Both coas() and skyw() want to iterate over a circular area with
radius vrange. They did that by iterating over a rectangle that
encloses the circle, skipping coordinates out of range. To "save
time", they used a rather odd predicate for "out of range", namely
"vrange * vrange < (j * j + 3 * k * k) / 4)".
The predicate is wrong. coastwatch and skywatch could see one sector
too far in certain directions for practical radar ranges, and up to
two sectors for not so practical tech 1900+ radar stations.
For instance, with j = 13 and k = 3, vrange = 7, the predicate
evaluates to false (49 < 48), i.e. in range. However, the true
distance is 8, i.e. out of range. Likewise, j = 22, k = 8, vrange =
13: 169 < 169, true distance 15.
Fix by iterating over the circle directly, without comparing
distances.
Before commit a269cdd7, pln_damage() returned zero when the damage was
nuclear, and callers used that to bypass conventional damage code.
Zero value can't happen anymore.
do_unit_move() reads the ships into a list. It re-reads them when it
prompts for sub-commands. shp_nav_one_sector() writes them back when
it moves ships.
Mine-laying (sub-command 'd') updates the minelayer, invalidating the
copy in the list. Any movement sub-command before the next prompt for
sub-commands wiped out this update, triggering a seno mismatch oops.
Happens only if 'd' is used without arguments, because remaining
sub-commands are discarded when there are arguments.
Broken when mine-laying was added in commits 2438fe7c, v4.3.7.
Same for march, commit 274c8e42, v4.3.7.
Fix by stopping after 'd' regardless of arguments.
When sub-command 'd' was used without arguments, do_unit_move() failed
to supply the second argument to mine(), which duly prompted for it.
This contracticted info, and could trigger a generation oops.
do_unit_move() reads the ships into a list. It re-reads them when it
prompts for sub-commands. shp_nav_one_sector() writes them back when
it moves ships.
The mine prompt made the list stale. Movement sub-commands before the
next prompt for sub-commands wrote back stale ships, triggering a
generation oops. Example: "nav 15 dg".
Broken when mine-laying was added in commits 2438fe7c, v4.3.7.
Same for march, commit 274c8e42, v4.3.7.
orde() uses a "clever" trick to get away with just one
check_ship_ok(): it makes a copy of the ship in the beginning, and
checks it at the end. Generation numbers (commit 2fa5f652) break this
trick. It could be fixed by manually marking the ship fresh.
Instead, check the ship the stupid, straightforward way, without a
copy.
For an argument consisting of a valid path plus whitespace,
do_unit_move() eventually passed the whitespace suffix to parse(),
then dereferenced player->argp[0]. But that was null.
Broken in commit 0c12d837, v4.3.7. Trivial for players to trigger.
Before, they were stored as short. Wider uids use more space, but the
next commit will recover it by narrowing other members.
The use of short has always limited the number of ships, planes, land
units and nukes to SHRT_MAX (commonly 32768). Only the most extreme
games ever came close.
Commit 49780e2c (v4.3.12) added struct sctstr member sct_uid to make
struct empobj member uid work for sectors. This made the limit apply
to sectors as well. We've had games with more than 32768 sectors.
struct lndstr member lnd_flags is a leftover from Empire3's C_SYNC,
which was ripped out in 4.0.0.
struct lonstr member l_sel, struct nuk_str members nuk_ship, nuk_land,
and struct trtstr member trt_bond have been there basically forever
without any use.
Launching ABMs updates their base, in mission_pln_equip(). The update
got wiped out when launch_missile() wrote back the target sector,
triggering a seqno mismatch oops. Harmless with the stock game's
ABMs, because they use neither shells nor petrol.
Fix by re-reading the target sector.
Ships can expend shells to defend against missiles, in
shp_missile_defense(). Any shell use by the target ship got wiped out
when launch_missile() wrote back the target ship, triggering a seqno
mismatch oops.
Fix by re-reading the target ship.
Collateral damage was disabled, because after msl_hit() reported a
miss, the missile may or may not have reached the target.
Fix by splitting msl_launch() off msl_hit().
Drop the disabled collateral damage code for sector targets, because
sectors can't be missed. Enable it for ships and land units.
Since msl_launch() returns whether the missile is sub-launched, drop
launch_missile() parameter sublaunch, and simplify its caller.
Keep only the common part in msl_intercept(), and give it internal
linkage. Wrap new msl_abm_intercept() and msl_asat_intercept() around
it. They are simpler to use.
Before Empire 2, nukes could be delivered only with bomb (special
mission 'n', airburst only) and launch (targeting sectors or
satellites only).
Empire 2 made nukes available for any kind of bombing, and for any
missile strike on sectors or ships. This included interdiction and
support missions. Nuclear-tipped anti-sats and bomb mission n were
removed.
Unfortunately, this was done in a messy way, which led to
inconsistencies and bugs. The problem is that ordinary damage affects
just the target, while nuke damage affects an area. Code dealing with
plane damage was designed for the former. Instead of rewriting it to
cope with area damage cleanly, nuke damage got shoehorned into
pln_damage(), the function to compute conventional plane damage, as a
side effect: computing damage blasted sectors in the area.
If the plane carried a nuke, pln_damage() returned zero (conventional)
damage. Without further logic, this simply bypassed the code to apply
damage to the target. This worked out okay when the target already
got damaged correctly by the side effect.
However, some targets are immune to the side effect: when interdicting
a move or explore command, the commodities being moved are not in any
sector.
For other targets, damage has effects other than damaging the target:
offensive and defensive support don't apply the (conventional) damage
to the target sector. Instead, they turn it into a combat bonus.
Without further logic, nuclear damage doesn't contribute to that.
To make all that work, pln_damage() returned the nuclear damage for
ground zero as well. Because a plane does either conventional or
nuclear damage, one of them is always zero.
Most callers simply ignored the nuclear damage, and applied only the
conventional damage.
Bug: land units and ships failed to retreat when pin-bombed or
missiled with a nuke. That's because they received zero conventional
damage.
The mission code flies planes and missiles and tallies their damage.
This mission damage included nuclear damage at ground zero (except for
missiles sometimes, see below), to make support and commodity
interdiction work. Unfortunately, this broke other things.
Bug: when bombers interdicted ships or land units, nukes first damaged
the ships or land units by the side effect, then again through mission
damage. Interdicting missiles had a special case to avoid this.
Bug: when interdicting move, explore or transport, nukes first damaged
the sector by the side effect, then again through mission damage's
collateral damage.
There may well be more bugs hiding in this mess.
The mess is not worth fixing. While the idea of interdicting and
supporting with nukes sounds kind of cool, I believe it's pretty
irrelevant in actual play.
Instead, go back to a variation of the original rules: nukes can be
delivered only through bomb mission 's' and launch at sectors.
Make arm reject marine missiles in addition to satellites, ABMs and
SAMs, and clear the mission. Make mission reject planes armed with
nukes. Oops when they show up in mission_pln_equip() anyway.
Make pln_equip() allow planes with nukes only for missions 's' and
't'.
Clean up pln_damage() to just compute damage, without side effect.
Change strat_bomb() and launch_missile() to detonate nukes. Simplify
the other callers. Parameter mission of msl_launch_mindam() is now
unused, remove it.
Missiles exploding on launch no longer set off their nukes. That was
pretty ridiculous anyway.
msl_equip() used mission_pln_equip(), which is for automatic defenses,
and therefore silent. Its users launch_as(), launch_missile() and
launch_sat() printed failure diagnostics based on assumptions on what
could go wrong.
Switch to the appropriate function for commands, pln_equip(), and
remove the guesswork. Implement mission 'i' there. When launching
from a foreign base, its owner now gets informed. Unimportant at this
time, as players can't easily deploy missiles in foreign bases.
This change also switches off automatic supply for launch. Consistent
with bomb.
When a manually launched anti-sat hits, it now always destroys the
satellite. This matches what it does when it intercepts
automatically. Before, it only damaged the satellite.
Before, satellites could be disarmed and armed even in orbit. Nukes
on satellites went along into orbit, where they did nothing in
particular.
Nukes on ABMs and SAMs were lost without effect when their missile
intercepted.
The stock game is not affected, because its satellites, ABMs and SAMs
all have zero load.
The various bombing functions silently skipped planes not carrying
bombs. This sanity check was wrong: it checked capabilities "tactical
or not cargo" instead of "tactical or bomber", and failed for
non-tactical cargo bombers. No such planes exist in the stock game.
The broken check comes from Chainsaw; it replaced an equally wrong
"not cargo" check.
Because pln_sel() lets only suitable planes go on a bombing run, the
broken sanity check is unnecessary. Drop it.
Plane flying commands first select the planes to fly the mission and
their escorts, then equip them. They all fail when no planes to fly
the mission can be equipped.
Unlike bomb and paradrop, commands drop, fly, recon and sweep had an
additional check that made them fail when no planes to fly the mission
could be selected. Because "none selected" implies "none equipped",
the additional check is redundant. Remove it.
While there, break lines in calls of pln_sel() more tastefully.
Before, bomb selected any plane, but planes with zero load could not
be equipped. Cargo planes could be equipped fine, and they flew bombs
to the target, where they silently vanished.
Closes#1388263.
