Release candidate 3

[dicsoupcan]

He was working on it. I had a few missions to playtest but did not hear from him again

[Tiank]

A minor bug I've found: SP menu kinda "remembers" last location that player played on. For example, when you play a map on location 4, after you leave that game and go to SP maps menu, first thing you see is this:

Also, I got this message at start of Bridge Disaster (SP):

It's the same for all Original Knights and Merchants SP maps.

[sado1]

It's more than annoying that the name of a downloaded save gets changed to 'downloaded'. Any chance to change it before the release? Alternatively, please let us change a replay's name in the replays menu.

[Ben]

Agree with sado. Drives me crazy...

Another thing: Could we please get another dedicated server for the RC? The Kam.net server lags like crap all the time :S

[sado1]

Yeah actually there are some fun problems with that one. Especially "the midnight bug" when the game lags like hell on midnight each day (I guess it's maintenance related? Can the hour be moved to some more sane time? at midnight we almost always are in game..)

[Lewin]

I played a coop game, and the replay doesn't work.

Thanks for reporting that. Unfortunately it's hard to tell what caused it when it happens so far into a game. I assume replays are working most of the time though (as good as r5503)?

@Lewin, Krom

Have you guys been talked to about the current serf delivery to buildings? Even after the latest changes in RC3, there is still an annoying "bug." It's most noticeable at the start of the game when building the school. If you have a laborer start making a road, a serf will naturally go grab a stone for him. However, if the school's construction site has finished being leveled during that time, the serf going to get the stone will "change his mind" and take the stone to the school instead! This can be "devastating" if you have a laborer build a road adjacent to the school, for he won't receive his stone till all wares have been taken to the school, resulting in other laborers piling on top of the laborer waiting for a stone.

This "changing mind" feature was implemented to improve efficiency. So if a serf decides to deliver coal somewhere, but when he has picked up the coal there is a much closer destination available, he will take the coal to the closer one. We could disable it for delivering to laborers, but are there any other cases where this feature is annoying?

A minor bug I've found: SP menu kinda "remembers" last location that player played on. For example, when you play a map on location 4, after you leave that game and go to SP maps menu, first thing you see is this:

Fixed, thanks.

Also, I got this message at start of Bridge Disaster (SP):

It's the same for all Original Knights and Merchants SP maps.

As I said in a PM to you, we decided not to show these warnings in-game because 90% of the time they're harmless and they scare players. Now the warnings will go in a log file in the map folder. But to set a good example I've also corrected the mistake in the script for these maps

It's more than annoying that the name of a downloaded save gets changed to 'downloaded'. Any chance to change it before the release? Alternatively, please let us change a replay's name in the replays menu.

That's so if you already have a save called Golden Cliffs it won't override it. Files transfers were originally designed for playing the downloaded save save not sharing replays remember Renaming replays sounds ok (added to todo list), but I'm not sure I'll find time to implement it before this release...

Another thing: Could we please get another dedicated server for the RC? The Kam.net server lags like crap all the time :S

Not sure why the official server would be lagging, except that it's handling quite a lot of HTTP traffic I guess. I've fired up a r6619 server on SpecialAttack's server. Hopefully it will run better since it's a dedicated server.

[RandomLyrics]

Hi, i move my script from smaller map to bigger map and i get this error. ( ive update position values so its fiting to new map)

[Lewin]

Hi, i move my script from smaller map to bigger map and i get this error. ( ive update position values so its fiting to new map)

Thanks for the report. We used 16 bit integers for house/unit statistics, and your script caused more than 65K house plans to be added/removed. I've changed it to 32 bit integers, 4 billion should be a harder limit to hit

[dicsoupcan]

and your script caused more than 65K house plans to be added/removed.

wait...what is...65k? what kind of script is that?

[RandomLyrics]

Great thanks!
Maybe AI puts many plans in wrong places and increases the number xD

[Lewin]

and your script caused more than 65K house plans to be added/removed.

wait...what is...65k? what kind of script is that?

To be precise, the limit was 65535 (2^16 - 1).

Great thanks!
Maybe AI puts many plans in wrong places and increases the number xD

That sounds like a possible explanation

[RandomLyrics]

to be specific, that script cause that error:
it runs every 10 ticks. ive removed all other scripts to more precise
aHouse is each from array actions.getplayerallhouses

  Code:

procedure AddHouseBuildingProgress(aPlayer, aHouse: integer); var u: integer; begin if aHouse > 0 then begin Actions.HouseAddBuildingProgress(aHouse); //<< that little guy end; end;

[Lewin]

to be specific, that script cause that error:
it runs every 10 ticks. ive removed all other scripts to more precise
aHouse is each from array actions.getplayerallhouses

  Code:

procedure AddHouseBuildingProgress(aPlayer, aHouse: integer); var u: integer; begin if aHouse > 0 then begin Actions.HouseAddBuildingProgress(aHouse); //<< that little guy end; end;

Could you please send me this script/map which is causing the crash? (the code I quoted) Also tell me what players/locations you tested with. I'm surprised that just Actions.HouseAddBuildingProgress is enough to make it crash, and I would like to investigate it further and make sure the bug is properly fixed.

@Lewin, Krom

Have you guys been talked to about the current serf delivery to buildings? Even after the latest changes in RC3, there is still an annoying "bug." It's most noticeable at the start of the game when building the school. If you have a laborer start making a road, a serf will naturally go grab a stone for him. However, if the school's construction site has finished being leveled during that time, the serf going to get the stone will "change his mind" and take the stone to the school instead! This can be "devastating" if you have a laborer build a road adjacent to the school, for he won't receive his stone till all wares have been taken to the school, resulting in other laborers piling on top of the laborer waiting for a stone.

This "changing mind" feature was implemented to improve efficiency. So if a serf decides to deliver coal somewhere, but when he has picked up the coal there is a much closer destination available, he will take the coal to the closer one. We could disable it for delivering to laborers, but are there any other cases where this feature is annoying?

I have now made it so serfs delivering to units will not look for a closer destination after collecting the ware (but serfs delivering to houses will still look for a closer destination). Here's the explanation I wrote in the code:

Special rule to prevent an annoying situation: If we were delivering to a unit do not look for a better demand. Deliveries to units are closely watched/controlled by the player. For example if player orders food for group A, then after serfs start walking to storehouse orders food for closer group B. Player expects A to be fed first even though B is closer. Another example: School is nearly finished digging at start of game. Serf is getting stone for a labourer making a road. School digging finishes and the stone goes to the school (which is closer). Now the road labourer is waiting even though the player saw the serf fetching the stone for him before the school digging was finished. This "CheckForBetterDemand" feature is mostly intended to optimise house->house deliveries within village and reduce delay in serf decision making.

Hopefully everyone is happy with that.

[RandomLyrics]

to be specific, that script cause that error:
it runs every 10 ticks. ive removed all other scripts to more precise
aHouse is each from array actions.getplayerallhouses

  Code:

procedure AddHouseBuildingProgress(aPlayer, aHouse: integer); var u: integer; begin if aHouse > 0 then begin Actions.HouseAddBuildingProgress(aHouse); //<< that little guy end; end;

Could you please send me this script/map which is causing the crash? (the code I quoted) Also tell me what players/locations you tested with. I'm surprised that just Actions.HouseAddBuildingProgress is enough to make it crash, and I would like to investigate it further and make sure the bug is properly fixed.

MAP: http://www67.zippyshare.com/v/88440542/file.html
script > CheckEveryHouse() > AddHouseBuildingProgress() > Actions.HouseAddBuildingProgress(aHouse)
hmm im not sure if that cause error, ive just turn off scritps and checking turn

[Esthlos]

Did you notice that in RC3 it is possible to have a script draw a map nearly from scratch?

This one, for example, is a blank map that a script morphs into a copy of Across the Desert.

map

No units, buildings nor animals: this was just a proof of concept.

The performance of the script is abysmal though, so I set it to "print" one tile per Tick.
The performance is better, but it takes 51 minutes to fully "print" it.

P.S: I'm not crazy enough to do it by hand... I made a Dynamic Script that wrote this in my place, of course.

Sooo... I've improved it, giving it both a smaller file size and shorter code length.

Trying it out, It turned out that "Improved performance" in r6720 is a vast understatement.

(It can now "print" 5 tiles per Tick with a good performance, and, by making all the map unwalkable first, on my PC it even stays smooth at 10x speed ... and that's to be compared to its performance in RC3, where it lagged at 1x speed while "printing" 1 tile per tick )
(With 5 tiles per tick it takes 10 minutes to be fully printed)