v1.8.0 Bugs Thread 1.8.0bugs

[Kelewan]

Version 1.8.0

Moving Research Facilities to another Planet, I discovered that you can end with negative number of "Research Facilities Available" (may be WAI)

Furthermore you can now press "Add RL" Button to add more "not existing Labs" to your projects and pushing the number ob available Labs further in the negatives

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

1.8.0

I am getting about 60 "function #1414: value was too high or too low for a decimal" every turn for 5 to 10 turns.

I'm running your game without errors. However, I had to delete GravS6 to get the game to load. Maybe that was causing the problem.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

No, no, no.
While . NET indeed uses the date format set in the Windows settings by default, the intrepid developer can and should set it to whatever they need, especially when their software doesn't have internationalisation.  This is not user error, this is a bug, no matter how easy it is to work around it.

Ideally, Steve would set the CultureInfo. CurrentCulture for Aurora to something he expects will fit at all times.

Its actually a more general problem. The same date in the same format is still different lengths in different languages. If I fix the date format in the game, I am preventing people from choosing a suitable date format for their location.

He's saying that you can set the culture so that the date is always in English, and in the en_GB long format, so that the dates are always the expected length. Obviously there is some advantage to presenting the dates in the user's language, even if the rest of the text is not translated, and you would lose that.

The other option, of course, is to give the user a UI for controlling the date format. Letting the user choose between the system long date format, the system short date format, and a custom date format string would cover all the possibilities.

A further option would be to use a table control rather than a list control. The table controls can allow resizing any field, as well as nifty things like sorting by any field when the user clicks on a column header. As a bonus you could then eliminate all of the "sort by X" buttons that you have in some of the windows.

I can have the auto-sort headers in the listview too - but there are downsides to them as well so I have avoided them. I think it is better to have the dates in the local language and allow the user to choose the format, than force a specific format in English.

[DFNewb]

I figured out why Area defense fire does not work:

Point Defence

In C# Aurora, fire controls set to 'Final Defensive Fire' or 'Final Defensive Fire (Self Only)' will fire on hostile missiles, regardless of whether the fire control is set to 'Open Fire'. Fire controls set to Area Mode or for AMMs will only fire defensively when that fire control is set to 'Open Fire'.

When a missile reaches its target, a target ship will use its CIWS first. If that is insufficient, it will use any weapons linked to fire controls set to 'Final Defensive Fire' or 'Final Defensive Fire (Self Only)'. If that is still insufficient, ships or the same race or an allied race with fire controls set to 'Final Defensive Fire' will be checked in increasing order of distance from the target ship.

A target population will use any ground units assigned to point defence to shoot at incoming missiles. If that is insufficient, the same process as for ships will take place, checking same race or allied ships within point defence range of the planet.

You are unable to set fire controls to Open fire without a target for them, so you need to manually target the missile salvos to use area defense, which makes it pointless. After you destroy a salvo you will get targeting error messages in the log about how the salvo was destroyed and the ships have no target so now you must only pass 5 seconds at a time (again making area defense useless).

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

You are unable to set fire controls to Open fire without a target for them

Just click the fire control and click 'Open Fire FC'. There is no check for targets when you click the button.

[DFNewb]

You are unable to set fire controls to Open fire without a target for them

Just click the fire control and click 'Open Fire FC'. There is no check for targets when you click the button.

Open fire fleet and open fire all do not work if there is no target assigned.

Open fire FC does work. Assign all or assign fleet does pass on the Open Fire FC.

[DFNewb]

You are unable to set fire controls to Open fire without a target for them

Just click the fire control and click 'Open Fire FC'. There is no check for targets when you click the button.

Also having FC's set to open fire with no target forces the game into 5 second turns.

[Droll]

You are unable to set fire controls to Open fire without a target for them

Just click the fire control and click 'Open Fire FC'. There is no check for targets when you click the button.

Also having FC's set to open fire with no target forces the game into 5 second turns.

I can second this as an issue - imo any beam fire control with a point defense mode should fire on incoming missile salvos without having been told to open fire. AMM controls are complicated since ammo is an issue - they should require the player to tell them to open fire but FC's told to open fire with any set point defence mode should not trigger the increment adjustment event interrupt. (Edit: They should throw the interrupt if the player has assigned a PDFC with an actual non-missile target)

I think in order to reduce annoying micro any FC with a point defence mode should be considered separately from BFCs and MFCs. That way I can press a button that says "Open fire PDFCs" and activate the entire fleets point defence controls at one button press. Likewise this distinction would prevent "auto target FC" from assigning targets to PDFCs so I don't have to worry about my AMMs being wasted on ships for example.

[Thrake]

1.8.0

I am getting about 60 "function #1414: value was too high or too low for a decimal" every turn for 5 to 10 turns.

I'm running your game without errors. However, I had to delete GravS6 to get the game to load. Maybe that was causing the problem.

When I open it I get "function #1171: Can not perform a cast (?) of DBnull item into other types" or so. I do not get the function #1414 like I did previously though (I had runned a few turns after the save I sent you) and everything else looks fine. However GravS6 is missing in my save. I will keep playing and report if something else weird happens in the upcoming turns.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

1.8.0

I am getting about 60 "function #1414: value was too high or too low for a decimal" every turn for 5 to 10 turns.

I'm running your game without errors. However, I had to delete GravS6 to get the game to load. Maybe that was causing the problem.

When I open it I get "function #1171: Can not perform a cast (?) of DBnull item into other types" or so. I do not get the function #1414 like I did previously though (I had runned a few turns after the save I sent you) and everything else looks fine. However GravS6 is missing in my save. I will keep playing and report if something else weird happens in the upcoming turns.

1171 means that fleets didn't load. At some point I need to work through all the load/save code and add error checking at the record level rather than table level. I've done this for fleets for v1.9.

[skoormit]

hi,
i can't see the end of my research because the date format is too big

You have to change the date and time format in your windows settings.   Its been repeated over again as is probably somewhere in the forum how exactly to do it.   If you are on linux im not sure.

No, no, no.
While . NET indeed uses the date format set in the Windows settings by default, the intrepid developer can and should set it to whatever they need, especially when their software doesn't have internationalisation.  This is not user error, this is a bug, no matter how easy it is to work around it.

Ideally, Steve would set the CultureInfo. CurrentCulture for Aurora to something he expects will fit at all times.

Its actually a more general problem. The same date in the same format is still different lengths in different languages. If I fix the date format in the game, I am preventing people from choosing a suitable date format for their location.

Couldn't you use DateTime.ToShortDateString()?
For reference: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.datetime.toshortdatestring?view=netcore-3.1

[kyonkundenwa]

1.8, random stars, Local System Generation doesn't seem to function.

Initially my bug report was going to be that the game never generated connections to existing systems, and I ran a test game intending to prove it, but it turns out they're just incredibly unlikely and LSG is a probable culprit. I used default settings except random stars and I allowed 0 NPR, no star swarm, etc in order to have a peaceful galaxy to auto-explore. I SM'd propulsion tech and explored with ships rather than using SM-explore because I wanted it to get created exactly as it would if I were playing "for real".
When I stopped running the test game I had 80 known systems, with two loop connections (labeled "new link") back to known systems and two "double links" which connect systems back to the systems from which they were originally explored. 83 JP explorations in total. Galactic map image and DB attached.
I'm thinking I probably just got the two loop connections by hitting the same random numbers out of 1000, without any interaction from LSG. With 80 systems revealed the chances of that have started to get pretty good (8% chance per JP exploration now). As for the "double links", they are to be expected if LSG is working properly (about a one-in-sixty chance with default 50-15 LSG settings) but are incredibly unlikely (0.1% chance) if it's not working, so it's a bit odd.
I did another game just now with 100 stars, 90% LSGC, 3 LSGS, and have SM-explored 20 systems now without any loops, just double links.

Finally, system naming gets really weird when your name theme runs out. I expected System #0, System #1, etc, but instead about half the new systems are named System #0 and the rest are either slightly more than #1 or slightly less than #1000, with nothing in between.

To reproduce: play random stars game in 1.8 with any LSG settings. Expect few if any connections to known systems.

[Droll]

Function #1821: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

Scenario: Epsilon Indi system ground combat against precursor outpost defenders - initial precursor force 20k tons and 2k STO, friendly ground forces is a mechanized assault brigade consisting of mostly mechanized with some armoured forces at around 100k tons (including logistics). STOs are firing at a battlecruiser in orbit and missing and orbiting warships are not doing any form of orbital bombardment.

Ground forces have 80 CAS fighters in orbit on ground support missions. 24 of those fighters are committed to supporting 2 armoured companies and 2 mechanized companies - all 4 of those formations are on frontline attack.

The exception is thrown every combat round - it seems to be preventing any CAS from firing since they still have all their ordnance - ground combat continued until 600 tons of enemy was left but would not progress further (telling the CAS to stop fixed it and the outpost was conquered). Similar exceptions also thrown when CAS fighters are on other ground missions.
Each CAS fighter consists of 2 size 12 strafing pods, 1 size 12 bombardment pod and 1 size 12 AtA pod. There are no precursor ground fighters present.

DB attached - planet of interest is Epsilon indi A-IV, the fighters should already be set to ground support so just play it for the next 8 hours and see what happens.

Edit: I just swapped out the AtA pods for a second bombardment pod - same result, its not because the AtA can't shoot at any fighters.

Authors note: When you have a lot of fighters giving support it becomes incredibly time consuming and tedious to assign them to their formations - i think you should make it so that fighters on ground support are automatically distributed to FFDs (6 per) that are in formations doing frontline attack (and maybe extend that to frontline defence too) and leave the fine tuning up to the player. This could also allow extra fighters to automatically replace downed ones as combat progresses.

P.S: If this is a problem I can work around without getting the next patch please let me know, like if its the AtA pods not having a valid target I'll just swap it out for another pod.

Second problem: I unnasigned the CAS to continue combat and now everytime I try to open ground OOB during combat I get:
Function #2355: Object reference not set to an instance of an object - this is preventing me from opening the ground OOB tab and persists beyond the ground combat (saving the game seems to have fixed the persistence but not the cause. I had also sent all fleets home so idk how I prevented the error from being thrown everytime I opened the OOB)
Edit: I think the second problem is related to unassigning fighters from supporting a formation - the references aren't being cleaned up properly.

[Fray]

Version 1. 8. 0

On every construction phase, there are two instances of:

Function 2398: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Database attached.  See the "Commonwealth of Man" game.  I suspect this may have been caused by combat between two NPRs, since I had a period of forced 5-second increments beforehand.

[Droll]

Do NPR factions operate civilian shipping companies - because I think they can still create commercial ships in their homeworld - even if there are no shipyards, no population etc...