Small request about a missile type

[Bit]

In CSB level 4 Northwest, there's an area with poisoned blobs coming out of holes.
Because CSB still will not accept my savegames for several reasons, I just want to ask someone who is trained for a quick use of CSBuild to check out, if a party is hurt in any way by those blobs, because my isn't, and debugging the code, there's really a 0-result in damage. I just can't say if that is original or a bug. Thx for any answer.

[T0Mi]

Been in that area recently. Your chars don't get poisoned? They should.
There is no direct damage from the blobs however (maybe thats the "0-result"), but you should see the alternating damage numbers caused by the poison.

[beowuuf]

there is an error in some code, csbwin used to do that too

[Bit]

Thanks T0mi! Then I have to check that, because my ones don't get poisoned there!
They get poisoned in all other cases, but there not!

I got one other question:
In some cases I found remains of monsters. I know there are some teleporter tricks and some opening pits - but, I found sometimes a pack of steaks, and also a stone golem late in the beginning room - so - is it possible that monsters may run unforced into a pit - even if this is a rare event? Or do I still have a bug in the monstermovement-routine? (Even then - I doubt that a dragon can fall down that hard that he dies).

[Gambit37]

If a level doesn't allow a monster type, it's automatically killed when falling down a pit. Not sure why monsters are willingly hurling themselves into the abyss though -- that sounds like a bug.

[T0Mi]

edit: delete double post

[beowuuf]

You double-posted Tomi, see gambit's explainations as to why monsters 'die' even if invulnerable!

[Bit]

Hmm - I have to check that again then. This routines costs nerves! Must be another slipthrough there then.

The other thing with the blobs I found too - beowuuf is right, it's an original bug.
Happens in Tag016426 when the byte of a 2nd-attribut-value gets layed as word on the local-stack,
but picked back as a byte. It accesses the wrong byte then, gets a 0, subtracts that from the
damage - so - in original DM/CSB this protection skill has no effect - character gets damaged...
The available skill would protect all characters in any case - a skill value of <42 would cause a damage, but for my party the lowest skill is 52.
That's somehow like with the fireshield. No idea what to do now - let it wrong (which in this case is okay). or correct it (like the original gamemath should do, which obviously makes not too much sense in this situation).

[Gambit37]

Well, I think if you have an opportunity to correct bugs in the original game, you should do so

[Sophia]

I ran into this issue while trying to figure out the DM formulas for DSB, too, and I noticed that fireballs ignored your "Anti-Fire."

For what it's worth, in DSB, I tried to keep a balance between what people expect would happen, which is exceptionally dangerous fireballs, and actually factoring it in... here's the formula I used:

Code: Select all

damage = ((200 - Anti_Fire) * base_damage) / 128
if (base_damage > (damage * 5)) then
   damage = base_damage / 5

So, your damage is reduced, but less, since the 200 in this formula was intended to be a 128 in DM, and never reduced beyond 1/5 of what you'd take without anti-fire. This makes them nastier than they "should" be in DM, and more like they are in DM-- which feels right to someone used to its admittedly broken mechanics.

[Bit]

I wish one of FTL's programmers would appear and tell us more stories about such things, because I don't blame them, but the compiler. And I bet somehow they felt that there's something evil hidden which cannot be controlled at all and could endanger the whole project in the end - curious how often they were panicing

@Sophia:
Thanks for that idea. I had the whole night to think about it and the conclusion is close to that what I once posted in the developer's area. For now I let those things as they are and just write a note in the source. I better like to find the real bugs like the steak-problem, and the known issues like doubled timers and objects, so that CSBwin and CSbuild accept the savegames. I'm glad that the truecolor things seem to be fine now, the next challenge will be the hires, with which, to be honest, I believe I just have a small chance to really make it. So much sideeffects! If I really survive that, the option is to plant that knowledge into CSBwin (a new standalone old-style clone makes no sense), or just say: okay, I reached what I wanted and had my fun, it works and that's it - and turn to you and help with any tools for DSB.

[T0Mi]

yeah, you coders have your fun! And I start to think about slowly going insane.
How could that be? The memory of detoxing my party after being through that blob area is so vivid and fresh in my brain. It must have been less than 4-6 weeks since I last played it. I'd have any (!) bet on that. Is it age? Is it another place? *scratches head, grey hair falling off*

[Bit]

No need to go insane, you are absolutely right! With an older version that is closer to the disassembly my party gets poisoned too, because of that bug! Took me a while to find that line then. If I later had translated it correctly, I should have spotted it long before. "scratches head, white hair falliing off"

But there is hope: I spotted it at all!

[Duckman]

That bug's in original DM too I think, because when I shot the blob against a wall (the original DOS version for PC) standing in front of it, nothing happened to my champion. (I had only one)

[beowuuf]

Poison missles don't explode, so hit the wall without injuring the party. The still damage monsters.

The poison blot is a missle type that can be placed to shoot out of walls, but the party can't conjur themselves