PDA

View Full Version : Sound bugs, training hating Imps, and suggestions.



Mister Giggles
May 8th, 2011, 03:21
First: Thank you, Mefistotelis. You've worked Hella hard on this and it shows. DK has been modernized significantly since you began your project, and you always listen and respond to people in a friendly manner. Even when they bring up thing counts array. <_<

I haven't played KeeperFX since the .36 days, more or less, so I don't know when the following issues started. Hell, a couple might have always been there and I'm noticing them only now. The first two may be related to my hardware, I'm not sure.

1: Imps will stop training when they gain a level.

2: The "Water drip" sound only plays halfway.

3: The "claim tile" sound studders halfway through playing. This is somewhat random, but seems to occur most often when the imp is right on the edge of the game view.

4: Another somewhat randomly occurring issue: Sometimes, the Dungeon Heart's background sound will continue to play even though the Dungeon Heart itself is out of view. It requires getting a significant distance away from the heart or entering the map view to stop the sound.

5: Some other sounds play...strangely. For instance, when a chicken is near, but not on, the edge of the game view I can smack it and its death noise will come out the wrong speaker. In other words, I smack it near the left side of the screen and the noise will play from the right speaker.

Those are for the most part, admittedly, minor issues. If the major ones have been dealt with, though, might as well polish off the little ones. Now, onto the fun stuff: Suggestions! These fit into the "X" of KeeperFX...

1: Add scroll wheel functionality. In modern games you can use the middle scroll wheel of your mouse to zoom the view in and out.

2: Autosaves! Say, reserve the bottom two save slots for saves that are automatically generated every x number of minutes. Not sure if this can be added cleanly. All action is stopped when normal saves are made, and I'm not sure people want the game to suddenly pause for a couple seconds while the game saves.

Maybe a scripted save reminder message, instead?

3: Allow people to lay down more than one tile at a time when building rooms, like in DK2.

4: Reduce frequency of the "You need a treasure room" type messages.

And...that's all I got. Oh well.

Thanks again for all your hard work.

Edit: I've found more serious AI issues. Attached to this post are 2 saves. One shows a Knight going around in circles instead of beating down the door. The other shows a mistress unable to hit anything with her spells.

747

dkdd
May 8th, 2011, 13:58
i'd just like to add one hm bug?

Ok, i'm using 0.39 KFX and i set 1600x900 as the default in-game resolution. When the game starts i press alt+r and the screen switches into 1600x900. All is ok... But the problem is that i can not zoom out (crtl+up down) very far. In original DK i could zoom-out much further than i can in KFX. And also if i zoom in the screen goes black - nothing gets drawn. Why this zooming problem?


And oh, another annoying thing is that blocks disappear too fast as seen here (marked with blue arrow). Is this a known problem?

http://www.shrani.si/t/1N/Iv/263nOXEf/dk.jpg (http://www.shrani.si/?1N/Iv/263nOXEf/dk.jpg)

mefistotelis
May 8th, 2011, 15:57
I fixed the problem with imps stopping their training; will take a look at other issues too.

Sound problems aren't that easy to solve, as sound system isn't much rewritten.

Blocks disappear because you've zoomed out too far, and static array or elements to be rendered is full. This also means I should restrict the zooming range even more. For now, I will leave this as it is.

dkdd
May 8th, 2011, 16:21
hm, couldn't you 'simply' resize the array?

DragonsLover
May 9th, 2011, 04:25
Yup, I got problems with sounds too. It stutters, especially through possess mode.

But there's something I have noticed since version 0.38 and I'm rather surprised that nobody else noticed it before... Perhaps did I miss something?... Anyway, here's the thing: creatures aren't affected by lights. If they walk near light sources, they don't become brighter and if they walk into the shadows, they're glowing... Something should really be done with lighting as it affects the atmosphere of the game.

And dkdd, the game isn't mean to be played into big resolutions. I have 1600 x 900 resolution as well, but I still play in 640 x 480 since it respects a good normal classical resolution. The game won't become "more beautiful" in 1600 x 900, it's just that the menu, the icons and the message box will be smaller, like in your screenshot. Well, it's my opinion.

Mister Giggles
May 9th, 2011, 06:24
Were creatures ever affected by lights?

I play in higher resolutions because my monitor has trouble displaying the standard resolutions, otherwise I'd stick to 640x480 myself.

I found another AI bug, but didn't remember a save this time: An Imp got stuck in a corner and went around in circles like a dork. Also encountering problems with Imps dropping what they're doing, like digging tunnels, to go do something else across the map, then coming back to dig out a square, then going to do something else on the other side of the map. I can't remember for the life of me if this is how they originally worked (Broken), or if something broke in KeeperFX.

dkdd
May 9th, 2011, 13:05
And dkdd, the game isn't mean to be played into big resolutions. I have 1600 x 900 resolution as well, but I still play in 640 x 480 since it respects a good normal classical resolution. The game won't become "more beautiful" in 1600 x 900, it's just that the menu, the icons and the message box will be smaller, like in your screenshot. Well, it's my opinion.

hehe i know that it will not make the game look nicer (texture-wise) but the geometry will be 'sharper'! And also 640x480 on widescreen 24' LCD looks kinda blurry...

DragonsLover
May 9th, 2011, 19:55
Were creatures ever affected by lights?

I hope you're kidding? :eek: Of course they were!


I play in higher resolutions because my monitor has trouble displaying the standard resolutions, otherwise I'd stick to 640x480 myself.

hehe i know that it will not make the game look nicer (texture-wise) but the geometry will be 'sharper'! And also 640x480 on widescreen 24' LCD looks kinda blurry...

But, have you tried if your monitor can handle 4x3 resolution? On mine, I have a simple button that can switch between 16x9 and 4x3 by resizing the screen. So nice! That way, in 640x480, it's not blurry at all.


I found another AI bug, but didn't remember a save this time: An Imp got stuck in a corner and went around in circles like a dork.

I also got this bug more than once in earlier versions, but it happens rarely. In fact, it may happens to other creatures as well. I once saw a fairy that spinned near the hero dungeon heart flame emitter. I'm don't remember if it happened into the original game as well... Probably not.

Mister Giggles
May 10th, 2011, 07:36
Monitor's controls are broken. Lower resolutions aren't fully displayed, thus making it hard to see information.

Also, I think the short attention span of imps will be fixed with the training bug fix. From what I've seen, imps literally only see the current task they're doing and change to something else immediately afterwards.

Another suggestions Change pathfinding to prioritize the REAL closest room for a task instead of the one closest by TILES. For instance, an Imp is dragging a prisoner to a prison. The closest is 5 tiles away, however in order to get to it the Imp has to go through a giant maze, whereas the real closest prison is in the next room, 6 tiles away.

Demon1986
May 11th, 2011, 14:49
i can tell in the original dk imps ran around like dorks, alot, i just usually smack them, and they stop it, but if it could be prevented, it would be nice. i found out yesterday that the lvl 3 imps and above run out of speed, before its recharged, that way, they cant put on more speed, and have to wait 2 secs before they can put it back on, and when they start diggin short after they run out, they look like lvl 1 imps diggin, i hope its a easy fix, that we maybe can do ourselves :)

mefistotelis
May 17th, 2011, 17:22
Monitor's controls are broken. Lower resolutions aren't fully displayed, thus making it hard to see information.
Could you be more specific? Maybe a screenshot?


Also, I think the short attention span of imps will be fixed with the training bug fix. From what I've seen, imps literally only see the current task they're doing and change to something else immediately afterwards.
Yup, these were related. I already fixed that.

Elven Spellmaker
May 17th, 2011, 20:00
Yup, these were related. I already fixed that.As of 0.39, the imps still stop training after one level (something that I rather like actually) and they only claim one square of land before running off still. (Something which does get a bit annoying)

If they have been fixed, will that be in version 0.40?


i hope its a easy fix, that we maybe can do ourselvesJust wondering. You do know it was like that in the original game? I assumed it was intentional game design, which is why I always kept my imps at level 3 to maximise the speed they got.

mefistotelis
May 17th, 2011, 21:33
As of 0.39, the imps still stop training after one level (something that I rather like actually) and they only claim one square of land before running off still.
Yes, version 0.39 has that bug. And it will always have it, this is how versions work.

The next version will probably be v0.39a, and it will have it fixed.

Elven Spellmaker
May 17th, 2011, 21:55
Yes, version 0.39 has that bug. And it will always have it, this is how versions work.

The next version will probably be v0.39a, and it will have it fixed.I just found the code on Google Code (http://code.google.com/p/keeperfx/), downloaded and compiled the latest 0.39 build and the fix for the imps seems to be there. They now train and take orders properly.

(Yes, I know how versions work, I was just checking that 0.39 had the bug or not and the 0.39 version from Google Code doesn't seem to. :))

Thank you very much for your dedicated work to this project.

Mister Giggles
May 18th, 2011, 01:06
My physical monitor's controls are broken, sadly. It doesn't display low resolutions correctly, and with the controls broken I can't fix it.

mefistotelis
May 19th, 2011, 19:56
I hope you're kidding? :eek: Of course they were!
Could you check which version broke the feature of creatures being affected by lights?

DragonsLover
May 20th, 2011, 13:05
It's been since it was ported to SDL, so since version 0.38. I am not totally sure, I have to confirm.

mefistotelis
May 21st, 2011, 15:47
It's been since it was ported to SDL, so since version 0.38. I am not totally sure, I have to confirm.

No need, I was able to fix that. Simple mistake.

mefistotelis
May 21st, 2011, 23:56
Only one of the initially described errors remains - the sound bug.

In which version dripping water sound started to be truncated?

DragonsLover
May 22nd, 2011, 07:54
In fact, it's not only that. Since it's ported to SDL, the Stereo effect doesn't seem to work properly, especially into possess mode. It sounds like if the electric cables of the headset speakers have a bad contact, causing the sounds to swap of Stereo or something like that where in fact, it's caused by the game (I really thought it was my headset the first time though :D ).

Mister Giggles
May 22nd, 2011, 08:02
I found a new bug: Creatures no longer explode when they're killed while frozen.

Metal Gear Rex
May 22nd, 2011, 10:37
I found a new bug: Creatures no longer explode when they're killed while frozen.

That only happens to humanoids, are you sure it was a humanoid Creature?

mefistotelis
May 22nd, 2011, 10:45
Fixed ice explosion and part of the sound bug.

But there's still a strange thing with sound - when i'm moving view left from the Dungeon Heart, its sound gradually fades out, while if i'm moving right, the sound stays loud, and then is cut. I mean the background sound, not heart beating.

Could someone check when (in which version) this problem started?

jomalin
May 22nd, 2011, 11:18
Fixed ice explosion and part of the sound bug.

But there's still a strange thing with sound - when i'm moving view left from the Dungeon Heart, its sound gradually fades out, while if i'm moving right, the sound stays loud, and then is cut. I mean the background sound, not heart beating.

Could someone check when (in which version) this problem started?

mefisto, I can't reproduce what you say. Can you post a savegame file? I'm playing the first level of the original DK campaign in KeeperFX 0.38c and if a move left or right from the Dungeon heart, the background sound never stops.

mefistotelis
May 22nd, 2011, 11:59
mefisto, I can't reproduce what you say. Can you post a savegame file? I'm playing the first level of the original DK campaign in KeeperFX 0.38c and if a move left or right from the Dungeon heart, the background sound never stops.

I noticed it just at start of Waterdream Warm. Without rotating view or using map - just move the view left and right.

EDIT: And you're right with first level - the sound never stops, unless you scroll to complete edge of the map; it's probably the same bug.

jomalin
May 22nd, 2011, 17:12
Yes, I have played the first level in the original DK in DosBox 0.74 and the behavior is to gradually fade out the background sound while you are moving left or right from the dungeon heart. With only a few distance the background sound is completely muted.

mefisto, was finally the sound bug that caused some normal sounds to be not played after playing KeeperFx a long time fixed?

Mister Giggles
May 22nd, 2011, 19:57
Rex,

Wasn't aware it only affected humanoids...maybe a bug in the original game?

Mefistotelis,

The background heart noise bug you mentioned is the same one I encountered. I haven't played KeeperFX since the .37 days, so I can't say when it began.

I've also found another bug: Draw distance is reduced when many creatures/things AND the Dungeon Heart is on screen. The closer to centered the Dungeon Heart is, the worse the bug. The bottom 1/8th of the screen goes black. HOWEVER, as you know, I play on a higher resolution than standard, so this bug may only affect custom resolutions. Furthermore, I always play with the screen zoomed out as much as possible.

jomalin
May 22nd, 2011, 20:14
I've also found another bug: Draw distance is reduced...

What is the "Draw distance"? Don't understand what you mean with that. Can you explain it? Thanks

Mister Giggles
May 22nd, 2011, 20:21
Oh, it's a term referring to how much of the current game view is shown on your monitor screen. Normally, Dungeon Keeper shows everything, but this bug makes it show less.

Edit: I found a Tunneler bug, which is the same thing as the Imp training bug: When they gain a level, they stop training, and they have absolutely no attention span when it comes to dungeon work. They'll bounce back and forth between jobs...

This one has been around since the original game, I believe.

Edit 2: Correction, it seems to be even worse. They seem to get bored WHILE doing jobs. This is most prominent while training. Sometimes they'll randomly stop training to go and do dungeon tasks.

Krizzie
May 22nd, 2011, 22:17
Tunnelers have always been weird with dungeon tasks, same happens if you have Imps on the hero side. I think this has something to do with the hero AI, if Tunnelers would be as fast/efficient as Imps, it would be insanely hard to protect yourself from them, they would dig out the whole map in minutes.

Maybe it can be changed a bit, if you convert a tunneler, he will get the efficiency of an Imp (only a bit slower and he needs to sleep/eat)

Mister Giggles
May 23rd, 2011, 07:39
Found another bug: On level 19, when you obtain the 3 boulder traps the boulder trap icon does not appear on the trap panel.

You can still select the blank icon and place them, however. What bothers me most about this bug is that you can immediately place them without first dragging them to a workshop.

Might have also found a bug concerning the enemy AI: His imps aren't dragging corpses to the graveyard. They're just sitting around smokin' their weed. <_<

JAM35
May 23rd, 2011, 17:04
Found another bug: On level 19, when you obtain the 3 boulder traps the boulder trap icon does not appear on the trap panel.

You can still select the blank icon and place them, however. What bothers me most about this bug is that you can immediately place them without first dragging them to a workshop.



This bug was present in the original I seem to remember.
Most likely something in the script...

IF_ACTION_POINT(10,PLAYER0)
REM "You have found some boulder traps, these will aid us defeat the enemy, but there are only three of them available in this land, so care is neeeded"
DISPLAY_INFORMATION(160)
TRAP_AVAILABLE(PLAYER0,BOULDER,0,3)
TUTORIAL_FLASH_BUTTON(53,-1)
ENDIF

Ok, what's wrong with this somebody? :)

Xenogras
May 23rd, 2011, 19:02
Bug with overflow workshop traps

Description:
When you put a trap counter traps in the workshop is decremented, then when a imp comes to the workshop and takes a trap counter traps decreases again by one. As a result, the number of traps in the workshop to get more than what the counter and an overflow workshop.

Corrections:
1. When you install a trap counter is not decreased, you can put any number of templates traps (empty) until the counter is greater than zero
2. When selling the trap is checked if it is empty, then the money is not given, that there was no cheating with the money because of the correction in paragraph 1
3. When selling a trap, it is not removed from the workshop, because it imp at this time may be in the path and bear trap to the installation site
4. Just fix for a computer assistant (not completely)

Corrections in the code:

--------------------------
src\packets.c
--------------------------
TbBool process_dungeon_control_packet_clicks(long plyr_idx)

case PSt_PlaceTrap:

1. Find

if (remove_workshop_item(plyr_idx, 8, player->field_4A5))
dungeon->lvstats.traps_used++;

Replace

dungeon->lvstats.traps_used++;
--------------------------
TbBool player_sell_trap_at_subtile(long plyr_idx, long stl_x, long stl_y)

2. Find

if (thing->byte_13 == 0) {
remove_workshop_object_from_player(thing->owner, trap_to_object[thing->model%TRAP_TYPES_COUNT]);
}
sell_value += i;

Replace

if (thing->byte_13 > 0) {
sell_value += i;
}

--------------------------
src\player_comptask.c
--------------------------
short game_action(char plyr_idx, unsigned short gaction, unsigned short a3,
unsigned short stl_x, unsigned short stl_y, unsigned short param1, unsigned short param2)

case GA_Unk18:

3. Find

if (remove_workshop_item(plyr_idx, 8, param1))
dungeon->lvstats.traps_used++;

Replace

dungeon->lvstats.traps_used++;
--------------------------
long task_sell_traps_and_doors(struct Computer2 *comp, struct ComputerTask *ctask)

case TDSC_Trap:

4. Find

item_sold = true;
value = game.traps_config[model].selling_value;
if (remove_workshop_item(dungeon->owner, 8, model))
{
remove_workshop_object_from_player(dungeon->owner, trap_to_object[model]);
}

Replace

item_sold = true;
value = game.traps_config[model].selling_value;

4. ??? Need to check the trap shoots (thing->byte_13 > 0) and not to give money (item_sold = false), if the trap is empty

DragonsLover
May 23rd, 2011, 23:43
I found a new bug: Creatures no longer explode when they're killed while frozen.

That only happens to humanoids, are you sure it was a humanoid Creature?

Nope. This applies to all creatures. Anyway, Mefisto fixed it now.


Edit: I found a Tunneler bug, which is the same thing as the Imp training bug: When they gain a level, they stop training, and they have absolutely no attention span when it comes to dungeon work. They'll bounce back and forth between jobs...

This one has been around since the original game, I believe.

Edit 2: Correction, it seems to be even worse. They seem to get bored WHILE doing jobs. This is most prominent while training. Sometimes they'll randomly stop training to go and do dungeon tasks.

This bug was present in the original game. Tunnellers were kinda bugged while in our side. Perhaps this could be fix once and for all in KeeperFX?


Found another bug: On level 19, when you obtain the 3 boulder traps the boulder trap icon does not appear on the trap panel.

You can still select the blank icon and place them, however. What bothers me most about this bug is that you can immediately place them without first dragging them to a workshop.

In my unofficial patch, a "tutorial flash button" appears to show that there are boulder traps you can place. However, for the other bug, I don't know how we could fix it. Something should be done to separate the "amount you can place" value and "amount available" value. I once talked about it.

And it's not a bug in the script. The command TRAP_AVAILABLE(PLAYER0,BOULDER,0,3) only tells that you have 3 boulders available, but the 0 tells that you can't manufacture them from the workshop.

And Xenogras, first: welcome! Second, this is something we should probably discuss and plan much to sort all the possible cases about placing, arming and manufacturing traps.


Might have also found a bug concerning the enemy AI: His imps aren't dragging corpses to the graveyard. They're just sitting around smokin' their weed. <_<

Is it the same for the human player imps?

Mister Giggles
May 24th, 2011, 05:02
It only effects the AI Keeper's Imps.

Elven Spellmaker
May 24th, 2011, 11:50
Tunnelers don't have the dig ability like imps do, it would take more fixing than maybe meets the eye. (unless the mining ability could be given to them if we own them)

Has anyone noticed that speed isn't decaying as creatures go up levels? I used to always keep my imps at level 3 as that is when they gained speed and had it for the longest time. As they reached level 10 (and other creatures too) the speed ran out before they could re-cast it and caused them. Was this changed by Mefistotelis as a bug?

Also, controls are inverted in the game, the option to reverse them works, but it should be the other way round. When the option says "off" up should be up and down should be down, when the option says "on", up should be down and down should be up. This is the other way round at the moment. (At least I thought it was that way in the original game.)
(Out of interest, which files deal with mouse and/or keyboard control when possessing a creature?)

Mefistotelis, do you know if there is code inside the game that could be used to allow imps to claim enemy tiles and fortify walls in possession mode, or whether that would ever even be possible?

About the lightning and drain bug, this only applies to beam attacks, and so applies to the Dragon's Flame breath (although weirdly not as much if you possess the dragon), and so doesn't apply to things like the Archer's arrows or the Dragon's Meteors.

DragonsLover
May 24th, 2011, 13:20
Tunnelers don't have the dig ability like imps do, it would take more fixing than maybe meets the eye. (unless the mining ability could be given to them if we own them)

Tunnellers have "First Person Dig" in my unofficial patch.


Has anyone noticed that speed isn't decaying as creatures go up levels? I used to always keep my imps at level 3 as that is when they gained speed and had it for the longest time. As they reached level 10 (and other creatures too) the speed ran out before they could re-cast it and caused them. Was this changed by Mefistotelis as a bug?

This was clearly a bug. There was only 9 levels of spell's power and only the highest value was used. When a creature reached level 10, it overflowed to the next spell's cost into the creature.cfg file. Now, a spell's power will increase after each level. Level 8 imps will have a better speed spell than level 3 and it's rather logical.


Also, controls are inverted in the game, the option to reverse them works, but it should be the other way round. When the option says "off" up should be up and down should be down, when the option says "on", up should be down and down should be up. This is the other way round at the moment. (At least I thought it was that way in the original game.)

I agree on that.


Mefistotelis, do you know if there is code inside the game that could be used to allow imps to claim enemy tiles and fortify walls in possession mode, or whether that would ever even be possible?

I think, for game balancing, that it should be better to not allow this.


About the lightning and drain bug, this only applies to beam attacks, and so applies to the Dragon's Flame breath (although weirdly not as much if you possess the dragon), and so doesn't apply to things like the Archer's arrows or the Dragon's Meteors.

Something I know about Flame Breath, Lightning and Drain, is that, they're the only spells that shoot upward when they hit a door (they hit the upmost part of the door). I don't know if there's a link here.

mefistotelis
May 24th, 2011, 18:49
Corrections in the code:


Nice to see another coder here.

But what we want is not to simplify the traps system; we want to fix existing mechanism.

Talking about all the different things in one thread is quite confusing; what I asked is: in which version of KeeperFX the heart sound bug began?

EDIT: Fixed the heart sound bug.

Xenogras
June 3rd, 2011, 05:30
In r363 and r364 bug with sound. Sounds of the rooms are mixed and do not stop playing when the camera goes to another place.

The problem is solved to restore files from v0.39
bflib_sound.h
bflib_sound.c
sounds.c

Save for test: 778

mefistotelis
June 3rd, 2011, 18:26
In r363 and r364 bug with sound. Sounds of the rooms are mixed and do not stop playing when the camera goes to another place.

The problem is solved to restore files from v0.39
bflib_sound.h
bflib_sound.c
sounds.c

Save for test: 778

The problem must be inm set_room_playing_ambient_sound() routine; will check.