Engine bug

[murhis]

Bingo? Able to replicate at will: Fast pressing the engine start mapped button on my joypad AND fast pressing engine start mapped button on my keyboard at the same time. No restart of game needed.

Edit: Works for every vehicle.

Edit 2: Looks like only 2 presses of each button in fast sequence are needed.

Interestingly I'm just using a keyboard and mouse combination and there's just 1 key for the engine, which is "e". I tried to bash keyboard and mouse at the same time with multiple different combos. Randomly and planned, but that didn't occur a single time for me on a training server.

Though on the cmfl code there's one empty row on engine section like this:

e

Anyway good job with this discovery. Maybe I'm trying again to tap fast "e".

Edit: Yep no matter how much I tapped "e" it didn't happen. I'm going to sleep now. Damn frustrating bugger.

Edited August 24, 2011 by murhis

[legear]

Me and three other friends unsubbed for another game for this very problem 2 years ago. Knowing nothing of video games but how to play them, it would sooo cheese me off. This use to happen to me in the stug all the time, and i noticed it would never happen on the first sortie, and it only happens after i score kills the previous sorties before. I still get the same bug in the damiler often, and the same scnenario applies. Is it nessecary to know what the problem is to create a secondary fix? Like adding something in the game perm. to duplicate the starting process somehow. If the engine is already started, you shouldnt notice..heck i dont know. The only thing i like about the bug is that i know Murhis only uses stugs and it helps slow him down

[elegance]

Interestingly I'm just using a keyboard and mouse combination and there's just 1 key for the engine, which is "e". I tried to bash keyboard and mouse at the same time with multiple different combos. Randomly and planned, but that didn't occur a single time for me on a training server.

Though on the cmfl code there's one empty row on engine section like this:

e

Anyway good job with this discovery. Maybe I'm trying again to tap fast "e".

Edit: Yep no matter how much I tapped "e" it didn't happen. I'm going to sleep now. Damn frustrating bugger.

I cannot claim my way is the only way to do it. I triggered it offline 4 times in a row. I am pretty sure at least 1 time I triggered it with keyboard only (although some buttons on the joypad were pressed, just not at the time of the bug being triggered). Fast pressing just e doesn't seem to trigger it on its own.

CRS now have a repeatable way to do it and I am pretty sure all other instances of this happening will have something in common with the way I managed to repeat it.

[smythes]

Interesting Elegance!

Contrasting keymappers perhaps spamming the system somehow?

[monsjoex]

Interestingly I'm just using a keyboard and mouse combination and there's just 1 key for the engine, which is "e". I tried to bash keyboard and mouse at the same time with multiple different combos. Randomly and planned, but that didn't occur a single time for me on a training server.

Though on the cmfl code there's one empty row on engine section like this:

e

Anyway good job with this discovery. Maybe I'm trying again to tap fast "e".

Edit: Yep no matter how much I tapped "e" it didn't happen. I'm going to sleep now. Damn frustrating bugger.

Im using keyboard and mouse too while getting the engine bug.

Not been able to replicate it by tapping multiple buttons quickly.

[petie]

I use Keyboard and Joystick to,

Maybe it has something to do with pulling back on the joystick to break/stop the vehicle and pressing e for engine turnoff aswell

[monsjoex]

Petie 1/2 the times i got enging bug were after spawn so no that wouldnt be it .. for all times that is.

[elegance]

Can somebody try to repeat what I did? Just map your engine start to key "E" AND map something else as secondary keymap for engine start. Try mouse, another key, joystick button.

[monsjoex]

Can somebody try to repeat what I did? Just map your engine start to key "E" AND map something else as secondary keymap for engine start. Try mouse' date=' another key, joystick button.[/quote']

Confirmed.

With this i don't see the constant stream of puffs of smoke coming out of the back of the tank though.

edit: ah on despawnscreen i saw them.

I am able to recreate this multiple times in the same executable without restarting game.

Edited August 25, 2011 by monsjoex

[petie]

Finally we may see the end of this, if we can replicate it.

I am unable to test atm, im on laptop

[vonbreur]

Hahahahahahaahahahaahahahaahahahaaa!!!

I'm telling you... this bug has been around for years... best of luck to you all in seeing it fixed.

Oh, and if it is fixed, the gratz goes to the players who figured it out not to anyone else.

[monsjoex]

Vonbreur they weren't able to replicate it.

Now they are.

They know what happens then.

And pressing 2 different engine on/off buttons at the same time may not be the cause of all engine bugs.. the effect can be seen by the rats now.

[AHWULF]

If you saw the engine code, you'd turn white as a sheet. I doubt real engines are this complicated... it hasn't changed in like a decade.

I will see if I can get it to happen. I got in a stugg a while back and tried to step through the code (in live game no less) but got quite lost and could not even see why anything started much less why it didn't.

Maybe this will help. The problem is it may have a random component, which means just because one person gets it all the time, the exact circumstances for another might never get it.

[AHWULF]

Got it to happen with only the 1 engine start key. Now comes the ugly part...

Some kind of timing thing where the engine attempts to start when it's already trying to start and gets mighty confused. Like I am about to be ;-0

[GOPHUR]

I had an "engine bug" scenario in a DAC but never in a Stug I will admit.

What questions should you want to ask if it happened to you?

What unit where you?

What where the circumstances?

Spawned in/starting engine after stop?

Where where you?

Where you under fire?

Using Joystick/mouse/Keyboard*

*delete as appropiate.

What had you been playing previously (unit etc)

How many times has it happened to you that week?

Really only 1 questions. What steps do you take to repeat this bug.

[GOPHUR]

e

Anyway good job with this discovery. Maybe I'm trying again to tap fast "e".

Edit: Yep no matter how much I tapped "e" it didn't happen. I'm going to sleep now. Damn frustrating bugger.

I don;t think this is related to the bug but you shouldn't have that in your user cfml files since it is the default.

[GOPHUR]

Hahahahahahaahahahaahahahaahahahaaa!!!

I'm telling you... this bug has been around for years... best of luck to you all in seeing it fixed.

Oh, and if it is fixed, the gratz goes to the players who figured it out not to anyone else.

If you don't have anything to add to the conversation please prevent your self from posting here. This is the bug reporting forum and every un-helpful post I have to read is time away from me helping make the game more enjoyable.

Thank you.

[murhis]

I don;t think this is related to the bug but you shouldn't have that in your user cfml files since it is the default.

Just thought when there's key 2 times that could it be that... and yeah the reason why there's this row on cfml files is because i've copied some keyboard/mouse layout there. Trying to take it off(and hope that nasty bug is gone).

[AHWULF]

Of course now I get nothing... works like a charm. I'm beginning to think there is another side that we aren't seeing, either a random element or something that happens when you are playing for real but that people don't do when testing offline.

[elegance]

Of course now I get nothing... works like a charm. I'm beginning to think there is another side that we aren't seeing' date=' either a random element or something that happens when you are playing for real but that people don't do when testing offline.[/quote']

Ahwulf I am thinking of my way to trigger it as a shortcut to recreate what people are seeing in the game. Can you have a look what is happening when you trigger what is essentially same condition (endlessly idling engine) my way?

[AHWULF]

OK I think I found it. Verifying that this is the real problem and fixing it is tricky but I think I can do it.

There is a complex case which the engine code does not handle because when it was written there were only like 5 tanks modeled and none of them exhibited this behavior. Why exactly certain tanks can get into this state and others don't seem to is still a mystery. But I think I can fix it anyway. It's possible that some combination of tank data was not expected when the code was written. Modeling the real world in code is always so much fun... modeling the future is even more fun...

[elegance]

OK I think I found it. Verifying that this is the real problem and fixing it is tricky but I think I can do it.

There is a complex case which the engine code does not handle because when it was written there were only like 5 tanks modeled and none of them exhibited this behavior. Why exactly certain tanks can get into this state and others don't seem to is still a mystery. But I think I can fix it anyway. It's possible that some combination of tank data was not expected when the code was written. Modeling the real world in code is always so much fun... modeling the future is even more fun...

Every single vehicle's engine can be brought to the state of infinite idling with my method.

[AHWULF]

The issue has more than one cause, but it boils down to trying to do 2 things to the engine in one frame, either start and stop in one frame or start and get running in one frame -neither case was possible 10 years ago. Using two devices you can start and stop the engine - basically calling the code twice in one frame. Either way the code assumes that starting the engine will run for a few frames before anything new happens (like turning it off or having the engine catch). When it all happens in a single frame it gets confused and stays that way.

I did try one quick fix but it made the engines run at 6Billion RPMs, catch fire and then blow up the tank. Not exactly a fix :-)

[alphie]

I did try one quick fix but it made the engines run at 6Billion RPMs' date=' catch fire and then blow up the tank. Not exactly a fix :-)[/quote']

LOL! Nice.

[GOPHUR]

This is noted as FIXED in beta. Waiting for confirmation.