Awh shucks (looks down & shuffles feet)

@redrum so here's stab #3 AI got moscow again in stab #2. this is v3 btw figuring that the most advanced version of the game that AI can play effectively. playing as allies with no bid maybe i should started as axis but i wanted to see the AI's initiative and figured giving some kind of handicap to AI was probably warranted. noticed that the AI is definitely stronger than before but still seems to have some weakness in the area of protecting transports. i know we've discussed it before but seems like there must be some way to prevent AI from spending all it can on facility repairs as well makes the AI very susceptible to strat bombing. autosaveBeforeEndTurn.tsvg

@Trevan Yeah, this is a very old problem. V1.III is not something I can be sure, but I'm almost sure you should be able to submerge regardless whether or not you are able to retreat. As far as "Submersible Subs" goes, my suggestion was to keep the name as an archeproperty and split it into a series of new properties.

@Trevan I suggest you not to make changes if you don't know what's the matter about it, especially in the moment that the change is not going to fix any known problems. The auto-elimination steps should rather be generally revised, maybe from scratch, so to solve the known problems and creating a system actually enforcing the correct rules (that will need to be interpreted, to some extent). Thinking hard about this, the only situation of only infrastructures remaining needing auto-elimination of non-infrastructure units I can think of is the case of defending units refusing to partake in air battles.

@LaFayette I agree to your last posting in general. What triggered me was your sentence that PBF was "too damn complex to be useful". It has been proven on A&A .org that PBF is useful, that PPF does not have further usability issues, that PBF is popular and is used by a relevant number of players in a relevant number of games. And this is not an ephemeral impression but has been like this for more than 10 years - and still is of course. I am sure you have taken a look in the meantime. No one questions the benefits of streamlining processes or improving the code.

Interesting. Would you be able to provide a Stacktrace (the whole error message) so we can dig into this?

@LaFayette The dice logic that is (still) used by the engine in other play modes (for example "Local Game"). In PBF/PBEM you have always been able to avoid (external) MARTI in the past by using those internal dice. That was achieved by selecting "Internal Dice Roller" instead of an external Dice Server.

Also, if I'm being attacked and my opponent loses the battle or retreats, why do I even hear the "Battle Lost" sound? I didn't lose the battle: I won it! Shouldn't this sound be given only to the player assigned to the turn power or, at most, also to the other players of its side only? Maybe the win/lose sounds should be switched over for the opposite side? Opinions?

@Cernel Correct. In newer editions a destroyer - among other things - cancels the submarine's ability to perform its surprise strike. In v2 however, the destroyer enables the sub's casualties to fire back at the normal time in the combat sequence.

@aardvarkpepper What is a "magic hover spot", exactly? @LaFayette is referring to this special location, where you can put your mouse where it flickers between 2 animation states, which doesn't look nice, nor is it intentional. was grey with text buttons, not all nice with the folders and buttons It still is that way, this thread is discussing future UI improvements.

Decommissioned the 7xx London server, we are down to 1 bot server with 7 game instances on 1.9 Upgrading the 1.9 messaging was surprisingly effective, most users are in the 2.0 lobby

I've been working on the offensive subs submerge/withdraw step and discovered that my idea of having a unified valid() check that works for both getNames and execute won't work. In the offensive subs submerge/withdraw step, execute shouldn't run if there is a destroyer present. But getNames is called at the beginning of the round and there might be a destroyer present that will die before execute is called. If getNames doesn't return the submerge/withdraw step, then an error will occur. I was actually able to trigger this error from the master branch when Submersible Subs is false, Sub Retreat Before Battle is false, and a destroyer is present at the beginning of the round but then is destroyed during the round. If Submersible Subs is true and Sub Retreat Before Battle is false, then this error doesn't occur because it doesn't check for destroyers. I'm going to be removing valid() as a public method from the BattleStep interface. Instead, getNames and execute will do their own internal valid check. This check might be the same or different, depending on the step.

One other option I thought of is if we can change the behavior so it always has some sort of UI update. In essence the toast would actually be doing that. I think the options are: (1) have the alliance button cycle through choices (IMO not good) (2) have the alliance button show a toast (3) hide the alliance button when it would be a no-op If there's no feedback suggestions then will give (2) a go as a toast likely will not hurt. (3) is an option, initially I think it's not great to have controls appearing and disappearing.

@LaFayette cool! I guess we shall see. Either way this was way better than the last crash. Great Stuff!

@LaFayette I can't speak to a lot of what you are proposing as I am a Luddist by nature and ignorance... my contributions or scope of contributions is limited to my even more limited skill-set. But I am eager to help where the axes of time and skill intersect.

@LaFayette All good hopefully another year will suffice since no one wanted to keep warclub

Perhaps when we get closer to a release (as we happen to be now), the spreadsheet will be useful for coordination to hone in on a stable version