Need help debugging.

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 4:18 pm

I have received a savegame from Antman in which the
Timers are all out of their proper order. This means that
things are not happening when they should.

For example, a fireball will appear to stand still for a
very long time while one thrown later will move normally.
Or doors will take a long tiime to open. All sorts of
weird effects including an eventual crash because the
Watchdog timer gets delayed too long.

This is probably due to my attempt to allow the timer
queue to expand. That was installed in version 9.6L.
I cannot figure out what is wrong.

Antman: Can you provide us with the original game from
which you started playing? You must have converted it
somehow before you began. Gotten rid of Clones and such.

If anyone can get a complete recording of a game
in which this occurs it would be most useful. The game
Antman sent me is the one that looks like Conflux1.11.
It (and the original, I believe) has a lot of errors to begin
with. Mostly cells flagged as having objects in them but
which are in fact empty. This should not be possible but
I tried to make CSBwin tolerate them. That is another
possible point of failure.

So if anyone can play this from the beginning with a
complete record and cause a failure.......You all say you
would like to help with the coding but don't have the
programming skills. Well this is an opportunity to help
with what you do best. Playing.

Remember to Record!!!!

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 6:13 pm

Since i've been playtestign the other one, then i can play through the earlier version

Do we convert it with the current version of CSBuild, or do we wait for the source file being available to mail out from antman?

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 6:49 pm

I would wait. There is no telling how he did the conversion.
There were hundreds of clones. Some of them looked like
they were important to gameplay....like cloned Counters.
Simply copying them might make the dungeon unplayable.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 7:09 pm

I went ahead and did a conversion anyway, and got a pair of 'bogus heroes' for zed and leif..all other champions so far seem unaffected (out of the seven others around)
I'll do a quick look aroudn the early levels just now, but wait for the game to do anything intense then

Edit: i just remembered csbuild doesn't save your options, so i hadn't set it to 'allow all' - this was on default conversion. In 'allow all' the champions come out fine - this is odd, as there shouldn't be anything unusual about those two!
There are still a few illegal objects declared on level 5, i believe...

Post by **Zyx** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 7:23 pm

I've been working on CSBuild since V1.2.
I have no idea what is causing the bug. I can't reproduce it so far.
It probably depends on Antman's conversion. I guess the clones might be involved here.
Maybe if Antman would make available the savegame to everyone we could diagnostic more easily the problem.

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 8:23 pm

The dungeon that Antman sent me is:

csbgame.dat

at

dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin

But it is already very much confused. Lots of things
have gone wrong by this time.

Antman · Post by **Antman** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 3:21 am

This may be very annoying, but i dont think i have the dungeon i started that game on. It was done on the version before the version which fixed the scroll deletion problem, when i converted it, lots of screens saying problems popped up and i just clicked 'ok' for all of them or clicked 'cancel' when there there was no 'ok'. When the version which fixed the scroll problem came out i did another conversion and saved over the first one. I was going to start a new game, but then i decided i would just keep playing the version without the scrolls.
I will send my latest conversion anyway, and try to reproduce the error while recording. It could take ages though, i was playing that game for quite a while before the errors started popping up.

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 3:57 am

I put Antman's dungeon.dat at
dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin

I will release a CSBuild in less thatn 12 hours
which will detect this sort of problem in the
Timer queue. I suspect that something went wrong
in Antman's game long before he was really aware
of it. In this way, one can save a game periodically
and use CSBuild to see if it has gone awry.

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 5:52 am

I posted CSBuild Version 0.811 at
dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin

It will detect out-of-order Timer entries.

==========================================
Version 0.811
--One-Click movement of objects within a wall.
--Detect out-of-order Timer entries.
--Hide 'Operated By' when searching for monsters.

Another thing I noticed about the csbgame.dat that Antman
sent.....There is esactly one timer that is in the wrong place.
Of course, that affects many other timers.

The one that is out-of-order belongs to a monster at
location 03(29,13). And there are two timers of the same
type that belong to that monster. I don't think this should
happen.....especially since this is not the level the party is
on. Why these two strange things should be connected to
the same timer entry.....I have no idea.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 5:59 am

hmm, either a backlog from a constantaly triggered timer or ..well, i couldn't guess!

i'll try tomorrow, but if it seems to be sorted i'll probably go back to the normal playtesting...

Antman · Post by **Antman** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 10:10 am

Just made a LONG game of conflux 1 with 1 reincarnated character, and i did get the timer error and i think i know where it occurs, at the bottom of the tower of Mapang. I recorded it and i will send it to Paul, I guessed it was a DM based game so you will need to use DM rules to watch it which i forgot and it took me ages to realise why it wasnt working, it was a bit close in some places like when i was cornered by two hell hounds and only just escaped but it was 6 hours or so of non-stop fun that is the dungeon conflux.

A couple of other little bugs though, you cant through items at fake walls and when I reincarnated another character, took his executioner, and banged his head against a wall to death and continued, my main characters carrying capacity suddenly became less and I had to drop alot of stuff which easily weighed more than the executioner itself.

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 1:28 pm

I'm still pretty much investing my spare time into Conflux II but I'll give it a quick try tonight. Never played the first version so cannot tell you anything about it so far. Has there been a comparison between the original file (PC DM) and the converted dungeon? Maybe the converter produced something that made things go wrong?

Regards, PitD

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 5:14 pm

Please ignore the following. Can you spell 'S-t-u-p-i-d'?
I assumed that because you were playing DM rules that
you were using the DM graphics. I just tried the
CSB graphics and it works great. Thank you very much
for the great effort in reproducing this problem. Now
that I can cause it I can fix it. God knows how long
it will take!
======================================

A bit of bad news. I cannot replay Antman's game. I
get a 'sequence/timing' error about 72 minutes into
the game.

Antman: Can you replay it? If so, maybe we have
different graphics files.

I am using the CSBwin version 9.6r from the download
area, I select DM Rules, and I have your logfile from
record002.rar, and your dungeon.dat
that you shipped with the following comment:

I dont think this is the original dungeon i used, i explained why on the forums, but if it has scrolls it isnt and if it does then it is the original you want. I am happy to try and reproduce the problem.

If you cannot replay it then I have to first work on the
replay error.

If you are able to replay it then I need to get your graphics.dat
and dungeon.dat just to be sure we have the same ones.

Antman · Post by **Antman** » Sun Dec 14, 2003 9:35 pm

Yes i can replay it to the error, i will send my graphics file. I used CSBWin version 9.6r.

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 12:09 am

The immediate cause of the failure in Antman's game
is a message sent to the stairwell on lever 13. From 13(09,09)
to 13(00,00).

This caused a type zero timer entry to be created and since
such a type is illegal, we died when we attempted to process
the timer. This evening I will post a
version 9.6s which will warn the player (once, like the illegal
decoration) that an actuator has an illegal target and then will
proceed to play the game.

I do not think this is the same problem that we were looking for.
We can hope......but I think there is little hope. I will study it
a bit further.

BTW, CSBuild pointed out that the actuator at 13(09,09) had
no target. But it did not point out that the destination was
a stairwell. I will add that to the things it checks.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 1:07 am

Odd, why was a stairwell not treated as a wall, floor, pit, etc for events in the code?
Does that mean you can't make text in a stairwell silent/active, for example? (not something i've tried, but i would never have imagined a problem with it)

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 2:19 am

That is quite correct.

The reasons elude me, too. I proposed my best
guess some time ago. I would have treated all
Cell Types the same as far as message destination
is concerned. But....that is how it is.

We can choose to treat Stairwlls as if they were
open rooms if we like. I don't see any downside to
it. But let us fix it for now and ponder changing it at
a later date. I think the Message Type/Cell Type
table is in the graphics.dat. Probably should not mess
with it.

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 3:58 am

I posted CSBwin version 9.6s. Solves Antman's most recemt
problem but I don't think it fixes his original problem.

Antman: You can load one of your savegames and continue
your adventure with this version.

Don't forget to record.

==============================================
Version 9.6s
--Do not create type zero Timer entries. Warn the player
once and then be quiet about it. Don't issue warning in
Playback mode.
--Don't announce 'Illegal Wall Graphic' if in Playback mode.

Antman · Post by **Antman** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:25 am

I loaded and kept on playing for quite a while with no more new bugs, think the one i found was the one that causing all the problems. I remember in my first game that that was where things were going wrong and things slowly got weirder and i got more frequent errors as i went on.

Anyway, i was stuck in that game, didnt know where to go next, i had reached the two game endings i had found in my original game. So i cheated, and looked at CSBuild and found out i needed four items from characters near the beggining of the game to get behind four doors i couldnt open. Since three of my four character spaces were used i didnt think i could reach three of those areas, but i could!

I got my guy on low health, cast a poison cloud in the square with one of the potraits and used the ghost trick. Then i found you could switch between ghost chracters as you wished by used different potraits, so i did this and got all the items from all the characters and took my main guys bones to an altar and resurrected him and was able to reach all four of those areas. Its a great trick, it could be used to get all the items from the starting characters in DM if you wished.

Antman · Post by **Antman** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 11:17 am

I found out whats happening in that carrying capacity bug, after i chose my second character in the recording i sent you, for some reason, 19.6kg is added to my guys weight. So at the end of the recording, if you drop all his equipment, it still says he is carrying 19.6kg of items.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 1:00 pm

the point of the different endings is for replay and to have characters matter though - so the ghost trick bug is quite an evil one in this case that spoils the replay value! ah well : )

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 12:03 pm

I thought it was already disabled in CSBwin - never got it to work so far. Posion cloud in front of a portrait and resurrecting/reincarnating the new character juyt before the other one dies, right?

Regards, PitD

Antman · Post by **Antman** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 1:48 am

Get your character on low health
Cast a poison cloud infront of a portrait
Walk into the poison and click on the portrait
Dont ressurect or reincarnate, just wait untill your character is dead and click cancel
You now have a ghost which can ghost into other portraits by clicking on them and clicking cancel
Each time you ghost into a new character drop his or her items on the ground
When you get to the last 3 portraits, reincarnate or ressurect them in your party, and take your 1st original characters bones and find an altar of Vi
You now have alot of free items and a group of 4 characters

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 2:02 am

Or, if you have no magic, go to bed. When you get
up in the morning your character will have starved to death.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 8:53 am

lol, good plan...and don't let it affect your sleep, because really, they don't suffer too much

i forget, but the ghost is affected by teleporters, isn't it and doesn't affected floor triggers, right?
so to block this bug, all you need to do is create a perimeter of teleporters imbedded one back from the walls around, and a 'cap' of teleporters in one of the clear areas near the start, which is closed by character weight...if you walk aroudn with 'theron' or the more powerful ghost character, then they open and keep pushing the ghost backwards - or perhaps just throws them down to some unnused level saying 'sorry, ghost bug not allowewd in this dungeon'

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 11:57 am

I think I'll opt for the "go to sleep" version. Since my nights are pretty short lately this might be a double good idea ;o) If I can avaoid opening Conflux II that is...

Regards, PitD

Post by **Zyx** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 4:46 pm

beowuuf wrote:so to block this bug, all you need to do is create a perimeter of teleporters imbedded one back from the walls around, and a 'cap' of teleporters in one of the clear areas near the start, which is closed by character weight...if you walk aroudn with 'theron' or the more powerful ghost character, then they open and keep pushing the ghost backwards - or perhaps just throws them down to some unnused level saying 'sorry, ghost bug not allowewd in this dungeon'

*opening CSBuild right now!*

Post by **Lunever** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 5:07 pm

Actually, I don't think bugs like this should be fixed (same goes for the firestaff+powergem-trap), I rather see them as integral cheat modes to the game. Please, leave those poor bugs be!

Post by **Zyx** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 7:00 pm

Curious... all the kinds of pressure pads get activated by a ghost. In DM PC I have the memory of actuators only activated by a party, not a ghost. Can someone confirm this? didn't you use such a discriminatory device in the team dungeon, Beowuuf, at the very beginning?

Lunever: I quite agree with you, provided there is a way for a designer to forbid this bug if he wants to. Personnaly, I certainly didn't spent months of work to let it vulnerable to simple sabotages like that. I'd rather have the player spend their cleverness into ingame tactics instead of cheats and outgame spoiling editing.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 7:38 pm

i'm sure there was things that theron could do and not at the start of the team dungeon. theron could trigger pads, just not party pads if i remember right now, but of course he couldn't open doors, either

hmm, i guess you'll have to live with the bug, unless you put permenant 'traps' at champion mirrors that activate on party bones falling there...and of course that penalised the poor person who just happened to fall prey to a creature at the wrong time...