Reinforcements for missing player result in crash

[Chanterier]

There are skirmish maps in which players receive reinforcements. When there is no player at the position and reinforcements which are assigned to that position are about to arrive, game results in crash. Possibly, they could switch to the civilian house if a player is missing to avoid the crash.

This happens in both YR and Ares.

http://mo.cncguild.net/debug/reinfo_for_ghost.rar

##### STEPS TO REPRODUCE #####
- code a reinforcements trigger for a player or play a map with such trigger
- leave one position without a player
- wait for reinforcements to arrive

[Linglin (linglin)]

Also I think it is not good for send reinforcements for defeated player

[WoRmINaToR (worminator)]

I have to question this issue's "high" priority. I understand it's an issue, but if a map is designed to specifically give reinforcements to a specific player, isn't it usually set up in a way that the player really *needs* to be there for balance or for the basic functionality of the map?

I guess if you wanted a skirmish where all involved players get reinforcements (which for some reason couldn't somehow be achieved by duplicating Paradrop SW's and then giving each player one such SW) this may be necessary, but how many maps include such features?

[Blade (nadia-xy)]

I'm fairly sure that Cannis came up against similar issues when making the assault maps, IIRC they test for the presence of the assault structure for a given player (the trigger that changes a preplaced object to a given side doesn't IE I guess) and if it doesn't exist for a given player, then that player isn't in the game. Use that to set a local for each player in the game and have the reinforcement triggers test for that local, problem solved.

[Chanterier (speederyr)]

@Blade: Yeah, you can make a workaround for this thing but I'm sure that you can't add it to every skirmish map with reinforcements triggers around. I'm also sure that there will be players who will use Ares and download random maps without even knowing that reinforcements triggers exist there.

Not saying that this issue should have a very high priority or something as the probability of such event isn't that high, but the possibility of a crash exists.

[WoRmINaToR (worminator)]

My reason for asking was because you set this issue's priority to High. If you are not an Ares developer then you have gotta have a good reason to set this to high priority. If I have to, I can cite several issues that were closed as improperly filed because someone thought to give their issue or feature request high priority.

Since this is a bug it's a bit different, but even then, as far as I know, you are not allowed to designate the priority of the issue yourself unless it is something that seriously disrupts the game on a regular basis and prevents you from testing Ares issues properly (or just playing the mod in general).

One could argue that this IS a crash, but because it happens only under specific circumstances AND it is fixable within the map (and if you're good you won't have to involve any modded INI code besides what you mod within the map) itself, I have to say this shouldn't have priority by any means. If a player downloads a map such as this that has this issue, it's the map-maker's fault for not thinking about scenarios such as this, since he could have put in the fix himself.

I personally believe this is not Ares' fault or anything Ares is required to fix, but since this error causes a crash, and not many mappers think about a scenario where one or more players are absent from the game, it might be worthwhile to fix. But not before any already-scheduled issues.

[Chanterier (speederyr)]

Oh, sorry. I didn't notice your earlier post WoRmINaToR, I just have a bad habit of issuing crashes with high priority.

And no, not neccessarily player has to be at a specific starting location for balance or the functionality of the map. Some maps simply provide you with forces. Also, you can't really say how many maps use such trigger but it is a simple one and I've seen it used in some of maps I downloaded from various places. The fact is that they exist and may cause crashes in the process.

An average user of the map may not realize that all players are to be specified for such map, especially now when we have sandbox mode. He may want to play a map for 8 players against one AI or human player or none at all, not knowing that there are reinforcement triggers on this one.

Map creator's fault aside it is for Ares users' convenience not to get crashes ingame, is it not? Even if not, if there's a crash then I'm here to report it and it's obviously up to Ares developers to decide what to do with it.

[Blade (nadia-xy)]

I feel I must agree with WoRmINaToR, this is a bug with the maps coding and the mappers failure to properly play test the map and isn't anything ares should really concern itself with IMO unless the developers think its a easy fix or it affects other things.

[Bug Importer (bug-importer)]

Code related to this issue has just been checked in!
Author: AlexB
Location: trunk, r1035
Commit contains DLL: Yes
Revision comment:
Fixed issue #882: "Surprise me!" now selects Archipelago, Desert and Urban Areas.
Fixed issue #1260: Reinforce actions (7 and 80) and Chrono-Reinforce (107) check whether the house is available and still alive. Does not affect Campaigns. (This needs testing. It might weed out Special and Neutral reinforcements right now.)
SVN: http://svn.renegadeprojects.com/Ares/1035

[Bug Importer (bug-importer)]

Code related to this issue has just been checked in!
Author: AlexB
Location: trunk, r1036
Commit contains DLL: Yes
Revision comment:
Related to issue #1260: Better documentation. Changed to only target Player@X logic, never second guess if the trigger explicitly names the house to reinforce (as long as it exists). The return statement had its parentheses wrong and only worked by accident.

Documentation updated.
SVN: http://svn.renegadeprojects.com/Ares/1036

[Chanterier (speederyr)]

Works. No teamtype at the position without player was created.

[AlexB (alexander-b)]

Because of the possibly game breaking effect for other game modes, i'll leave this open for a while.

[AlexB (alexander-b)]

Nothing new here for ten days. Closed.