I tired to use Repossession on an enemy planet but it said "Target cannot be the Artifact World" even though it was just some random enemy asteroid...and it wasn't his Capital either.
Has anyone else had this problem before?
Yeah, I put a post up about it, there are probably others too.
It's totally broken until (at least) the next patch, afaik.
I only keep wondering, how can bug like this occur...i mean, they were explicitly mentioning the new mechanic (not capital planets and artifact worlds) in the release log, so you would assume, they actually know, what they are doing, perhaps they even tested it for functionality...
similarly with the Global Unity, at first it was not working for the newly colonised worlds, so they fixed it, and now, apparently, once researched, culture spreads not only from your worlds, but from enemy ones too... seriously, how can this happen?
Can it be prevented or not at all? I suppose some bugs cant, like the one, when you could not get Artifact Planet, once you researched TAR as Tec Rebels, but that was a gameplay bug, when i suppose the devs failed to think through all the implications of the TAR tech... in a game complex like SoaSE, that is understandable...
...but going to fix something, which is known to be broken, and breaking it even more?
EDIT: FYI, I do not complain, i am asking serious question, as i do not know squat about coding.
Usually its a mistake in the Code Tim. Some bugs can come from weird places man.
What I think happened is that Stardock probably did not thoroughly test all possible uses for Repossession after "fixing" it.
They can get very ugly as well. *Shivers.*
That's one of the basic rules of game development. Believe me, I've studied that. Yet a lot of companies rush out updates without proper playtesting.
Well, people are asking for new update/Vasari every single day, so its kind of understandable, if they decide to please the community and bring on updates sooner rather than later, the mistakes and bugs are bound to happen...
Anyway, in this particular case, i still wonder, is coding that complex, that you have to basically test its functionality, i mean, you cant be 100 percent sure, that what you just coded, is going to work as intended? From the outside, now not taking of the coding part into account, it does not look so complicated....repossesion can target only enemy planets with the exception of capitals and artifact worlds...is this that complex to code, that you can easily fail to code it properly, even though you know exactly, what are they trying to achieve, because its already meant to be a fix to another bug?
It is reasonable to think that they want to rush updates in order to appease the community, so bugs are indeed bound to happen.
Coding is not that complex - the logic used to make it is complex (please remember, this is my own personal opinion.) Debugging/testing can also be tricky. Generally, when you create a code, you do not simply test it yourself - you need others to test it for you, other people might think of new ways to try and use the code, or just use it in unexpected ways, hence this beta testing phase.
Also, depending on how the developers tag planets, it can be either be child's play to exclude artifact worlds and capital planets from Repossession, or it can be a nightmare because all the planets basically have the same properties as each other.
To be frank, I personally think that the current bug with Repossession should have never happened. If you are going to change what targets it can not be used on, one should test it on targets that it is supposed to be used on. At the very least, the person who did "fix" Repossession should of had his/her coworkers test it out before it was released to the public.
I did not know that you studied game development. Do you know any languages?
Well I know when I made my own custom maps on WC3(Alot of interesting scenarios I made the entire naga race<3) I internally tested my own maps. I look at galaxy forge and see they are using a similar Event-Condition-Trigger system so I am happy<3
Though after two years I switched studies, so I rarely make games anymore (sometimes for fun, when I have a good concept which I can't get out of my head). I now study Communication and Multimedia Design, which is more of a blend between design and programming than Game Development. I never regretted switching studies. Nice of you to ask by the way.
Lucky you, having such wonderful opportunity to study such things... i wanted too, but in my country, tough luck... surely you may try to go and study in a foreign country (in my case closest city, where you can study something like this would probably be Wien), but i do not feel like moving to foreign country now, not 10 years ago... i am land-locked
That said, is studyong these things math-heavy? If yes, i would most likely fail, being generally shit at math. Hell, because of the math. I would probably fail studying economy, which is over here considered to be one of the easiest things to study (surprisingly, but this has i suppose more to do with the quality and level of the local universities, than economy being easy stuff)...
You are welcome! I asked because I am a web developer. So I do know that JavaScript is different from Java (though the JVM is still used.) I know a bit fluent in PHP , though there are bound to be others that make me look like an amateur. I also know a bit of MYSQL and love manipulating MYSQL databases with PHP . Since I am a web developer, I (should) know CSS3 and HTML5, and I do know them. I also have a somewhat formal education in C#. Though I am not a "super pro" at these things, I know enough to make a living.
The strange bug I did talk about did deal with web development. You know how some websites have a "passwords need to be between 5 and 12 characters?" Well, we got a ticket about someone who was trying to use a new password that was within the limit, but he was being told that it was too long. Only when he omitted the < (or was it a >?) from his password did his password fall within an acceptable length.
Also, Teun, what games have you helped with? Mayhaps I have heard/played some of them?
(This part somewhat deals with code.)What happened was this. Those who work with getting text from a user have to filter out special characters for security/functionality reasons. In this case, < will become < (> becomes > Heck, this is going on with our posts. Why is it done? Because if you left a stray "<" in HTML, you will be bound to break it, thus why the character is escaped.). Turns out that his password was being altered by this function and then its length was checked. I confirmed this by changing my own password (on this site) to "<>." It was seen as a legitimate eight character password (<> was what the system saw.) Needless to say, the error is known and I am quite sure that the bug has been dealt with.
For what I do, it is not that math heavy, if at all. I need to figure out how to approach certain things, so what I do is more logical based than math based (although I do have a soft spot for math and am majoring in it.)
I feel as though we have gone off on a tangent... (Oh no! How to get back on topic and still contribute to this thread!?)
Though I have yet to play as the Advent Loyalists, I hear that because of these two bugs (I am speaking about the culture bug) kinda "breaks" them.
I can see in my head one way this Bug might have happened. In broad strokes:
Original code: (called when ability is activated)
Planet transfer code called on _target_
New code:
if( non_artifact non_capital conditions of _target_ met):
else:
"I don't think so, Tim"
All that needs to happen is for there to be an error in that condition check. And this could slip through QA if the changes were only checked against the new function (instead of new + old): Aborting on Capitals and Artifact Worlds. Which it does!
It just aborts on everything else, too
Just double checked... I can still Repossess the Artifact World. It looks like there's a logic block missing a Boolean negation in the code.
Easy way to solve the problem you stated is to exclude the "<" and ">" signs from list of valid characters in area where one must enter his password. Though there are always other options.
To return to your question about games I worked on. They are just Flash games (a few of which may still be found on the internet at sites like Armorgames.com, but I'm not sure they are still there). So it is very unlikely you played any of them, since there are millions of Flash games available on the web for free.
According to the change log, this issue has been resolved.
So I guess the Repossession bug got noticed too late to make it into this latest patch. Seems like it got introduced when they changed it to not be useable against Artifact planet and Capital victory conditions. This patch just changed its autocast conditions.
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