Heatmapping Meeting Minutes Derail

[raaar]

As a player, the pathing thing is what annoys me the most.

When i send a group of units to a point, i want them to move as efficiently as possible, even if they cluster together. The new pathing makes them move around in separate directions, sometimes opposite of the destination.

You seem to have decided to postpone an official pathing fix until a "hard-to-debug" desync fix has been made, which can mean weeks or months. Imo a bad decision :/

[momfreeek]

I gathered it is the new heatmapping which is the problem which should be configured (or disabled) modside. Perhaps this should be disabled by default if the behaviour is so undesirable without configuration? (I'm not playing BA after my com suicided himself in the opposite direction of my furious clicking)

[Forboding Angel]

I have stated 3 times that heatmapping can be disabled modside. The pathing is fine (can't you read?) and heatmapping is doing what it is supposed to do, but heatmapping is just not that great of a system (can't you read?).

It is not the devs fault that TFC and some other modders are just fucking lazy, so don't try to put this on them.

Neddie: This is very aggressive and disruptive, further posts in this vein will result in a warning.

[momfreeek]

I have stated 3 times that heatmapping can be disabled modside.

I count that as 1.

but heatmapping is just not that great of a system

I already said that.


Atmospheric sounds effects and reloading from disconnect are awesome. Thanks devs :)

[raaar]

I have stated 3 times that heatmapping can be disabled modside. The pathing is fine (can't you read?) and heatmapping is doing what it is supposed to do, but heatmapping is just not that great of a system (can't you read?).

It is not the devs fault that TFC and some other modders are just fucking lazy, so don't try to put this on them.

sorry, didn't notice.

How to disable it then?

EDIT:
Ah, Google_frog posted on the other thread about it being toggleable too.

the movetypes wiki says there are three tags
""
* HeatMapping
* HeatMod
* HeatProduced
""

http://springrts.com/wiki/Units:MoveTypes

Is there any global way to disable this. Cause sneaking in disruptive changes like these (the default was off, now it's on...) and then calling modders lazy is kinda lame.

[FLOZi]

The pathing is fine (can't you read?)

To me the log suggests there were other bugs in pathfinding (as found by saktoth / kloot) - that have been fixed. What is not clear is if those fixes are in current release or in the pending one.

[momfreeek]

It is not the devs fault that TFC and some other modders are just fucking lazy, so don't try to put this on them.

Is there any global way to disable this. Cause sneaking in disruptive changes like these (the default was off, now it's on...) and then calling modders lazy is kinda lame.

It was (the delightful) Forboding Angel calling people lazy. I don't think he is an engine dev (?).

[liamdawe]

It is not the devs fault that TFC and some other modders are just fucking lazy, so don't try to put this on them.

Is there any global way to disable this. Cause sneaking in disruptive changes like these (the default was off, now it's on...) and then calling modders lazy is kinda lame.

It was (the delightful) Forboding Angel calling people lazy. I don't think he is an engine dev (?).

No but he is a modder...which is the point of the argument.

[Argh]

Glad to know heatmapping worked out

Between that and the tizbac thread and the ATi stuff... it's like taking a time machine to 5 months ago.

I'll be back to check if this stuff ever got fixed in a couple of months or so. Been busier than I expected to be.

[Forboding Angel]

For a modder to leave his project (especially one that gets played as much as BA) broken, intentionally, for weeks on end is beyond lazy (adding heatmapping=false; to each movedef shouldn't take over 30 seconds), or perhaps, he just doesn't really care about BA anymore.

The moment I was told how to disable heatmapping by the engine devs I did it, and had a new revision out within seconds. Ask yourself why BA stayed broken throughout the entire 82.x gyration?

[TheFatController]

For a modder to leave his project (especially one that gets played as much as BA) broken, intentionally, for weeks on end is beyond lazy (adding heatmapping=false; to each movedef shouldn't take over 30 seconds), or perhaps, he just doesn't really care about BA anymore.

The moment I was told how to disable heatmapping by the engine devs I did it, and had a new revision out within seconds. Ask yourself why BA stayed broken throughout the entire 82.x gyration?

Cause I was expecting a patch 'within a few days' and saw the engine commit where heatmapping was to be off by default. Didn't see the point in bumping a new version of BA for one change. The heatmapping issues an engine bug and should have been rolled back as soon as possible or never turned on by default to begin with.

Plus it's not "broken" stop being over dramatic.

[Forboding Angel]

When a few days turned into more than 3 or 4 days, you should have done it. As it is, a few days turned into 3 weeks due to unforeseen circumstances.

Units moving in the direction opposite of the order given qualifies as broken.

I tried to play a game of evo with heatmapping on and simply couldn't because of the fact that I just couldn't order units around.

Additionally, it would not have hurt to bump BA's version number. Seriously... BA is all of 16 megs. That is the size of 3 high quality mp3 songs, so don't tell me that it was the "Download size" or the fact that you would have to upload it that was holding you back.

In the meantime, the help and bugs forum was inundated with topics concerning this.

[momfreeek]

When a few days turned into more than 3 or 4 days, you should have done it. As it is, a few days turned into 3 weeks due to unforeseen circumstances.

Units moving in the direction opposite of the order given qualifies as broken.

The pathing is fine (can't you read?) and heatmapping is doing what it is supposed to do, but heatmapping is just not that great of a system (can't you read?).

3 days ago you reported (ranted) it as working, FA.

[Forboding Angel]

Yes it is working, heatmapping (as the devs pointed out at great length) just isn't a very good system (hence why it has been disabled). If heatmapping wasn't working, then it would have been business as usual.

[momfreeek]

So which is it FA? You can't make your own mind up yet you have insulted others for both:
- not realising that it was working
- not realising that it was broken
No apologies? Should we just return the arbitrary insults instead? You think that'd make the forum even nicer place to be?

[Forboding Angel]

Nice flamebaiting. You fail though.

I will explain it again, in idiotproof terms so that you can understand it.

Pre 82.x Heatmapping was enabled but broken.
Post 82.x Jk Fixed it

Because heatmapping is not an ideal solution, we got seemingly "Broken" results, even thought the code was finally functioning at it's intended purpose.

Neither pathing nor heatmapping was broken in 82.x, however, heatmapping as it was intended produced undesirable results, which is why it has been disabled. There were a few small bugs here and there, but nothing with pathing or heatmapping was actually broken.

Heatmapping was easily disabled modside, and I sated at least 4 times now in various places that modders should disable it modside. TFC decided to ignore this warning for 3 weeks, resulting is BA being all but unplayable for those 3 weeks. I simply said that it was lazy to have let it go on that long for a mod that is all of 16 megs large. If BA was huge like s44, gundam, or evo, (however evo and s44 use rapid anyway, so on those games it is a moot point) and the user was forced to download 300 - 400 megs just for a small patch, well then yes, that would be an issue. But in BA's case, it was not an issue. The only issue was TFC's lack of fixing it.

I have nothing to apologize for, however, you owe me an apology for intentionally trying to bait me.

[Peet]

I have nothing to apologize for, however, you owe me an apology for intentionally trying to bait me.

Really?

It is not the devs fault that TFC and some other modders are just fucking lazy, so don't try to put this on them.

(can't you read?)

No, nothing inflammatory or insulting there. You're absolutely right, momfreeek is a terrible troll who is just trying to get you in trouble.

[momfreeek]

ok, i'm sorry for trying to bait you.

I considered this insulting to me and TFC:

I have stated 3 times that heatmapping can be disabled modside. The pathing is fine (can't you read?) and heatmapping is doing what it is supposed to do, but heatmapping is just not that great of a system (can't you read?).

It is not the devs fault that TFC and some other modders are just fucking lazy, so don't try to put this on them.

It seemed to me you hadn't read what I wrote.

It was a testing release (clearly known to modders right?). So why release a new mod version just to disable testing a new behavioural system that was working.. just not very well?

[TheFatController]

Yeah I also considered that pretty inappropriate.

[SeanHeron]

I think both sides have a point here - it's true Forb took a petty gruff tone, but I can understand his sentiment: there really was a lot of negative feedback towards engine devs due to the unfortunate combination we had till recent update. Sure this would have been avoidable by various methods.
Anyhow, I'd tend to agree with Forb that a new mod-version would have been reasonable given the situation - but then, as I've never released anything, it's easy for me to say that (!=Forb). Still, I wouldn't have appreciated being on the recieving end of the more biting comments either.

I guess as we now have the new version out the whole discussion is rather moot now anyhow... I'm quite sure both sides here were acting out of good intentions.