Pike & Shot: Campaigns 1.2.4 beta patch

[AlbertoC]

Fans of Pike & Shot: Campaigns rejoice! The developers are working hard on a patch containing many bug-fixes, balance changes and UI improvements and would like your contribution. The patch is now in open beta and all players are invited to join.

Instructions:
On Steam, go to your Library, right click on Pike & Shot: Campaigns, click on Properties, then under the Betas tab select the beta branch in the dropdown menu.

Version 1.2.4 Changelog:
1. MP server now sends notification email when challenge is first accepted.
2. Historical button is back to pulsing red when there are new user-created scenarios to download.
3. Major optimisation to prevent slow downs caused by large number of objects on the map (usually forests).
4. Improved campaign AI.
a. AI less likely to chase small raiding forces.
b. AI less likely to lift siege to go and do something else, unless that something else is more important.
5. In Campaigns, End Turn button no longer visible when there is a battle pending.
6. Added tooltip to unit list in the Editor, giving more information about the unit type.
7. Reduced dismounted men-at-arms AP to 10 as they should be.
8. Corrected rare campaign bug in which army reduced to 0 men was not eliminated.
9. Corrected rare campaign bug in which an army could be in two places at the same time. (Which was a consequence of the previous bug).
10. Corrected bug which sometimes caused heavy/medium artillery not to be deployed on the battlefield in very high points count skirmishes.
11. Corrected bug that prevented the adjusted victory conditions for asymmetrical MP historical scenarios from working correctly for the 60% condition.
12. Charge tooltip now correctly reports when a flank/rear charge will not cause a cohesion autodrop because the charged unit has already autodropped cohesion from a flank/rear charge this turn.
13. Corrected extremely rare bug that could cause AI units to move ridiculously long distances in normal movement.
14. Changed PlaceUnit() function to return the id of the placed unit. This is useful for Scenario scripts when expanding on the script fragment optionally generated by the editor for Reinforcements. (Previously it was necessary to use the PlaceUnitX() function instead).
15. Option to change Difficulty settings no longer offered at the end of campaign battles. You can still change the difficulty setting during a campaign battle if you really want, but it isn’t recommended because it won’t alter the difficulty for the current battle (unless you pick the highest or lowest setting) and it won’t alter the AI side’s strategic revenue advantage in the current campaign. It will, however, alter the force ratio at which each side will retreat rather than accepting battle.

Important: All multiplayer games will be hosted on the beta server. If you have any ongoing multiplayer games you can still play them, but you will have to revert to the release version to do so, by disabling the Beta patch under Properties -> Betas. This only takes a few seconds, so should not put you off trying the beta.

[Paul59]

Is the patch only available through Steam?

[rbodleyscott]

Is the patch only available through Steam?

For the beta, unfortunately yes.

When the patch goes official, it will also be available for download from Slitherine.

[MarechalJoffre]

Would this affect ongoing games or mods?

[rbodleyscott]

Would this affect ongoing games or mods?

It should not affect mods. It might affect ongoing MP games, but the switch only takes a few seconds, so you could easily switch back to play your turns in any games started using the release version.

[Philippeatbay]

I've only been testing Roi Soleil scenarios today, but I've gotten script error crashes on three of them (Steenkirk, Landen 1 and 2, but Landen 3 was ok).

I tried the same scenarios in the non-Steam version and there were no crashes.

Once I started having trouble on the Steam versions I made sure the Steam overlay and VR setting was turned off.

So there may be a problem in these three scenarios that only becomes apparent when playing the Beta version on Steam.

[Philippeatbay]

I just tried the three problem scenarios in Steam but without the beta patch.

No crashes.

I'm not a software engineer, but there may be something in the beta that is causing problems.

The crashes should be easy to reproduce, because they happen before or during the deployment phase.

[rbodleyscott]

I just tried the three problem scenarios in Steam but without the beta patch.

No crashes.

I'm not a software engineer, but there may be something in the beta that is causing problems.

The crashes should be easy to reproduce, because they happen before or during the deployment phase.

Local variable definitions are supposed to be at the top of the function before any other code. There are local variable definitions that violate this rule in those scenarios.

Some versions of the engine seem to enforce this more strictly than others. It may be that only beta versions do, because I get the same crash with the current STEAM beta, but not with the latest (non-STEAM) release version for the official version of the patch. I can't test the new STEAM release version yet. Paul didn't get the error when he wrote the scenarios and I also didn't get the error when I tested them, which I did using the current STEAM release version. I did get the error in some others of his scenarios, which were then corrected, but maybe I used a beta version to test them.

So this may or may not be an issue when the patch goes live. If it is we may need Paul to edit the scenarios.

In the meantime you can do this yourself. For example, if you go into

/My Documents/My Games/PSCAMP/1692_STEENKIRK/SCENARIOS/Steenkirk_1692.BSF

move line 22 (int id)

to just below line 7

all will work correctly.

[pipfromslitherine]

There are stricter error checks in the beta version (non-final release) than in the final release, this is because we knew there were mods in the wild which had these errors which had previously not been being caught.

Cheers

Pip

[Philippeatbay]

On another minor note, the Steam overlay (which gets used for taking screenshots in Steam, among other things) causes the game to go into debug mode when you hit the 'q' key to rotate the battlefield to the left.

It's easy enough to turn off once you understand what's happening, but the only way I've found to prevent it is to disable the Steam overlay in the first place (go to Steam's game Library, go to Pike & Shot Campaigns and right-click, click on Properties in the drop-down menu, make sure the overlay and virtual reality boxes are unchecked).

[Philippeatbay]

I just tried the three problem scenarios in Steam but without the beta patch.

No crashes.

I'm not a software engineer, but there may be something in the beta that is causing problems.

The crashes should be easy to reproduce, because they happen before or during the deployment phase.

Local variable definitions are supposed to be at the top of the function before any other code. There are local variable definitions that violate this rule in those scenarios.

Some versions of the engine seem to enforce this more strictly than others. It may be that only beta versions do, because I get the same crash with the current STEAM beta, but not with the latest (non-STEAM) release version for the official version of the patch. I can't test the new STEAM release version yet. Paul didn't get the error when he wrote the scenarios and I also didn't get the error when I tested them, which I did using the current STEAM release version. I did get the error in some others of his scenarios, which were then corrected, but maybe I used a beta version to test them.

So this may or may not be an issue when the patch goes live. If it is we may need Paul to edit the scenarios.

In the meantime you can do this yourself. For example, if you go into

/My Documents/My Games/PSCAMP/1692_STEENKIRK/SCENARIOS/Steenkirk_1692.BSF

move line 22 (int id)

to just below line 7

all will work correctly.

Is Wordpad the best program of opening bsf files or should I use Notepad ?

[rbodleyscott]

Pip recommends Notepad++ which is free.

I use Ultraedit.

[Philippeatbay]

Many thanks.

I went with Notepad ++.

Utterly painless.

I wish all glitches had solutions that were that easy to fix.

The three scenarios now run in the beta patch without crashing.

[KiwiWarlord]

How about looking at Early Tercios shooting from all four facings and other Tercios shooting from Front & Flank facings ?

[rbodleyscott]

How about looking at Early Tercios shooting from all four facings and other Tercios shooting from Front & Flank facings ?

We can look at it, but it isn't going to make it into the forthcoming patch - the build has already been finalised.