Engineers given orders outside map Bug

[Cyberdyne]

Just tried Darwinia again after a long break and seeing the patch version 1.21.

If I have an engineer at 0,0 on a map of say 1000x1000, and click the engineer just outside the 0,0, the engineer will trundle all the way across the map to 1000,1000 co-ords, and it will then bump against an invisible wall continuously, if you clicked further outside 0,0.

You shouldn`t be able to issue orders outside the landscape area.

Not sure if it did this before the patch as well.

[xander]

I may be misunderstanding exactly what your issue is. My interpretation is that you create an engineer at the origin, then order him to leave the map area. When he tries to leave the area, he hits an invisible wall, then bounces. I will go on this assumption (though it is equally possible that you meant that you clicked in once place, and the engineer went to another).

If I may be so bold as to offer a countrary opinion, I do think that you should be able to issue orders outside of the landscape area. In the game, all that the user sees is the world... there are no real boundaryies. How is the user to know what the limits of the landscape area are? Issueing orders outside of the landscape area is not the problem, I think. Unit behavior is.

As I see it, units should do their best to go where ever you tell them to go. If you tell an engineer to go off the edge of the world, he should at least try it. I don't understand why he ought to bounce. He should just keep on going. I assume that the grid itself is a cartesian one of some sort, so keeping track of the engineer's location shouldn't be an issue. If he gets lost, that is the user's problem. Either terminate the program, or bring it back. The unit did exactly what it was told to do.

If I may digress a bit, I am currently working as a computer instructor for elementary aged children. One of the biggest struggles that I have with the students (and their teachers, truth be known) is that they regard computers as intelligent creatures. They ascribe emotions, intuition, intellegence, and other human traits to those computers. Thus, when something goes wrong, they flail about, thinking that the computer is mad at them or something. In fact, computers are DUMB. The do exactly what they were told to do. Often, the orders that they were given don't really make sense, and cause the computer to fail to complete its task, but this is a user (or programmer) error.

I think that this is a similar kind of issue. The engineer is a DUMB unit. It does exactly what it is told. If it does not, this is a user error. The invisible bouncy walls are, perhaps, a kindness granted by IV.

xander

[Cyberdyne]

Crude map to explain better:

Code: Select all

 ++++++++++++++
 +            +B
 +            +
 +            +
 +            +
 +            +
 +            +
A+            +
 ++++++++++++++

If you click point A the engineer will goto B.

If you`re supposed to be able to give an order outside the map area then it should at least attempt to go where you`ve clicked and not in the opposite direction.
Or if you`re not supposed to be able give an order outside the map then the engineer shouldn`t respond.
Its not right as it is.

[xander]

M'kay. I withdraw my comment (well, at least in part). I tried to reproduce the error that you describe, and I cannot. If I place an engineer at the origin and order him into large negative territory, he attempts to go there, and bangs his head against the wall. Also, if your cursor is outside of the landscape area, it disappears, perhaps giving some indication that units can't go there. I cannot reproduce the problem you are having with the engineer trundling across the landscape, though I am not using the patched version (still using 1.1, the patch has not yet come out for Mac).

xander

[Cyberdyne]

The cursor disappearing when outside the map area was what made me think that you wasn`t supposed to be able to click outside the map.

Just tried the 1.1 demo and the engineer doesn`t go in exactly the opposite direction like the 1.21 patch. Although it doesn`t go where you clicked either.

I think this is a minor bug that existed always but never noticed, and now in v1.21 it has evolved. (That kind of sounds darwinian in nature).