AP Hotkey issues - Will anyone take up the challenge of fixing this ?

[apricotslice]

I dont know if this has been formally reported before, but I couldnt see it looking back the thread list.

There is a problem with installing new hotkeys.

Once a game has started and initial hotkeys are assigned keys, if you subsequently add a new setup script to add an extra hotkey, then load an existing save game, the new hotkey replaces one of the existing hotkeys, using its same assigned key. The previous hotkey is then lost and cannot be readded.

Every time you start a new game, the hotkeys are wiped clean. Even your unique named stored profile is wiped clean, or substantially altered. This shouldnt happen. Once you store a hotkey profile, this should stay for any subsequent game starts, with the set key assignments unchanged. If by some chance a hotkey is not there (been removed perhaps), then it should be just ignored when displaying the list, but left on the profile in case the hotkey is readded, or until the assigned key is reused, after which it can be removed.

If you repeatedly start new games in the same session, you start losing hotkeys, and these only return with a computer restart from off.

Yes, these issues only occur because I'm testing and expanding a mod.

But I'm reporting them anyway as a faulty hotkey handling system, since it doesnt work properly.

In theory, if you added a new hotkey to a later version of the bonus pack, this same problem should occur, since its a new hotkey added once a game is in progress. So if you are planning to add new hotkeys to the bonus pack at a later date, then this is potentially an issue for the vanilla game. (And that is one way you can test this. Add some extra hotkeys into the bonus pack, reinstall the bonus pack, load a save game. Check the hotkey assignments.)

The only time hotkeys seem to work correctly is when they are added before a game start. Once a game is in progress, adding a hotkey causes damage.

I understand that AP got a completely new method of controlling hotkeys. I venture to suggest it has not been debugged fully, and needs work.

None of these hotkey issues happened in TC, so its a purely AP issue.

[Alan Phipps]

Yes we tried here (and in the linked thread) and were hoping that after a PM from myself we might hear a bit more about this from Cycrow. Nothing so far though.

[apricotslice]

Thanks. That linked to a Modding thread, and I'm the last poster on it. I'd forgotten.

Nothing from Cycrow since Jan 17.

Can I suggest he be officially nudged again ?

[Alan Phipps]

It might be even better coming from 'an old modding friend'?

[apricotslice]

I've sent him a PM on this. Hopefully, enough PM's will get him to respond.

My guess is he is really busy, and this issue hasnt been given any priority.

But as a potentially vanilla game breaking problem, it really needs a high priority. imo.

I notice people calling it a v2 issue. I didnt get to run anything before that, so wasnt aware of that.

What changed in v2 that could have messed with hotkeys ?

[Alan Phipps]

There is nothing in the 2.0 changelog, but then it doesn't mention any changes in the Stock Exchange stuff either but Mark Condren said there were some changes made in 2.0 and some players are now seeing long pauses in exchange trades that were not there before 2.0.

You need a Dev or S&M author to answer rather than a techie.

[apricotslice]

You need a Dev or S&M author to answer rather than a techie.

True, but this is the only place where it can be officially raised as a bug.

Cycrow may be the obvious person to fix it, but Egosoft need to recognise it as a problem and see that it is fixed.

[Cycrow]

not had chance to look into yet, been busy with relocating, so not had much time to do much

i will check it once i get chance to

[Alan Phipps]

@ Cycrow: Many thanks.

[apricotslice]

@ Cycrow: Many thanks.

Ditto.

[apricotslice]

I've just found a slightly wider issue.

I did a cut down version of the all plots complete MD for AP.

Now, when you run it on a fresh game start, it works fine.

If you load a save game, then quit back to the menu and start a new game, none of the gates in the Hub are set up, and no gate alignment is possible.

If you do 2 new starts in the same session, the same thing happens on the 2nd plus starts. No gates in the hub.

This seems to indicate that not all MD cues or settings are being reset for a new game start.

They only get reset when the game is started up the first time and the first thing you do is a new game.

Weird, but I just proved it to my satisfaction (and lost about 5 hours game play because I didnt check the hub first and in this game, its non functional.)

Now, one concern with this, is that if someone completes the Hub plot, then starts a new game without going back to windows first, then their new game will have a buggered up Hub in it, which they wont find until they recomplete the hub plot.

[apricotslice]

As this issue has come up in another thread again, I'm bringing this thread back up to keep it going.

Someone on that other thread suggested having a go at fixing these issues, given Cycrow is still unable to look at it, and so to anyone who wants to give this a go,

Go to it !

Since this thread is an outline of the issues involved, its a good place to continue from if someone takes the challenge on.

[apricotslice]

Mods, I just noticed this was in tech support. I'd forgotten where I put it. I still think its a tech support issue, but...

If Egosoft wont do anything about this, then perhaps move this to modding so someone else can have a go at it.

I've recently linked another modding thread to this one. Anyone who is developing hotkey based scripts is tending to find the same problems.

Something needs to be done. If Egosoft wont do it, and imo, it IS their problem, then someone else should.

Up to you if you want to leave it here or move it to modding. However, if you do move it to modding, I will interpret that as Egosoft not being interested in fixing their own issue.

[Alan Phipps]

Well I am happy to leave it here and have it cross-linked both ways with the S&M forum thread(s). It has also been reported by myself to the 'official' X3AP bug-tracker a while back. The problem that you face in your interpretations of moderation action is that Moderators are not Egosoft. We will help all that we can but unless the Devs get themselves involved ...

Edit: typo.

[CBJ]

Cycrow has already said he would look at it, and for the purposes of this discussion he is the Dev concerned. He's also explained why he hadn't looked at it when the thread was originally posted.

As for this insinuation that there is some kind of refusal to acknowledge or fix the problem, please try to keep a sense of perspective on the relative priorities. This is a fairly minor issue affecting a realtively small number of people, and while we are happy to let Cycrow look into it when he has time, we are not going to drop everything else we are working on to deal with it. If it turns out to be something that can be solved without a disporportionate amount of work, then of course we will be more than happy to put in a fix for it as and when we release another patch for the game.

[apricotslice]

I'm sorry if I hit a nerve CBJ, but sometimes it seems thats the only way of getting a reaction these days.

My advise to scripters at the moment is that hotkeys are totally bugged and dont use them.

As far as effected people is concerned, people who cant get a script to work because the hotkey isnt there or it deletes other hotkeys when installed, are probably swearing at the scripter and deleting, instead of complaining that hotkeys are mucked up. So we dont really know how many people are effected, as the only ones making any noise on the subject are those of us writing scripts using hotkeys.

I repeat though, the danger is, if a script with a hotkey is released in an update of the Bonus Pack, this "minor issue" will suddenly become an avalanche of complaints from people with buggered up games. The same if the next patch adds a new hotkey.

I'd rather be a pain to you now and get it fixed, than have to say I told you so after.

[apricotslice]

Well, I guess I found several bugs in the hotkey manager

1) Cycrow tried to use a boolean global variable for synchronization of his "purge" method. Problem is setting a global variable to [FALSE] apparently results in this variable being null and any condition where it is involved evaluates to false. As a result, the purge script wasn't getting called at all and some garbage hotkeys were accumulating in that collection. In my case it included 3 keys for boarding hotkeys and two keys for plugin manager.
2) Even when called, the purge method did not purge from its collection the hotkeys that no longer have a handle, meaning they are not in fact registered.

After I fixed 1 and 2, I was able to get both Plugin Configuration and my hotkey visible. But now the Hepastos hotkey disappeared It looks like there is more to research.

Cross posted from http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 42#3887142 in Modding forum.

[kurush]

Cross posted from http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 42#3887142 in Modding forum.

Just to clarify - while the hokey manager script had some bugs, the real issue appears to be in the function that registers hotkeys. I added logging to the hotkey manager and also to some scripts manually registering hotkeys and I am now getting the same hotkey handle number returned for 3 different scripts when I load my game. Each subsequent registration thus overwriting the one happened before it.
When I start a new game with the same script setup, the hotkeys register normally.

[apricotslice]

Just to clarify - while the hokey manager script had some bugs, the real issue appears to be in the function that registers hotkeys. I added logging to the hotkey manager and also to some scripts manually registering hotkeys and I am now getting the same hotkey handle number returned for 3 different scripts when I load my game. Each subsequent registration thus overwriting the one happened before it.
When I start a new game with the same script setup, the hotkeys register normally.

That was my line of thought as well. The actual code storing the hotkeys below the commands is bugged.

In order to fix it, we need access to it. One could always hope that its in one of the ! starting scripts ? Or is that false hope ?

As I posted just now, I see this as an opportunity to rewrite the whole hotkey handling facility, put the profiles in addon\profiles and have mods be able to have pre-setup hotkeys so the players dont need to set them (lets face it, a lot of player questions involve not knowing how to set up a hotkey or why they need to). It would also allow hotkey profile mods to be made that could be downloadable by a player to save them the need of adding hotkeys themselves, as they could be made for all the major mod/script combinations people tend to use.

@kurush

Is it possible to bypass the entire existing process ? Even with bugged commands, could we build a storage for hotkey profiles, that we tell the game to use instead of what it has now ?

@CBJ

or can you tell kurush where the commands code is now and give access to debug them ?

[kurush]

Is it possible to bypass the entire existing process ? Even with bugged commands, could we build a storage for hotkey profiles, that we tell the game to use instead of what it has now ?

Storage is happening somewhere behind those script functions and is not directly accessible by the script. Cycrow's script maintains a parallel storage to be able to unregister those keys once their respective scripts disappear. Ironically, this unregister part ("purge") was borked as I discovered and hotkeys from removed scripts are now living in that parallel collection forever. That was a relatively easy fix, but unfortunately the main storage that the game engine maintains appears to be broken as well. This is not something we have access to unless we are willing to decompile the x3story.obj (me thinks). And even then only Egosoft can fix it properly.

Right now if the "register hotkey" script function is called from one of the scripts, it seems to always return the same number and overwrite the most recently registered hotkey. I tried it with or without the hotkey manager - same results.