Ambrosia Garden Archive
    • confirmed bug with EVN syst visibility


      I believe I have discovered a serious bug in EVN regarding the visibility of systems as controlled by mission bits. If these bugs appear in the EVO port, I can only assume they will eventually impact plug in development for EVN in general.

      To make my case, I have made several control and test pilots, some EVO, some EVN, some plt. They all test the same conditions. I have uploaded all the files for people to confirm my observations:
      (url="http://"http://phair.csh.rit.edu/~seant/wind/visBugs.zip")http://phair.csh.rit...ind/visBugs.zip(/url)

      The following conditions were followed.

      Control files:
      These files are to be used with the original EVO game (not the port)
      •Untitled is a plugin which provides a map available at all worlds. When purchased, it reveals the entire galaxy.
      •Virgin(EVO) is a brand new pilot. It has never been used.
      •b13b14(EVO) is a copy of Virgin(EVO), but mission bits 13 and 14 have been set.

      Control conditions:
      1.) If necessary, download and install EVO.
      2.) place the Untitled plugin in the plugin folder
      3.) place Virgin(EVO) and b13b14(EVO) in the pilots folder
      4.) Run EVO
      5.) Open pilot Virgin(EVO)
      Note: Although this pilot has not seen the intro screen, the intro screen will not load. This is normal, though is arguably a bug.
      6.) Land on the planet
      7.) Purchase the outfit that has no image and is called "Marine gear" which costs -2500cr.
      8.) Leave the planet.
      9.) Look at the universe map. Note systems Obron, Gualon, Gamur, ROmit and Avann.
      10.) Use ESC to go to the main screen, load pilot b13b14(EVO) and repeat the outfit purchasing and map observations.

      Results:

      system | Virgin (govt(colour)) | b13b14(govt(colour))
      ------------------------------------------------------------
      Obron | Voinian(red) | UE Frontier (blue)
      Gualon | Voinian(red) | Hinwar (blue) (Hinavar)
      Gamur | Voinian(red) | Hinwar (blue)
      Romit | Voinian(red) | Emalgha (orange)
      Avann | Voinian(red) | Uninhabited (na)

      This data represents what things should look like.

      Experiment files:
      These files are to be used with either the Mac or Windows version of EVN along with the EVO port
      •Untitled (or untitled.rez)is a plugin which provides a map available at all worlds. When purchased, it reveals the entire galaxy.
      •Virgin(EVN) (or Virgin(EVN).plt) is a brand new pilot. It has never been used.
      •b13b14(EVN) (or b13b14(EVN).plt) is a copy of Virgin(EVN), but mission bits 13 and 14 have been set.

      Control conditions:
      1.) If necessary, download and install EVN and the EVO port for EVN.
      2.) place the Untitled plugin in the plugin folder
      3.) place Virgin(EVN) and b13b14(EVN) in the pilots folder
      4.) Run EVN
      5.) Open pilot Virgin(EVN)
      Note: Although this pilot has not seen the intro screen, the intro screen will not load. This is normal, though is arguably a bug. That the pilot has not seen the intro screen can be confirmed by reading the pilotlog.txt.
      6.) Land on the planet
      7.) Purchase the outfit that has no image and is called "Regional Map" which costs 0cr.
      8.) Leave the planet.
      9.) Look at the universe map. Note systems Obron, Gualon, Gamur, ROmit and Avann.
      10.) Use ESC to go to the main screen, load pilot b13b14(EVN) and repeat the outfit purchasing and map observations.

      Results: The regions of the map holding Obron, Gualon, Gamur, Romit and Avann are missing systems as though one hasn't explored there. Since one has purchased a map encompasing the entire universe, however, those systems should appear. Repeated purchasing of the special map does not make the hidden systems appear.

      Further experimentation:
      If one should go and explore the areas affected, the following oddities appear:

      System Govt Colour Legal Status
      ---------------------------------------------------------
      Gamur Hinwar Red Decent Individual
      Obron UE Frontier Red Clean
      Hinavar Hinwar Red Decent Individual
      Romit Emalgha Red Decent Individual

      There may be other problems, but these were the most apparent.

      On windows, the results are similar except that purchasing the special map does reveal all the systems. The odd colouring/legal status outlined above is present.

      ------------------
      Mac<-->PC pilot file Conversions: (url="http://"http://phair.csh.rit.edu/~seant/EV/PilotConvert/")http://phair.csh.rit...V/PilotConvert/(/url)
      "Create enigmas, not explanations." -Robert Smithson

    • I'm assuming that you're running under EVN 1.0.6 -- since I'm not positive, confirmation would be nice. I'll check this out when I get home later this afternoon and see what I can come up with.

      ------------------
      Suddenly, the little scoutship disappeared and then reappeared right behind the alien warfleet. The gravitic ship's captain hailed the armada. "You are going to be destroyed, but I will give you a choice as to how you want to spend eternity: big pieces, little pieces, or quarks?"
      Dead silence.
      "Quarks it is, then."

    • Quote

      Originally posted by spacecowboy:
      **I'm assuming that you're running under EVN 1.0.6 -- since I'm not positive, confirmation would be nice. I'll check this out when I get home later this afternoon and see what I can come up with.
      **

      Yes. I ran tests with mac and windows EVN 1.0.6 and EVO 1.0.2

      I'm very interested to see if others can confirm my results.

      -STH

      ------------------
      Mac<-->PC pilot file Conversions: (url="http://"http://phair.csh.rit.edu/~seant/EV/PilotConvert/")http://phair.csh.rit...V/PilotConvert/(/url)
      "Create enigmas, not explanations." -Robert Smithson

    • Windows behaves how you say it does, but i am not sure what the problem is - the data files say that those systems should have the govts that they do when those bits are set.
      The legal status is a bit odd. What changed have occured between EVO and EVN in the area of govt legal statuses? I am thinking its possible the problem could be a port that didnt take into account some new feature or behavior, not nessesarilly something that anyone would encounter in making a new plugin.
      However, the mac behavior you described does sound bugged, but my mac wont run EVN so i cant test.
      -Az

      ------------------

    • Quote

      Originally posted by Azratax2:
      **Windows behaves how you say it does
      **

      Thanks for the confirmation, Azratax2. Can anyone confirm the errant behavior on Macs?

      -STH

      ------------------
      Mac<-->PC pilot file Conversions: (url="http://"http://phair.csh.rit.edu/~seant/EV/PilotConvert/")http://phair.csh.rit...V/PilotConvert/(/url)
      "Create enigmas, not explanations." -Robert Smithson

    • Interesting. Visbits seem to work fine on my EVN, though I haven't tested for your particular conditions.

      However, porting from EVO creates problems because EVO used 1xxx to negate, whereas EVN uses !xxx

      ------------------
      M A R T I N • T U R N E R
      (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/vftp/show.pl?product=evo&category;=plugins&display;=downloads&file;=FrozenHeart104.sit.bin")Frozen Heart(/url)
      (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/vftp/show.pl?product=evo&category;=plugins&display;=downloads&file;=FemmeFatale.sea.bin")Femme Fatale(/url)
      (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl?path=evo/plugins&file;=Frozen Heart - the No.hqx")Frozen Heart - the Novel(/url)

    • Quote

      Originally posted by Martin Turner:
      **Interesting. Visbits seem to work fine on my EVN, though I haven't tested for your particular conditions.

      However, porting from EVO creates problems because EVO used 1xxx to negate, whereas EVN uses !xxx
      **

      Quick check: In the EVN Override port, they use !b14, not b1014, to hide the Oberon system (as they should).

      ------------------
      (url="http://"http://ulrik.no-ip.org")ulrik.no-ip.org(/url)

    • Quote

      Originally posted by Azratax2:
      **Windows behaves how you say it does, but i am not sure what the problem is - the data files say that those systems should have the govts that they do when those bits are set.
      The legal status is a bit odd. What changed have occured between EVO and EVN in the area of govt legal statuses? I am thinking its possible the problem could be a port that didnt take into account some new feature or behavior, not nessesarilly something that anyone would encounter in making a new plugin.
      **

      Can anyone confirm this behavior when playing the EVO TC for Nova starting with a brand new pilot and working their way through the UE missions? If it is a true bug, it should appear after the missions in which the UE launches their major attacks on Voinian spobs and helps liberate the Hinwar(?sp?) and expand the Emgalah(?sp?) region of control.

      Any further word on this will help, as I still don't know if what I'm seeing are artifacts of the project I'm working on, a porting error, or an engine limitation.

      -STH

      ------------------
      Mac<-->PC pilot file Conversions: (url="http://"http://phair.csh.rit.edu/~seant/EV/PilotConvert/")http://phair.csh.rit...V/PilotConvert/(/url)
      "Create enigmas, not explanations." -Robert Smithson