[Snail]

There seems to be a bug in the weapons loadout thingy in FRED that has been here since retail. The maximum number of missiles that can be stored in a bank differs between FRED and FreeSpace 2.

To verify go into FRED and load up a Boanerges with full Cyclops - 2/6/6. In the in-game weapons loading screen, the same loadout gets you 3/7/7.


Is this mantis-worthy?

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Sounds like a rounding issue.  Since you said it's a bug and confirmed in retail even mantis should have been your first stop.

[Bobboau]

and since it's been in since retail, it means it cannot be fixed, or we could say it's a fred bug.

[Mongoose]

If it's just a matter of FRED not displaying the correct max loadouts, though, I don't think fixing it would have any negative effects.  The correct number of missiles would still display in-game as always, right?

[FelixJim]

If anyone's interested, as far as I can make out the tables suggest that the Boanerges should be able to carry 2.666666.../6.6666666..../6.6666666... Cyclops bombs. Looks like a rounding error to me too.

[chief1983]

I thought this was brought up about six months ago and it was on Kara's list to fix at some point, since he was very familiar with the loadout screen.

[Snail]

I thought this was brought up about six months ago and it was on Kara's list to fix at some point, since he was very familiar with the loadout screen.

Oh. We'll leave it at that then.

[chief1983]

Well, if it's still a bug it probably needs to be in Mantis, if it isn't already.  Might even assign it to him.

[Goober5000]

It's definitely a bug, but if we fix it, it should be on the FRED end, so that FRED matches what is seen in FS2.

[chief1983]

Sorry, the FRED loadout menu is what I meant by loadout screen.

[karajorma]

It's definitely a bug, but if we fix it, it should be on the FRED end, so that FRED matches what is seen in FS2.

Problem with that is that based on what FelixJim said the problem is actually a rounding error in the game and not in FRED. If the Boanerges with full Cyclops has a 3/7/7 loadout that's more than the table says it should have. But we can't change that without throwing off the balance for every single missile and ship bank in the game.

[headdie]

is it possible to copy the code that calculates the load numbers from FS2 to FRED if they are different? 

on a side note I ran a little test

I Fredded a mission with just alpha wing 2 fighters and beta wing 3 fighter
Alpha 1 - herc II
Alpha 2 - Boa with max loadout of cyclops#short
Beta 1 - Boa as Alpha 2 but with the missile banks set to 1/3/3
Beta 2 - Boa as Alpha 2 but with number of missiles reduced then added 2/6/6
Beta 3 - Boa as Alpha 2 but with the missile numbers manually set to 2/6/6 by using numeric keypad

Within FS2 loadout I got the following
Alpha 1 - I changed to Boa and loaded with cyclops#short and got 3/7/7
Alpha 2 - 3/7/7
Beta 1 - 1/3/3
Beta 2 - 3/7/7
Beta 3 - 3/7/7

the Beta wing results show this bug has implications for the Fredder being able to fine control the loadout of a given ship if using numbers near the maximum capacity.  I'm guessing fred and/or the game makes an assumption somewhere that a maximum number in fred is meant to be a maximum number in FS2 which as we have seen can be bigger and might be more than the Fredder wants

[FelixJim]

It's definitely a bug, but if we fix it, it should be on the FRED end, so that FRED matches what is seen in FS2.

Problem with that is that based on what FelixJim said the problem is actually a rounding error in the game and not in FRED. If the Boanerges with full Cyclops has a 3/7/7 loadout that's more than the table says it should have. But we can't change that without throwing off the balance for every single missile and ship bank in the game.

In a sense, there isn't really a rounding error at all. Both FRED and FS are rounding perfectly correctly, but using different rounding systems. FRED is taking the floor when rounding, whilst FS is taking the nearest integer (rounding up in a tie break). Rounding down makes more sense from a realism point of view (if you only have space for two-thirds of a cyclops, no amount of pushing is going to squeeze another one in), but rounding to the nearest integer may be better from a balance point of view (a ship with a bank capacity of 19 should have roughly twice the secondary capacity of one with only 10, and working with a bomb of cargo size 10, for example, you'd hope for the second to be able to carry two).

[karajorma]

is it possible to copy the code that calculates the load numbers from FS2 to FRED if they are different? 

It's almost certainly doable and probably a matter of a tiny little change. The problem is that it's a change in the wrong direction. Although I understand FelixJim's point above I tend to go with the realistic point of view. If I've made a weapons bay with a cargo space of 14 I shouldn't be able to squeeze 3 size 5 weapons into it. Problem is that FS2 currently allows you to do just that and always has done.

If the problem was FRED then this could be fixed in a few minutes. But the problem isn't FRED. FRED does things correctly. Changing things means making FRED make the same mistake FS2 does.

Can you post that mission BTW? I'd like to see what is actually being written into the mission file.

[chief1983]

AI Profiles flag to fix the bug?  Add support to FRED and FS2 to both do it either way, based on that.  Then we don't break any existing stuff but anyone who wants the bug fixed in their own campaigns can do so.

[headdie]

mission is attached below loudout.fs2

here is something interesting i spotted in loudout.fs2 when i decided to open it up in an attempt to pre-empt karajorma, remember Beta 1 was the ship with the secondary banks set to about half of its capacity while Beta 2 had full banks.  The +Secondary Banks: line and the line below are the most interesting.

Code: [Select]

$Name: Beta 1 ;! Object #2
$Class: GTB Boanerges
$Team: Friendly
$Location: 45.171978, 0.000013, 5.690553
$Orientation:
1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000,
0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000,
0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
$AI Behavior: None
$Cargo 1:  XSTR("Nothing", -1)
+Initial Velocity: 33
+Initial Hull: 100
+Subsystem: Pilot
+Secondary Banks: ( "Cyclops#short" "Cyclops#short" "Cyclops#short" )
+Sbank Ammo: ( 50 50 50 )
$Arrival Location: Hyperspace
$Arrival Cue: ( false )
$Departure Location: Hyperspace
$Departure Cue: ( false )
$Determination: 10
+Flags: ( "cargo-known" )
+Flags2: ( )
+Respawn priority: 0
+Group: 0
+Use Table Score:
+Score: 10

$Name: Beta 2 ;! Object #3
$Class: GTB Boanerges
$Team: Friendly
$Location: 92.663002, -0.000000, -0.947957
$Orientation:
1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000,
0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000,
0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
$AI Behavior: None
$Cargo 1:  XSTR("Nothing", -1)
+Initial Velocity: 33
+Initial Hull: 100
+Subsystem: Pilot
+Secondary Banks: ( "Cyclops#short" "Cyclops#short" "Cyclops#short" )
$Arrival Location: Hyperspace
$Arrival Cue: ( false )
$Departure Location: Hyperspace
$Departure Cue: ( false )
$Determination: 10
+Flags: ( "cargo-known" )
+Flags2: ( )
+Respawn priority: 0
+Group: 0
+Use Table Score:
+Score: 10

now based on what i noticed above i made loadout2.fs2 changing beta 1 to 1/3/0 (I tried to get 1/5/1 but fred wouldn't let me set it like that which I think might be tied into what I will talk about below)

Code: [Select]

$Name: Beta 1 ;! Object #2
$Class: GTB Boanerges
$Team: Friendly
$Location: 45.171978, 0.000013, 5.690553
$Orientation:
1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000,
0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000,
0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
$AI Behavior: None
$Cargo 1:  XSTR("Nothing", -1)
+Initial Velocity: 33
+Initial Hull: 100
+Subsystem: Pilot
+Secondary Banks: ( "Cyclops#short" "Cyclops#short" "Cyclops#short" )
+Sbank Ammo: ( 50 66 0 )
$Arrival Location: Hyperspace
$Arrival Cue: ( false )
$Departure Location: Hyperspace
$Departure Cue: ( false )
$Determination: 10
+Flags: ( "cargo-known" )
+Flags2: ( )
+Respawn priority: 0
+Group: 0
+Use Table Score:
+Score: 10

it looks like the loadouts are being stored as percentages in the mission file and it looks like only in whole percentages which is why it wouldn't let me use the loadout I originally wanted to test .  Also anything set to 100% of the secondary capacity is not saved so the game assumes the 100% denying the fredder the opportunity to manually set it

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[karajorma]

AI Profiles flag to fix the bug?

Wouldn't work. AI_Profiles have no effect in FRED nor should they. What would happen if you loaded a mission with 100% ammo in one profile and then saved it out with a profile where you'd forgotten to define this flag? And then what would happen when you realised the issue and fixed the profile?

It would be a mess.

Add support to FRED and FS2 to both do it either way, based on that.  Then we don't break any existing stuff but anyone who wants the bug fixed in their own campaigns can do so.

I'm toying with the idea of adding a global section to the top of Ships.tbl for stuff like this. Basically anything you defined there would affect all the ships in the mod. There are too many stupid things ending up in the AI_Profiles which then have to be copied to all the other profiles you make. There's no reason for it either. Who is going to make a mod where the maximum loadout of a ship class changes from mission to mission when using the same weapons.

You should be able to fix these sort of bugs with a single entry in one table and never have to bother about them again. That suggests something loaded on game load rather than mission load to me. It also has the effect of not buggering FRED about either since both of them would get their information on what to do from the same source.

[chief1983]

Actually the suggestion I heard previously was to split out the nonsense AI_Profiles stuff into just a mod config file/table or something.  I don't think ships.tbl makes any more sense either really.

[karajorma]

Well in this case it's something that only affects ships but I'm in favour of adding a mod config table and have been for ages. This sort of nonsense should be defined once and forgotten about.

[pecenipicek]

i throw in my vote for a mod config table as well