and i completly disagree with doc, the unrats were the worst thing that happened to vo since the turrets. I think adding danger to grey should be the players job. not some slapdash annoying bots' job. because overall thats what the unrats were, annoying. I really can't think of anything good to say about them.
I just dont see a reasonable way to give the station an alignment other then Unaligned without the Devs tearing out major chunks of the current faction system. Each station would have to have its own faction and keep track of all the members in its own faction. on top of that all the other factions would need a way to recognise all the ad-hoc factions this would create. Then theres the issue of how the other factions interact with all the different player spawned factions... An ugly kludge at best.
While anything is possible I dont want Incarnate to be stuck in a happy room after he implements it..... (I got dibs on his thorazine)
I dont see Unaligned as Broken per say and If the hive had its own faction it might help get things to the point where Players could elect to become unaligned themselves.
Renaming Unaligned to Neutral might be clearer but I really dont think I like the sound of it - Simply defining Unaligned as neutral seems a more natural choice. Currently Unaligned is defined as "other"
And Ladron, Npc's have always spawned with the mission's station alignment so the only new part of this is an unaligned station. Its not a bug, just old code that needs to be reconsidered for the new situation.
While anything is possible I dont want Incarnate to be stuck in a happy room after he implements it..... (I got dibs on his thorazine)
I dont see Unaligned as Broken per say and If the hive had its own faction it might help get things to the point where Players could elect to become unaligned themselves.
Renaming Unaligned to Neutral might be clearer but I really dont think I like the sound of it - Simply defining Unaligned as neutral seems a more natural choice. Currently Unaligned is defined as "other"
And Ladron, Npc's have always spawned with the mission's station alignment so the only new part of this is an unaligned station. Its not a bug, just old code that needs to be reconsidered for the new situation.
I just dont see a reasonable way to give the station an alignment other then Unaligned without the Devs tearing out major chunks of the current faction system.
Yes, that is absolutely correct. I'm glad you've come around.
Renaming Unaligned to Neutral might be clearer but I really dont think I like the sound of it - Simply defining Unaligned as neutral seems a more natural choice. Currently Unaligned is defined as "other"
No, Unaligned is not neutral. Vendetta's is (supposed to be a) hostile universe, in which anyone and anything that moves must be assumed hostile until proven otherwise.
And Ladron, Npc's have always spawned with the mission's station alignment so the only new part of this is an unaligned station. Its not a bug, just old code that needs to be reconsidered for the new situation.
It's too bad you can't read. If you could, you would have realized that I already said that, and could have saved yourself the effort of repeating it to me.
Yes, that is absolutely correct. I'm glad you've come around.
Renaming Unaligned to Neutral might be clearer but I really dont think I like the sound of it - Simply defining Unaligned as neutral seems a more natural choice. Currently Unaligned is defined as "other"
No, Unaligned is not neutral. Vendetta's is (supposed to be a) hostile universe, in which anyone and anything that moves must be assumed hostile until proven otherwise.
And Ladron, Npc's have always spawned with the mission's station alignment so the only new part of this is an unaligned station. Its not a bug, just old code that needs to be reconsidered for the new situation.
It's too bad you can't read. If you could, you would have realized that I already said that, and could have saved yourself the effort of repeating it to me.
i think the best solution is to give the hive it's own faction. that just seems like it would make the most sence from the perspective of complely new players. they see hive, and know immediatly its definatly hostile.
they see unaligned, and well, they dont know if its hostile or not, untill it shoots at them or dosent. much the way it should be i think.
they see unaligned, and well, they dont know if its hostile or not, untill it shoots at them or dosent. much the way it should be i think.
I think you're reaching to call any of this stuff "game breaking" and some of it is clearly not even what can be considered a "bug."
I'll go over it, though, because I appreciate that you took the time to list what you see as glaring problems.
1) Deneb
1a) Capship behavior
Without your being more specific, I can't say how hard any single aspect is to fix, but the general process of improving the NPC (esp capship and capship-related) behavior is ongoing. I'm releasing some improvements tonight, and we have taken runs (some successful, many not) at various other aspects over the years. This is not a trivial set of problems.
1b) Countdown timer/mission spawning for the skirmish missions
I'm not sure which bug you're referring to here, but this is the one in your list I'm most embarrassed of. There were a couple long-term bugs with this; I can't, with certainty, say that they weren't reported when they were introduced, because it was quite some time ago, but I know that I was shocked when I found out about them recently. Obviously, I should have run across them myself, in that time, reported or not. I introduced another one in the last update, and a fix for it is in tonight's.
1c) Itani border patrol has the wrong mission text. (This one still hasn't been fixed, btw, and I remember reporting it in May or so)
I don't know what you're referring to exactly here. If it's really some trivial change in the text, then clearly we should have fixed it ages ago. This is "game breaking" to you, though?
2) Convoys "cheat" by jumping into the wrong side of wormhole sectors, allowing them to completely bypass wormhole blockades.
I have reported this multiple times personally, and know that others have as well.
See #5
3) Unresponsive static queen escorts
Fixed tonight. Please understand that this wasn't a case of there being one line that got modified and suddenly queens didn't care that you shot at them, and we didn't bother to change the line back (or whatever) to fix it, because we're so lazy. The static queens are very old code, and, in the process of rewriting big chunks of the AI, we made them not work the same as they used to (and didn't realize it at the time, while the rewrite was fresh). I spent about half of this week writing new code, tuning parameters and testing, specifically to address this "bug."
4) The CTC bots are still broken, and hang out in Sedina L2 harassing anyone who happens to be Serco hated. This has literally been broken since before I started playing.
This has actually been broken from the day it was written; it was the very first bug I was assigned, 5 years ago, and the desire to avoid its ilk is what led to the creation of Deliverator/Kourier. It would be about as easy to rewrite CTC as to fix this bug, which is why it still hasn't happened after 5 years: there's always been something more worthwhile to do.
5) NPC's end up with the wrong exit point in storms. I wouldn't classify this as game-breaking, but it is extremely annoying.
I left my response to #2 for here, because I think they're related. I've spent quite a lot of time trying to track down this problem. I experienced it myself years ago, and Andy "fixed" it a couple times; more recently, I spent a week instrumenting the convoys (and automating the testing of escort missions) to detect the bug happening, and it never did. I know it is still happening, despite my instrumentation always registering the same warp-in point being chosen for the player and bots. But, until inspiration strikes or we have some other reason to re-engineer that area of the code, it will likely remain unsolved. Again, it's a question of the best way to spend our time.
Hopefully this response will be taken as it's meant: an honest explanation of why some of your frustrations have been around so long. I'm also somewhat hopeful that you'll tone down your attacks on our priorities or development-speed; they usually just result in discouragement.
I'll go over it, though, because I appreciate that you took the time to list what you see as glaring problems.
1) Deneb
1a) Capship behavior
Without your being more specific, I can't say how hard any single aspect is to fix, but the general process of improving the NPC (esp capship and capship-related) behavior is ongoing. I'm releasing some improvements tonight, and we have taken runs (some successful, many not) at various other aspects over the years. This is not a trivial set of problems.
1b) Countdown timer/mission spawning for the skirmish missions
I'm not sure which bug you're referring to here, but this is the one in your list I'm most embarrassed of. There were a couple long-term bugs with this; I can't, with certainty, say that they weren't reported when they were introduced, because it was quite some time ago, but I know that I was shocked when I found out about them recently. Obviously, I should have run across them myself, in that time, reported or not. I introduced another one in the last update, and a fix for it is in tonight's.
1c) Itani border patrol has the wrong mission text. (This one still hasn't been fixed, btw, and I remember reporting it in May or so)
I don't know what you're referring to exactly here. If it's really some trivial change in the text, then clearly we should have fixed it ages ago. This is "game breaking" to you, though?
2) Convoys "cheat" by jumping into the wrong side of wormhole sectors, allowing them to completely bypass wormhole blockades.
I have reported this multiple times personally, and know that others have as well.
See #5
3) Unresponsive static queen escorts
Fixed tonight. Please understand that this wasn't a case of there being one line that got modified and suddenly queens didn't care that you shot at them, and we didn't bother to change the line back (or whatever) to fix it, because we're so lazy. The static queens are very old code, and, in the process of rewriting big chunks of the AI, we made them not work the same as they used to (and didn't realize it at the time, while the rewrite was fresh). I spent about half of this week writing new code, tuning parameters and testing, specifically to address this "bug."
4) The CTC bots are still broken, and hang out in Sedina L2 harassing anyone who happens to be Serco hated. This has literally been broken since before I started playing.
This has actually been broken from the day it was written; it was the very first bug I was assigned, 5 years ago, and the desire to avoid its ilk is what led to the creation of Deliverator/Kourier. It would be about as easy to rewrite CTC as to fix this bug, which is why it still hasn't happened after 5 years: there's always been something more worthwhile to do.
5) NPC's end up with the wrong exit point in storms. I wouldn't classify this as game-breaking, but it is extremely annoying.
I left my response to #2 for here, because I think they're related. I've spent quite a lot of time trying to track down this problem. I experienced it myself years ago, and Andy "fixed" it a couple times; more recently, I spent a week instrumenting the convoys (and automating the testing of escort missions) to detect the bug happening, and it never did. I know it is still happening, despite my instrumentation always registering the same warp-in point being chosen for the player and bots. But, until inspiration strikes or we have some other reason to re-engineer that area of the code, it will likely remain unsolved. Again, it's a question of the best way to spend our time.
Hopefully this response will be taken as it's meant: an honest explanation of why some of your frustrations have been around so long. I'm also somewhat hopeful that you'll tone down your attacks on our priorities or development-speed; they usually just result in discouragement.
For my part, I pulled the unrats, as a design decision. That's all on me, not momerath.
I have said many times that the unrats will return, but their triviality was.. kind of inane at the time. Yes, they did add an element of risk. Yes, we need that back. The pirate clan stuff I want to implement is significantly more complex, but should be vastly more rewarding. So, we are at least working towards something in that direction. Anything more on that is a discussion for Suggestions and not Bugs.
I have said many times that the unrats will return, but their triviality was.. kind of inane at the time. Yes, they did add an element of risk. Yes, we need that back. The pirate clan stuff I want to implement is significantly more complex, but should be vastly more rewarding. So, we are at least working towards something in that direction. Anything more on that is a discussion for Suggestions and not Bugs.
I really really really wish you guys would spend time on the ctc stuff it is extremely annoying to be fighting in b8 and then all of a sudden have a swarm of ctc bots on top of you in addition to fighting a real player.
The simpler way to reduce annoyances in B8 is to ban Peytros....