A collection of bugs/issues my friend and I encountered over 5+ hours
Hello, I'm a Kickstarter backer who got the double key tier a long time ago. I've been following the updates, but only playing every few major updates. I must say, it has taken a very, very long time, but Castle Story has really come a long way. The first time my friend and I played multiplayer, it was horribly laggy and out of sync. It's safe to say that a lot of things work now, and there's a lot of new content to enjoy. Onto the issues:
1. While playing on Invictus, Invasion, Easy Mode, 2 Players:
- Construction tasks created by my friend (not the host), disappear on his screen. He can still access them from the bottom task list, but he never gets a marker in the world for them.
2. While attempting to reload that previous game the next day, in the lobby:
- After my friend joins, he begins the download. The download finishes then instantly restarts, this time faster. This continues with varying lengths of speed of downloading, until finally he is kicked back to the main menu screen with no messages at all.
3. While attempting to start a new game on the Kickstarter map (I forgot the name), Coop Normal Lights Out, Conquest, 2 Players:
- If I am the host, I will reach 100% but my friend will reach 69% (Attempting to connect to host), and then eventually get booted back the main screen with no message.
- If he is the host, he will reach 100% but I will reach 69% (Attempting to connect to host), and then my entire computer froze causing my speakers to emit a scratching distorted noise as if repeating a beat over and over, and my computer must be force-shutdowned by holding the power button until it turns off.
4. While playing on the peaks map (the one where high bricktrons on the mountains and lowly bricktrons below), Coop Normal Lights Out, Conquest, 2 Players:
- We got in this one no issue. So that's good, not an issue, but saying it to contrast the previous issue. (#3).
- This is a known issue, but Bricktrons enjoy dropping what they are holding at the crystal. It seems to be related to the fact that a storage container fills up or a task is completed that they were also attempting to do. Recommendation: Make it so that two bricktrons cannot attempt to do the exact same subtask in a given task. (No two AI should attempt to place a block at position A. Once one attempts that subtask, it is barred from all others).
- The lag increased heavily as time went on. We played this map for 3 hours. The main bottle neck seems to be creating new tasks, and ESPECIALLY, idle bricktrons assigning themselves to new tasks. (BTW, I love that they do assign themselves to new tasks, it is a total lifesaver).
- Bricktrons for the most part build from the bottom up, but in one instance, they ignored a certain corner layer entirely, which meant I had to go back and manually build a staircase up while placing block after block, to finish it. In short: Bricktrons need to finish building the lower layers before moving upwards. (I understand why this happened, and how it is incredibly difficult to avoid, but if you ever find a solution, it would be nice).
- Pylons and other related energy objects seem to have issues being built/destroyed. If they are partially built, but the brimstone is not available, and the task is deleted, the entire pylon is destroyed which means you lose the iron bars.
- At one point early in the game, maybe 10 minutes in, 3 logs fell from the sky onto my base. Seemingly out of nowhere. They fell straight down, which tells me they seemingly spawned above my crystal. They were real and were put in a stockpile/used no issue.
- When joining the game, the second player's camera started looking at my crystal, which confused him as he didn't realize it wasn't his crystal until after creating a task. Each player should spawn their camera at their own crystal.
- Zooming out is incredibly annoying almost always. Scrolling out has a limit, which can, at often times, be very small. This can be fixed by holding shift and scrolling inward (which seems opposite to me, that I would scroll in to move up), to move the cursor upwards.
- Auto fixing the location of the cursor works sometimes, but not always. Most of the time, the cursor does not move up to the land that it should be on, or if it is on the land it should be on, the zoom boundaries (how far I can zoom out), is not correct.
- To be clearer on that: If I have my cursor on top of flat ground next to my crystal, it is expected that I should be able to zoom out to a fair degree above the crystal, without moving my cursor. The issue is, my boundaries for zooming out are incorrect, and it thinks that my cursor is still very far down the cliff, and not in the current position that it is.
5. When attempting to exit the game, after saving:
- This happened after the previous game, after the end of approx. 3 hours. I saved. Then after about 5 - 10 seconds, I exited the game. The game closed, I moved my Internet browser from one monitor to the other, scrolled the browser down, and my entire computer froze as mentioned above, where I must force-shutdown.
- Upon restarting, I was prompted to log back into Steam. This is strange and not normal as I save credentials and never have to log back in.
- After logging back in, my Steam settings were reset to default. Meaning: Timestamps were turned off, and my Taskbar Icon preferences were reset to have 'Community', 'Big Picture', 'SteamVR', etc. This is incredibly strange.
- The most important, and most alarming of the issues:
Castle Story has seemingly been uninstalled. To be clear, it was not actually uninstalled, but upon double-clicking the desktop icon to open the game, I was prompted to install the game.
I was easily able to select my D drive and it auto-located the installed files and the game still works.
Overall, my friend and I are pleased with the progress of the game. I may have forgotten some issues, but this covers any major ones I could remember. Feel free to ask my further questions as needed.
EDIT 6-28-2017 - 7:00PM Central Time:
I forgot to mention there is a bug when loading saves in the lobby. There are two colors to choose from, Orange (The last color on the list of colors) which is my name, DrWhoCares, and Green, which is Unassigned. Unassigned is okay, although it should be Lysander, since that was the one who played with me.
The issue is, because orange is last on the list, I am automatically assigned to being Green (Unassigned). When I should be Orange (DrWhoCares). This is happening specifically because orange comes after green in the list of colors. Proposed solution: Base it off some sort of ID or name.
---
Another bug: We somehow managed to get our game to load, one that we started yesterday (not mentioned above), and was unable to start back up. I think we managed to get it to load by simply spending some extra time waiting in the lobby, before starting to load in. However, once we load in, I see his base as not existing (All blocks except his crystal and placed stone bricks are gone. Literally every block but those). And he seem me as the same. Additionally, we can see the pylon power lines, but not the pylons themselves. The game functions for me decently, but for him he either can't move, gets kicked back to main menu, or can play normally. I will include the two output_log.txt's. We're about to uninstall the entire game and reinstall fresh.
1. While playing on Invictus, Invasion, Easy Mode, 2 Players:
- Construction tasks created by my friend (not the host), disappear on his screen. He can still access them from the bottom task list, but he never gets a marker in the world for them.
2. While attempting to reload that previous game the next day, in the lobby:
- After my friend joins, he begins the download. The download finishes then instantly restarts, this time faster. This continues with varying lengths of speed of downloading, until finally he is kicked back to the main menu screen with no messages at all.
3. While attempting to start a new game on the Kickstarter map (I forgot the name), Coop Normal Lights Out, Conquest, 2 Players:
- If I am the host, I will reach 100% but my friend will reach 69% (Attempting to connect to host), and then eventually get booted back the main screen with no message.
- If he is the host, he will reach 100% but I will reach 69% (Attempting to connect to host), and then my entire computer froze causing my speakers to emit a scratching distorted noise as if repeating a beat over and over, and my computer must be force-shutdowned by holding the power button until it turns off.
4. While playing on the peaks map (the one where high bricktrons on the mountains and lowly bricktrons below), Coop Normal Lights Out, Conquest, 2 Players:
- We got in this one no issue. So that's good, not an issue, but saying it to contrast the previous issue. (#3).
- This is a known issue, but Bricktrons enjoy dropping what they are holding at the crystal. It seems to be related to the fact that a storage container fills up or a task is completed that they were also attempting to do. Recommendation: Make it so that two bricktrons cannot attempt to do the exact same subtask in a given task. (No two AI should attempt to place a block at position A. Once one attempts that subtask, it is barred from all others).
- The lag increased heavily as time went on. We played this map for 3 hours. The main bottle neck seems to be creating new tasks, and ESPECIALLY, idle bricktrons assigning themselves to new tasks. (BTW, I love that they do assign themselves to new tasks, it is a total lifesaver).
- Bricktrons for the most part build from the bottom up, but in one instance, they ignored a certain corner layer entirely, which meant I had to go back and manually build a staircase up while placing block after block, to finish it. In short: Bricktrons need to finish building the lower layers before moving upwards. (I understand why this happened, and how it is incredibly difficult to avoid, but if you ever find a solution, it would be nice).
- Pylons and other related energy objects seem to have issues being built/destroyed. If they are partially built, but the brimstone is not available, and the task is deleted, the entire pylon is destroyed which means you lose the iron bars.
- At one point early in the game, maybe 10 minutes in, 3 logs fell from the sky onto my base. Seemingly out of nowhere. They fell straight down, which tells me they seemingly spawned above my crystal. They were real and were put in a stockpile/used no issue.
- When joining the game, the second player's camera started looking at my crystal, which confused him as he didn't realize it wasn't his crystal until after creating a task. Each player should spawn their camera at their own crystal.
- Zooming out is incredibly annoying almost always. Scrolling out has a limit, which can, at often times, be very small. This can be fixed by holding shift and scrolling inward (which seems opposite to me, that I would scroll in to move up), to move the cursor upwards.
- Auto fixing the location of the cursor works sometimes, but not always. Most of the time, the cursor does not move up to the land that it should be on, or if it is on the land it should be on, the zoom boundaries (how far I can zoom out), is not correct.
- To be clearer on that: If I have my cursor on top of flat ground next to my crystal, it is expected that I should be able to zoom out to a fair degree above the crystal, without moving my cursor. The issue is, my boundaries for zooming out are incorrect, and it thinks that my cursor is still very far down the cliff, and not in the current position that it is.
5. When attempting to exit the game, after saving:
- This happened after the previous game, after the end of approx. 3 hours. I saved. Then after about 5 - 10 seconds, I exited the game. The game closed, I moved my Internet browser from one monitor to the other, scrolled the browser down, and my entire computer froze as mentioned above, where I must force-shutdown.
- Upon restarting, I was prompted to log back into Steam. This is strange and not normal as I save credentials and never have to log back in.
- After logging back in, my Steam settings were reset to default. Meaning: Timestamps were turned off, and my Taskbar Icon preferences were reset to have 'Community', 'Big Picture', 'SteamVR', etc. This is incredibly strange.
- The most important, and most alarming of the issues:
Castle Story has seemingly been uninstalled. To be clear, it was not actually uninstalled, but upon double-clicking the desktop icon to open the game, I was prompted to install the game.
I was easily able to select my D drive and it auto-located the installed files and the game still works.
Overall, my friend and I are pleased with the progress of the game. I may have forgotten some issues, but this covers any major ones I could remember. Feel free to ask my further questions as needed.
EDIT 6-28-2017 - 7:00PM Central Time:
I forgot to mention there is a bug when loading saves in the lobby. There are two colors to choose from, Orange (The last color on the list of colors) which is my name, DrWhoCares, and Green, which is Unassigned. Unassigned is okay, although it should be Lysander, since that was the one who played with me.
The issue is, because orange is last on the list, I am automatically assigned to being Green (Unassigned). When I should be Orange (DrWhoCares). This is happening specifically because orange comes after green in the list of colors. Proposed solution: Base it off some sort of ID or name.
---
Another bug: We somehow managed to get our game to load, one that we started yesterday (not mentioned above), and was unable to start back up. I think we managed to get it to load by simply spending some extra time waiting in the lobby, before starting to load in. However, once we load in, I see his base as not existing (All blocks except his crystal and placed stone bricks are gone. Literally every block but those). And he seem me as the same. Additionally, we can see the pylon power lines, but not the pylons themselves. The game functions for me decently, but for him he either can't move, gets kicked back to main menu, or can play normally. I will include the two output_log.txt's. We're about to uninstall the entire game and reinstall fresh.
Comments
Here are the two files for the bug mentioned in the first post.
output_log_client.txt is the client's output log file. I was the host. He crashed soon after fully loading in.
In this test, I was also his color, and he was mine. My base loaded correctly, but his was missing, etc. Same as described above.
In short: it doesn't matter who's who, each player only loads themselves in.
TL;DR: I believe that the larger the game, either from playing for a longer amount of time, or the larger the map, the less likely the chance of the game being able to be hosted. I have no idea what your 'output_log.txt' actually says, but I do see a lot of messages (about 80k lines), about buffers and bytes not being able to be sent. I believe the issue has something to do with the engine or the network code being unable to properly send/load larger saves.
We have tried just about every combination of tactics I could possibly think of to narrow down my suspicions. The current setup is the one we have the most luck with, so if anyone wants to try to get their multiplayer save to work, try this:
(Only ever played with two players, above that I have zero testing experience)
1. Start with a complete fresh install (if coming from a version previous to 0.9).
2. Both players start up the game (Non-admin mode is fine). This means past the launcher.
3. The host player goes and hosts the game that was previously played.
4. The host invites the other player through steam.
5. The other player finishes downloading the map (this takes a while! It downloads several times!)
6. The other player ready's, up and the host starts the game. THIS WILL FAIL. At least it always has for me. Unless it's a very very new save file, as in just made and only played for like 5 minutes.
7. After it gets stuck at 100% for host, and 69% for other player (FOR AT LEAST 2 MINUTES), host can force close the application, and other player can close after being booted to menu.
8. Both players start up the game again.
9. Host player hosts the same map again, and invites the other player through steam again.
10. Other player ready's up, wait in the lobby for about 30 seconds (this may be skipped, but I don't recommend skipping it).
11. Host starts the game. Host will reach 100%, other player will reach 69%. It will seemingly be stuck, but if you wait at least 1 minute you should start to see some movement on the other player's progress bar.
12. If you do not see any movement on other player after 2 minutes, then simply try again from step 7. (Repeat 1 - 3 more times before giving up, as the save file may just be too large.)
13. If the game gets in, (and the save file isn't too large), then each player will be able to play normally. Depending on if you noticed in the lobby, you may be on separate teams. This will cause the opposite player's unit's and base to be invisible in the fog of war.
14. If the game gets in, (and the save file is too large), then the host player can play normally, and the other player only sees all units running in place. New orders cannot be made, nor can any interaction happen. However, they can still select units and move them around, but only the Host will see the movement.
We haven't successfully loaded a game recently when we were both on the same team. However, it's possible we didn't test it enough. For best results, have the host be on team A and other player on team B
Basically, I think the actual issue is we are playing on Co-op Conquest, but the game forces us to be on separate teams.
See, we're playing on Co-op Conquest Normal Lights Out. We can load the game with second player on Team 2, but can never load the game with second player on Team 1. If we do, player 2 never gets any updates. All bricktrons simply run in place and he can select and tell them to move, which I see the update of, but he sees no change.
1. Bricktrons, when they dont have the required materials, will run off to the other player's (on same team) stockpiles to take it. They often die if running past corruptrons.
2. Landscape jobs destroy buildings such as placed walls etc. This is really annoying if I accidentally forget to delete the landscape job (it is not autodeleted after it's finished).
There was something else but I forgot it.