Fresh Code Updates

[Anaris]

For those who haven't looked at the announcements yet, there's a new update that makes some important changes to how archers, MI, and ranged SF and Daimons act.

This should cure the "stupid MI" problems once and for all.

This update also includes a few bugfixes:

• A problem was introduced by the addition of male/female symbols to the names of the recipients of a message with only a few recipients.  Occasionally, it was causing the message to turn blue and small, like the subtitle.  This has been fixed by making the male/female symbols only show up on the message composition screen, and not be included in the actual message subtitle.
• Caravans sent with the auto-caravan feature that were giving food away (selling for 0 gold) were producing an error message when they returned. This has been changed to a more sensible message, since the error message was from a time when we assumed that all caravans must return with either some gold or some food.
• The "Delay Arrival" feature was not appearing on the page after you selected your destination when traveling, forcing you to go back to the main Travel page to see it.  This has been fixed.
• Reclaiming the upper ranks in a guild/religion mistakenly gave the elder who clicked it the Founder rank, thus also inadvertently granting Founder fame. This will no longer be the case—the Founder rank will always remain, even if it is empty.

And finally, the update includes a minor enhancement to the Message Search feature, allowing you to search your sent messages, or both sent and received (which should allow you to view entire conversations among message groups you are in, including your own messages).

[JPierreD]

Nice, eager to see the AI changes.

[Foundation]

Awesome work, Tim!

[Nosferatus]

thanks, we needed this, badly !

Can't wait for the new estate system to finish.
Care to give any 'sneak peak' details?

[Anaris]

thanks, we needed this, badly !

Can't wait for the new estate system to finish.
Care to give any 'sneak peak' details?

I (and Foundation) can't wait to start working on the new estate system (though I'm pretty busy right now).

I'll be happy to give some sneak peek details when I understand it enough to code it myself

[Foundation]

Yep, new estates still hasn't been started.  It's kinda important to make sure we're doing the right thing before going ahead and doing it.

[Phellan]

The Dev team is awesome.  I'd just like to say.

Looking forward to this change in archers, and the updates to the estate system.

[Faulcon_deLacy]

Some early feedback based on a couple of battles on dwilight:

First battle, attacking rogues (monsters), Realm Asylon, Region Vakreno Heaps
http://battlemaster.org/ShowScribeNote.php?ID=162239&Hash=0c86b4425b391b30

Second battle, defending against same monsters
http://battlemaster.org/ShowScribeNote.php?ID=162293&Hash=a43bf9fc64ed4009

In the first battle we see the ability to fire into melee at range 1, however it does not appear to be at a 75% rate.

At range 2:
Muramasa (3) fire on Monsters (6), scoring 99 hits.
Achenar Arrows (1) fire on Monsters (6), scoring 178 hits.
Total ranged hits suffered: Attackers: 0, Defenders: 277

At range 1:
Muramasa (3) fire carefully into the close combat near them.
Muramasa (3) fire on Monsters (6), scoring 1 hits.
Achenar Arrows (1) fire carefully into the close combat near them.
Achenar Arrows (1) fire on Monsters (6), scoring 0 hits.
Total ranged hits suffered: Attackers: 0, Defenders: 1

In the second battle my range 4 archers start shooting immediately despite the range being 6
Achenar Arrows (2) have no enemy in range and hold their fire.
Achenar Arrows (2) fire on Monsters (1), scoring 20 hits.
Total ranged hits suffered: Attackers: 20, Defenders: 0

[fodder]

is 75% the damage.. or chance it'll shoot something?

[Anaris]

It's supposed to be 75% the number of hits, representing the archers having to be extra-careful to avoid hitting their friends.

Those numbers are definitely screwed up.  I'll have to check the code.

Thanks for this feedback.

[fodder]

Well trained rangers (11) fire carefully into the close combat near them.
Well trained rangers (11) fire on Elf Archers (16), scoring 1 hits.

that's with 27 sf..

in earlier rounds with 33 sf at a distance it did this..
Well trained rangers (11) fire on Elf Archers (16), scoring 298 hits. <---

---
do you need the full report?

[Shizzle]

If the archers fire into the melee, what's the chance to fire upon your own teammates? Because even if they 'aim extra carefully' friendly hits and casualties are unavoidable. (For shield-equipped infantry the rear-exposed teammates would even take more hits, I'd recon)

[Zakilevo]

When did BM have friendly fire?

[Shizzle]

When did BM have friendly fire?

Well trained rangers (11) fire carefully into the close combat near them.

Here. I'm not saying there /is/ FF, I'm saying there should be. As it says somewhere on the Wiki, Medieval archers aren't Legolas

[fodder]

if there's friendly fire, i would suggest there should be a settings tickbox to decide if you even want to risk it.