The Energon Pub

[Psychout]

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

Less than 24 hours, impressive.

Give us a day or three to work out what we're doing and then we'll try work out what we can and can't update.

[Psychout]

I'll be at TFNation this weekend

Nerd

...will very much be going through the admin panel to catalogue working/broken/needed functions as soon as I can.

Oh boy, that is going to be a fun list.

Having re-familiarised myself with it, there isn't much. We got a bit of work ahead of us.

[steve2275]

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.

https://www.seibertron.com/heavymetalwa ... _id=366764

[Psychout]

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.

https://www.seibertron.com/heavymetalwa ... _id=366764

Do you actually get the xp/energon rewards from the mission?

[Psychout]

Got another one here. -.-

https://www.seibertron.com/heavymetalwa ... _id=366915

[Psychout]

Ok, this is getting weirder.
Mission #367334 shows as having a bot and a con in it.


But when I click on the mission, it shows 1v1 but only details the con.


Can an active autobot confirm it looks the same for you, as I have a hunch it may be reversed?

Edit: Even after putting Evil the Car in, it's listyed a 2v1, but still only showing Bumbles.

[Glyph]

There's some weird bug atm where it typically shows only one of the bots in the mission, but only while it's in the open / awaiting signups state. Once it's gone to Started or Complete, all the bots show up correctly.

I think it started after the thing we've been having with bots appearing with <100% health but no activity in the mission so probably not related to that, but anything's possible.

[Seibertron]

====================================================
HEAVY METAL WAR: MAINTENANCE & CODE CLEANUP UPDATE
====================================================

Hey guys,

As part of our continuing work to reduce the 503 "Service Unavailable" errors that many of you (and our friendly bots!) have been running into, I've been doing some maintenance behind the scenes on Heavy Metal War and Seibertron's general code.

Here's a quick summary of the latest changes:

• Fixed several undefined variable and index errors in the battle engine that were generating unnecessary load.
• Cleaned up agent selection logic so battles can proceed smoothly without throwing warnings when no fighters are ready to act.
• Streamlined how faction winners are calculated, replacing old hard-coded checks with more dynamic logic.
• Adjusted database update routines to ensure character results save reliably at the end of battles.
• Cleaned up legacy code in our "per minute" script to reduce wasted cycles and lighten background processing on the server.
• Optimized code in the toy gallery image display system to free up server resources and improve performance across the site.
• Began consolidating legacy code and server resources to improve overall stability.

What this means for you:

• Fewer random hiccups mid-battle.
• Better performance (less wasted processing on bad calls).
• A more stable environment as I continue to modernize HMW and the rest of SEIBERTRON.

This is just the latest step - more fixes and optimizations are coming as I work through the codebase and server setup. Our goal is to make the game run cleaner, faster, and more reliably, while preserving all the gameplay you know and love.

Thank you all for your patience as I continue to patch up this battle-worn system. Your continued play helps us test these changes in real time.

- Ryan

[Seibertron]

There's some weird bug atm where it typically shows only one of the bots in the mission, but only while it's in the open / awaiting signups state. Once it's gone to Started or Complete, all the bots show up correctly.

I think it started after the thing we've been having with bots appearing with <100% health but no activity in the mission so probably not related to that, but anything's possible.

Can you guys provide screenshots and URLs to help me debug when you see errors like this? It would generate a lot of clarity and point me in the right direction.

[Psychout]

This example here is one of them.

Ok, this is getting weirder.
Mission #367334 shows as having a bot and a con in it.


But when I click on the mission, it shows 1v1 but only details the con.


Can an active autobot confirm it looks the same for you, as I have a hunch it may be reversed?

Edit: Even after putting Evil the Car in, it's listyed a 2v1, but still only showing Bumbles.

[Psychout]

And this one is an example of the missions not processing correctly.



https://www.seibertron.com/heavymetalwa ... _id=367957

[Seibertron]

Thank you. That is very helpful. I appreciate you sharing the screenshots and links with me.

I'll take a look in a little bit after I'm done grilling some burgers and hot dogs for my family.

Edit: man, I really need to address how the forums look on mobile. Its not unusuable, but it defintely needs some modern Bootstrap updates. Ack!

[Seibertron]

I updated how avatars are handled on the forums so they’re now loaded directly from the server instead of going through extra processing scripts. This change reduces wasted server overhead, freeing up resources and improving performance across Heavy Metal War and the rest of SEIBERTRON. Basically, the image no longer goes through the obfuscated file.php system that phpBB had setup. It completely bypasses that now in order to conserve resources since that file is the 2nd slowest file on SEIBERTRON according to our logs.

Our signatures are next as i work through this script on forums that is consuming so much resources. It seems silly that displaying our avatars and signatures could be consuming so many resources but if you look at the code that does this, and then take into account that how many times those appear and aren't able to be cached because of how phpBB works and then consider the forums have been going since 2007 and then consider how search engines or bots access the forums hundreds of thousands of times per day, and it all adds up. 1 extra database query per image display can turn into something happening 1/2 million times or more access per file or database calls per day, sucking up resources needed for site speed, preventing 503 Kremzeeks, HMW performance, etc.

[Burn]

Edit: man, I really need to address how the forums look on mobile. Its not unusuable, but it defintely needs some modern Bootstrap updates. Ack!

If it's any consolation, I accessed the site on my tablet the other night. I couldn't find the HMW side panel in portrait mode unless I scrolled right down to the bottom, but after I turned my tablet into landscape it showed up fine and the site was easy to access which was a pleasant surprise, because I've always avoided access it via anything other than desktop.

[Seibertron]

I think I've uncovered what I believe to be the root cause of two of the most frustrating problems in missions: the "Unknowns have won the mission" error and the "Finding no opposition" message when battles clearly had combatants.

The issue comes from a bug in how the game randomly chose character actions during battles. In some cases it skipped over valid tactics, which meant no moves were logged. When that happened, the system thought nothing had occurred, defaulting to "no opposition" or misreporting the winning faction as "Unknowns."

The good news is that now that I know whats causing it, I can work on fixing it properly and making battles play out the way they were always meant to.

Fingers and optics crossed!

[Glyph]

I think I've uncovered what I believe to be the root cause of two of the most frustrating problems in missions: the "Unknowns have won the mission" error and the "Finding no opposition" message when battles clearly had combatants.

If it's the one I think you're referring to, where's it happening in the sequence? I know it's not the long-standing battle code as the issue absolutely wasn't happening before 5 June (see that post and the one after it) - from what investigation I could do from userland, it seemed to be happening either at the point of joining the mission or when the battle script added characters at the beginning of the battle.

It also didn't look like characters were always being skipped entirely or missing turns (i.e. 'skipping over valid tactics') as we saw some characters exiting alive but damaged while not seeming to receive any attacks, or had nonsensical final scores.

[Seibertron]

If it's the one I think you're referring to, where's it happening in the sequence? I know it's not the long-standing battle code as the issue absolutely wasn't happening before 5 June (see that post and the one after it) - from what investigation I could do from userland, it seemed to be happening either at the point of joining the mission or when the battle script added characters at the beginning of the battle.

It also didn't look like characters were always being skipped entirely or missing turns (i.e. 'skipping over valid tactics') as we saw some characters exiting alive but damaged while not seeming to receive any attacks, or had nonsensical final scores.

The potential problem was how the code chose a random tactic during battles. The system builds a weighted list of possible tactics, like RAM, STRAFE, SLASH, etc. Each tactic has an ID number and a weight based on its level. The total weights are added up and then a random number is picked to decide which tactic to use.

The bug appears to be that the old code assumed the tactic IDs were sequential (0, 1, 2, 3, and so on) but in reality the IDs skip around. For example: SLASH = 8. The loop just counted upward, so once it passed the last "continuous" ID, it never checked the higher ones. That meant tactics with higher IDs were never even considered or were skipped, causing various hiccups in the code (in theory).

The effect is that characters were often stuck using only the first few tactics or just the default attack, while the higher-ID abilities basically never triggered. If my theory is correct, in some cases this led to weird battle outcomes like "Unknowns have won" or "no opposition" because actions that should have happened simply didn’t fire.

The fix should be to pick from the actual weighted tactics list instead of just incrementing through integers. Now every defined tactic, no matter what its ID is, can be chosen correctly in proportion to its weight.

[Seibertron]

Ack. Sorry about the CR Chamber bug. I think I just resolved it. Please confirm either way. Thanks.

[Silver Wind]

I'll test it out once I have a slot free with auto disabled.

In the meanwhile, anyone else being hit with the "no combat log" error? https://www.seibertron.com/heavymetalwar/view_mission.php?mission_id=368770

Edit: Had a brain fart. Can't test out the CR fix if there's nothing happening in the mission itself.

[Glyph]

The bug appears to be that the old code assumed the tactic IDs were sequential (0, 1, 2, 3, and so on) but in reality the IDs skip around. For example: SLASH = 8. The loop just counted upward, so once it passed the last "continuous" ID, it never checked the higher ones. That meant tactics with higher IDs were never even considered or were skipped, causing various hiccups in the code (in theory).

Uh... that can't be right? According to the dashboard, SLASH is #5 in the tactics table and BITE is #6 - and BITE was working correctly (there are no alt types in use with tactics other than AVOID, RAM, STRAFE, REPAIR or BITE - no characters have SLASH). And also, the bug only appeared on 5 June, when a bunch of other behind-the-scenes changes were announced - it didn't happen before that, and BITE was working fine.

Also, it seems like everything's coming back Unknown at the moment...

Ack. Sorry about the CR Chamber bug. I think I just resolved it. Please confirm either way. Thanks.

I forced one of my characters to 0 health via the dashboard to test - the submit button does appear now, though it has no button formatting and the passcode is still shown/required on the CR page.

[Seibertron]

Uh... that can't be right? According to the dashboard, SLASH is #5 in the tactics table and BITE is #6 - and BITE was working correctly (there are no alt types in use with tactics other than AVOID, RAM, STRAFE, REPAIR or BITE - no characters have SLASH). And also, the bug only appeared on 5 June, when a bunch of other behind-the-scenes changes were announced - it didn't happen before that, and BITE was working fine.

define('HMW_TACTIC_NONE', 0); // i.e. regular attack
define('HMW_TACTIC_AVOID', 1);
define('HMW_TACTIC_RAM', 2);
define('HMW_TACTIC_REPAIR', 3);
define('HMW_TACTIC_STRAFE', 4);
define('HMW_TACTIC_BITE', 6);
define('HMW_TACTIC_SLASH', 8);

That's how it is also in the backup i have on my laptop from January 2020.

Also, it seems like everything's coming back Unknown at the moment...

Yah, I'm working on it after changing a lot of logic this afternoon.

Is there a script that auto populates missions and arena battles in local dev environment? I don't see one. If not, I'll have to create one because it's challenging to test without examples.

[Glyph]

Uh... that can't be right? According to the dashboard, SLASH is #5 in the tactics table and BITE is #6

define('HMW_TACTIC_SLASH', 8);

That Slash const in the code is wrong according to the DB table as shown in the dashboard - that definitely says Slash is #5 (#8 is Control Waves - also, the first non-consecutive ID is #16 as 14/15 appear to have been deleted). But as I said above, it kinda doesn't matter anyway as no characters have either Slash or Control Waves so neither ID - #5 or #8 - will appear on a character.

I'm sure that const has been wrong for a long time, but also those extra tactics haven't been in use for a long time. I've built and maintain a full DB of mission logs since the last purge in 2022 and I can say with certainty that Bite was working and the weird retreats / ignored bots were not happening before this June.

Is there a script that auto populates missions and arena battles in local dev environment? I don't see one.

There wasn't back in my day, no idea what might have been added since. A "Generate now" button was on my ask list for the dashboard though!

[Seibertron]

According to the dashboard

The dashboard for tactics isn't tied into the game. Whoever created that tactics table never looped it into the code. I didn't create either and am just doing my best to clean it up. The dashboard was created as a way to manage the existing database tables but i did little with it beyond generating the dashboard to manage the database tables, which I think I did back in 2017 or 2018, when i flipped our entire "admin" section to the new dashboard setup to manage all of the other sections. I have a "code generator" that generates dashboard code based on a form that reads the database tables and fields and field types. It's pretty slick.

[Glyph]

According to the dashboard

The dashboard for tactics isn't tied into the game. Whoever created that tactics table never looped it into the code. I didn't create either and am just doing my best to clean it up.

The tactics table has always existed, otherwise how would characters be able to upgrade tactics on their alt modes? It certainly already existed when I was working on the game. Tactics defines the keys for altmode tactics, which defines the options for character tactics. (Note that it doesn't need to be used directly by the battle script - it's used in the UI for the character upgrade page.)

But from what you say about the dashboard, I would trust its listing of the tactics because it's just the contents of the table. It may have a bunch of redundant entries that don't match anything in the code any more, but the basic data is correct - I've checked, and all the select values match that listing. It would be easy to check, too - just do a SELECT DISTINCT on the character tactics table and see if any IDs other than 1, 2, 3, 4 or 6 appear.

--EDIT--
And if you're looking at the database, could you also check that the highest mission_id in mission_characters isn't higher than the latest ID in the missions table? - that would at least eliminate the 'ghost' option for the bugged characters, though I don't think that's the cause in this case.

[Seibertron]

The tactics table has always existed, otherwise how would characters be able to upgrade tactics on their alt modes?

Well, then there is definitely a discrepancy then if the code doesn't match the database.

And if you're looking at the database, could you also check that the highest mission_id in mission_characters isn't higher than the latest ID in the missions table? - that would at least eliminate the 'ghost' option for the bugged characters, though I don't think that's the cause in this case.

It's not logging missions currently. I'm trying to figure out that at the moment by enabling the standard debug logging that i use on the rest of SEIBERTRON.