StarMade v0.199.535 - Spring Cleaning

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    I'm always very pleased when developers take the time to iron out instability issues and subtle bugs. There's no better way to solidify the player base and attract new blood to the game.

    Nice update and keep on the good work guys. :cool:

    Greets,

    Jan
     
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    Finally. =)

    The thing that will take some of my game-time attention is the AI-logic activation. Besides the planned experimenting with this, I am pretty sure all my ships are going to get at least a general switch, and a seperate switch for "selected target" turrets.
     

    jayman38

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    [Quoted] Features
    ~ Fleets can now cloak

    ~ Fleets can now radar jam

    ~ Bobby AI can now be activated via logic

    :)

    ~ Bobby AI can now be activated via logic

    :eek:

    ~ Bobby AI can now be activated via logic

    :cool:

    Neat!
     
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    Chckn Wildstyle

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    It always disappoints me when exploits are hidden from the general public during alpha games. I feel like an integral purpose of alpha testers is to find the exploits that exist, refine them, then get them removed; by restricting access to the exploits that have been patched out, you only screw yourself over in the long run as the exploits that could be found sooner will be found later when the code has already progressed farther.

    To sum up my feelings: "Hooray I found a game breaking bug that shouldn't have made it through Alpha and I'm in the Beta!"
     

    madman Captain

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    "Bobby AI can now be activated via logic"... :eek::eek:
    (reading it > mental shoot down > mental restart > reading it again > going sure that you read it correct > imagine a full automatic logic turret firecontroll system with restricted fire arcs > rubbing hands together and cry out: )

    Starboard Firecontroll FIRE!
     

    Treefolk

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    I was testing a mining ship for drone potential and was pleasantly surprised when the fleet not only mined one rock, but every rock in the sector! Then I moved them and they mined that sector clean as well! Its amazing when things work!
    [doublepost=1493145472,1493144439][/doublepost] Oops, my bad.
     
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    AndyP

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    Yay, I managed to free up the rails!
    I disconnectied the rail speed control computer from one of a couple rotators and my station came back to life again. :)
    It's amazing something so small like a connection can cause such drama for all the rails on the entity and the first level of docked entities.
    Oh, that is a really haunting one.
    Hard to find the cause, and even harder to identify, without enabling "show all logic links", as this may give a hint.

    Thank you soo much for this. Much appreciated :D

    However: I notice that shoot out rail clocks no longer work reliably. I don't expect there to be much concern from Shine regarding this, however, I worry that this is a result of new bugs, and not from Shine deliberately removing this capability.

    When building a simple shoot out rail clock some of the rails C+V links would randomly disconnect, and sometimes the rails wouldn't switch from shoot-out to pickup or vice versa. It always ended up resulting in the docked entity being unlocked and shot-out.

    Like I said, I don't think Shine is too worried about shoot-out rail clocks not working, I'm just concerned that this may be the result of bugs that may need to be addressed.

    Thanks Again, and keep up the outstanding work.
    Sorry to disappoint, but regular clocks work at 2 signal changes per second max. The shootout clock can easily achieve 6 or 8 signal changes per second. We added an anti-spam feature, that prevents signals from queuing up too much. So a short burst of shootout clock fires will work, but if it starts to influence the server it will get throttled immediately. (Causing the catch, replace, fire back procdure to stop where it just throws off the entity.)

    It always disappoints me when exploits are hidden from the general public during alpha games. I feel like an integral purpose of alpha testers is to find the exploits that exist, refine them, then get them removed; by restricting access to the exploits that have been patched out, you only screw yourself over in the long run as the exploits that could be found sooner will be found later when the code has already progressed farther.

    To sum up my feelings: "Hooray I found a game breaking bug that shouldn't have made it through Alpha and I'm in the Beta!"
    Well, some of those exploits were not directly reported, but found while testing.
    Another good set was a long hidden secret and it took us some investigation and help from servers to get hands on ideas how they worked and finally ways to reproduce.
    Just recently we got hands on some ships containing multiple exploits and were able to fix those cases too.

    However, from the sole exact steps to reproduce, you could find other exploits, and sadly:
    They wont get reported, but used in PvP or other frauds, I doubt more than 10% of the discovered exploits get reported in the first place. They usually land in some "last resort tool box".
    And way more important:
    If we reveal the exact way to use the exploit together with the news, or even before, it would leave every single server that did not update yet open to this exploit. That would be some evil 'force to update immediately', right? =)

    A while ago, we uncovered some exploits from 6 months ago that had been fixed.
    But a change in code nearby, made them become working again, and they were immediately used against servers or factions again. And we gave them the instructions how to do so.

    - Andy
     
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    Lone_Puppy

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    Oh, that is a really haunting one.
    Hard to find the cause, and even harder to identify, without enabling "show all logic links", as this may give a hint.
    Hey, that's something I haven't tried yet. Thanks Andy.
    By the way, I managed to reproduce it, so it seems persistent not only in the entity but the blueprint as well.
    Something else I noticed is, visually it looks like I can remove the slave connection to only one of two rotators connected to it, but the action seems consistent with removing. It only displays the purple link box. I remember this use to happen with logic and rails a long time ago.
    Could it be a re-occurrence of an issue you guys fixed back then?
     

    Jaaskinal

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    So, uh, last time my chaindrives were broken by an update I was told it was intentional...

    Is the change to sensors interaction with Jumpdrives intentional, or should I report that as a bug?
     

    nightrune

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    So, uh, last time my chaindrives were broken by an update I was told it was intentional...

    Is the change to sensors interaction with Jumpdrives intentional, or should I report that as a bug?
    Sensors not working with jump drives?
     

    Jaaskinal

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    Sensors not working with jump drives?
    Yeah, as far as I'm aware, they're not activating when jump drives are going over the % in question. Weirdly enough though, they'll stay activated if they're already above, and they'll drop to the low state when they are below, but they will not activate when they go above.
     

    kiddan

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    No emergency patches yet? Looks like the new release schedule/plan/system is working much better than the old one! :LOL:
     
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    Starmade and more stable at the same time makes me harder than advanced armor.
     
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    Hmm...i dunno what it is but...but i get 30 less FPS after this update than i do on the one prior O-o
     

    Lone_Puppy

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    Yeah, as far as I'm aware, they're not activating when jump drives are going over the % in question. Weirdly enough though, they'll stay activated if they're already above, and they'll drop to the low state when they are below, but they will not activate when they go above.
    I wonder if logic is the source of my rail issues.

    This morning I ran test with the Draw all connections option, I can see actual rail connections break even when I reconnect them. It appears random, but consistently on the same rails or sets of rails with a speed controller computer. Really weird behaviours with connected logic.
    Only noticed Computer to rail and button to rail so far.

    I loaded up the previous build before updating to the latest to test and the rail computer is still buggy, but the weird button thing is not happening. Some change in the latest update his increased and modified the behaviour issue.

    AndyP when I have a free moment I'll build a test rig and I can log this with the fabricator or would you prefer it added to an existing case?
     

    AndyP

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    As the testserver is currently running a release compatible version, it may be best to find a time, and meet there, and just show the behaviour.

    Some things, especially logic, is not easy to bring over in text-form without making it too complicated or even miss details that are important when trying to reproduce a problem.

    - Andy
     

    JumpSuit

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    As the testserver is currently running a release compatible version, it may be best to find a time, and meet there, and just show the behaviour.

    Some things, especially logic, is not easy to bring over in text-form without making it too complicated or even miss details that are important when trying to reproduce a problem.

    - Andy
    Just to let you know, after this update some of my rail doors on my homebase quit responding to logic imput.
     

    Jaaskinal

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    I'm putting up some videos about the logic issues I'm having. Here's the first, it's not done processing, and it probably wont be before I go to bed. It's a singular example of a valid connection being forgotten by the new anti-ghost block system.

    [doublepost=1493276025,1493275305][/doublepost]10 minutes later, I have another issue. This or-signal is not behaving like an or-signal. In this circuit, either of the two and-signals I link to the or signal will be high (they alternate back and forth, like a clock.) As such, the or-signal should always remain in the high state. Contradictory to this, the or-signal remains in a constant low state. Even when a constant high signal is applied, it remains in the low state.

    [doublepost=1493276259][/doublepost]I figured out how to break it worse

     
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    alterintel

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    I have another issue. This or-signal is not behaving like an or-signal. In this circuit, either of the two and-signals I link to the or signal will be high (they alternate back and forth, like a clock.) As such, the or-signal should always remain in the high state. Contradictory to this, the or-signal remains in a constant low state. Even when a constant high signal is applied, it remains in the low state.
    I got the same issue: