 Enemy SB can force two allyers to fight each other? |
Fri, 18 November 2005 22:00  |
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 XyliGUN |
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Messages: 325
Registered: July 2004
Location: Russia, St.Petersburg | 
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According to Starbase FAQ:| Quote: |
Another weird situation is that if race B shows up and everyone has set everyone to friend but your default order is to "attack everyone" (which matters for your starbase) than the two friends will shoot each other while your starbase (again none of your ships present) sits back and watches ...
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There is a situation where SB can force two allyers to attack each other.
Well, I just messed up with such behaviour:
1) PlayerA and PlayerB are allyers, they are "Friends" to each other.
2) PlayerC is an "Enemy" to both of them and vice versa.
3) FleetA + FleetB orbiting PlanetC, with no SB on it
3) FleetA + FleetB ("Default") battleplan is "Armed Ships, Any, Maximise damage ratio, Enemy"
4) PlayerC "Default" battleplan is set to "Armed Ships, Any, Maximise damage ratio, AttackB"
5) When PlayerC up a SB (OF with 1XRay will be enough) on that planet, battle started where FleetA and FleetB firstly fight with SB then with each other.
This situation (or close enough) described in Starbase FAQ. Also there is a thread where close enough description present (Actually I'm not sure if it's the same situation or not?). But there are no such description in the Known Bugs.
The question is: does all that mean that such situation treated as a feature (not a bug) by Stars! society? If answer is no, then why it's not described in the Known Bugs? If answer is yes, then could someone explain me, please, what the idea of this behaviour is? I completely messed up with it, because it seems that I can force two allyers, which attack my planet, to fight with each other ... 
PS: It's deeply past midnight my local time ... so may be I just sitting too long with my PC. 
[Updated on: Sat, 19 November 2005 20:08]
"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something."
Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For LoveReport message to a moderator
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| Re: Enemy SB can force two allyers to fight each other? |
Sun, 20 November 2005 03:09  |
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I just ran some tests on this - and it does indeed happen that if the default battle order for the defending player is set to attack everyone, allies in the battle will shoot at each other. Apparently what happens is that the 'attack who' gets set to everyone for all races in the battle.
This is obviously an error in the battle engine. The only solution to this problem is to prohibit setting attack who to everyone for the default battle order since that is what is applied to starbases.
This is going to have to get listed in the cheats list since it can be easily exploited. Well done XyliGUN for bringing it up.
Ptolemy
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| Re: Enemy SB can force two allyers to fight each other? |
Sun, 20 November 2005 14:34 |
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Personally,
I think a case can be made for a re-gen in this case and one should be done. The player under attack with the SB must change his default orders to 'attack neutrals and enemies' or 'attack enemies' and may not use 'attack everyone' for his default battle plan. Then the turn should be re-genned. In this case the player exploiting this bug has caused 2 races set to freind to fire on each other which is not the intent of the game settings. Secondly, that same player has profited from the minerals that have fallen from the sky.
Ptolemy
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| Re: Enemy SB can force two allyers to fight each other? |
Sun, 20 November 2005 18:26 |
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| mlaub |
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Messages: 744
Registered: November 2003
Location: MN, USA | |
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| Ptolemy wrote on Sun, 20 November 2005 13:34 |
Personally,
I think a case can be made for a re-gen in this case and one should be done.
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Oh, I dunno. I haven't seen the rules for this game. Maybe it fits?  Obviously, the defending player has no allies, or is running the risk of fighting his own allies by using these orders. I have had many allies change the dynamics of a fight by throwing ships into my battles. Their apologies for some of the unintended consequences might have changed to outrage, if I had used this tactic.
I think in general terms it is definately a bug, and needs to be Faq'd, but it is tough to pass judgement on a game situation that I know nothing about. The host needs to decide this one.
OTOH, it could be made legal by a host as a game parameter for limiting alliances power. I could definately see adding it to a game I host in the future.
-Matt
Global Warming - A climatic change eagerly awaited by most Minnesotans.
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| Re: Enemy SB can force two allyers to fight each other? |
Mon, 21 November 2005 01:17 |
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| Quote: |
I think there is some confusion here.
"PlayerC"'s orders were not to attack "Everyone", but rather to attack one of his attackers
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Yes, I certainly agree that there must be some confusion. I have just run a new test and, if Player C, (this should be the player with the starbase under attack), has default orders to attack a specific player, the attacking allies do NOT fire on each other. The only case I have seen in testing where the attacking allies blast each other to smithereens is when the starbase has 'attack everyone' orders. Therefore, everyone can feel free to set their orders to attack specific players, however, if the starbase is set to 'attack everyone', attacking allies will fire on each other.
Ptolemy
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| Re: Enemy SB can force two allyers to fight each other? |
Mon, 21 November 2005 10:29 |
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| Quote: |
I set my ships only to attack a specific member of the alliance I'm fighting
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I do not find a problem in the battle engine with orders set to attack individual players. A defending starbase set to attack player A does not cause A and B to have a battle if they are set to freinds. However, I have not tested if there is a problem if player A is actual player number 1. Are either players A or B player number 1 in this game in question?
Otherwise, as I have stated, the problem only occurrs when the default orders are to to attack everyone. So don't set default orders to attack everyone. As far as I am concerned, that would be cheating since the problem is a listed one.
Ptolemy
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| Re: Enemy SB can force two allyers to fight each other? |
Mon, 21 November 2005 12:25 |
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| Quote: |
None of the players in the battle were player 1. The attackers orders were to attack "enemies" (of which the defender was one) and the defenders orders were to attack one of the attackers, and the attackers most certainly did fight each other.
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The last test I have done is set up exactly as above. The attackers do not fight each other. I need the player numbers to see if there is a correlation there.
Please list the player numbers of Players A, B and C and state which player was specifically targeted by Player C.
Ptolemy
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| Re: Enemy SB can force two allyers to fight each other? |
Mon, 21 November 2005 20:00 |
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| XyliGUN |
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Messages: 325
Registered: July 2004
Location: Russia, St.Petersburg |
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Well, I just reproduce it again with setting described in my first post. Anyone could download this zip file (172Kb) contained wellknown battle simulator with turn before this situation occured and turn when situation already take place. In that lab (which I often use to test battles for game Together Again) PlayerA is Player#3, PlayerB is Player#7 and PlayerC is Player#11.
Confirm.zip file contains:
1) Folder "Result" contains files with that strange effect, so if you open battle.m11 file you will see the battle occured. You could then check any settings you like. 
2) Folder "Before" contains the same lab, but turn before problem occured. And you can make your tests if you like. Open battle.m11 file in the folder "Before", and add to planet's "Cancer" production queue Anti-Chaff SB. Then SaveAndSubmit, then open battle.hst file and gen turn (you don't need to do others players turns). Then open battle.m11 and you will see what's happend. 
Any questions? You are welcome! xyligun[at]mail[point]ru 
[Updated on: Mon, 21 November 2005 20:18]
"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something."
Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For LoveReport message to a moderator
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| Re: Enemy SB can force two allyers to fight each other? |
Mon, 21 November 2005 22:19 |
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so my choice is to ask active players to vote whether they think we have to regen or not
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Having the players vote on the issue is a good choice but the final decision is yours.
Though not a player in your game and as a veteran host of innumerable games I put it to you that this scenario does warrant a re-gen. My philosophy on this is that the re-gen is justified and necessary because a condition happened causing players to be effectively cheated with heavy losses that should not have occurrred and, it was not caused by any intentional action on the part of any player, but by a glitch in the battle engine.
For this particular re-gen, I would require the attacking players to set the attack orders to player C with no other changes and player C to leave his orders alone. The outcome of the battle will then be what it should have been. Nobody else has any need to change their turns at all.
Now, I also agree that re-gens are generally not a good idea. However, in some cases they are necessary which is why AH has the facility.
Unfortunatly, this case brings up a new problem for future games - i.e. banning setting of attack who to a specific player (or to 'eveyone') for default battle orders. This is indeed unfortunate since the targeting option should be legal and valid. As Dogthinkers pointed out, the tactic should be valid for having a starbase do selected firing instead of wading through the chaff of multiple opponents. That being said though, it is absolutely wrong to have a condition created where players set to freind fire on each other when their battle orders state to fire on enemies.
It isn't enough to state that attacking players should specify the race that they want to attack as an overall work around - that wouldn't cover the case for alliance defense.
I will spend some more time working on this to see how clearly I can define it. Perhaps with a clear enough definition a solution will become available.
Ptolemy
(updated for a spelling correction)
[Updated on: Mon, 21 November 2005 22:20]
Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Enemy SB can force two allyers to fight each other? |
Mon, 21 November 2005 22:24 |
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A note on the tests:
In the case where this has happened:
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PlayerA is Player#3, PlayerB is Player#7 and PlayerC is Player#11.
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i.e. the defending player has the highest player number.
In the test I ran where this did not happen with the same orders, the defending player was the lowest player number.
Ptolemy
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| Re: Enemy SB can force two allyers to fight each other? |
Tue, 22 November 2005 14:14 |
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OK here is the definitive description of this bug;
I have now completed a series of major tests for this problem and this bug triggers only in one specific circumstance and the bug works like this:
1. The default orders for the defender must be set to attack any of the attacking players specifically.
2. The highest attacking player number will attack his ally with the lowest player number. If there are 3 or more allies attacking only 2 of them will shoot at each other. The highest and lowest player numbers. This is not an absolute guarantee since battle sims would need to be done with 7 or 8 players to check the effects.
Note: I have had difficulties in getting a 5th race into the battle at times - the turn generates and a ship that should have been in the battle is in orbit but was not included in the battle.
Note 2: From the original tests done with low powered ships some false results were seen. Using later tech, higher speed ships the problem occurrs in all cases - with or without defending ships. I serioussly recommend that the setting of default battle orders to attack a specific player in order to get allied ships to kill each other be listed as a known cheat.
The effect with 3 or more allies when the defender default orders are set to attack everyone is slightly different in that it results in a free for all with all ships trying to kill each other.
Ptolemy
(Updated - removed player number specifics for the targeting definition)
[Updated on: Tue, 22 November 2005 23:04]
Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.Report message to a moderator
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