[conquest] invisible sun bug discovered!

[Jon Trulson]

On Mon, 17 Oct 2005, Almighty Tallest Cataboligne wrote:

>> So, how are you killed by something that isnt there?
>>> I wasnt aware of any invisible sun bug...hmm, I never have tested for
>>> that.
>>>
>>
> There is in fact some issue here.
>
> It seems you can go in conqoper and make any planet object invisible and
> then visible again...except Murisak!
>

 	Interesting.  Murisak is special in that is it really 'the center' 
of the universe.  In the upcoming CB changes we've been discussing 
offline, I will probably use a ghost planet to be the center.  Murisak 
will then just orbit ghost 0 at a 0 radius and 0.0 orbital velocity. Ghost 
0 will be hardcoded to be at 0,0 with 0 vel, 0 radius, and invisible.

 	I am curious about your statement that Murisak is invisible on my 
1701 and 1702 servers... This is not true.  Have you tried using a client 
(virgin 8.1.1) rather than the client you modified for the irken planets? 
I suspect you may have introduced a bug somewhere with your changes.

> You do that to murisak and it never reappears. In either client. Nor can you
> get info on it anymore - but its rad. can kill you! This is wacked out.
>

 	It is possible that an invisible Sun with a non-0 army count could 
kill you.  I've never tried it, but should be easy to fix.  Suns are 
different from planets in that it's army count determines the damage one 
causes without regard to your team.  There may be a logic hole in there 
somewhere.

> Further research - I mucked around with murisaks orbit pointer. If you point
> it at something orbiting it, the whole universe takes off. must be something
> to do with self references. I set it to orbit sol, which doesnt move. After
> I restored it to orbit itself, and returned its x,y to 0,0 its visible
> switch works normally.


 	Well as Mur is basically the center of the universe, all of the 
other star systems are specified relative to it, but usually with a 0.0 
orb vel. (ie the team systems 'orbit' mur at a specified orbital radius, 
but with no velocity - hence they stand still).

 	On the 1702 server, I set all of the star systems actually 
orbiting mur, so as to provide continually changing team system locations 
:)

 	I have never tried having a body orbit itself with a non-0 
vel/radius.  I can see how this would cause some strange orbits.  :)

>
> A planet init doesnt change the status of the situation in any way shape or
> form...I'd bet init everything would though.
>
> This is for sure some odd ball code.
>

 	:)

> Also checked a sun having 0 army count - it can do damage sometimes. but it
> seems your shields can regen. faster sometimes too.
>

 	If you orbit a 0 army sun, your sh and temp should regen faster - 
as if you were orbiting an empty planet.  I would not think you could get 
any damage though as the army count determines that (or at least it is 
supposed to).

>
> More research - it is definitely tied into to the orbit pointer. If you init

 	I am not sure what you mean by 'orbit pointer'... perhaps you mean 
the 'primary'?  A planet always has a primary - the body it orbits.

> the planets murisak never reappears after you make it invisible, but its rad
> will function. But if you set its orbit pointer (to itself, as it defaults)
> then the (in)visible switch works normally.
>

 	It is possible invisible suns could still cause damage - never 
tried it, but I cannot recall anything in the code checking for this 
condition.

 	The visibility of the object should not have anything to do with a 
body's primary.  Mur 'orbits itself', but with a 0 orbit radius and 0 
orbit velocity - which means it just stands there.  I have never tried a 
body that orbits itself with a non-0 orbit velocity or radius.  Wish I 
were home, would like to try that now :)


-- 
Jon Trulson    mailto:jon at radscan.com
ID: 1A9A2B09, FP: C23F328A721264E7 B6188192EC733962
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