The Energon Pub

[Glyph]

(Reposting as my reply somehow got lost in the ether?)

Seems like the common thread is that if any of your active bots are actually doing something (mission etc), it won't show the Deactivate button even if others are Active but idle. That's what I found in the repro steps, anyway.
(EDIT: Or actually, it might only matter what the *last* bot in your active list is doing - just had it where all my bots except the last were in missions, and it *did* show the Deactivate button.)

Haven't seen any of my bots just disappear from the War Room though?

[Bumblevivisector]

3 missions ended, activated 2 Cons, no DEACTIVATE button below my 5 actives.

So I send both on missions, 2 more missions end within the minute, then I activate 2 more for another total of 5 active, and now DEACTIVATE is back less than 2 minutes later.

Still seems pretty random.

[Seibertron]

I made some improvements to https://www.seibertron.com/heavymetalwa ... gister.php

I also updated the header. I'm not done but I'm falling asleep while writing code so I'm going to call it quits here for now.

More to come!

[steve2275]

3 missions ended, activated 2 Cons, no DEACTIVATE button below my 5 actives.

So I send both on missions, 2 more missions end within the minute, then I activate 2 more for another total of 5 active, and now DEACTIVATE is back less than 2 minutes later.

Still seems pretty random.

This is priority NOT the arena because no one uses it

[Silver Wind]

Guess this bug is still making the rounds.

https://www.seibertron.com/heavymetalwa ... _id=360334
https://www.seibertron.com/heavymetalwa ... _id=360335

Injuries despite no actions taken, victory automatically declared even though there's opposition.

[Silver Wind]

Tried refreshing the War Room page and received this error. It would appear that only the HMW forum is working at the moment.

Screenshot 2025-07-22 at 16-43-26 .png

Edit: Seems to be working again.

[Glyph]

An hour-plus later, still the same. Really seems like something that should have been immediately rolled back when it obviously didn't work.

OK, looks like we're back.

--EDIT--
But now the captcha codes are actually required, which is just pointless and annoying.

[Seibertron]

Sorry for the glitch earlier. I uploaded a file that contained some changes to how factions are handled via a global variable.now in order to start normalizing all.of the hard coded faction code. The file was dependent on some code in one of the core HMW files that I didn't move to the live server. I actually didn't mean to upload anything but did by accident and didn't realize I had until I went to check out how the live missions page was working, which is when I realized that I had accidentally overwrite it with my changes earlier.

Anyways, im working on the missions page. The new code is almost completed. Feedback will be welcome once I post it (ill let u know when I have done that). Most of it is just converting the old HTML but there is some actual changes with the code as well, including the new way I'll be handling factions in the future, which will allow an easier way to roll out factions. I really just want to keep it as autobots and decepticons until we get things ironed out way down the road, but im still going to lay down the foundation to make it easier.

I'll address the pass code tomorrow. It was added at one point to prevent players from using bots or scripts. Why would that not be needed still?

[Glyph]

Anyways, im working on the missions page. The new code is almost completed. Feedback will be welcome once I post it (ill let u know when I have done that). Most of it is just converting the old HTML but there is some actual changes with the code as well, including the new way I'll be handling factions in the future, which will allow an easier way to roll out factions. I really just want to keep it as autobots and decepticons until we get things ironed out way down the road, but im still going to lay down the foundation to make it easier.

Ryan, I appreciate you spending time on HMW, but I really wish you'd prioritise fixing the existing bugs we've been documenting in this thread - especially the new ones introduced since you've been working on the site updates - before making more changes to things that currently work even if they're not in the 'new' style yet.

Alternatively, you know that I'm very much up for working on it again and will rejoin at the drop of a hat if we can find a way to collab directly in the new paradigm.

I'll address the pass code tomorrow. It was added at one point to prevent players from using bots or scripts. Why would that not be needed still?

Well, pragmatically, we simply don't have enough players for scripting to be an issue - in fact, I'd argue it'd be a good thing right now, since it would mean there's more regular opposition available in missions. The bots at the top of the high score table are fully entrenched at this point and the players who care about rankings know who they care about beating.

On a more technical level, IMO the passcodes are a misapplication of the captcha-style approach (and were never actually needed). Those are primarily meant to stop bulk actions - mass-creating accounts, sending spam, launching expensive queries as a DOS attack, etc - note that those are all highly-repeatable actions that can be done more or less freely and as fast as the script can hit the server. None of those conditions apply here: the crucial difference is that even a scripted user has the same 6-bot limit as a regular user and has to wait for their missions / CR to finish like anyone else. They can't just keep launching missions as often as they like - the most they can do is eliminate downtime between game sessions.

Can they join more missions per day than a regular player? Yes, sure, though they're not going to be making much XP with it if they don't have other players to fight. Is that a big enough problem to be worth adding friction to every player's core interaction with the game? Different question, and I would say not. (This is leaving aside the fact that my passcode hasn't changed since it started being required, making the whole exercise somewhat laughable.)

TL;DR: the inconvenience of the passcode to our few remaining players far outweighs any hypothetical benefits, IMO.

[Seibertron]

If a list could be compiled (and maintained) of things that need to be addressed, I would greatly appreciate it and that would be very helpful. Thanks.

[Glyph]

If you guys can make me a list of things I've broken recently in HMW, I would appreciate it. I should have time to start working on other areas of the site now that I've gotten the "big" launch underway.

Armor (this was pre-site redesign though I think). We can't equip armor, our bot/cons just get an error message.

Alt Mode recolors (only the base color for hte alt modes shows up instead of the recolors)

Leveling Up Screen (the page is exceedingly spread out and hard to read to see what you can select to level up

Timers and Bars (the status bars showing repairs, health, and winning percentages are either really thin at about a pixel tall or really thick. I don't have a screenshot of the size they used to be)

Those are the ones I can think of.

* CR Chamber has no submit button. This can be worked around by setting the option to use the CR automatically after a mission/arena fight, but I remember automatic CR having the downside of significantly increased energon costs as late as 2008 (when I took a really long break from HMW).

* This predates the site redesign, but from what I understand there have been complaints about alt rotations being borked for both factions for quite some time.

* The error [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file /var/www/vhosts/seibertron.com/httpdocs/includes/database.php on line 207: mysqli_fetch_array() expects parameter 1 to be mysqli_result, boolean given is still appearing at the end of the list of combatants when viewing a completed mission.

* Display of combatants for an -in-progress mission is still a complete hodgepodge. For example, "Inferno: Treason" has not yet begun at the time of this post. The Autobot side is filled up but I'm seeing no one (not even mine), and the Decepticons have just one slot left but I can only see Heliocon and Louie.

* This last one isn't a bug per se, but it's a problem nonetheless: We have no HMW admins. Psychout inexplicably lost his privileges at some point, so there's been no one, for example, to refresh the 10/10 weapons supply since the ultimate weapons are not recycled back into the general populace like the "leveling" weapons are.

What is the error message that you receive when trying to armor up?

I had to hunt through Glyph's post history to find it (didn't know Murderbot had books ), but this is what he posted back on June 4th.

Updates since then:

• Detail of the error message (and location) on the mission logs
• Armor bug details workshopped here and here
• Characters entering a mission on 0 health / other issues
• Sorting broken in War Room character listing
• Deactivate button not appearing in WR when some bots are active (more detail here)

[Silver Wind]

It really is irritating when someone has to populate the missions page one at a time for all six activated characters and enter the passcode for each one of them.

[Seibertron]

New missions page is live. Passcode is removed. Please provide polite feedback and suggestions.

I'll address the other issues tomorrow.

https://www.seibertron.com/heavymetalwar/missions.php

[Seibertron]

Just real quick before I go to bed, I wanted to address why I haven't resolved some of tge problems with otger code that I recently "broke" by making other changes. The logic for arenas and missions has had some serious logic flaws with it since this game's creation. There is a major problem also with how the data is NOT normalized in the database and is stored in a very weird manner. If I recall correctly, the original programmer od the game acknowledged that he would store the mission and arena logs differently if he were to program it today. It's been on my mind for over 20 years. Im going to dismantle how tge logs are handled. I'm going to really dig deep into this code. I will resolve the other issues with the mission and arena logs when I tackle how all of that is generated. Its truly the core of how HMW works. To be honest, im working my way up to it because its a major project. I spent about 8 hours or so working on the code for the missions page so far. This entire process is a lengthy one. Most of this code originated over 20 yeas ago. Glyph made a lot of contributions as well and the game has been abandoned mostly because of where I was at during past decade for a very long time. I'm sorry that happened. Things are very very different this time around. Its going to be a bumpy ride. I will do my best to work with your feedback. Some of the changes are necessary because of the new found direction for the entire SEIBERTRON website. Some are just things ive wanted to do for 15 to 20+ years and those things are finally happening. Its going to be a lot of change all at once. Some of you will have a hard time with the changes im going to make. Im doing my best to keep everyone happy. It is not my intent to make your time here unpleasant. Please give me a chance to work through all of this. I have a ton of work to do still. I promise we'll end up with something improved from where we are at currently. I also hope all of you know that none of this would be possible without the original contributions from vir4030 and glyph.

Hold on to your seats folks. Here we go.

(Sorry for the lack of paragraphs ... typing on my phone and im exhausted)

[ashe5k]

We do appreciate the work going into this. I do like the new layout on the missions page.

[sprockitz]

Love the new mission page. Nice and compact, It looks great on mobile

[Zordon]

Loving the new look and appreciate it all Ryan.

[Burn]

I know the radials are there, just a bit hard to see.
Firefox 141.0, Win 10, default themes for both.

Capture.JPG

[Riot Riverman]

Nice to see this place is still here and getting updated and upgraded no less!

Here's hoping the CR chamber manual activation will be fixed soon, a few of my bots need fixing.

[Glyph]

Here's hoping the CR chamber manual activation will be fixed soon, a few of my bots need fixing.

Hey Riot Riverman, I've posted a workaround for the manual CR issue - hopefully you can get your bots back up and fighting!

[Riot Riverman]

Here's hoping the CR chamber manual activation will be fixed soon, a few of my bots need fixing.

Hey Riot Riverman, I've posted a workaround for the manual CR issue - hopefully you can get your bots back up and fighting!

That worked a treat! Thanks dude!

[Glyph]

No problem, glad I could help

[Seibertron]

Glyph, Burn and Psychout have HMW Staff access again which should allow them to help with HMW news again. I have not done anything with the HMW admin tools in years so i have no idea what works for you guys. Please email me if you don't have the link still.

[Psychout]

Nice! I'll wait for Glyph to tell me what he needs. Thank you.

I'll definitely need the panel link though, it's been a while since I've had access there.

[sprockitz]

Weapons could use refilled all 10/10 weapons are sold out