[Mongoose]

If I understand this correctly, this bug occurred when a cargo container (or any other ship) was placed in FRED and then switched to another type of cargo container, right?  I just attempted this using the latest nightly build, and I didn't get any spinning at all, so it seems to have been banished.

(It really does suck that people complain about bugs to you guys and then never follow up when you ask for more feedback.  If I ever do that myself, please do feel free to do something extremely condescending towards me. )

[Vasudan Admiral]

It's not really fair in this case - BW has had to drop out of contact for long periods because of his job. He works as a geologist at a mine in the Aussie outback, and when he does come back, it's usually only for a few days which are always quite busy already. I know he'd test this if he could.

[Goober5000]

Meh.  Well, tell him to check this out next time he stops by.

[KewlToyZ]

Could be the MOI of the pof file being out of whack?
I found trying to just manually create an MOI for POF's, that previously didn't have them and was brought to my attention by the debug v10, made the asteroids go radically nuts in missions.

[chief1983]

I was just making a joke, although I thought there was more than just BW who had been able to reproduce this bug.  If it's only him then I suppose we'd technically have to wait, but if anyone else can reproduce with an old build and then verify it's no longer an issue with a new one that would work too.  Say, Kara's standalone fixes or some such from mid summer and the latest nightly.

[Agent_Koopa]

It's not really fair in this case - BW has had to drop out of contact for long periods because of his job. He works as a geologist at a mine in the Aussie outback, and when he does come back, it's usually only for a few days which are always quite busy already. I know he'd test this if he could.

What, really? That's awesome! I don't know why, I expect everyone on the Internet to work in some sort of IT-related profession.

[chief1983]

Well, you got me, I'm a web programmer.

[KewlToyZ]

<--- CADD Manager... ASPNET Developer... Web Programmer.... IT.... 

[Stormkeeper]

I shuffle papers for the business office of a hospital.

[Wobble73]

I shuffle papers for the business office of a hospital.

I shuffle papers for an Adoption Team!

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Blast, I'm late.

[chief1983]

Blast, I'm late.

Go pound sand.  It was relevant and it was only a couple months

[Mongoose]

Not to nudge this thing gently back on-topic, but I tried triggering the bug with the old standalone fixes build and didn't get anything to happen.  Guess you'll need a better test subject.

[CP5670]

I tried out that Chief build quickly. The problem as I understand it is still there, at least in the one specific situation where I know it occurs (the TC 03 crate in mission 14c of PI). I have never seen it anywhere besides that though.

I always thought it looked strange, but that was in some ways a good thing in that particular mission, so I never paid much attention to it.

Maybe I should institute a policy of banning everyone who reports a bug but never follows up on it.

Then nobody will ever report anything.

[chief1983]

Is that using an older model of a container with bad MOI data?  Also, could you try a more recent nightly build just to make sure.

[CP5670]

Maybe. What is considered bad MOI data though? I noticed the debug build complaining about some other models with zero MOI, but that was intentional and is needed for some things to work properly.

[chief1983]

I was under the impression that things will _not_ work properly with null MOI.  I thought that all MediaVP models, etc had their MOIs corrected now to some sane values.

[Vasudan Admiral]

As I understand it, MOI is a 'tensor' (a 9 element array) that contains the information about a rigid bodies resistance to rotation forces about any axis. Just like the inertia of mass resists a force in this: (ie, bigger mass means the same force will produce less acceleration)

ΣF = m*a

the distribution of mass around the centre of gravity (I) resists moments in this equivillant equation:

ΣM = I*α

where α is radial acceleration and ΣM is the sum of the moments about the centre of gravity.

If you have a null MOI tensor then you'll have no radial acceleration for the object and it will just slide when hit with off centre kinetic weapon shots.

[chief1983]

Interesting.  Still, bad MOI could still possibly be the cause, even if null isn't.  Either way, it's a shame if this is still a bug, but we need to know for sure that it's a code or a model issue.

[CP5670]

If you have a null MOI tensor then you'll have no radial acceleration for the object and it will just slide when hit with off centre kinetic weapon shots.

Yes, and this is exactly what you want in some situations. There were a few places where I solved some very annoying and elusive mission bugs by creating a copy of the ship type and its model with zero MOI.

In any case, I looked at that mission again and that particular cargo container just uses the original Volition TTC model, which has a normal MOI. It does have a special explosion assigned to it, but I don't think that should affect anything.