2.41 Bugs

[SteveAlt]

Steve -

This isn't really a bug, or at least I don't think it is, but in the end the effect is the same, so I thought I'd post it here.  

I'm not sure how the required rank for fleet commanders is calculated, but I think it is somewhat off.  For example, when I create a new fleet, the required rank is R3 (I think).  This is fine, however, over time the required rank seems to increase far too much.  In the Quad-System campaign, my home system naval command currently has eight task groups assigned to it, for a total of twenty ships, all of which are under 7,000 tons.  At this point, the required commander grade to command the home system naval command is an R8, which is a higher rank than anyone in my officer corps can hold, since my officer corps only goes to R7.  

Two things - first off, I think you need to look at how and why the required rank is increasing so much.  Secondly, I'd really, really like to have someplace where I can edit the required rank, as with the required rank for ship commanders.  The Task Froce Organization screen would seem to be the appropriate place.  

The required rank for a task force commander is either 3, or one higher than the highest ranking staff officer, whichever is higher. The required rank for a staff officer is anything up to one rank below the task force commander.

Steve

[SteveAlt]

At any rate, as there are now systems in the game that mass less than fifty tons, could you change Aurora so that it displays the actual tonnage rather than the the tonnage rounded to the nearest fifty tons, as it is now?  

I could, although I am not entirely sure that wouldn't cause any problems. At the moment, class sizes are stored as whole numbers and if I store them as fractions, it could have unforeseen consequences for any code that is assuming an integer. The tonnage is just for display purposes as all sizes are stored in hull spaces. I could show the rounded up size though with any fractional size shown in parentheses to avoid the problem you mentioned.

I have checked and there are quite a few places where the class size is assumed to be a whole number of HS. Trying to change all of them would be a lot of work and there is a very good chance of missing some because so many fields in the database are called "Size" that tracking down just those that refer to ship size and not component size, missile size, etc. is going to be difficult. However, to make design easier, while the Class Summary display still shows the tonnage used for all game mechanics, the Class Size field in the Primary Information section has been renamed Exact Class Size and will show the precise number of HS or tons for the current design.

Steve

[Kurt (OP)]

At any rate, as there are now systems in the game that mass less than fifty tons, could you change Aurora so that it displays the actual tonnage rather than the the tonnage rounded to the nearest fifty tons, as it is now?  

I could, although I am not entirely sure that wouldn't cause any problems. At the moment, class sizes are stored as whole numbers and if I store them as fractions, it could have unforeseen consequences for any code that is assuming an integer. The tonnage is just for display purposes as all sizes are stored in hull spaces. I could show the rounded up size though with any fractional size shown in parentheses to avoid the problem you mentioned.

Steve

That might solve the problem.  I have noticed a lot of weirdness with fractional sized systems.  Sometimes Aurora rounds up, sometimes it doesn't, a lot of the time when it does round up it won't go back down until you remove systems that put it under the next lower rounding point.  

Kurt

[Kurt (OP)]

Steve -

This isn't really a bug, or at least I don't think it is, but in the end the effect is the same, so I thought I'd post it here.  

I'm not sure how the required rank for fleet commanders is calculated, but I think it is somewhat off.  For example, when I create a new fleet, the required rank is R3 (I think).  This is fine, however, over time the required rank seems to increase far too much.  In the Quad-System campaign, my home system naval command currently has eight task groups assigned to it, for a total of twenty ships, all of which are under 7,000 tons.  At this point, the required commander grade to command the home system naval command is an R8, which is a higher rank than anyone in my officer corps can hold, since my officer corps only goes to R7.  

Two things - first off, I think you need to look at how and why the required rank is increasing so much.  Secondly, I'd really, really like to have someplace where I can edit the required rank, as with the required rank for ship commanders.  The Task Froce Organization screen would seem to be the appropriate place.  

The required rank for a task force commander is either 3, or one higher than the highest ranking staff officer, whichever is higher. The required rank for a staff officer is anything up to one rank below the task force commander.

Steve

Ah, that must be the problem.  A staff officer must have gotten promoted to R7, which meant that the commander had to be an R8.  

That should be easily resolved.  Thanks.

Kurt

[SteveAlt]

That might solve the problem.  I have noticed a lot of weirdness with fractional sized systems.  Sometimes Aurora rounds up, sometimes it doesn't, a lot of the time when it does round up it won't go back down until you remove systems that put it under the next lower rounding point.

Introducing the fractional systems was a little risky because up to that point whole numbers were assumed throughout the design process. However, the fast attack craft add so much to the game that I don't want to go back to the old system. In any event, I think I have fixed the rounding problems for v2.5 (I hope).

Steve

[sloanjh]

That might solve the problem.  I have noticed a lot of weirdness with fractional sized systems.  Sometimes Aurora rounds up, sometimes it doesn't, a lot of the time when it does round up it won't go back down until you remove systems that put it under the next lower rounding point.

Introducing the fractional systems was a little risky because up to that point whole numbers were assumed throughout the design process. However, the fast attack craft add so much to the game that I don't want to go back to the old system. In any event, I think I have fixed the rounding problems for v2.5 (I hope).

Steve

I haven't checked this carefully, but my impression has always been that this (hysteresis in ship size) is due to the armor calculation.  I've found that changing to another class and then back in the F5 fixes the display - I suspect the armor calculation is done as a "delta" when a system is added or removed.

John

PS - Any chance of fractional (in units of 0.1 HS) armor size when calculating ship size?  That would give finer granularity of armor (important for gunboats) and allow small systems to fill up the amount needed to get to an integer HS.

[Kurt (OP)]

Steve -

A rather problematic bug just popped up in the Quad-System campaign.  The valiant <un-named to protect the innocent> fleet was attacking the <un-named to avoid giving away the dastardly bad guys> fleet.  The attacking fleet scored first blood by slamming a couple of torpedoes into the other side's gunboat squadrons.  While Aurora was resolving the turn where the torpedoes hit their targets, Aurora generated an apparently endless number of error pop-ups.  The error pop-up said - "Error in ApplyDamage, Error 3021 was generated by DAO.field.  No current record".  I had to cntrl-alt-delete out of Aurora, then I restarted it

After restarting, I pulled up the "Event Updates" screen to figure out what had happened.  The events screen showed that a total of six gunboats were hit by torpedoes, two by two torpedoes, and four by one torpedo.  However, only two gunboats showed that damage were resolved against them.  The first gunboat suffered moderate damage from the one torpedo that hit, but the events screen showed that the second gunboat was destroyed by the two torpedoes that hit it.  The events screen stopped with the destruction of the second gunboat, even though four more gunboats were hit, so I figured that the destruction of the second gunboat was the key event that derailed Aurora.  

I then went to the ships [F6] screen and checked the other ships that had been hit.  None showed damage, so Aurora definitely did not get to their damage.  Interestingly enough, the ship that had been destroyed, where Aurora apparently locked up, was still extant, although heavily damaged.  I manually destroyed it, then began manually applying damage through the "ship" screen.  Everything went alright until I got to the second gunboat hit by two torpedoes.  When I tried to apply 8 points of damage to the gunboat, Aurora again generated an apparently infinite number of "Error in ApplyDamage, Error 3021" messages and I had to exit out again.  

While I haven't destroyed a ship in this campaign yet, I have in other games and haven't had a problem, so I suspect that the problem is with the fact that this is a gunboat design.  

The design is:

Luhu Mk 2 class Gunboat    1000 tons     97 Crew     143 BP      TCS 20  TH 92  EM 0
4600 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 5
Magazine 60   Replacement Parts 1    

GB Nuclear Pulse Engine  (1)    Power 92    Engine Efficiency 11.7    Armour 0    Exp 36%
Max Fuel Capacity 20,000 Litres    Range 7.4 billion km   (18 days at full power)

PB Missile Launcher  (5)    Missile Size 3    Rate of Fire 900
GB Missile Fire Control  (1)    Range: 200k km
GB Missile Mk 2 (20)  Speed: 6,000 km/s   Endurance: 40 secs    Range: 240k km   Warhead: 2    Size: 3

GB Active Sensor  (1)     GPS 200     Range 2m km     Resolution 20


Kurt

[SteveAlt]

I then went to the ships [F6] screen and checked the other ships that had been hit.  None showed damage, so Aurora definitely did not get to their damage.  Interestingly enough, the ship that had been destroyed, where Aurora apparently locked up, was still extant, although heavily damaged.  I manually destroyed it, then began manually applying damage through the "ship" screen.  Everything went alright until I got to the second gunboat hit by two torpedoes.  When I tried to apply 8 points of damage to the gunboat, Aurora again generated an apparently infinite number of "Error in ApplyDamage, Error 3021" messages and I had to exit out again.  

While I haven't destroyed a ship in this campaign yet, I have in other games and haven't had a problem, so I suspect that the problem is with the fact that this is a gunboat design.  

I think you are probably right, although I am having trouble recreating it. I have some very similar gunboats in my current campaigns and I am blowing them up on the F6 window without any trouble, except a "No Record of Ship in cboShip_Click" error which doesn't crash the game and I have now corrected.

Error 3021 means a missing record, which is understandable if you have blown something up, its been deleted and the program is looking for the record. Its almost as if one part of the program has destroyed it and another part of the program doesn't realise that and is still looking for it. Just to confirm the GB theory, could you save your database, then blow up a regular ship to see if that works OK? Could you also create a second gunboat design and see if that has the same problem, just to check whether there is a problem with that specific class or GB in general.

Could you also confirm that this was Error in ApplyDamage and not Error in ApplyInternalDamage. Just checking because the fractional systems do not matter until the program gets to internal damage.

Steve

[SteveAlt]

PS - Any chance of fractional (in units of 0.1 HS) armor size when calculating ship size?  That would give finer granularity of armor (important for gunboats) and allow small systems to fill up the amount needed to get to an integer HS.

That's a good idea in principle, although tricky to handle because it would introduce the idea of a fractional number of systems. Armour is currently a 1 HS system so to have 1.5 armour you have have 1.5 components. Although small crew quarters are only 0.2 HS, they are still a whole system, not 0.2 of a 1HS system. I could handle it by making armour a 0.1 HS system though and having 10x as much. Let me see what's involved and I will get back to you.

Steve

[SteveAlt]

PS - Any chance of fractional (in units of 0.1 HS) armor size when calculating ship size?  That would give finer granularity of armor (important for gunboats) and allow small systems to fill up the amount needed to get to an integer HS.

This is now working. I changed the code to allow fractional amounts of  armour only. Of course this means I now need to check all the ship designs in my current campaign to squeeze in a few fractional systems

Steve

[sloanjh]

PS - Any chance of fractional (in units of 0.1 HS) armor size when calculating ship size?  That would give finer granularity of armor (important for gunboats) and allow small systems to fill up the amount needed to get to an integer HS.

This is now working. I changed the code to allow fractional amounts of  armour only. Of course this means I now need to check all the ship designs in my current campaign to squeeze in a few fractional systems

Steve

Thanks!!  (for all the enhancements/fixes over the last few days - not just this one)

Merry Christmas!!
John

[Erik L]

I then went to the ships [F6] screen and checked the other ships that had been hit.  None showed damage, so Aurora definitely did not get to their damage.  Interestingly enough, the ship that had been destroyed, where Aurora apparently locked up, was still extant, although heavily damaged.  I manually destroyed it, then began manually applying damage through the "ship" screen.  Everything went alright until I got to the second gunboat hit by two torpedoes.  When I tried to apply 8 points of damage to the gunboat, Aurora again generated an apparently infinite number of "Error in ApplyDamage, Error 3021" messages and I had to exit out again.  

While I haven't destroyed a ship in this campaign yet, I have in other games and haven't had a problem, so I suspect that the problem is with the fact that this is a gunboat design.  

I think you are probably right, although I am having trouble recreating it. I have some very similar gunboats in my current campaigns and I am blowing them up on the F6 window without any trouble, except a "No Record of Ship in cboShip_Click" error which doesn't crash the game and I have now corrected.

Error 3021 means a missing record, which is understandable if you have blown something up, its been deleted and the program is looking for the record. Its almost as if one part of the program has destroyed it and another part of the program doesn't realise that and is still looking for it. Just to confirm the GB theory, could you save your database, then blow up a regular ship to see if that works OK? Could you also create a second gunboat design and see if that has the same problem, just to check whether there is a problem with that specific class or GB in general.

Could you also confirm that this was Error in ApplyDamage and not Error in ApplyInternalDamage. Just checking because the fractional systems do not matter until the program gets to internal damage.

Steve

I had this issue in the last game I ran. Forgot about it, and started up the Remnants game on the same db file. The errors still occur, even though the previous game is not active.

[Kurt (OP)]

I then went to the ships [F6] screen and checked the other ships that had been hit.  None showed damage, so Aurora definitely did not get to their damage.  Interestingly enough, the ship that had been destroyed, where Aurora apparently locked up, was still extant, although heavily damaged.  I manually destroyed it, then began manually applying damage through the "ship" screen.  Everything went alright until I got to the second gunboat hit by two torpedoes.  When I tried to apply 8 points of damage to the gunboat, Aurora again generated an apparently infinite number of "Error in ApplyDamage, Error 3021" messages and I had to exit out again.  

While I haven't destroyed a ship in this campaign yet, I have in other games and haven't had a problem, so I suspect that the problem is with the fact that this is a gunboat design.  

I think you are probably right, although I am having trouble recreating it. I have some very similar gunboats in my current campaigns and I am blowing them up on the F6 window without any trouble, except a "No Record of Ship in cboShip_Click" error which doesn't crash the game and I have now corrected.

Error 3021 means a missing record, which is understandable if you have blown something up, its been deleted and the program is looking for the record. Its almost as if one part of the program has destroyed it and another part of the program doesn't realise that and is still looking for it. Just to confirm the GB theory, could you save your database, then blow up a regular ship to see if that works OK? Could you also create a second gunboat design and see if that has the same problem, just to check whether there is a problem with that specific class or GB in general.

Could you also confirm that this was Error in ApplyDamage and not Error in ApplyInternalDamage. Just checking because the fractional systems do not matter until the program gets to internal damage.

Steve

Okay, I've done as you asked.  I recieved he same error when applying damage against a regular ship, and just to check, I applied damage against a different race's ship, and received the same error.  Apparently the problem is not in the fractional ship systems.  

I can confirm that the error was in ApplyDamage, not ApplyInternalDamage.  

THis appears to happen any time a ship is destroyed, so it is odd that you cannot recreate it.  

Kurt

[SteveAlt]

Okay, I've done as you asked.  I recieved he same error when applying damage against a regular ship, and just to check, I applied damage against a different race's ship, and received the same error.  Apparently the problem is not in the fractional ship systems.  

I can confirm that the error was in ApplyDamage, not ApplyInternalDamage.  

THis appears to happen any time a ship is destroyed, so it is odd that you cannot recreate it.  

It isn't happening in my campaign as several ships have been destroyed without a problem. However, its entirely possible I have inadvertently fixed something because quite a lot of code has changed since v2.41. Erik mentioned he had the same problem in his game so it's possible it is a general problem with v2.41, although that version has been around a while and no one else has reported it. If anyone else is reading this please could you try destroying some ships to see if you have the same errors.

To be honest, I am stumped. I have been through the ApplyDamage code looking for places where an infinite amount of 3021's might occur if a ship is destroyed. There are only two loops within that section. One checks for officers on the destroyed ship and the other looks for parasite ships. I don't think either of those is the problem, although if I have already accidently corrected the code I will never find anything. I'll give it until tomorrow to check if anyone else posts on this problem and then I will take another look.

Steve

[Kurt (OP)]

Okay, I've done as you asked.  I recieved he same error when applying damage against a regular ship, and just to check, I applied damage against a different race's ship, and received the same error.  Apparently the problem is not in the fractional ship systems.  

I can confirm that the error was in ApplyDamage, not ApplyInternalDamage.  

THis appears to happen any time a ship is destroyed, so it is odd that you cannot recreate it.  

It isn't happening in my campaign as several ships have been destroyed without a problem. However, its entirely possible I have inadvertently fixed something because quite a lot of code has changed since v2.41. Erik mentioned he had the same problem in his game so it's possible it is a general problem with v2.41, although that version has been around a while and no one else has reported it. If anyone else is reading this please could you try destroying some ships to see if you have the same errors.

To be honest, I am stumped. I have been through the ApplyDamage code looking for places where an infinite amount of 3021's might occur if a ship is destroyed. There are only two loops within that section. One checks for officers on the destroyed ship and the other looks for parasite ships. I don't think either of those is the problem, although if I have already accidently corrected the code I will never find anything. I'll give it until tomorrow to check if anyone else posts on this problem and then I will take another look.

Steve

Steve -

I installed a fresh 2.41 version of Aurora (fortunately not on top of the Quad-System Campaign <G>) and applied some damage to a ship in your Romanov campaign.  I got the same error as before.  

This either means it is a problem unique to my computer, or a general problem with 2.41 that you've since fixed.  

Kurt