Lisa, or anyone else,

Specifically what problems is there with the ports? With the couple of test games I have with .55 and the gold bubbles and tunnels. I have yet to see any problems.

If I know specifically what to look for I might be able to help out on getting info and files to you.


The WABBIT
ICQ# 12988803
http://www.shadowworldgame.com

From what I gather, a number of sectors equal to the total sizes of your bubbles (using the bubbles option in bigbang), at the UPPER end of the total sector range, will have nonworking ports.

i.e. if it's a 5000 sector universe, and you had 5 bubbles in bigbang ranging from a size of 40 to 50, 200-250 sectors are part of those bubbles, which means any ports in sectors 4801-5000 will not work, and possibly sectors 4751-4800 depending on how large those bubbles actually ended up.

I could easily be wrong, but this is the impression I got from the bug reports.

quote:
Lisa, or anyone else,

Specifically what problems is there with the ports? With the couple of test games I have with .55 and the gold bubbles and tunnels. I have yet to see any problems.

If I know specifically what to look for I might be able to help out on getting info and files to you.


The problem was found and has been corrected. Although the bug was very visible when playing the game, it was very subtle within the code itself.

Lisa M. Wilson
aka Rave

Any idea on when .56 will be out then? Would like to get some testing in before I startup WTC later this month.

I thought I read a couple of weeks ago that it was going to be out in a week, but it doesn't seem to have happened that way hehe. I know how these things go though..

Fuseblown
http://www.thestardock.com

Lisa,

It is good news that JP has fixed the problem. But, for all of use out there that do not have .56 yet. We need to know all of the specifics about what the actuall problem is.

As I had stated before. I had not seen this problem. But, I must test my games to see if this problem is there. And fix them before any one has a problem with the ports.

I have already created a script to run through every sector in the universe. To find out if it has a port and to see of it can trade at the port. And I have been running it on games I have set up for looking for this bug. I have yet to come across it.

My test games are of sectors starting @ 1000, incrementing by 1000. With 5 gold bubbles and default min. and max. links. With default 0 sector tunnel length and 10 sector tunnel length.

When my testing is complete I will send to you and JP the specs and the outcome of the test, if you want. This way you, and JP, can make sure of what the problem really is.

If you can send to me any info on the specific specs that was used to cause the bug. Please send them to me.



The WABBIT
ICQ# 12988803
http://www.shadowworldgame.com

quote:
Any idea on when .56 will be out then? Would like to get some testing in before I startup WTC later this month.


I can't really give you a time estimate on .56 at the moment. A lot of work has gone into it so far--some -very- serious--work is being put into this revision not just for bug fixes, but with the intent of getting Trade Wars to the point where it needs to be for a final release.

Nonetheless, I'll try to get a time estimate for everyone today.

Lisa M. Wilson
aka Rave

quote:
It is good news that JP has fixed the problem. But, for all of use out there that do not have .56 yet. We need to know all of the specifics about what the actuall problem is.


This was actually a very subtle bug. It was very visible in games where it existed but was a pain for JP to track down in the code. In games where the universe was created with the tunnel depth setting used (set to greater than one), and ports that were located in a tunnel sector will have the unusable port bug.

What happens, is that bigbang attempts to move the port out the the tunnel sector (there's a reason for this) out into open space. But in doing so, it wasn't updating all the records, creating a port that wasn't really there...

So, you don't need to check every port in the game. Just the ports that are located in tunnel sectors created by the new gold bubble options. (As far as I'm aware, at least.)

There are reports of the .55 bigbang creating universes with large areas of unaccessible sectors (large bubbles that aren't reachable from anywhere else) but like the unusable port bug, as far as I know this hasn't been able to be reproduced on a consistent enough basis to determine the cause of the problem.



Lisa M. Wilson
aka Rave

Okay and thanks for the info. For my testing so far. I have completely tested 6 games. I'll show the specs for the first two. But, all the other games are the same except universe size. The first two (games 1 & 2) are 1000 sectors. The next 2 are 2000 sectors, and so on.

Bug Test Game 1 Parameters:

Random Seed: randomly selected

Universe Size in Sectors: 1000
Maximum Possible Course Length: 45
Maximum Possible Starports: 400
Initial Starports to Build: 380
Maximum Possible Planets: 200
Two-Way Warps: 300
One-Way Warps: 30
Maximum Possible Players: 200
Maximum Possible Ships: 800

Enable Gold Features: Yes
Enable MBBS Compatibility: No
Ferrengal in Bubble: No

Bubbles: 5
Minimum Bubble Size: 100
Maximum Bubble Size: 180
Minimum Bubble Links: 1
Maximum Bubble Links: 4
Minimum Link Tunnel Depth: 0
Maximum Link Tunnel Depth: 0



Bug Test Game 2 Parameters:

Random Seed: randomly seclected

Universe Size in Sectors: 1000
Maximum Possible Course Length: 45
Maximum Possible Starports: 400
Initial Starports to Build: 380
Maximum Possible Planets: 200
Two-Way Warps: 300
One-Way Warps: 30
Maximum Possible Players: 200
Maximum Possible Ships: 800

Enable Gold Features: Yes
Enable MBBS Compatibility: No
Ferrengal in Bubble: No

Bubbles: 5
Minimum Bubble Size: 100
Maximum Bubble Size: 180
Minimum Bubble Links: 1
Maximum Bubble Links: 4
Minimum Link Tunnel Depth: 0
Maximum Link Tunnel Depth: 10


Of the 6 games I have so far tested. I have yet to come across any ports that are inaccessable. The same goes for any sectors.

After I have completed my full set of testing. I will run through the test again but set the min. Link Tunnel Depth at greater than 0. And see how that does.



The WABBIT
ICQ# 12988803
http://www.shadowworldgame.com

After running my script for 10 games. And still did not find any unaccessable ports. I then went through my script to make sure it was okay. And I did find a bug in my script. I corrected this and started it all over again.

At which time I had found unaccessible ports in game 2. The ports happened to be in sectors: 978, 980, 981, 987, 988, 992, 997 and 998. Now remember this is a 1000 sector universe.

Based on what you have stated. The port information is not being updated with in the sector. As in being removed properly from the previous sector. And being added properly to the new sector.


From what I have seen from my test and looking into the port. There is no additional sectors with a particular bad port in it. And the sector it is in, looks like the information for the port is there correctly.

The information about the port(s) look okay.

But, when I go to remove the port from the sector. And then add it back into the sector. Tedit complains with the following "That port isn't active!"

So I assume that the infomation that is not being updated. Is a flag stating that the port is active. Or that the is actually being deleted. And the port information in the sector is not being updated.

And from what I can see. The only way to fix it, is to remove the port from the sector. And leave it at that. Since there is not way to delete the port. And recreate it, from with in tedit. Also, editing the port does not fix the problem.

The WABBIT
ICQ# 12988803
http://www.shadowworldgame.com



Edited by - The WABBIT on May 11 2002 01:36:37 AM

quote:
After running my script for 10 games. And still did not find any unaccessable ports. I then went through my script to make sure it was okay. And I did find a bug in my script. I corrected this and started it all over again.

At which time I had found unaccessible ports in game 2. The ports happened to be in sectors: 978, 980, 981, 987, 988, 992, 997 and 998. Now remember this is a 1000 sector universe.


Yeah, that's consistent with the information in my post above. The nonworking ports are *always* at the upper end of the sector range. I bet you'll find sectors 979, 982-986, 989-991, 993-996, 999, and 1000 don't have ports in them at all.

The incorrect piece of information in my post is that it's based on bubble sizes. It must be based on gate tunnel sizes instead. So a way to avoid the bug until 0.56 would be to bang games with 0-size tunnels, or if you want tunnels, check every port after bang from the high end sectors down until you find a working one, then delete the ports in sector numbers above the working sector.

quote:
At which time I had found unaccessible ports in game 2. The ports happened to be in sectors: 978, 980, 981, 987, 988, 992, 997 and 998. Now remember this is a 1000 sector universe.


I believe the bad port problem has been solved, but just in case do you still have a copy of this game's data files? And if so would you please zip up the game directory and forward it to me at rave@cox.net?

Lisa M. Wilson
aka Rave

quote:
quote:
At which time I had found unaccessible ports in game 2. The ports happened to be in sectors: 978, 980, 981, 987, 988, 992, 997 and 998. Now remember this is a 1000 sector universe.


I believe the bad port problem has been solved, but just in case do you still have a copy of this game's data files? And if so would you please zip up the game directory and forward it to me at rave@cox.net?

Lisa M. Wilson
aka Rave




Sure no problem. Will do that right now. I actually had gotten to Game 5 before stopping the script. To investigate the ports. So I'll send games 2 & 4, since they had the unaccessible ports. And the specs I had used in their creation.

I can run, or give to you, the script I have create. On games that are created with .56, to verify the ports. If you or JP want me to do so. Just send me a alpha of .56 to test with. If you, or JP, want the script just let me know. I'll send it to you, or him.


The WABBIT
ICQ# 12988803
http://www.shadowworldgame.com

I found that setting the tunnel length to zero, as was said earlier, eliminates the bug. That seems to go along with the code Rave said that was fixed with the tunnels. I was wondering if a quick patch could be made to fix this, or if not, when would the new version 0.56 be released. Earlier in the thread Rave said she would find out, but then never followed up.

Smart Idiot
Idiots BBS Sysop
telnet://idiotsbbs.dyndns.org:115



Smart Idiot
Sysop of Idiots BBS
telnet://idiotsbbs.dyndns.org:115

quote:Originally posted by Rave

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="arial" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>
It is good news that JP has fixed the problem. But, for all of use out there that do not have .56 yet. We need to know all of the specifics about what the actuall problem is.
<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="arial" size=2 id=quote>

This was actually a very subtle bug. It was very visible in games where it existed but was a pain for JP to track down in the code. In games where the universe was created with the tunnel depth setting used (set to greater than one), and ports that were located in a tunnel sector will have the unusable port bug.

What happens, is that bigbang attempts to move the port out the the tunnel sector (there's a reason for this) out into open space. But in doing so, it wasn't updating all the records, creating a port that wasn't really there...

So, you don't need to check every port in the game. [:D] Just the ports that are located in tunnel sectors created by the new gold bubble options. (As far as I'm aware, at least.)

There are reports of the .55 bigbang creating universes with large areas of unaccessible sectors (large bubbles that aren't reachable from anywhere else) but like the unusable port bug, as far as I know this hasn't been able to be reproduced on a consistent enough basis to determine the cause of the problem.



Lisa M. Wilson
aka Rave


I have had the problem with the unaccessable sectors as well. I just found out what they were and created sectors to join with them. This "temporarily" solves the problem for anyone else with this problem. THe only thing is that this way might create a problem for your users running helper with their CIM Scripts.

quote:Originally posted by smartidiot

I found that setting the tunnel length to zero, as was said earlier, eliminates the bug. That seems to go along with the code Rave said that was fixed with the tunnels. I was wondering if a quick patch could be made to fix this, or if not, when would the new version 0.56 be released. Earlier in the thread Rave said she would find out, but then never followed up.

Smart Idiot
Idiots BBS Sysop
telnet://idiotsbbs.dyndns.org:115



Smart Idiot
Sysop of Idiots BBS
telnet://idiotsbbs.dyndns.org:115


I have tried this method about setting the tunnel depth to 0 but I still have the problem. I just got done rebanging a game here on April 5, 2003 and already have found ports that "don't exsist". Maybe I did something wrong still... Can anybody be of any help?