Reporting Bugs Code Correctness What's a bug? Well, if a game program core-dumps under normal conditions, that's definitely a bug. If a player can manufacture game items (circumventing the intended game semantics) then that's a bug too. If you don't agree about an existing semantic, or you don't like the format of a particular command output, that's NOT a bug! If you do have a bug to report, I will only pay attention if I have a chance of fixing it. Bug reports which vaguely describe behavior, e.g., "Sometimes when I run the ship command, it gives me funny output" will be ignored! Bug reports should include game output, stack traces if possible (assuming a core dump is produced), and the major, minor, and patch level of the version you're running. Once you find a bug, try and reproduce it. If you can't, then say so. If you can, say that too. If you can't reproduce it, chances are pretty good that I can't either. If you have a debugger, try running the offending game section under your debugger -- preferably gdb -- and try and locate the area of code responsible. If you can fix the bug and verify the fix, then you can bet that I'll be much more interested in your bug report. Response time is likely to be greater too! Semantics If you want to get into a discussion of game semantics, the best place to do that is rec.games.empire, or your favorite empire-hackers mailing list. Don't send me a bug report about it! Naturally, I hope you don't find any bugs. If you do, go through the above steps, and mail the resulting output to us -- wolfpack@wolfpackempire.com