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Topics - nanomage

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1
Discussion / a small grapfical inaccuracy
« on: December 14, 2013, 09:57:37 am »
Hello friends, I first thought about reporting this issue properly to the bug thread, but then decided it doesn't really look like ufoconlose.log and savegames would be of help in identifying its cause. The thing is, the moon seems to eclipse the sun in a rather weird way on the geoscape.

I don't know much about how the lighting is rendered, but perhaps it would be more accurate if the moon was just allowed to block the inner circle as well as the corona without any actual change in lighting, or with a slight dimming of the entire geoscape

2

Team 1 ended round
Team 7's round started!
********************
ERROR: LE_DoEndPathMove: Actor movement is out of sync: 98:151:0 should be 97:152:0 (step 2 of 2) (team 7)
********************
Shutdown server: Server crashed.

:~/ufosvn/trunk$ svn up
At revision 29093.
:~/ufosvn/trunk$ uname -a
Linux lance 2.6.31-20-generic #58-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 12 05:23:09 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

This bug was already reported, but in much earlier revisions, and the issue is closed in the tracker, so i thought i should write a new post.
Looks like this happened not in player's move as reported before, but in civilians' one.


3
Design / Antimatter-propelled aircraft
« on: February 24, 2010, 08:15:11 pm »
Hello.
When Phalanx scientists finish researching "UFO Theory", they report that its engines to generate thrust "by injecting protons and antiprotons into the reaction chamber, then channeling this explosive force out the back of the engine".
This propulsion system is in fact highly inefficient, and it can be proven with quite a few lines of formulas. Given an UFO weighs roughly 100tons and carries 1gram of antimatter, it can accelerate to a speed no faster than 6 meters per second.

This is because of the conservation of momentum. Of course, proton - antiproton annihilation yields tremendous amounts of memory, but you can't just transform it into kinetic energy of aircraft. You must have some mass to throw away to generate thrust and thus move the opposite direction. If you just channel whatever results from annihilation (gamma-radiation at most, but there may be some other particle-antiparticle pairs) back of the engine, you will not gain more than  2mc of momentum from annihilation of 1 gram of antimatter.
 
UFOs just can't fly on this type of thrusters.

I think to add some scientific credibility to the game (its science fiction after all) you should equip UFOs with ion thrusters as addition to their antimatter engines.
Antimatter engines would then just transform antimatter into electric energy and provide an astonishingly powerful source of energy for thrusters, which ionize matter and then accelerate it to relativistic speeds and throw back providing thrust.

This all turned out to be very complex when i tried to conduct even the simplest of calculations to propose a scientifically-credible scheme of space-capable aircraft which would look like in-game UFO (very heavy, carrying 1 gram of antimatter as fuel and no visible mass tanks), and now i'm not sure if it's possible at all.
 
Still, it would be much more credible if we say it's using ion propulsion, with thrusters powered by antimatter engine, and accelerates plasma to the speeds of 1000-10000 km/s. It should utilize athmospheric air to throw away and gain thrust, just because it needs to much mass to carry along. UFO should have small mass-tanks (approximately 1 to 5 tons) to be able to maneuvre in vacuum in order to get to and from the carrier, but itself it's uncapable of interstellar or even interplanetary travel - it carries just too little exhaust mass.

This would be even good, because it would give Phalanx scientist another clue that aliens should operate from some huge orbital carrier UFO.

So, for the sake of scientific credibility, i believe that in-game texts about UFOs' propelling scheme should be updated to something like this:

  The alien propulsion system is a type of rocket engine unlike any ever built on Earth. It uses energy of matter-antimatter annihilation to power ion thrusters accelerating plasma to speeds of thousands kilometers per second. In atmosphere, it can use ionized air as exhaust mass, and it also carries a mass-tank to be able to maneuvre in hard vacuum. Confusingly, amount of matter in the mass-tank is not too big, and the craft does not seems designed for interstellar travel.

 

4
Bugs prior to release 2.3 / bug when entering battlescape
« on: February 14, 2010, 05:02:13 pm »
i've noticed a bug in v2.3 - after shhoting down a corruptor ufo i'm unable to start tactical mission on he place of the crash - game crashes back to geoscape.
here's tail of the console log
Calling subsystems
...subsystem 'base' - saved
...subsystem 'research' - saved
...subsystem 'campaign' - saved
...subsystem 'hospital' - saved
...subsystem 'market' - saved
...subsystem 'employee' - saved
...subsystem 'aliencont' - saved
...subsystem 'aircraft' - saved
...subsystem 'installation' - saved
...subsystem 'ufostores' - saved
...subsystem 'production' - saved
...subsystem 'messagesystem' - saved
...subsystem 'stats' - saved
...subsystem 'nations' - saved
...subsystem 'transfer' - saved
...subsystem 'alien base' - saved
...subsystem 'xvirate' - saved
...subsystem 'messageoptions' - saved
XML Written to buffer (2518272 Bytes)
------- Loading game.so -------
LoadLibrary (./base/game.so)
==== InitGame ====
SV_AssembleMap: Map assembly 'craft_crash_corrupter' not found
********************
ERROR: SV_AddMapTiles: Impossible to assemble map 'ufocrash' with assembly 'craft_crash_harvester'

********************
Shutdown server: Server crashed.
==== ShutdownGame ====
./ufo(Sys_Backtrace+0x1f)[0x819ed32]
./ufo(Com_Error+0xf6)[0x8146b0a]
./ufo[0x816cfbf]
./ufo(SV_AssembleMap+0x73e)[0x816dc5f]
./ufo[0x816841b]
./ufo(SV_Map+0x47)[0x8168974]
./ufo[0x816677f]
./ufo(Cmd_ExecuteString+0xcb)[0x813bb44]
./ufo(Cbuf_Execute+0x162)[0x813a7ae]
./ufo[0x807b4f6]
./ufo(CL_Frame+0xe7)[0x807b902]
./ufo[0x8148479]
./ufo(Qcommon_Frame+0x7b)[0x81488db]
./ufo(main+0x5c)[0x819db23]
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe6)[0x8b1b56]
./ufo[0x806c341]
music change to van_geoscape (from van_geoscape)
save attached, to reproduce bug you should find ufo crash site in artartic and direct a dropship there. after pressing Enter the mistake is observed.

5
Discussion / general feedback on 2.3
« on: February 14, 2010, 04:36:44 pm »
hello
i have played v2.3 for a while and i'd like to post some general feedback
overall, i find it is a great game, although playing it leaves a weird feeling because its unfinished.
i'll try to post bugs that i have observed in a "technical support" subforum, but there are also some strange things that are not bugs actually, but still confused me very much.

first of all, it's alien use of antimatter propelled aircraft. Upon completing UFO research, engineers report its fuel tanks to contain up to 1g of antimatter. According to a known formula, this results in total energy of 2m*c 2 being produced during annihilation with another gram of matter. Even if we assume the alien engines to channel all resulting radiation back of the rocket, it would still only have gained momentum of 2*m*c. Given m is 1g, this momentum can only change the spped of a 100-ton aircraft (and UFOs look much heavier) to the speed of 2*c*m/M = 600 centimeters per second. But this is far too small a value to be able to maneuvre in athmospere or, even worse- to climb an orbit. UFOs should either have access to much larger amounts of antimatter or use some propelling scheme other than just channeling annihilation products back of the engine. Or, i may be wrong, but correct me, if so.

The second thing that confused me is that alien particle beam weaponry is claimed by my advisors as beeing poorly balanced and uncomfortable for humans and, because of this, inaccurate in human hands. However, according to research reports, PB weapons themselves are simple to build, and, if so, what prevents humans from building theit own version of PB rifle, comfortable and thus accurate for them. It would just be some other metal shape wrapped around set of lenses and magnets that channel particle beam from accelerator to target,

I have also found that i'm unable to research anything after 'XVI Census' and 'Enemy on Earth revisited' and XVI rate in all the globe doesn't seem tomove avay from 0.0% even after i allowed some corruptors and harvester to land, terrorize population and fly avay safely. Is it because of game version or i am doing something wrong?

The last thing is huge stockpile of alien materials which seems to grow and grow as you continue capturing and disassembling UFOs. they do not seem to be suited for anything other than eating storage space. Also it takes extremely long to sell them. i guess it's just because i play a development version and they are going to be used in production of some hi-tech vehicles in later versions, arent' they?

I also want to ask a question about user interface: is there any hope of a command-line user interface from game console, especally for base management, say something like
sell -base="HQ" -item="Alien Materials" -quantity=10000
This would help against piles of alien materials and help automate equipping/reequipping soldiers for different maps.

6
Discussion / Problem with 2.3 trunk svn version.
« on: January 30, 2010, 11:52:29 pm »
Hello.
being a veteran of x-com123 series, i'm new to this particular game/ i played 2.2 for a while and liked it a lot but then i heard of 2.3 development version.
i am running a 32-bit ubuntu 9.10 linux on a laptop with some nvidia graphics card (don't remember exact model) and proprietary drivers installed for it.
following instructions on  http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Debian ,
i installed dependencies with
 $ sudo apt-get install \
   libsdl1.2-dev libsdl-ttf2.0-dev libvorbis-dev zlib1g-dev gettext libtheora-dev \
   libjpeg62-dev libpng12-dev libncurses5-dev libcurl3-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev \
   libxml2-dev libopenal-dev ,

 $ sudo apt-get install \
   libglib2.0-dev libgtk2.0-dev libgtkglext1-dev libgtksourceview2.0-dev ,
 
and

 $ sudo apt-get --reinstall install mesa-common-dev

packages were installed correctly. Then i checked out for trunk version as follows:

 svn co https://ufoai.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/ufoai/ufoai/trunk
, configured with mere ./configured and ran make, make lang and make maps.
still i can't get the game running, here's the console output
linad@lance:~/ufosvn/trunk$ ./ufo

---- filesystem initialization -----
Adding game dir: /usr/local/lib/ufoai/base
Adding game dir: /usr/local/share/ufoai/base
Adding game dir: ./base
Added packfile ./base/0base.pk3 (8 files)
Added packfile ./base/0maps.pk3 (509 files)
Added packfile ./base/0materials.pk3 (41 files)
Added packfile ./base/0media.pk3 (10 files)
Added packfile ./base/0models.pk3 (1660 files)
Added packfile ./base/0music.pk3 (48 files)
Added packfile ./base/0pics.pk3 (2544 files)
Added packfile ./base/0shaders.pk3 (12 files)
Added packfile ./base/0snd.pk3 (214 files)
Added packfile ./base/0ufos.pk3 (98 files)
Added packfile ./base/0videos.pk3 (1 files)
Adding game dir: /home/linad/.ufoai/2.3-dev/base
using /home/linad/.ufoai/2.3-dev/base for writing
executing default.cfg
couldn't execute config.cfg

----- network initialization -------
libcurl/7.19.5 OpenSSL/0.9.8g zlib/1.2.3.3 libidn/1.15 initialized.

------ server initialization -------
added 7 maps to the mapcycle

----- console initialization -------
Console initialized.

------- video initialization -------
SDL version: 1.2.13
I: desktop depth: 32bpp
I: video memory: 0
I: video driver: x11
I: setting mode 6
I: set swap control to 0
./ufo(Sys_Backtrace+0x1f)[0x819ed32]
./ufo[0x819ed9d]
[0xd12400]
./ufo(Sys_Backtrace+0x1f)[0x819ed32]
./ufo(Sys_Error+0x22)[0x819df15]
./ufo(Sys_InitSignals+0x0)[0x819edb0]
[0xd12400]
Error: Received signal 11.

linad@lance:~/ufosvn/trunk$

i am not much of a programmer, but i tried to perform diagnostics described in http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Debugging

here's the gdb shell output:

linad@lance:~/ufosvn/trunk$ gdb ufo
GNU gdb (GDB) 7.0-ubuntu
Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.  Type "show copying"
and "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "i486-linux-gnu".
For bug reporting instructions, please see:
<http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/bugs/>...
Reading symbols from /home/linad/ufosvn/trunk/ufo...done.
(gdb) run +set vid_fullscreen 0 +set vid_grabmouse 0 +set developer 1
Starting program: /home/linad/ufosvn/trunk/ufo +set vid_fullscreen 0 +set vid_grabmouse 0 +set developer 1
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]

---- filesystem initialization -----
Adding game dir: /usr/local/lib/ufoai/base
Adding game dir: /usr/local/share/ufoai/base
Adding game dir: ./base
Added packfile ./base/0base.pk3 (8 files)
Added packfile ./base/0maps.pk3 (509 files)
Added packfile ./base/0materials.pk3 (41 files)
Added packfile ./base/0media.pk3 (10 files)
Added packfile ./base/0models.pk3 (1660 files)
Added packfile ./base/0music.pk3 (48 files)
Added packfile ./base/0pics.pk3 (2544 files)
Added packfile ./base/0shaders.pk3 (12 files)
Added packfile ./base/0snd.pk3 (214 files)
Added packfile ./base/0ufos.pk3 (98 files)
Added packfile ./base/0videos.pk3 (1 files)
Adding game dir: /home/linad/.ufoai/2.3-dev/base
using /home/linad/.ufoai/2.3-dev/base for writing
executing default.cfg
couldn't execute config.cfg

----- network initialization -------
libcurl/7.19.5 OpenSSL/0.9.8g zlib/1.2.3.3 libidn/1.15 initialized.

------ server initialization -------
mapcycle add: '+africa default' type '1on1'
mapcycle add: '+frozen small' type '1on1'
mapcycle add: '+italy default' type '1on1'
mapcycle add: 'farm' type '1on1'
mapcycle add: 'estate' type '1on1'
mapcycle add: '+japan default' type '1on1'
mapcycle add: 'tower' type '1on1'
added 7 maps to the mapcycle
...using mo files from /home/linad/ufosvn/trunk/base/i18n/

----- console initialization -------
Console initialized.

------- video initialization -------
SDL version: 1.2.13
I: desktop depth: 32bpp
I: video memory: 0
I: video driver: x11
I: setting mode 6
I: set swap control to 0

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x078f935c in ?? () from /usr/lib/dri/fglrx_dri.so
(gdb) bt full
#0  0x078f935c in ?? () from /usr/lib/dri/fglrx_dri.so
No symbol table info available.
#1  0x00000000 in ?? ()
No symbol table info available.
(gdb)


Please help me to understand my problem and thank you for your help and for making a nice game to remind us of childhood :)
No doubt 2.3 will be even better when i get it run.

Pages: [1]