Re: Major bug and what to do about it (long)

[Stan Shebs <shebs@apple.com>]

Hans Ronne wrote:

>[...]
>
>The bug that I found works like this. First, the AI finds a target at
>position (x, y) and sets a hit_unit task. However, when do_hit_unit_task
>looks up the actual unit, it finds that the unit no longer exists or has
>moved. The call to check_attack_action (or check_fire_at_action) fails and
>the task itself also fails after 3 attempts (the latter restriction is a
>recent hack by Eric who may have stumbled across the same bug).
>
>
An interesting case. The theory of "attack" and "fire-at" is that
you get to be selective about your victims, which is useful in
particular situations, at least if the game design differentiates
(artillery delivered on top of a tank should be more effective than
firing wildly everywhere in a kilometer-wide cell).

Now if you're directly shooting at the mirage of a tank, then you
are definitely performing the action, even though it's wasted effort,
and at the end of it you may or may not realize it was wasted.  So
the bug is that action checking should have succeeded and then action
execution should have done nothing; and there should be a percentage
chance that the lack of a burning chassis clues in the firing unit
that nobody is there (I thought I added that at some point) and
erases the mirage.

And of course if the view isn't cleared, the AI (or less-intelligent
human player :-) ) could keep shooting over and over at the mirage
aka decoy, which is exactly what the crafty Xconq player wants to
be able to set up, heh-heh.

So I think if you can change the two actions to always take a view
unit instead of an actual unit, you can solve the problem in a
relatively localized way.

On the larger question of the distinction between actions, there
*should* be a huge difference between the types of actions.
Attacking a single unit in a cell should be relatively safe,
while attacking a whole stack of four should be near-suicidal.
The machinery for this is a little lacking; for instance,
bombers and maybe special forces ought to be able to pick and
choose a ground formation to clobber, while grunts have to fight
the whole stack. Similarly, firing on a designated unit (or image
of one) should be much more deadly than into an unseen cell hoping
to hit something, but the random firing may still be a worthwhile
way to harass the enemy.

Setting up good interface for the distinction is more
complicated, which is why it's been neglected I think.

Pruning down the number of actions would certainly simplify
Xconq, and it needs simplification. The most-affected games
would be those at the tactical level, although if the interface
isn't there or is too obscure for players to use much, the
actions' absence won't be noticed.

Stan

>