"Frozen Combat" wasn't Solved

[Mr_Ced]

I meant to post this earlier; but after further research, aka playing Queen of the Hill, I found out that the bug was persisting. Animations don't play until I look at them, and I don't get any cues I am in combat.
I did find some new clues though:
When I decided to go all out in a freeplay game at the updates release, I noticed that if at the end of the animation the creature is successfully killed, but I wasn't looking at my ants, the ants woyld stand still. So, say I looked at my ants for a split second to trigger the animation but looked away after, if the target was killed they remained stationary.

 

[Matt]

Ah, Mr_Ced, if I were captain Ahab, this bug would be the whale.

What you're saying makes some sense. The same thing that dishes out the damage is closely connected to what tells the ant "we've finished doing this", so I would indeed expect them to get stuck in the fight pose until you look at them.

What I am finding very curious is that this almost always is related to a problem with Wood Ants. I don't suppose you've seen any other ants doing anything similar? There is a bit of vaguely related code that is only on the wood ants and I'm currently trying to figure out a way that it might be leading to this problem.

Thanks for the post.

 

[Matt]

Hi again @Mr_Ced

I've just made some rather sweeping changes to how it works. At some point in the next two weeks (possibly next weeok) there will be a new test build on steam. If you you have beta access, would be great for you to test it and let us know if it solved the problem. If it doesn't, I have another trick up my sleeve lined up...

 

[The vegetarian ant]

Hi again @Mr_Ced

I've just made some rather sweeping changes to how it works. At some point in the next two weeks (possibly next weeok) there will be a new test build on steam. If you you have beta access, would be great for you to test it and let us know if it solved the problem. If it doesn't, I have another trick up my sleeve lined up...

maybe this is linked to what happened today on the dev stream where mortars had their animation but didn't fire, there's also been a bug with the units still firing despite line of sight being broken because the target was still in range ?

 

[HofNerd]

maybe this is linked to what happened today on the dev stream where mortars had their animation but didn't fire, there's also been a bug with the units still firing despite line of sight being broken because the target was still in range ?

I can't think of a reason the two would be connected. (But then again, I don't know the source code. So I can only guess.)

I think the mortar ants we saw today were firing into the wall because the enemy creature moved behind it. I also think it has something to do with the end of the attack animation not calling a scanning function to check if the enemy is in line of sight or that function having an issue. (But don't take it too seriously, this is only a guess.)

Normally the mortar issue doesn't show up. I think this is because it is very rare for an enemy to leave line of sight after entering it. (Usually it triggers a fight to the death.) Or in the case of spiders in the nest, they almost always get out of range when they leave line of sight.

 

[Mr_Ced]

Ah, Mr_Ced, if I were captain Ahab, this bug would be the whale.

What you're saying makes some sense. The same thing that dishes out the damage is closely connected to what tells the ant "we've finished doing this", so I would indeed expect them to get stuck in the fight pose until you look at them.

What I am finding very curious is that this almost always is related to a problem with Wood Ants. I don't suppose you've seen any other ants doing anything similar? There is a bit of vaguely related code that is only on the wood ants and I'm currently trying to figure out a way that it might be leading to this problem.

Thanks for the post.

All types of ants do it, and I am quiet certain the enemy insects do it as well. Your meantion of wood ants reminded me of something, however. On occasion, wood ants do seem to not play their biting animation while harvesting a creature, instead just standing there until the job is complete.

 

[HofNerd]

All types of ants do it, and I am quiet certain the enemy insects do it as well. Your meantion of wood ants reminded me of something, however. On occasion, wood ants do seem to not play their biting animation while harvesting a creature, instead just standing there until the job is complete.

I can confirm this. I see this happening sometimes, I think it happens generally shortly after combat. (Or that's when I see it, because I have not moved the camera away yet.)

 

[Matt]

All types of ants do it, and I am quiet certain the enemy insects do it as well. Your meantion of wood ants reminded me of something, however. On occasion, wood ants do seem to not play their biting animation while harvesting a creature, instead just standing there until the job is complete.

All ants? That's horrifying. It's really annoying that I can't recraate the problem. What GPU and CPU are you running it on? Basically (in case I haven't already explained it) there's an incredibly important optimisation in place that says "if the ant is in walking/idle don't process the animation if we can't see the ant". This saves a hell of a lot of computational effort, but for attacks, the animation needs to be processed, otherwise the animations never progress and nothing ever happens. What it seems like, is that the ant's animation is always in this optimised mode, even when not ide/walking, when it shouldn't be... I'm beginning to think I'll need to make a special build for you to test so I can pull some interesting log data from it.

That second note, with the biting animation, that's interesting. I'll try and figure that out when I get a moment. Hopefully that one is a lot simpler, it's encouraging to hear that HofNerd has it.

Thanks again