Report - Current Bugs and Issues

[rustyi]

@Bjg

Had the same error; restarted and no errors -- I believe its related to the patch note that this build may not be compatible with previous build saves.

[bjg]

@Bjg

Had the same error; restarted and no errors -- I believe its related to the patch note that this build may not be compatible with previous build saves.

The notes say "patch includes changes that may be incompatible with saves from recent development builds". I'm playing the "stable" branch.

[sven]

@Bjg

Had the same error; restarted and no errors -- I believe its related to the patch note that this build may not be compatible with previous build saves.

The notes say "patch includes changes that may be incompatible with saves from recent development builds". I'm playing the "stable" branch.

Oops. That's my mistake. The incompatible changes are, roughly, with any saves from games started with the private server builds over the last week or so, or, recent games started using the Steam 'in_development' branch. So, this will specifically include both of your most recent save games. It shouldn't include saves from anyone who's been playing on the Steam or GoG public builds, which is what I was trying to make clear in the notes.

I'm sorry about the save game incompatibility. I try to avoid these, but, every once in a while, they do happen.

[Captainspire]

Oops. That's my mistake. The incompatible changes are, roughly, with any saves from games started with the private server builds over the last week or so, or, recent games started using the Steam 'in_development' branch. So, this will specifically include both of your most recent save games. It shouldn't include saves from anyone who's been playing on the Steam or GoG public builds, which is what I was trying to make clear in the notes.

I'm sorry about the save game incompatibility. I try to avoid these, but, every once in a while, they do happen.

I'm used to it by now. Also gives me a chance to try other game options. However...

uploaded "game_4633"

we're up to stardate 1278 The Tinkers are doing absolutely nothing.

[sven]

we're up to stardate 1278 The Tinkers are doing absolutely nothing.

Thanks for this upload. There are a number of different issues with the AI revealed by this playthrough. Some of them are fixed as of r21431. However, AI's remain generally bad at handling Ring maps -- the odds are good that at least some of the AI factions won't be able to expand easily without the use of outposts, and given that the AI doesn't understand how to use outposts, this ends up seriously curtailing their development. The issue isn't specific to Tinkers -- until I get around to teaching the AI to use outposts; I'd guess you'll see at least 1 or 2 'do-nothing' AIs on most Ring maps.

[nweismuller]

game_4648... unless the number slipped my mind. Should be a game where I have a freshly-established open ports agreement with the Humans. Hit 'next turn', and I should be at war with the Humans with no notification message. Have noticed this at least once before- no notification at all of wars starting. I already thought war notifications were too low-key in not being things that caused end of turn alerts if you didn't pay attention to them, and not taking you to the diplomacy screen, but the lack of any alert at all is a clear bug.

[Chasm]

Tinkers will request food through diplomacy. This is odd since their faction has little to no use for it.

[akkamaddi]

Minor issue in latest official release (one with marauder dialog fix), Tarib Dissidents and Tarib Colonists have the same population icon (colonist) when the dissidents outnumber the colonists.

So I was digging through the code on races, and I made a small discovery. While most races have a "race_unhappy.png" file and the cryptic .table text file accompanying it, the tarib have "tarib.png" and "tarib_happy.png", and the graphic descriptor files. The "tarib_happy" is actually the angry tarib. I tried renaming a copy to tarib_unhappy, but it seems that both colonist and dissident tarib use whatever is tarib.png.

In the assignments.lua file, there are references to ".tarib" and ".tarib_unhappy", but no "tarib_happy".

And that is about the extend to which I can be useful. It seems the dissidents look for "tarib_unhappy", as building the altered race names (dissident, refugee, marauder) seems to be a formula and not a per-race thing. My only guess is that the image names are indexed somewhere, and since "tarib_unhappy" was not present when that index was compiled, the game can't "see" a new copy of tarib_unhappy when it is added to the correct location, and so sticks with the closest name?

Sorry if I'm not saying anything useful. I'm trying to go through how the minor races are "built". I'm plodding through most of it, but the .table file with each image is a bit, to be gracious, cryptic. I've only figured out the image size is the sub_canvas section.

[sven]

Sorry if I'm not saying anything useful. I'm trying to go through how the minor races are "built". I'm plodding through most of it, but the .table file with each image is a bit, to be gracious, cryptic. I've only figured out the image size is the sub_canvas section.

This is useful, I believe you've sorted out the bug. All that should be necessary to complete the fix is to rename the directory 'Lua State\Drawers\PopIcons\normal\tarib_happy' to 'tarib_unhappy', and restart the game. The asset-list is populated automatically each time PopIcons.lua is loaded, while the PNGs in ArtCache\ or PrebuildArt\ are generated implicitly from the data in that Drawers subdir.

Basically, the reason you're finding the .table file so frustrating is that it's a part of a system for building art assets from photoshop document data; and that 'asset building' system is quite complex, because it was designed to support automatic ship and weapon recoloring. Nearly all of that complexity doesn't matter in the case of PopIcons though; PopIcons simply could be PNG files with a little bit of extra metadata for their baseline alignments. However, because I already had tools in place for building annotated art assets directly from photoshop documents for the purposes of making recolorable ships, I built off those same tools when extracting the pop icons. I could write up some docs on how the photoshop-extractor tools work (as they would probably be useful to any modders ambitious enough to try adding new ships or weapons to the game).

However, assuming you're not interested in mastering the dark arts of weapon and ship assets, the most sensible approach to modding in more pop types would probably be to create an alternate implementation of the PopIcon type that's designed explicitly to be easily human-editable. I could write you a little template that just kept things to the basic source-image + baseline info, and side-stepped all the auto-generated PNG asset nonsense. Um, such a project probably ought to wait until after the DLC comes out though.

[akkamaddi]

This is useful, I believe you've sorted out the bug. All that should be necessary to complete the fix is to rename the directory 'Lua State\Drawers\PopIcons\normal\tarib_happy' to 'tarib_unhappy', and restart the game. The asset-list is populated automatically each time PopIcons.lua is loaded, while the PNGs in ArtCache\ or PrebuildArt\ are generated implicitly from the data in that Drawers subdir.
( snip text)
I could write you a little template that just kept things to the basic source-image + baseline info, and side-stepped all the auto-generated PNG asset nonsense. Um, such a project probably ought to wait until after the DLC comes out though.

I want to make it clear up front that I do understand the DLC is consuming your time right now. While I haven't played with the beta, I know you are implementing new mechanics. I work in IT (no-programming) so I have first hand experience that code done right and done well takes time. I have some photo touch-up and a little digital art background, so I have first hand experience that art assets done right and well take time. I have only respect for the work you are doing and gratitude that you are taking time with the users. I have presented nothing urgent, so I have no issues waiting a bit for an answer, or being told something can wait. I really don't want any of my posts to come across as anything other than sincere interest and gratitude.

Grovel, grovel, flattery, grovel.

That said, thank you for such a kind response. I will do a little more testing when I get home from work. I think that I was closing and re-starting the game between renaming the files, but I haven't finished my morning coffee, so I can't brain right now... I did try renaming the files, and it seemed like everything just used "tarib.png", but I may have been going to the main menu rather than closing the game. I will update on my efforts this evening. I have a planet of tarib I can torment with my evil experiments.

With the .table file, I poked around the asset files a few versions back (cough~cough~Zubel~cough), and I saw that many of the images had comic book style ink layers and color layers, and other assets had blur/glow/shadow layers (and Haduir were special with blinking eyes). Some of the info in the table files looked like Photoshop layers, but the "size" and "mtime" entries I didn't' understand. Your answer makes "mtime" make sense. Looking at the table file, though, and given the image files are flat PNG images, could I strip the file down to just the sub_canvas section, where I set the x/y offset and height/width? If it's that easy, I could save you the trouble and do it myself.

[Chasm]

Game 4658 , latest build. Random crash on new game 10 turns in, unsure why. Dev build, updated today.

[Chasm]

And again new game 4659. Happens at end of turn, can't really see a reason though.

[Chasm]

Game 4665 human space near Elowar (due south of it ). Orthin ship on a course for nothing.

[sven]

And again new game 4659. Happens at end of turn, can't really see a reason though.

These bugs were related to some new bleeding edge features; specifically, 'hyperspace anomalies'. They should be fixed now. Thanks for the testing help.

[Arioch]

Orthin ship on a course for nothing.

Or... was it really nothing?? (Mysterious music plays)