Phosphor v21 r5 bug reports and discussion here

I should start this by mentioning v21 series is closed alpha status, but once in a while I pick people from the community to test.
If I didn't pick you yet its small wonder -- I have my hands full elsewhere and for now pick people that either dont pester me too often or I want to reward for something.  Anyway, v21 is pretty because Robin/Robbing did much art for it but it also has a few tuning issues.

  the good news:  pictures gallery
  https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4sh7GRykLgEZUI0dWFqa296YzA&usp=sharing
    this gallery wasn't so much propaganda as to see what worked and what did not in the port of Robin's Perisno .8 into my Phosphor v20 series,
with the result called "v21"

  Things that I feel need work:
  1) Robin changed the map, closing the second entrance to Kaikoth (dwarf) lands.  He took 2 Hakkon cities and put them across an ocean, then
had so far as I could tell no working sea movement to get there.  I instead moved them to the desert south of the dwarves so players could visit them.
Some other villages and a castle were stuck in mountains with no way to visit.  These are things cleaned up in a few hours, but .8 I think was looking for sea travel code that did not get finished.

  2) Diplomacy with 16 factions seems to happen far too often, so I need to adjust the timers in simple_triggers to have new diplomacy actions less often.
  Also it would be useful to have for example 40 days of peace for all factions as done in The Gathering Storm, which although isn't really OSP the concept of delaying diplomacy can hardly be considered proprietary.  I expect several other mods do this, the scheme used is elementary, I just had not considered to fake out diplomacy by a simple test (is it after day 41?  then go ahead and do diplomacy stuff...) 

  3) whatever errors show in v20 r71ep will show in v21r0.2, as the code is shared at the moment.  I may as well continue evolving v21 before releasing it to public, at least maybe 2-3 more weeks worth of changes.

  4) I still would not mind solving the Drow skin to make dark elves that might appear instead of shaman things, when you camp outside at night. 
I would especially like that to be a "reward" possibility if the player has used magic recently or has certain magic users or items in their party.  But since all of that has not been added, its a "next month" problem.

  5) along those lines I would like to add more items, scripts, and a few new troops from Curtain of Fire for testing magic resist and magic systems, however
it will be done.  CoF is a fairly simple setup for magic, but I can use it as a starting point to test more elaborate scripts that bypass warband armor handling
and let magic resist by type of attack have more meaning.  Who Doesn't want to fly a kite in a lightnight storm wearing metal plate armor?  Warband claims plate offers nearly perfect protection from all attacks ....  and that needs re-thinking.

  6) As I wrote elsewhere I'd like to see magic become optional, to an extent, happening mainly in the player's dreams.  It turns out to be EASIER to just have it 100% on or 100% off, but there may be a way to limit it for people that cannot stand it.  On the other hand, it can change the way things are done.  Especially since not all magic has to kill - it could stun, sleep, make afraid, rally, heal, let players deathcam with limits except in seiges, and all sorts of other uses -- maybe not even in battles.  Pathfinding for example should be increased with flying mounts.  Teleportation allows paratroop actions.  Walk on water?  Breathe under water?  This might change things too.  Could I skip to the nearest shore with a water walk?  It may be one way to side step Warband limits.

  - GS

For half year, i can see the Phosphor is releasing and up dating, which is many players would like to see. Until now, every great job looks awesome and I would like to translate to our language and share to more people(which i would like to ask your permission to do so.)
But the problem is.... This board makes me so hard to read and find out what is going on, so many posts which is hard to find where is excatly the main folder is, all i can see are patches and change logs.
Is there any main download and general features, just for make it easier to read?

You can translate to your language, but put a link back to this forum (Rigale) so someone using your language that also knows English can compare the two versions.

  Most important are dev logs and downloads.  Or just tell them to look in the correct FOLDER and then they don't need to read as much.

    v20 series Downloads, documentation, screenshots, anything else:
    https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4sh7GRykLgEfjh1ZThmMHBkQzdvOU1WTjFXZXJZenhRV1F6QUU2VU9IcjVWcWRnV3JCTjQ&usp=sharing

    v21 is by invitation only right now.  Such materials as are open to the public are found at:
    https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4sh7GRykLgEZjNjMTN2SnU2emM&usp=sharing
          v21 will be going through radical changes the next 10 days or so, meaning fewer people lose their save games if I don't open it yet.

gsanders said:

You can translate to your language, but put a link back to this forum (Rigale) so someone using your language that also knows English can compare the two versions.

  Most important are dev logs and downloads.  Or just tell them to look in the correct FOLDER and then they don't need to read as much.

    v20 series Downloads, documentation, screenshots, anything else:
    https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4sh7GRykLgEfjh1ZThmMHBkQzdvOU1WTjFXZXJZenhRV1F6QUU2VU9IcjVWcWRnV3JCTjQ&usp=sharing

    v21 is by invitation only right now.  Such materials as are open to the public are found at:
    https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4sh7GRykLgEZjNjMTN2SnU2emM&usp=sharing

Click to expand...

Wow, that is very kind of you, now it is time to get start with it. I will looking forward to see your better work and share to more lads

for the 8 people who have access to the Phosphor v21 r0 series full download,
  here's a patch to  v21 r0.3  5 MB
  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4sh7GRykLgEVHc5S3NVR2h0MUU/view?usp=sharing

changes:
  - GS

  I just realized this would break save games for companions and lords/spouses, as troops are added to the middle of the list
(so that they are handled correctly for formations / AI).  Well, that' is why the list is small.


   
   

Caesarcomeback said:

For half year, i can see the Phosphor is releasing and up dating, which is many players would like to see. Until now, every great job looks awesome and I would like to translate to our language and share to more people(which i would like to ask your permission to do so.)
But the problem is.... This board makes me so hard to read and find out what is going on, so many posts which is hard to find where is excatly the main folder is, all i can see are patches and change logs.
Is there any main download and general features, just for make it easier to read?

Click to expand...

What language are you translating to ?

Mr. Sanders,

how much have you worked on troop balance?

I joined fights vs. Tolranian Minor Nobles twice:

- first time we(Redwood Patrol, Drahara Patrol, Maccavian Scouts and a single myself) outnumbered the Tolranians by over 2 to 1 and were absolutely crushed scoring one or two kills.

- second time with same troops on our side outnumbering the Tolranians by well over 3 to 1 we scored a truly Pyrrhic victory.

If that`s a WAD could you kindly explain the reasoning behind this?

Rgds, Oldtimer

  So do you reckon their armor is too high or simply their weapons/skills to OP?
  I'll look at Tolranians further.

  In answer, I didn't "balance" anything, I just removed weapons that weighed troops down without a military reason.  I removed 2 hand weapons where a shield was given or if there was sufficient reason (pike troops for example) removed the extra shield to be lighter, so the troops might dodge.  Some troops were sillier than others; tolranians had many in cuir boilli which made them more light and able to dodge better, but I don't think it was just that.  I won't be able to spnd much time on it until tomorrow.

Mr. Sanders,

how should magical items be used?

Where to put them and how to activate them?

Rgds, Oldtimer

  Magical items are, in this build, items that are either throwing weapons, crossbow class, or firearms (pistol/musket class), depending on whether they
do area damage and how dangerous I figure they really are.  You might be able to find if they are throwing by examining them, else see the number of charges a thing has.  Throwing weapons have 1 to 6 charges; the crossbow class item was rather weak and mostly seems to only damage a troop without a shield or from the side (and needs bolts or steel bolts equipped as ammunition), and the firearms class item needs bullets equipped as ammunition.  This requirement for ammunition is meant to lessen the effective use in battle, as bullets are extremely rare, except the two test characters. 

  In my limited testing, some area weapons are point blank and hurt the wielder almost more often than anyone else (curtain of fire).  I used them only when being overrun, although if you didn't die the first aid battle cry as a followup might be timely.  I need to experiment more with them and then I'll be ready to hand out some items to kings and lords, and the odd bandit leader, for next revision.

  - GS

Oldtimer said:

Mr. Sanders,

how much have you worked on troop balance?

I joined fights vs. Tolranian Minor Nobles twice:

- first time we(Redwood Patrol, Drahara Patrol, Maccavian Scouts and a single myself) outnumbered the Tolranians by over 2 to 1 and were absolutely crushed scoring one or two kills.

- second time with same troops on our side outnumbering the Tolranians by well over 3 to 1 we scored a truly Pyrrhic victory.

If that`s a WAD could you kindly explain the reasoning behind this?

Rgds, Oldtimer

  So do you reckon their armor is too high or simply their weapons/skills to OP?
  I'll look at Tolranians further.

  In answer, I didn't "balance" anything, I just removed weapons that weighed troops down without a military reason.  I removed 2 hand weapons where a shield was given or if there was sufficient reason (pike troops for example) removed the extra shield to be lighter, so the troops might dodge.  Some troops were sillier than others; tolranians had many in cuir boilli which made them more light and able to dodge better, but I don't think it was just that.  I won't be able to spnd much time on it until tomorrow.

Click to expand...

Hello Mr. Sanders,

hunting crossbow, std bolts, generally 0 dam on a Tolranian knight. 6 dam at best. Had low crossbow skill though as I generally concentrate on jarids.
C. 10 Duskfall Riders practically unable to kill a Tolranian Knight seems strange...

Rgds, Oldtimer

Oldtimer said:

Mr. Sanders,

how should magical items be used?

Where to put them and how to activate them?

Rgds, Oldtimer

  Magical items are, in this build, items that are either throwing weapons, crossbow class, or firearms (pistol/musket class), depending on whether they
do area damage and how dangerous I figure they really are.  You might be able to find if they are throwing by examining them, else see the number of charges a thing has.  Throwing weapons have 1 to 6 charges; the crossbow class item was rather weak and mostly seems to only damage a troop without a shield or from the side (and needs bolts or steel bolts equipped as ammunition), and the firearms class item needs bullets equipped as ammunition.  This requirement for ammunition is meant to lessen the effective use in battle, as bullets are extremely rare, except the two test characters. 

  In my limited testing, some area weapons are point blank and hurt the wielder almost more often than anyone else (curtain of fire).  I used them only when being overrun, although if you didn't die the first aid battle cry as a followup might be timely.  I need to experiment more with them and then I'll be ready to hand out some items to kings and lords, and the odd bandit leader, for next revision.

  - GS

Click to expand...

THX for your attn.

Rgds, Oldtimer

Mr. Sanders,

the mystic merchant is a cheating bstd, I bought a sheaf of jarids that was labeled as large in my inventory and still contained 7 pcs.
Phosphor 21 r.03.

Rgds, Oldtimer

Mr. Sanders,

looks like there are inconsistencies in merchant inventories generally.

I was able once to buy a large sheaf of jarids with 8 pcs, but I also see large sheafs with 7 pcs.

Rgds, Oldtimer

Oldtimer said:

Mr. Sanders,

looks like there are inconsistencies in merchant inventories generally.

I was able once to buy a large sheaf of jarids with 8 pcs, but I also see large sheafs with 7 pcs.

Rgds, Oldtimer

Click to expand...

  if this was the worst that happened I'd claim we both got off easy.
  So far I see a few real issues in today's testing:

  1) mining seems to sometimes change inventory, or perhaps inventory is corrupted.  I saw suddenly all my inventory change to silks
  after a mining success.  I'd like to follow that through.

  Also on a temporary harvest (mining again?) I needed tools in slot 10, the top left corner inventory slot, in old Rigale style.

  2) At the same time I see div by 0 error in script
      calculate_castle_prosperities_by_using_its_village    repeated 4 times.

  3) sometimes I get an oddity where most of my army is blown up by a single shot seemingly weak magic item that I had considered weak enough to
use as a crossbow (and thus loosened ammunition requirement).  I wanted to test different items to determine what to habd out to NPC leaders so they can start using magic in attacking, but this is most unexpected.  There I was shooting normally enough and suddenly everything exploded and all the horse near me, from both sides, fell over, with about 60-70 casualties instantly.  The rest of the time the attacks seemed fairly useless... heh

  4) I'm happy that Perisno .76 is getting pounded heavily to find weaknesses but most of the issues were solved with patch r2; yet a week later people ask
if they should actually patch.  No, they should probably not patch.  I'll point them to an unpatched Perisno .7 from a year ago and suggest that just for them, I recommend a "retro moment".  For everyone else, I'd like to postpone searching for the ultimate formations for at least a week. with 76r2 there is the ability to turn off formations under game settings inside camp menu.  It does not personally bother me if someone does this.  I just don't want to know that it is less than liked.  I agree.  I think Perisno is boring.  I'm also underwhelmed by Phosphor.  It doesnt fix ANY of the issues that bother me most - murder, rape, slavery, needless violence, killing for kicks, killing for easy money, making someone else bleed for a player's ego.  Alas, that mentioning of what's wrong didn't fix it.  But I suppose it highlights a problem with it.  I'd rather fix it, but its easier to fix smaller things, and equally unsatisfying.  The only way I think I'd like Perisno, Warband, or Phosphor, is when the things _I_ dislike are "fixed".  Whenever that happens.

  But this is a letter to someone OTHER than Oldtimer, who brings me little problems and few headaches I didn't already deserve 

Mr. Sanders,

re your issue no. 4 above:

- all the things you like/dislike were and are a part of human reality. What needs to be done is implementing more consequences for player actions.

Lords have personalities. Acquiring traits is possible as shown by the TLD mod at least. Relations are already functional. Let say that whatever a player does results in relation changes according to personalities and faction "ideology"? To some extent(factions) it already works to some small extent.

A player might with time become pitiless with bonuses/maluses when interacting with others. And so on...

Rgds, Oldtimer

Oldtimer said:

Mr. Sanders,

re your issue no. 4 above:

- all the things you like/dislike were and are a part of human reality. What needs to be done is implementing more consequences for player actions.

Lords have personalities. Acquiring traits is possible as shown by the TLD mod at least. Relations are already functional. Let say that whatever a player does results in relation changes according to personalities and faction "ideology"? To some extent(factions) it already works to some small extent.

A player might with time become pitiless with bonuses/maluses when interacting with others. And so on...

Rgds, Oldtimer

Click to expand...

  This is possible. 
  Of course, fair warning -- "it's likely to break your savegame" (TM).   

  - GS

  Well, putting together a re-write of Phosphor v21 (definitely save game breaking), expect a few new features "really soon" (TM):
    1) Races, races, and more races.
        Giants:  the start as a player Giant is happening.
                    gearing remains an issue but I expect to resolve those details shortly
                    giants are less intelligent and much stronger than other races
                    they are limited as to the armors and clothes they can wear, without a large gap at their neck.

          Drow - these are back already.
                    possibly they will have their own city shortly.  I need to make some troop trees later but its all doable.
                    no reason why this can't be a player race and starting city also, based on the model for giants.

          Orcs & Goblins - remains to be seen.  If so, orcs are males and goblins females of the same "race" for skins purposes.

    2) healing will not be items based, it's time to move past that.
        I've sketched what to do but I still have plenty of distractions to sort out.

    3) All of the Perisno .77 changes are already imported.

    4) I'm still thinking about what needs adding for Halloween.  I'd like to see what the rest of the changes end up looking like before deciding.
 

So far v21r5 is a blast, however, as expected, there are some bugs. You probably know about them already, but here's what I found in my 45 mins of playthrough:

• Almost no lord has shield skills, even when they have a shield in inventory,
• Some ladies and lords (especially Drow and Tolrania) don't have "everyday" clothes,
• Drow trained crossbowmen don't shoot their crossbows,
• World map in reports screen is too big for the window,
• Some gender related strings, for example lords say "our lord" when referring to the queens,
• PBOD bugs - some strings are missing and I can't access the additional option menus in battle (they appear for a bit and then they disappear).

I'll continue to add things when I notice more bugs.

I played probably a hundred 5 minute snippets focusing on the start of the game. 

  What I did play suggested it had a lot of potential to blow my socks off.  I found bugs nearly every 5 minutes. 
  Thus I limited the number of testers to people I either should get along with or who allowed me to pretend to be the "artiste", hoping I manage to not attain the status of say Cozur (who by the way is very gifted - and feared for his sarcasm and downvoting of mods he didn't like.)  I should hope to have such talent later, if not the reputation.

  I think there are enough raw places that its not for everyone yet, but I think you can see why I felt it was too good to keep to myself, especially since you saw it 2 months ago.  So you can critique how much changed since then.  I'll *really* take the stops out next month, Gosh willing and the river don' rise...

  - GS

Sunday morning:
  I'm told giant players (males I presume) are invulnerable.
  I'll shrink their size slightly and see if that fixes the hit box being in the wrong place for Warband AI aiming...
    still tuning this  from size 1.06; tried 1.02, .96, .92 times  "Mauroder_skeleton_01".  At  .92 times Mauroder_skeleton_01 the skeleton is about the same size as Human at magnification 1.00; it still is invulnerable to all but the 1 point damage taken while dodging, which is absolute and not tied to hit box.

  So I'll have to adjust the Giant model used; for now I'll have to revert to the human model,
      solving the "and what if they change armor to a not-giant version?" issue.
      except at 1.06 magnification the hands are missing and head is shrunk into the body some.  Damage is normal though...
      almost have it done.  still looking for the largest magnification the human body can use and still get hit normally..
      1.12 works; the hands are still wrong for giant armors but maybe those can be redrawn.
      Or maybe the mauroder skeleton can get fixed.

  fixed a minor dialog - caught up to some fleeing routed enemies (changed the code so they don't automatically outrun you anymore) and saw some strange
grammar in a dialog where routed enemy are jumped by the player again.  It's leftover from native, but fixed.  "do not face with us again" 

Nice work so far...I see that a lot has been done, GS. So far, I've browsed Phosphor v21 r5 with two custom chars: male giant warrior, female drow leader.

Invulnerable giants would be a problem...but giants the size of a normal human defeats the meaning of "giant"....

*Uldin spawns 2 Uldins when walking around town (haven't checked with other companions yet).
*Drow Princess didn't really make the drow a princess - Neither vassal nor daughter of any king (I chose queen Arwen)...instead, 3 Zann lords as sons-in-law.
*Magic items: healing fruit works, levetation (did you mean 'levitation'?) staff doesn't do anything, drow missiles are invisible.
*Starting relations with peasants (for adventurer quest) are positive, so it can't be done
*I don't seem to get reports on "current" fatigue level