Nasty Drone Bug Reported

[LGM]

One of the players in a PBW game that I am hosting just reported this nasty bug. I suggest that people discuss whether Drones be used in games until this is fixed.

> There is a bug in the game in how it handles Drones and Minefields
> which became evident Last turn.
>
> To confirm the bug, do the following in a test game:
> 1) Put up a minefield around a planet for Player A. (I used 105
> mines in my test)
> 2) Built one small Drone for Player B.
> 3) Targeted above planet with above Drone.
> End result:
> A) Minefield 'triggered' and *all* mines went off. I.e. Minefield gone.
> B) Drone 'survives' and goes on to attack planet.
>
> End result - 1 small Drone clears entire Minefields better than a
> fleet of Minesweepers - and is one heck of a lot cheaper (although
> not reusable).
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[ July 29, 2002, 06:12: Message edited by: LGM ]

[dumbluck]

This bug has already been addressed in the next patch! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

The problem is that mine warhead damage doesn't stack. There is no partial damage carryover like in weapons fire. So if your unit/component (ie, colony module, Shipyard component, drone, etc.) can withstand a single warhead's damage, it goes untouched.

[ July 29, 2002, 08:18: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[LGM]

To summarize, the minefield bug which until recently only really applied to level 1 mines, now applies to level 3 mines if a drone is big enough to take 310+ damage. Easy to do with Armor (Organic 2+ or Armor 3) on a Medium or Large drone. Hosts should either ban Drones or make people understand that minefields are next to useless until the next patch.

[capnq]

One could work around this by modding this line of Settings.txt Drones Can Be Hit By Mines := True <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">to prevent drones from sweeping minefields.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by capnq:
One could work around this by modding this line of Settings.txt </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Drones Can Be Hit By Mines := True <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">to prevent drones from sweeping minefields.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, but onfotunatly this allows the drones to attack the planet without seeping the mines, so the effect is pretty much the same, no?

Geoschmo

[Rollo]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by capnq:
One could work around this by modding this line of Settings.txt </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Drones Can Be Hit By Mines := True <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">to prevent drones from sweeping minefields.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, but onfotunatly this allows the drones to attack the planet without seeping the mines, so the effect is pretty much the same, no?

Geoschmo</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">hmm, close but not quite. at least the drones will not be able to clear the road for the fleet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[LGM]

Changing the settings flag would prevent a drone from clearing a minefield to allow a fleet to come in. As it stands today, one drone can clear an entire minefield. The damage to the planet is not as significant as clearing every minefield the drone moves through on its path.

What does it take to get that setting changed for a PBW game? Would it just take message to the administraitor by the host? Would it not affect all games using that Mod set? I I am hosting a 1.67 Standard game.

[geoschmo]

This would require the use of a mod. You could make it an otherwise stock mod with only that change to the settings.txt file. If this is something you want to do, let me know for sure and I can set it up for you on PBW.

Geoschmo

[capnq]

Another way to avoid the problem in new games would be to turn off Drones in game Set-Up/Technology, which would be a lot easier than a mod.

[LGM]

Most people, I figure, want to use Drones since they are new to gold. Turning them off is kind of like going back to 1.49, minus bug fixes and the weapon mount additions. The way I see it, the purpose of buying gold was to get the fix for the combat order problem. Other than that, I see little improved value in the game. We have only seen one patch since January. I guess there are some cosmetic UI changes too. Some might debate that the weapon mount changes were good as planets can be tougher to attack now.

[capnq]

OK, I've done some testing. It looks like a mine that does as least twice as much damage as the drone ought to be able to take will kill the drone, otherwise the drone will shrug off the mines.

This is quite a bit worse than I expected, but I still don't think it's a game killer.

In my tests, a small mine with two Mine Warheads II (400 points damage) would kill a small drone that should have only taken 200, but not one that could take 210. A small mine with one Mine Warhead II and one Mine Warhead III (500 points) would kill the latter drone.

[Edit] BTW, IMO some of those "cosmetic UI changes" in Gold make managing my designs in my v1.49 PBW game seem tedious by comparison.

[ July 31, 2002, 20:16: Message edited by: capnq ]

[Baron Munchausen]

This might be a side effect of the way shields are handled with units. With ships, shields are NOT counted when you are attacked by mines. Does this drone have shields? The shields might be included in its damage totals even when it is hit by mines because of the 'short cut' inclusion of shield damage into the units damage total.

[Fyron]

Capnq, the warheads do damage separately, not combined. The 200 damage warheads on your mines was unable to damage the 210 drone. This is why the first mine did nothing. It wasn't comparing 400 to 210, but 200 to 210 and 200 to 210. The second mine only destroyed the drone because it's second warhead could do 300 damage by itself, which is more than the drone could take.

[Wardad]

Just for grins,

I designed a Shielded drone III and an Armored drone III.
I placed the in the combat simulator and read the Stats.

The shielded one had 375 shield points and 350 hit points. ???
The Armored one had 450 hit points. (2 level III crystaline armor, 60 kt of space, 300kt hit points)

I wish I had more time to take them for a test drive. I bet either one could sweep level III mine warheads.

[capnq]

Capnq, the warheads do damage separately, not combined. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Aha! That makes a lot more sense than my double-damage interpretation. Wish I'd remembered that before I spend all that time testing.

When dumbluck mentioned that very thing at the beginning of the thread, I misinterpreted it as each mine's damage rather than each warheads'.

[dumbluck]

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[Krsqk]

IIRC, the way mine warheads do damage has been fixed in the new patch.

[Baron Munchausen]

It would be more accurate to say 'changed' than fixed. It turns out there's an interesting bug. Users of mines would have enjoyed this new method of calculating damage. It resulted in a sort of 'squared damage' effect. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif So more changes are necessary for mines. Hopefully not much.

[dumbluck]

Ooooooooow. Minesweepers would have been just a bit more important then.....