Is it possible to have a new post created to host the latest uberfix release along with an updated changelog? 

We are using it in the upcoming tournament and I need to link to it.  It would be very helpful if all of the changes and a link were documented in one place instead of a few locations throughout this page.  Much appreciated if one of you guys can find the time soon.  Thanks!

<3 uber fix

Believe it or not, I haven't died yet.  Provided I don't run into any huge problems, I'll be posting another test version of the 1.03 Uberfix tonight or tomorrow with a fix for enemy gold accessibility issue, and a whole bunch of demigod stat values added to the sync.

This will allow a UI mod to display things like evasion, life steal, gold production, death penalty mult, experience mult, damage return, damage taken mult, etc.  While I'm not planning on extending the UI myself, I'll include a small related UI fix that I've been sitting on for a while that shows the correct damage and ROF for each of QoT and TB's weapons.

Also, I'd appreciate any info I can get on the supposed Oculus disappearance issue that cropped up in the previous 1.03 release.  Since I can't reproduce this in a skirmish, and it's only been observed in multiplayer, it won't get fixed (if indeed it's something with the Uberfix) until I get more information on it, such as when it happens, what the Oculus player was doing at the time, where he was on the map, etc.  A log of a game where it happens would also be reeeally nice.

what  i'd like to do is incorporate some of your fixes into my version of uber and fastrack that so we can use it in the final 4 of our tourney.  i'd then like to drop my version of uber and just  get back to 1 version.  i'm not sure how much it will take to test our your rc version and it might take too long... eg we cldnt use it in the tourney then. 

It wouldn't be much trouble at all to do a more limited release for now, with just the Oculus, enemy gold, and item-facing fixes.  I'm realizing that I should probably have more time to test the UI additions, anyway.

Was there anything else other than the Oculus issues that you found problematic about 1.03?  Because it's far easier to fix those things, or simply remove potential offending fixes, than it is to try to migrate dozens of other fixes back to 1.022.

Oh, and I just fixed the gold loss/gain on item transaction during death thing too.  That one is really straightforward and seems to be working fine; shouldn't cause any problems.

Aaaand Oculus' Mental Agility was definitely clearing debuffs on the caster, not the target.  That's fixed, as well as the stupid way in which I broke Brain Storm previously.

I just realized that a dying unit can spawn both a spirit and a nightwalker at once, if it is within an Erebus aura and an Oak ward aura.

Is this worth fixing?  Does anyone care?  I don't think it'd be too much trouble - mostly a matter of making the two abilities aware of each other within the functions they add to the unit's OnKilled callback, and figuring out some way to decide between them (or just go first-come first-served?), but I don't want to go through the effort & busywork of doing this if it doesn't really matter, which is what I'm inclined to think personally.

To be clear, the two do not interfere with each other at all, like the Oak auras were doing to each other pre-1.03.  They coexist just fine, and both take effect (within random chance parameters) on the unit's death.  It's just a bit funny to get two minions from one dead dude.

I believe that it's intentional and I don't think there there is a significant gameplay impact either way. 

The only argument you could make is that by leveling up Wards or Improved Conversion Aura you could potentially partially counter minion heavy builds (think Hybrid v Minion. Hybrid gets Blood but puts points in Ward and other things rather than just Ward/Surge/Morale). This becomes a balance change which doesn't fall under Uberfix's parameters.

With that in consideration, the current Oak v Oak and Erebus v Erebus situation is actually a lot worse (although more difficult to intentionally manipulate), in that in any given fight, one of them will almost always get more minions than the other.  Each adds a buff to all units around them, overwriting any existing buffs, at an interval of 1 second.

So if Oak 1's aura is only 0.2s ahead of Oak 2's aura, Oak 2 will get 80% time coverage of the surrounding units.  Likewise, if one of them uses Surge to kill a bunch of units at once, whomever had their buff in effect at the time will get ALL of the spirits from those units - and not necessarily the one that killed them.

With Erebus, this may still result in one player being disadvantaged, but it's virtually impossible to manipulate given that the timing is based entirely on when each player upgraded Conversion Aura relative to one another.  However, with Oak, it's dependent upon ward placement timing.  Watching when your opponent placed his aura, and attempting to place yours just under one or two seconds later could somewhat reliably result in yours overriding his.  This would probably take some practice to perfect, but it's quite possible to pull off.

I'll think about it a bit, and see if I can find a way to solve this that lets the all the buffs (of each type) coexist, and do a coin flip (or random from 0 to buffcount) to determine which gets the first roll, allowing the rest a chance if the first ones fail their conversion chance.

Replying to your post in the UI mod thread here, as this is the more relevant thread:

Yes, it's in the current version that's on the google code downloads page (which has at least one major Oculus bug, and a possible hidden second).  However, I used a 95%-of-base activation speed, which upon further thought started to seem like a balance change - a minor, totally insufficient one, but a balance change nonetheless.  So the new version will use a 90% activation speed, which for 6.0 demigods is 0.1 below the 5.5 of the original item.  Rook suffers (appropriately) no matter how you slice it, and the 6.3s gain a little bit of usefulness, but as far as I'm concerned, it's still an awful item when properly fixed.  Even at 99% activation speed.

And yeah, I'm not really used to using google code, and I haven't set up a CVS, so it's pretty much sloppy sprinkling of individual fixed files in individual issue threads, with the latest compilation in the downloads page.

Hey - get me a new release candidate to test sometime soon please.  I'll bundle it up as exe and get some play testing going on.  Sooner the better. 

I've got one right now that was stable and error-free for one skirmish game, played as Oculus.  As long as you're running with a log file, and can tell me what (if anything) went wrong with it, you're welcome to use it.

Changes from the last 1.03 RC:

- IgnoreFacing flags are now set on the appropriate item abilities, and not on the items themselves.  They should actually work now (I did not get a chance to test this).  Affected items are Sludge Slinger, Parasite Egg, and now Deathbringer as well.

- Enemy gold visibility fix

- Fix for gold loss/gain on unsuccessful item transaction during death

- Brain Storm now working again (whoops!)

- Mental Agility now correctly removes debuffs on the target, rather than the caster

- Ironwalkers activation speed now more closely adheres to the original item spec for standard speed demigods.

Link

This version has none of the UI extension additions, as those are proving a chore to fully implement and test.  I did have a working version of the TB/QoT weapon stat fix that I had actually tested in multiplayer, but I went and merged it into the rest of the UI/sync mess, and forgot to save an earlier version that I knew was stable.  Welp.

remind me - how do I set it up to log?

In the commandline:

/log "log.txt"

..or whatever you want the filename to be.  Don't remember where the log ends up by default, so you might want to specify a full path as well.

Posted my thoughts on the solution to the Oak ward issue here.  If there's sufficient interest, I'll work on it - otherwise it's going on the back burner.

Also found an old version of the UI fix that I had uploaded to the google code site, here.  This version's a standalone sim mod, and because of the janky way I had to hook it, I'd like to confirm that it doesn't cause any noticeable slowdowns when the UI is open (any more than the UI already does, anyway).

While compiling a full changelog, I found a few more small fixes that I overlooked when doing the conversion of the mod to non-destructive hooking.  Mostly effects-related things.  They'll be in the next release.

would you mind elaborating about non-destructive hooking?

non-destructive mods the folder more like how a CVS diff does in programming. Basically you indicate lines that are added/removed. It behaves better with other mods. 

Destructive modding overwrites the entire file. This causes collisions if multiple mods use the same file. 

Sure.  One of the best examples is the Rook weapon fix between 1.02 and 1.03 - in 1.02, it's replacing the entire unit blueprint to change one line.  In 1.03, it's one line in three tiers of otherwise empty tables.

Another example, turning the Electrocution fix from 1.02:

..into this, in 1.03:

In the latter, the only thing that's altered is the main affect type, instead of re-creating the entire buff.  This way any other mod that makes a change to say, the duration of Electrocution, won't be broken by this fix, or vice versa (if the other mod uses the same non-destructive method to modify duration).

Here's an example where I hooked a function non-destructively, so that a. it can be used with hypothetical future patches (loool, right) without being updated, and b. if someone else's mod alters some aspect of the function either through hooking or overriding (as is sometimes unfortunately necessary with ability functions), this fix won't be broken.

It doesn't contain a single line of the original function - I'm just saving a handle to the original function, overriding the function name with a new function that then calls the old one and does some other stuff (in this case, the other stuff is some checks prior to running the old function).  So if literally anything in the original function is changed by a patch or another mod, it doesn't matter - this fix will still work without needing to be changed.

Alright, here's what I've come up with for a cumulative changelist for 1.02 -> 1.03.  I've picked through the code, the google code issues, through previous versions, and through all of the readmes, so hopefully I've got everything.  Need to keep better docs in the future.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
v1.03
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Knockback Kill/Damage Credit (Ptarth)
Creeps killed by knockback damage (e.g. Post-Mortem, Ring of Divine Might, etc) now correctly give a share of credit for their death to the instigating demigod, as well as contribute toward that demigod's cumulative damage statistics.

- Lord Erebus Poisoned Blood (Ptarth & Mithy)
Updated so that the correct audio cue and visual effects are now played when Erebus or his allies are healed by his poisoned potions.

- Instant-Cast Item Activation (Ptarth & Mithy)
The fix for Sludge Slinger and Parasite Egg not activating unless the activating demigod was facing its target (present in 1.02) was not taking effect due to an error in implementation.  This fix is now fully functional, and is also now applied to Deathbringer's silence ability.

- Ironwalkers and Desperate Boots Persistent Buff (Mithy)
The conditional buffs for these items are now properly rescinded when the item is removed from inventory by any means.

- Ironwalkers Always-On for Rook (Mithy)
The item's speed condition now compares against a percent (90%) of the demigod's base speed, for a similar activation threshold (<= 5.4, from 5.5) for most demigods.

- Late Map Control Voice-Over (Mithy)
The map control voice-over now correctly activates any time the dominating team captures a flag with over 75% map control, rather than when a flag is lost above 75%.

- Oak Raise Dead Ward Skill Level Crossover (Mithy)
All raise dead chances, spirit levels, and spirit caps now conform to the correct skill level of the demigod for whom the spirit is raised, as was already the case with Lord Erebus' Conversion Aura.

- Gold Loss/Gain On Unsuccessful Item Transaction (Mithy)
Item transaction events now insure against gold loss or gain when the item itself cannot be bought or sold, e.g. when dying.

- Enemy Gold Amounts Visisble In User Layer (Mithy)
Enemy gold values are no longer accessible to the UI.  Existing UI mods that previously displayed enemy gold amounts will now only show zero.

- Oculus Ball Lightning Auto-Attack/Advance (Mithy)
Ball Lightning now correctly attack-move to the location specified by the reticle, instead of ignoring the reticle and only attacking nearby targets.

- Oculus Ball Lightning Health Bar (Mithy)
Ball Lightning now have a normal, fully-visible health bar above their mesh, like every other unit and minion.

- Oculus 'Sticky' Chain Lightning and Ball Lightning Effects (Mithy)
These lightning attacks should no longer break and create persistent lightning effects attached between the attacker and the former location of the target.
As a side effect, some links in Chain Lightning may now be visually missing if their previous target was killed by something just before Chain Lightning hit it-- a situation that would previously cause lightning effects to persist-- but the ability's damage functionality is not affected by this.

- AI Citadel Upgrade Purchasing (Mithy)
AI are now able to purchase citadel upgrades that do not have a buff with the same name, e.g. Experience.
Standard Demigod AI will still not purchase any upgrades unless a mod that enables this-- such as the Skirmish AI Mod-- is used.

- Experience Citadel Upgrade Persistence (Mithy)
Experience IV now correctly removes the Experience III bonus when purchased.


In addition to the above, several functionally-insignificant errors creating severe log spam under certain circumstances were also fixed.  This will not likely have any effect on an un-logged game, but will eliminate the serious performance problems they were causing in logged games.


Previous fixes removed due to inclusion in Demigod Patch 1.3:
- Oculus Sacrifice not healing allied units
- Oculus Ball Lightning summoning in map void
- Unclean Beast Plague/Post-Mortem conflict
- Minion summoned hitpoints
- Heart of Life and Wings of the Seraphim halting on healing

Previous fixes left in due to the patch 1.3 solution being insufficient/ineffective:
- Oculus Electrocution ineffectuality
- Lord Erebus Mist deactivation threshold
- Unclean Beast Ooze deactivation threshold

Thanks guys - look forward to reading about this tomorrow.  I should be able to get some uberfix testing going tomorrow night.  Tonight was all about testing AI skirmish.  Its actually pretty fun!

I'm gonna try to get this sync enhancement stuff done in the next day or two, but you'll probably still want to use the next fix-only version I release in the tournament.  If the version you're using now proves solid enough, I'll drop another with a few tweaks to some of the existing fixes (like, for example, I found a much better way to handle the sticky lightning fix that results in far, far fewer broken visual links).  Also, I totally missed adding debuff removal to all levels of Brain Storm.  I gave up trying to hook that function non-destructively - too much trouble.  It will work exactly as intended now, for real, this time.

Keep in mind that I'm very much not a UI coder, and know very little about Demigod's UI and have no idea how to add/extend UI panels, so I can't promise that I'll actually implement a UI mod that uses this new sync information, but if there are any other UI modders with any experience left in the community, this will make it easy enough for them to do so.

It's too bad nobody had the idea to do something like this earlier in the game's lifespan, when there was an active enough modding community to gobble it up and use it.  Kinda makes me wish I'd bought the game sooner, but as much as I like and want to support GPG, I don't think it was ever worth dropping $50 on (for me).  Oh well.

Ok, I went ahead and finished this, and gave it a quick test.  I don't have time to really run it through the paces right now, but I have confirmed that it's not generating any errors, and that all the sync variables it adds are in fact available and properly reflected in the UI.

I'll release it as a standalone mod for now, keeping the UberFix as clean and reliable as possible until the end of the tournament.  Then, assuming it proves stable, I'll merge this into the next post-tournament release of the UberFix.

SimUIStats v1.2

Gonna sit on the latest UberFix modifications until at least tonight, because I really haven't had the chance to test them at all, even if most of them are small.

I'm thinking of perhaps starting with a small set of changes to see if we can get that pushed through to GPG as bug fixes.  I figure our odds of seeing inclusion in the game will likely go up if we reduce as that should drastically cut down on the testing side of things, etc.  Who knows... I'm going to try to push what I can though.

So, here's what I'm thinking so far for pushing.

• Enemy Gold Amounts Visible In User Layer 
• Ironwalkers and Desperate Boots Persistent Buff
• Ironwalkers always on for rook
• Occulus brain storm fix
• Experience Citadel Upgrade Persistence

The first 3 could be considered exploits.  The 4th just gets occulus working a little better.  And the experience fix is somewhat pointless (as very very very few games happen where the 4th upgrade is purchased), but I assume its a simple coding fix. 

I'd also like to see if we could get the simple health/mana bars always visible coding added to the core game.  Also a pretty simple fix, but a nice added feature. 

What do you think?  Should I prioritize other fixes for inclusion over these?  Perhaps adding in the rook move/attack fix as well...

Rook auto-attack should be in already 

I do think that the Permafrost movement debuffed should be changed to 5/10/15 from 3/10/15 

Balance change, I guess, but I think that there is developer intent there and permafrost does sorta need that buff 

what about the tower splash damage deal.  Is that already in uberfix?

From Rook's blueprint:

So no, it's not in DG 1.3.

I have no problem with the change to Permafrost, and agree that 5/10/15 seems to be developer intent, and that it was an overlooked QA issue.  If this is the general consensus, and nobody has objections, I can put this into the UberFix.  Just so we're clear, it's not the movement speed debuff, but the ROF debuff.  Movement speed is 3/7/10, which is inline with all other snares.  ROF is 3/10/15.

What tower splash damage deal?  I already showed in LO's last thread about this that beam weapon splash (what towers do) is unmodified by the splash mult buff.

As for pushing for fixes, that's your prerogative.  The working code for fixes will be available freely in the UberFix, and if someone from GPG or Stardock needs more info for whatever reason, I'll be happy to provide it.  But I have to know there's genuine interest on their part before I break everything down in more detail.