Nominations for "Bug of the Year" (I)

[keith.lamothe]

Some of you have probably thought "you know, I think Keith's just running those buff/nerf polls because he's too lazy to figure out what most needs changed by himself".

And you would be exactly right!

Well, laziness plus the honest truth that the rest of you simply have more combined experience playing the game than I do or could have, and so I come here when I want to know where the problems are and which are most pressing to the players.


What I'm doing here is a bit different: I know about tons and tons of bugs in the game, and it's not a question (in most cases) whether they should be fixed.  But it's much less obvious to me which bugs are actually causing any real aggravation, or (more importantly) which ones are causing the most aggravation.

"But Keith," you say, "the solution to that is simple: just fix all the bugs!  Then you'll get all the aggravating ones."

Ah, yes.  Well.  I plead human limitations   I have a limited amount of time to work on games, and within that I have a limited amount of time to work on AIW, and within that I have a limited amount of time to work on AIW's bugs.  So I'd like to improve the chances that that limited time goes towards the things that will most benefit y'all.


So what I'm looking for here is: what bugs really, well, bug you?

Only things that are actually a deviation from how the game is supposed to behave, please, I'm not just looking for "insert any feature request here".  Not that I don't like that feedback too, but trying to keep this particular thread focused (hmm, thread? focused? on the arcen forums?  This could be a problem)

Providing a link to the most relevant mantis record is not absolutely required, but strongly advised.


=== Important Note ===

To make it less likely I'll miss your nomination while reading a bunch of posts, please put each nomination on its own line with the string "*Nomination:" in front of it (no double-quotes), so for example:

*Nomination: When a plasma siege starship's FF splash damages a command center no warning is given

And feel perfectly free to include as much discussion/explanation of these as you like, just separate from those lines so I don't miss them.

Sorry if it feels like a silly format; it kind of is   But it saves me a lot of time when pulling the polls themselves together.

[TechSY730]

Wait, is that plasma siege starship thing a nomination from you?

[keith.lamothe]

Wait, is that plasma siege starship thing a nomination from you?

Not really, no.  I was just looking for an example.

[chemical_art]

Wait, is that plasma siege starship thing a nomination from you?

Something tells me this is the "wild" card of changes.

If there is enough of an consensus, anything goes.

Think BIG

[Faulty Logic]

*Nomination: Add Cloaker mine immunity

Technically not a bug, but seriously, it would only take ~a minute to fix.

*Nomination: Remove tachyon emission from (non-tachyon) astro trains

This seems like superfluous micromanagement for cloaker groupls/scouting.

*Nomination: Increase mod fort collision priority

Did I just lose because an allied enclave moved the mod fort shields off Home Command? Again?
Also applies to other ff objects.


(mod edit: now it's full of stars)

[keith.lamothe]

Something tells me this is the "wild" card of changes.

If there is enough of an consensus, anything goes.

Think BIG

I'm looking for bugs here, not just feature requests

I'd say anything that damages a command station without displaying the normal command-station-being-damaged warning is a bug, rather than a feature that just hasn't been added.

[TechSY730]

Anyways, my nominations (in rough order of my personal thoughts on priority):

*Nomination: 10998: Remains Rebuilders won't always rebuild energy collectors (or matter converters) when there isn't enough power
and related to this
*Nomination: Remains Rebuilders not always getting "preempted" when a command station becomes elegible to rebuild (no mantis post)

*Nomination: 9583: When using the apply to selection on something that is under contruction, the build progress is reset.

*Nomination: Human allied neinzul enclaves (minor faction) push too much (no mantis post, but mentioned on a forum post.)
and related to this
*Nomination: Spirecraft shieldbearers need a higher "push priority" (no mantis post, but mentioned on a forum post.)

*Nomination: 9773: Modular fortresses move around (see comments for more details)

*Nomination: 10964: When a plasma siege starship's FF splash damages a command center no warning is given (to cement this as an actual nomination)

*Nomination: 2577: AI wave ships attacked and now they won't move and all issues marked as related to it
This one is frightfully old considering its severity, IMO.

*Nomination: AI units sometimes retreat way too early (can't find mantis post)

*Nomination: 3844: Ships in FRD not always regathering at FRD point
and related to this
*Nomination: 10357: Collision ejection overcompensates frequently

*Nomination: 1008: Chat messages not wrapping
This one is frightfully old 

*Nomination: 9584: Auto-kiting units sometimes kite out of range

*Nomination: 2591: Cloaked unit sidebar icon gives ship types
Not sure if a bug or not, but we should probably come to a decision and fix the UI to work properly one way or the other.

*Nomination: 6211: Make most base ship caps a multiple of 8 to fix ultra-low ship cap rounding errors skewing balance
You did it for the fleet ships, but the turrets have yet to be refactored.

*Nomination: Figure out and fix why sometimes one of your own units still gets teleported to the middle of nowhere (you can tell if it happened if you have "planet ownership data" of an AI planet where there are no such info on surrounding planets) (No mantis post)

*Nomination: 9483: Regenerated AI ships through Neinzul Scapegoats trigger Neinzul Clusters

And a whole host of ones for AI behavior, especially regarding them getting stuck:

*Nomination: 2577: AI wave ships attacked and now they won't move and all issues marked as related to it
This one is frightfully old considering its severity, IMO. (nomination already mentioned above, to highlight it being somewhat high priority for me in general)
*Nomination: AI units sometimes retreat way too early (can't find mantis post) (nomination already mentioned above, to highlight it being somewhat high priority for me in general)
*Nomination: 10967: AI units sometimes not moving into attack range
*Nomination: 3351: AI unit movement jumpy and all issues marked as related to it
*Nomination: 9988: AI Ships waiting to enter wormholes sometimes go through anyways
*Nomination: 7494: Freed AI Melee Units that are waiting at a wormhole don't always attack
*Nomination: 10168: "Defensive Hybrids are mobilizing" doesn't seem to do anything
*Nomination: AI Neinzul units rarely use AI Neinzul regeneration chambers (no mantis post)
but when they do
*Nomination: 9102: AI Neinzul regen chamber causes really stupid behavior

And a few suggestions for AI behavior (might not qualify)
*Nomination: 6528: AI Units wait too long before retreating to a carrier guardian (suggestion)
*Nomination: 6529: AI Units retreating from attacks should consider using carrier guardians (suggestion)
*Nomination: 6527: AI Neinzul units should not retreat in general circumstances (suggestion)
*Nomination: 10966: AI should not put speed boosters (the unit) into stand down mode (or instead, they should speed boost even in stand down mode) (suggestion)
*Nomination: 4832: The AI should treat blade spawners as long range units (suggestion)

[Winge]

*Nomination: When using the apply to selection on something that is under contruction, the build progress is reset.
*Nomination: Metal to Crystal conversions not working at full resources.
*Nomination: Line place bugs...actually there are quite a few of these.

I'm not sure if this is intentional--I thought this was supposed to be changed a while back, but just in case:
*Nomination: Plasma Siege Starship still damages Human Home Command Center and irreplaceable structures underneath (Cryo Pods, Home Settlements, etc).

[keith.lamothe]

*Nomination: Metal to Crystal conversions not working at full resources.

It is working, actually, if you watch the actual per-second change in the numbers (pause, write the number down, unpause and wait until it updates, and subtract the first number from this one) they're right, but the +/- number below it has a display bug.  Which is something I'd like to fix too, but it's a bit less severe than what it appears to be.

[Winge]

*Nomination: Metal to Crystal conversions not working at full resources.

It is working, actually, if you watch the actual per-second change in the numbers (pause, write the number down, unpause and wait until it updates, and subtract the first number from this one) they're right, but the +/- number below it has a display bug.  Which is something I'd like to fix too, but it's a bit less severe than what it appears to be.

Good to know.  I'll try it out when I get the chance.

[Fealthas]

*Nomination: Neizul ships only fill 1 regeneration chamber, leave the rest empty

*Nomination: Regeneration golem  doesnt respawn tractor beam ships

*Nomination: Spire building tool-tips hard to understand. (Wtf are reactors for?Do they power 1 thing or a shipyard and a habitation center?)

*Nomination: Ai difficulty 1-5 are useless.
 
I don't know if it counts as a bug but some re balancing would be nice.

[Wingflier]

*Nomination: Game's terrible pathfinding.  Literally the fact that it always chooses the fastest route, regardless of WHAT enemy planets you're going through, or how many enemies are on them, is absolute INSANE.

The fact that the player has to manually choose his path every single time, which can take hours every game, and one small misclick can end in disaster, is simply unacceptable in a game with 80+ planets, and literally thousands of different routes to take, depending on your map type.

I can PROMISE you that nothing else that gets nominated here, is as important of an issue as this.

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9885 - This issue has been resolved today, so thank you Keith.

However, AVOIDING a planet, is not nearly as important as giving your units a path to actually follow. It's like the difference between building a wall around a bad area, or just making a road that completely circumvents it.

*Nomination 0010901: Add "Neutered Marker" to the Galaxy Map.
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=10901

We need something that allows the players to build "roads", so they don't have to keep giving their units tedious orders which often end in misery.

[TechSY730]

Nomination: Game's terrible pathfinding.  Literally the fact that it always chooses the fastest route, regardless of WHAT enemy planets you're going through, or how many enemies are on them, is absolute INSANE.

I think you mean shortest route, because if it was fastest, it would take into consideration the speed boost on human planets, Z space time manipulators, grav drills, etc, which it doesn't.

There is one exception to this. If the source and the destination are both in friendly territory, and there is at least one route that does not leave friendly territory, then only routes that stay in friendly territory are considered.

However, it only takes one neutral planet breaking this connectedness to disqualify this logic, and your ships will be "willing" to go through enemy planets again (rather than, say, the only one hop longer but goes through all friendly territory save for one neutral planet), which is I guess is the sort of thing you are talking about.

[Echo35]

We need something that allows the players to build "roads", so they don't have to keep giving their units tedious orders which often end in misery.

Not that I've played in a little while, but I've gotten in the habit of using re-director posts to make highways that ships should follow to the front lines. It's very micro though, and I wouldn't mind a way to do that from the main map.

[Wingflier]

We need something that allows the players to build "roads", so they don't have to keep giving their units tedious orders which often end in misery.

Not that I've played in a little while, but I've gotten in the habit of using re-director posts to make highways that ships should follow to the front lines. It's very micro though, and I wouldn't mind a way to do that from the main map.

But what if you don't want your guys going the entire way each time you click a planet in the "route"?  That's an all-or-nothing solution I didn't even think about. I guess it works, but it's almost more micro-heavy than what we currently have.