Slitherine

The beta I have is using the updated reaction. It is possible my unit didn't fire because it had retreated during a prior turn and was still in white-flag. However, I thought with them being given a free defensive shot now in that state, it would also apply to helping out a neighbour in distress.

I always thought there was a random element thrown in here...

I am not sure who designed the on-line Normandy map, but the allied heavy-fortification never comes into play. I've never seen an axis or allied player ever use this. It seems you'd be silly to, it is so out of place. At least the axis fortification gets a little bit of use. Strebe likes to load US infantry and move them up, unload and enter that from turn #1 before axis can even react. I am not sure if allowing loading & unloading units in the same turn to have that sort of movement length was in the original design, but I'm not too worried about it right now.

I think we have somewhat crippled units which unload in the latest code - so you can't move them to a point, then have them move and fire.

Thanks

Pip

Another little security check to make this game more acceptable for ladder clubs, is to allow the opponent to know when a file has been downloaded TWICE or more from the pbem server. It's understandable if power goes out, or windows crashes once, etc. But this shouldn't be exploitable.

That is part of the system - it counts the number of downloads. I'm not sure we report it by default currently, ideally we would only want to flag repeated uses of multiple downloads.

Cheers

Pip

Well, when you send an e-mail to player X that his new turn is ready, it would be nice for that email to let the player know how many times his opponent had to download his own turn turn from the server. That should be good enough. You wouldn't have to mod anything else in the game package then.

That would work, although you can turn off email notifications. I think rather than cause people to begin doubting someone because their connection dropped inside a game, we are more looking for people with a pattern of connection drops across multiple games, if that makes sense.

For ranked matches etc then it is indeed something more important. I'm not sure how harsh one would want to be. In theory you can just restart your internet connection and pop back into the game to try again, but I do appreciate that this isn't always going to be possible based on all the different configs out there.

Cheers

Pip

Well, right now when I run into a bug, I can purposely crash the game, and just re-start to get back, and then duplicate my moves to try and isolate the bug. But if someone is playing in ladder where some will do anything for points, this is obviously going to be abused.

The e-mail should just tell them the # of times the last turn was redownloaded by the opponent. That way, if it's just 1 time out of 20 no big deal, but if it's quite often, and at the most important of times, then one would be right to be suspicious. I would like to see this game succeed in the community, and one great way is ladder clubs, but you can't have that when there are security holes wide enough to drive a Mac-truck through.

Here's a new bug I just stumbled across in multi-player. My 8-Rad was 1 kill away from another promotion it seems. I moved while still having 19 MPS left, and killed a unit to get to my final promotion. However, immediately after getting my elite hunter promotion, I am prohibited from moving my unit this turn, despite I still have 19 MPs left.

Obsolete wrote:Well, right now when I run into a bug, I can purposely crash the game, and just re-start to get back, and then duplicate my moves to try and isolate the bug. But if someone is playing in ladder where some will do anything for points, this is obviously going to be abused.

The e-mail should just tell them the # of times the last turn was redownloaded by the opponent. That way, if it's just 1 time out of 20 no big deal, but if it's quite often, and at the most important of times, then one would be right to be suspicious. I would like to see this game succeed in the community, and one great way is ladder clubs, but you can't have that when there are security holes wide enough to drive a Mac-truck through.

It's a common problem in these kinds of games. And the point is that a cheater is likely to only redownload a turn once in a given game - if you are playing someone lots then you might notice it, but more likely people will just assume any redownload is a cheat and stop playing. Maybe that is OK, as it shouldn't be very common to have to give up a turn. But by looking at overall behaviour we can flag people more accurately.

In tournaments I think it has to pretty much be zero tolerance, as it's too easy for a single cheat to swing scoring.

Cheers

Pip

Obsolete wrote:Here's a new bug I just stumbled across in multi-player. My 8-Rad was 1 kill away from another promotion it seems. I moved while still having 19 MPS left, and killed a unit to get to my final promotion. However, immediately after getting my elite hunter promotion, I am prohibited from moving my unit this turn, despite I still have 19 MPs left.

This is fixed in the next version.

Cheers

Pip

I am just curious, do you mean it was already fixed before today, or that it was fixed soon after I posted the issue?

One suggestion that has been on my mind for a couple versions now. It would be nice to have another option for movement that makes your unit auto-stop when ever a new target comes into range for fire again. This is different from a new unit coming into site. I'm talking about units you already see, but that they are out of range or line of sight for fire. As soon as I am able to get any NEW firing solution it would be interesting to auto-stop there.

Maybe we should think on this for a bit. I guess if you are REALLY smart, you can figure out ahead of time where to move to cause what unit here or there to be within a fire-solution.


The main thing that bothers me, is when I am FORCED to stop because something becomes visible, even if it's just an empty fortification. And then when I try to resume to get to my destination, my tank breaks down screwing me out of a precious turn. The fact is, often I would have never allowed my unit to stop in the first place knowing a bunker here or there is most likely empty. Perhaps we could have a FORCED-MARCH option.... that ignores everything and keeps moving without penalties?

Obsolete wrote:I am just curious, do you mean it was already fixed before today, or that it was fixed soon after I posted the issue?

I was fixed a while back. Discovered independently during our internal testing .

Cheers

Pip

Obsolete wrote:One suggestion that has been on my mind for a couple versions now. It would be nice to have another option for movement that makes your unit auto-stop when ever a new target comes into range for fire again. This is different from a new unit coming into site. I'm talking about units you already see, but that they are out of range or line of sight for fire. As soon as I am able to get any NEW firing solution it would be interesting to auto-stop there.

Maybe we should think on this for a bit. I guess if you are REALLY smart, you can figure out ahead of time where to move to cause what unit here or there to be within a fire-solution.


The main thing that bothers me, is when I am FORCED to stop because something becomes visible, even if it's just an empty fortification. And then when I try to resume to get to my destination, my tank breaks down screwing me out of a precious turn. The fact is, often I would have never allowed my unit to stop in the first place knowing a bunker here or there is most likely empty. Perhaps we could have a FORCED-MARCH option.... that ignores everything and keeps moving without penalties?

I think the problem then is you have 3 or 4 subtly different movement options, which is going to clutter the UI too much. I can see the issue - especially if you are forced to stop by an area of hidden ground and then you bog down. You can't even really over-ride this behaviour in scripts, as it's built into the code.

Maybe something for Iain to comment on when he gets back.

Cheers

Pip

I suppose this could be improved on by supplying way-points before the final move order. Anyhow, I guess we can also prevent sight-seeing trips form causing a bog-down unless they have been fired upon from that location? Hmm, as long as it doesn't cause problems elsewhere. We'll have to think on that for a bit.

More than once now I've noticed when the axis AA attacks infantry in open fields, it looks like the bullets richochette off into the air at a 45 degree angle, lol.

If you mean when they are up close, then that bug should be fixed. If you mean in another situation, then can you describe how to repeat please .

Cheers

Pip

Well, my infantry were 2 or 3 tiles away from the AA, so I'm not sure if that is up close or not. I'll keep watching out for it.

And now I was going to make a post, but I have totally forgot what I was going to post about!!!

Geeze, I'll take a little break and see if it comes back to now..

--

Ohh wait, I just remembered! I still don't probably know how a unit regenerates his Morale. This is stuff I should know, not just as a player but especially as a beta tester. I'm not sure yet if previous movement makes a difference, or if terrain also factors in, what range of a die-roll it lies within, etc.

Any heads up on this algorithm?

I keep wishing there was a way to write notes to myself, like a diary. This option is already implemented in a way. In the chat log that you can leave to your opponent. It would be nice if you could hotkey a private chat-log which only allows the player to write to himself.

That way, one can always leave their reminders and other notes without having to write them down on real paper. e.g.

"Two panzers spotted East-West last turn!!"

"Don't forget to defend bazooka."

"infantry left in last scout unit = 2"

"Dropped morale down to -25 on Tiger last turn"