A few weird bugs...

[ryfle 10]

I'm hoping this is the appropriate place to report these non-game-breaking bugs I've found, and if not, please point me to it or move my thread. But basically, I just wanted to bring a couple non-fatal bugs to BI's attention that I hope could be fixed in a future patch.

1) Swimming

I've noticed some weird stuff with swimming. Firstly, let's say I wade out into the water... eventually the water gets over chest-height and I start swimming. But when I head back to shore, I have to swim all the way up onto the bank! I can be in knee or ankle deep water, treading water, and my legs are going through the ground I should be standing on. I think the problem is that the engine is not calculating the depth of the water and switching between the swimming state to standing state properly.

Another weird thing is that you can crawl into the water and just crawl all along the bottom... and you never drown. It seems that the prone position prevents the engine from switching to a swimming state... probably something that got overlooked (totally understandable... I've done much worse, lol).

And I know this isn't a bug, but swimmers never get fatigued and drown. It should be impossible to swim forever. Would also be nice to add some splashing effects for swimming, but maybe the community could add that.

2) Debris bug

This is a little bug I've noticed with the particle system's handling of debris from certain objects. I first became aware of it when I made a mission that had the block of wood + axe. When I shoot the axe handle and certain other objects, it will spawn debris... but it just floats in the air! It will stay there for about 20 seconds, until it alpha fades away. I'm thinking the particle lifespan is just too long, and shortening it to something like 250ms would fix it.

3) Muzzle flash

I first noticed this in OA. There was an enemy truck with a MG mounted on it firing at me, and I killed the driver and gunner. But the gun still had a muzzle flash sprite that was just stuck on the end of the barrel. It wouldn't disappear until I fired the gun again. I'm not sure if it does this when the gunner is killed during firing or if something else causes it. But since then, I've noticed this on several other occasions with other vehicles and MGs. If the cause is indeed killing the gunner while he's firing, I suppose it switches to a "non-firing state" and no longer updates the cycle of the weapon... no update = no disappearing of muzzle flash sprite/particles. Keep in mind, I could be totally wrong on the causes... I'm just making "educated guesses" from my game programming experience...

4) Burst

And finally, I've noticed a funny quirk with burst-fire mode (with select-fire weapons that have burst). For example, take an M16 and put it on burst mode. Double-tap the W key to sprint, and pull the trigger at the same time. The weapon will fire one or two of the three shots, then it will finish the burst when you stop sprinting! It's as if the gun is putting this off till you stand still, when it should actually fire 3x's no matter what. :D

My guess is that the problem looks something like this:

   int ammoCount;
   bool isFiring;
   int accumShots;

   float accumDelta;
   const int interval = 250;

   // Trigger pull event handler
   void eOnTriggerPull(float delta) { isFiring = true; }

   // Trigger release event handler
   void eOnTriggerRelease() { isFiring = false; }

   // Fires the gun
   void Fire()
   {
       GenerateBullet();
       PlaySoundAsync("Bang!");
       ammoCount--;
       accumShots++;
   }

   void Update(float delta)
   {
       if (isFiring) {

           // If player is sprinting, the process is short-circuited
           // or the need to finish the burst is somehow ignored...
           if (Player.isSprinting)
               return;

           // Ensure ammo still remains
           if (ammoCount <= 0) {
               isFiring = false;
               return;
           }

           // Has the burst completed?
           if (accumShots >= 3) {
               isFiring = false;
               accumShots = 0;
               return;
           }

           accumDelta += delta;

           if (accumDelta < interval)
               return;
           else
               accumDelta = 0;

           // Fire next shot...
           Fire();
       }
   }

When the "isSprinting" flag is set, it short-circuits the process of firing a burst. It would seem there are simple ways to fix it. Maybe a flag can be set that disallows beginning to fire a burst if the sprint keys are being pressed/tapped. Maybe sprinting could be delayed until the burst is completed. Or the best thing, imho, would be to refactor the code so that you can't begin firing in a sprint, but allow the burst to complete if firing had already begun.

Of course, BI's actual code is a lot more robust and sophisticated that this contrived, non-compilable example, I'm sure. But hopefully another programmer catches my drift.

Anyway, those are all the little pesky bugs I can think of. None of them really break the game, but they can be weird and annoying. Hope they are easy to fix! And I must say that despite its bugs, ARMA is the best in the business -- thank to BI for creating it! :)

[ast65 10]

3) Muzzle flash

I first noticed this in OA. There was an enemy truck with a MG mounted on it firing at me, and I killed the driver and gunner. But the gun still had a muzzle flash sprite that was just stuck on the end of the barrel. It wouldn't disappear until I fired the gun again. I'm not sure if it does this when the gunner is killed during firing or if something else causes it. But since then, I've noticed this on several other occasions with other vehicles and MGs. If the cause is indeed killing the gunner while he's firing, I suppose it switches to a "non-firing state" and no longer updates the cycle of the weapon... no update = no disappearing of muzzle flash sprite/particles. Keep in mind, I could be totally wrong on the causes... I'm just making "educated guesses" from my game programming experience...

This one´s annoying me too a bit;

I have it in every vehicle mission after saving/ loading a game.

[student 10]

another gameplay bug

[student 10]

And another

[student 10]

[student 10]

A little bit

helicopter and not less strange

Edited February 7, 2012 by student

[student 10]

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[student 10]

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[student 10]

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