Creating a computer-aided version of WCTO

[Avacar]

Fixed a bunch of bugs related to chaff, FF missiles (again) and to tailling. Also discovered why the explosions weren't cleaning themselves up. I have to manually clean up the current ones, but future explosions should vanish.

 

[Avacar]

Fixed a bug which let torpedos use the lock timer (on the same target) from the IR missile.

edit: Nice! And we've verified that the phase shields can still absorb hits properly, from non-torpedo missiles.

 

[Avacar]

And, as a bonus, because I suddenly realized how stupidly easy it would be, ship pop-ups are NOW DRAGGABLE! This may solve some of our behavioural debate issues.

 

[Avacar]

I need to sign off for now. At this time I welcome everyone out there to play/test like mad, and find bugs. There are still a few things that need obvious testing:

1. Evasive Action (aka afterburn) away from missiles -> completely untested. Can you move the next turn? You shouldn't be able to. etc.

2. Torpedos: do they pass through phase shields?

3. Can you use point defence?

 

[Ironduke]

Also a rules question for ironduke:
I just had a roll of 1 come up, with a guidance of -2 (ff) therefore the roll was -1. I assume you want me to treat this as a 1, i.e. failed hit. In this scenario, shall I report the negative number, or just report a value of 1?

For means of debugging, the real result (-1) would be more helpful - but aside from that, players should only see the lowest possible result (in this case, 1). That's how I always dealt with these situations in my own games.

And, as a bonus, because I suddenly realized how stupidly easy it would be, ship pop-ups are NOW DRAGGABLE! This may solve some of our behavioural debate issues.

Good stuff! I can see you've been quite busy... Nice progress! I'd love to toy around with it right now, but I'll be away at least until Sunday. Well, at least I have something to look forward to!

Avacar, it might be a good idea to include a link every now and then - just in case people stumble over this thread and don't have a clue where to go from here. (Even though that other thread still exists.)

Go here for draggable pop-ups.

 

[Avacar]

Actually, you've raised a great point.

The alpha combat demo file you linked to is now completely out of date and wrong! Maybe that's why no one has been doing any testing.

The newest, and most correct link to play around with is this one:
The Phase 4 Full Test

I guess I've been working on phase 4 so long that I forgot to throw in links again.

 

[Ironduke]

Ah, this looks so much better! I've edited the link in my previous post, just to be sure...

One minor thing I noticed: For the Ralatha, it says "Maintain Forward Course" twice, when - in the first instance - it should really say "Maintain Current Speed."
And it's showing the turn report summary now in Chrome, as well!

Pity I have to leave now...

 

[Avacar]

A good point; I've done some quick cosmetic updates to it; it now says 'Maintain Current Speed'. I've also changed all the 'left/right' to 'port/starboard'.

 

[Wedge009]

Sorry, only just got back.

I can drag around the ship orders window, but not the normal pop-ups. Where is the anchor point for those?

 

[Avacar]

There isn't one; you can drag them from anywhere. Just click and hold anywhere within the ship pop-up. Unlike the orders window, which is a true window (and thus needs to be dragged from the top bar), this is a little less intuitive, interface wise, but definitely works.

Verifying.... in Firefox 3.6 and 4.0 Beta6, let me go quickly test Chrome...and yes, it seems to be working in Chrome 6.0. Checking IE..... working in IE 8.x

Yeah, there are no issues that I can see with it.

 

[Wedge009]

My fault this time: I didn't notice that there was a JS file that got updated in your last commit - I just uploaded that and it works now.

 

[Ironduke]

Memo for later: If there will ever be a "Preferences" menu for WCTO(O), maybe we could include a toggle for where pop-up screens will re-appear once you dragged them across the screen. I dragged them around and kinda expected them to pop up at the center of the ship again once I closed them. Instead they appeared right where I left them. Which might be good, actually - it just wasn't what I was expecting at first.
So let's either call that counter-intuitive or a great feature for now. I can probably see why you did it: You can drag around info screens and easily compare ship stats that way. Since no one else complained, it's probably just me.

 

[Ironduke]

A brief bug report:
In turn 12 CP, the Sabre could target Pack Leader Alpha with its particle cannons, but not with the mass driver cannons. I'd say it shouldn't be able to target the destroyer, so what's wrong with those particle cannons?

In turn 12 EP, the Sabre's chaff pod count isn't reduced by one - maybe because the chaff didn't work? Not sure. It should still have 2 chaff pods remaining instead of 3 by now. (The 3 are still there in the following turns and phases.)

In turn 13 MP, the maneuver difficulty for the Ralatha is "7.5." I seriously think you should mathematically round these things...

In turn 13 CP, the Rapier is able to fire its HS missile at the Ralatha. Again, it's a question of whether we should allow this or not. In reality, you CAN fire your particle cannons or your HS missiles at a shielded destroyer, even though they won't get through its phase shields. But do we want players to waste reserve fire and projectiles? (Or maybe "rookie" pilots are allowed to do such things, but veterans and elites are not. Just kidding!)

In turn 15 MP, the report says "Torpedo smashes into Pack Leader Alpha! The Phase Shields Absorb the Hit." Really? ConFleet just called, they want their money back. So yeah, torps should be able to penetrate phase shields, last time I checked...

Also, I tried a Burnout maneuver with the Sabre to evade the Rapier's HS in turn 14 EP. The Sabre was still at the same location in turn 15 MP, which leads me to believe it didn't work at all. I could also issue regular movement commands at turn 15 MP. (In other news, when I clicked on the Shelton slide as an evasive action in turn 14 EP, I couldn't select my 1st and 2nd turn directions.)

In turn 15 CP, we have the math revolution of the day: "Bravo 1 fails to perform a shelton slide (2>=6)." Since, as we all know, 2 >= 6. I know where this comes from, but seeing it explained that way is still funny.

Unrelated: Since this is the second time I've noticed it, I'll just ask: Would it be very difficult to include a "New Speed" menu for the banking maneuver? I know you're supposed to enter your new speed at the regular movement tab, but whenever I want to bank, I first click on "bank," then select my direction, then remember that I have to set the speed on the regular movement tab and have to go back. Nothing dramatic, but it might be more comfortable to be able to set the new speed in both tabs... What do the others think?

Unrelated, part II: We definitely need an "Undo" button in the full release! Okay, so an undo function will probably be way too complicated to include, but consider this: We still use the "Report orders to command" button, but there's another "Submit orders" button somewhere at the bottom of the screen (?). This would serve two purposes: We could revisit any orders we've already given (=undo), and we could just hit the "Submit" button if we don't want to do anything in this turn (i.e. keep maintaining speed and course, don't fire weapons etc.).
I'm aware this is something to be considered only once we have different players and pilots in the game...

Well, so much for the "brief" bug report... It's just too much fun to play around with game 2! Hope you don't mind my bickering, though... I'm really amazed with this playable version so far, and I'm looking forward to the end of October!

 

[Avacar]

So let's either call that counter-intuitive or a great feature for now. I can probably see why you did it: You can drag around info screens and easily compare ship stats that way. Since no one else complained, it's probably just me.

Yes...that was an intentional 'feature'... I swear.... (hmm, you're right; it does open where you left it. Odd. Well, I can fix that, if you guys want, or make it a toggle; that wasn't actually intentional, that seems to be how the jquery draggable system works).

A brief bug report:
In turn 12 CP, the Sabre could target Pack Leader Alpha with its particle cannons, but not with the mass driver cannons. I'd say it shouldn't be able to target the destroyer, so what's wrong with those particle cannons?

This is because the particle cannons have an opportunity shot at the Pack Leader, but the Mass Driver cannons don't reach far enough. Regardless, when you take the shot, it will just be absorbed by the phase shields; a waste of energy. I can make ships unable to target phase shields when they can't hurt them, if you wish, but we had previously discussed that we wanted them targetable, but not damageable (see discussion above about if FF's will lock on phase shields even though they can't do anything about them).

In turn 12 EP, the Sabre's chaff pod count isn't reduced by one - maybe because the chaff didn't work? Not sure. It should still have 2 chaff pods remaining instead of 3 by now. (The 3 are still there in the following turns and phases.)

Definitely a bug. I'll look into it.

In turn 13 MP, the maneuver difficulty for the Ralatha is "7.5." I seriously think you should mathematically round these things...

Um, sure. Do you want that rounded up or down? As it stands, I've only coded difficulties for the movement phase; at some point I'll try to throw in the calculated TR for hardest weapon during combat phase. You'll also notice the mouse tips aren't yet available for the latter two phases either.

In turn 13 CP, the Rapier is able to fire its HS missile at the Ralatha. Again, it's a question of whether we should allow this or not. In reality, you CAN fire your particle cannons or your HS missiles at a shielded destroyer, even though they won't get through its phase shields. But do we want players to waste reserve fire and projectiles? (Or maybe "rookie" pilots are allowed to do such things, but veterans and elites are not. Just kidding!)

Well again, I let this happen based on our previous discussion about what FF missiles should do. This is easy enough to change, just a single check in the can_target() function.

In turn 15 MP, the report says "Torpedo smashes into Pack Leader Alpha! The Phase Shields Absorb the Hit." Really? ConFleet just called, they want their money back. So yeah, torps should be able to penetrate phase shields, last time I checked...

Oops. Well, Kilrathi research has taken a huge leap apparently. I'll definitely work on a fix for that.

Also, I tried a Burnout maneuver with the Sabre to evade the Rapier's HS in turn 14 EP. The Sabre was still at the same location in turn 15 MP, which leads me to believe it didn't work at all. I could also issue regular movement commands at turn 15 MP. (In other news, when I clicked on the Shelton slide as an evasive action in turn 14 EP, I couldn't select my 1st and 2nd turn directions.)

Hmm. Clearly evasive actions aren't working. I need a followup question answered though: in the phase 15 MP, could you give the Sabre a fresh movement order, or did it know it was staying put?

In turn 15 CP, we have the math revolution of the day: "Bravo 1 fails to perform a shelton slide (2>=6)." Since, as we all know, 2 >= 6. I know where this comes from, but seeing it explained that way is still funny.

I'm open to suggestions on how you want dice rolls presented; I wrote them that way more for debug purposes, and I guess I left them in.

Unrelated: Since this is the second time I've noticed it, I'll just ask: Would it be very difficult to include a "New Speed" menu for the banking maneuver? I know you're supposed to enter your new speed at the regular movement tab, but whenever I want to bank, I first click on "bank," then select my direction, then remember that I have to set the speed on the regular movement tab and have to go back. Nothing dramatic, but it might be more comfortable to be able to set the new speed in both tabs... What do the others think?

This is a 2 part answer:
1. Yes, piece of cake to have the speed indicator also show up on the banking tab.
2. To quote the WCTO manual:

Just like with any movement, you initiate a banking maneuver by moving the ship half of its current speed (round mathematically) in its old direction.

So my interpretation was that the speed was fixed from the previous turn, and thus you couldn't select it. (Although in hindsight, we didn't play it that way by email). This would mean, technically, that you're reporting a bug (the speed value in the other tab is affecting something it shouldn't).

So, do we want banking to have a speed dial?

Unrelated, part II: We definitely need an "Undo" button in the full release! Okay, so an undo function will probably be way too complicated to include, but consider this: We still use the "Report orders to command" button, but there's another "Submit orders" button somewhere at the bottom of the screen (?). This would serve two purposes: We could revisit any orders we've already given (=undo), and we could just hit the "Submit" button if we don't want to do anything in this turn (i.e. keep maintaining speed and course, don't fire weapons etc.).
I'm aware this is something to be considered only once we have different players and pilots in the game...

A ship-by-ship undo system may be possible, but I don't know if a global commands-issued-list is possible in the current framework. At the moment, 'orders' in the orders database are stored as an association by ship and by game/turn/phase, with no user association. I suppose I could just add one. Bring this up later, somewhere around Beta 1/2 era, and I can look into it.

Well, so much for the "brief" bug report... It's just too much fun to play around with game 2! Hope you don't mind my bickering, though... I'm really amazed with this playable version so far, and I'm looking forward to the end of October!

Bug reports are good! It has been this playable since about Wednesday, although I guess I forgot to publish the new test url... and I was getting slowed down with the lack of new bugs... so this gives me stuff to work on. Thanks!

 

[Avacar]

Fix in place for chaff pods and torpedos. I haven't tested however, so if someone could fly around and try to torp the Ralatha, and also release a chaff (make sure it goes down) that would be great.

 

[Avacar]

Potential fix in for evasive actions not happening (fyi: the report should also have said "<name> takes evasive action.").

I think the evasive part of the endphase-order wasn't even being submitted, but I think it is god now. We'll see. Again, someone please test end-phase evasive action (ideally separate from chaff first, although down the road we'll want to test the combination as well).

 

[Avacar]

Wedge: I've noticed in IE the .folder class isn't rotating. (This is especially obvious/embarassing on the wcnews front page image postings!). I know I haven't looked into it myself yet, but I seem to recall there was an IE-compliant "filter:" for rotation (possibly called 'transform'?). Would you have time in the near future to look into it?

 

[Wedge009]

I don't think Internet Explorer ever supported CSS3's 2D Transforms, else I would have implemented it in my first round of cleaning up. As far as I know, only Gecko, Presto and WebKit have preliminary support for it. I'll have a look around, see if I can find anything in IE's proprietary filters.

 

[Ironduke]

This is because the particle cannons have an opportunity shot at the Pack Leader, but the Mass Driver cannons don't reach far enough.

Doh! You're right, it's the range that made all the difference here. Forget what I said!

I can make ships unable to target phase shields when they can't hurt them, if you wish, but we had previously discussed that we wanted them targetable, but not damageable (see discussion above about if FF's will lock on phase shields even though they can't do anything about them).

Having now seen how this works in the game, I think it would be better to prevent players from wasting energy and/or projectiles.
The issue with the FF is another story, though... Here it's the missile's "AI" at work, and since the FF only targets ships based on their IFF (not their shield status), I guess this should stay the way it is.
Other opinions?

Um, sure. Do you want that rounded up or down? As it stands, I've only coded difficulties for the movement phase; at some point I'll try to throw in the calculated TR for hardest weapon during combat phase. You'll also notice the mouse tips aren't yet available for the latter two phases either.

Honestly, I was just teasing a little... I'd say round .5 and higher up, and anything else down. (I was tempted to say Math.round(), but this function probably doesn't exist in php... )

Oops. Well, Kilrathi research has taken a huge leap apparently. I'll definitely work on a fix for that.

It's okay, we could just claim we were testing out shields from the WC3 era.

Hmm. Clearly evasive actions aren't working. I need a followup question answered though: in the phase 15 MP, could you give the Sabre a fresh movement order, or did it know it was staying put?

No, as I said, I could issue my regular movement orders in 15 MP. So the evasive action probably slipped through completely in that case. Looks like you got it fixed, but I couldn't test it yet.

I'm open to suggestions on how you want dice rolls presented; I wrote them that way more for debug purposes, and I guess I left them in.

Yes, definitely leave them in - maybe you could use something along the lines of "difficulty: x, rolled: y" somewhere down the road.

So my interpretation was that the speed was fixed from the previous turn, and thus you couldn't select it. (Although in hindsight, we didn't play it that way by email).

I guess you already answered your own question. Banking speed isn't set - "current speed" means whatever speed you have in this turn (not have had in the previous turn). Obviously, this is unclear in the manual...

So, do we want banking to have a speed dial?

Well, I'd like to. Don't know about the rest, but we'll probably find out once we're in open beta.

Other stuff I've noticed:

- The Sabre has no torps left. Could you patch some in so we can test if they penetrate phase shields now?

- In turn 18 MP, the Rapier has managed to pull an Immelman turn at speed 1. It still feels strange... It's not really a bug, just something to think about. Should we raise the min speed for this maneuver to at least 3, make it an afterburner maneuver or leave it as it is? I'm a bit undecided about this one...

- I tried to get a lock on Rapier 3 in turns 19 CP, 20 CP, 21 CP, 22 CP and 23 CP. I have a feeling that it would take me indefinitely now to lock on that elusive Rapier... New bug?

I'll test evasive actions and chaff pods once I'm able to fire any missiles again. You could also fill up the Rapier's HS missiles again, this might help. (Or add in yet another fighter with lots of guided missiles. )

 

[Wedge009]

I added IE's hack for basic rotation. It's ugly as heck, but it looks like it's the best Trident can do.

Before I started web coding, I didn't mind IE. Now, I hate it, even if it's slowly (too slowly) getting better.

I had a look at some hacks for rounded borders in IE as well, but I don't think it's worth the effort. IE9 supports CSS3-standard border-radius, but that's not very helpful for XP-users.