Code Updates

[Balek]

Mine was a joke too. Getting rid of the sun...world of darkness...

[Hrosskell]

I hate to be "that guy", but I've been looking through some stuff and trying to figure out why Hross is getting trumped by rangers and even a certain powerful thief - I know it's not his skills, they're pretty decent, and he holds his own against other fighters. If anyone has addressed this odd issue, which I thought Kregor did at some point, could you let me know where I can read it? I just keep thinking of some emotional post I made in which I said that fighter's can't do what they do anymore, and with a tourney drawing near, I need to know if any of that has been resolved before I embarrass my character.

[Selveem]

Meh, I have the same type of issue. Selveem's afflicted in the same manner. At this point, I'm just going to let Selveem get embarassed.

[Kregor]

I can offer no codal reason that a ranger would do better in melee against a fighter.Level 50 Ranger has BAB up to +20 on his first attack, which is commensurate with fourth attack, as opposed to fighters with 5th (confirmed this). Damage dealing is pretty much the same per hit for each. The Ranger MIGHT get a break (note I said MIGHT, don't quote me, I haven't actually tested) get a break as to what skill level of Dual Wield the 2nd offhand attack kicks in, but that would be sort of akin with a D&D Ranger's dual wield bonus, and would still only put the ranger on par, with 4 + 2, with the fighters 6 attacks he gets with 5 + 1. And usually, the primary weapon is a bigger damage dealer than the offhand.

Now, if the Ranger is casting cures on himself, since the code allows us to cast in the same round as we attack, give it up. It's almost too simple to tick-time your cast command between attacks each round so that you almost never disrupt a PCs casting. The spell casting code is something that needs to be tweaked, but then, how many people will grief if my recommendation is taken to heart, and we remove the ability to cast and attack in the same round?

As far as thieves.... a few ways to explain that melee-wise, perhaps just a GM at sap and stunning your big burly metal butt while he continues to thrash on you, or maybe GM at kick (we could digress on punch and kick, two skills that effectively give you extra attacks in a round, causing extra damage that isn't even resisted properly, but there I go again). Or maybe he gouged you, and you can't see, and you don't have the blind-fight feat, in which case he's going to be unleashing an extra 7 or 8 d6 of whoop on you with every lucky shot... losing your DEX bonus is a bad thing now.

[Glim]

As you have said, Kregor, you have confirmed that the damage and attacks all work as they should. I am curious then if the answer might be in AC? Im sure there has been alot of testing going into this, but might anything have been missed when looking at the different defence stats for rangers, fighters, and thieves and comparing them against one another?

[Raona]

Travelers should now find that ships and caravans in the realms reliably arrive and leave at the proper times.

There was a problem with timing programs properly executing if more than one was set to occur within the same hour, hence programs with rich detail, such as the ship programs which describe the travels of the ship through the seas, would have some key events fail to trigger, such as the arrival at a dock.

To be more specific: Travelers on the Western Light should now find that it arrives in all the ports it is supposed to, and at all the proper times.

This was a general code fix to timing programs, so you may find a few other things happening that didn't before (but were programmed to do so). If you find any timed events that continue to fail to occur, we are all ears and would appreciate hearing from you. In the meantime, happy sailing, and a big thank-you to those who helped identify and clarify this problem (Sairaven, Ariala, Mariela, Ekina, Peverell, and Ellette; and Japcil and Dalvyn on the area code side of things) and a round of applause to Mask for making a spaghetti plate of time program coding into one neat routine that works!