Slime Salad

I've got many attack chains planned for my game. For almost all of them, an accuracy check is implemented somewhere at the beginning or in the middle of the chain to determine whether the attack can finish and do extra damage or add extra effects.
Here's one example: A net-wielding enemy throws a net that is meant to cripple the target. Attack 1 deals damage, Attack 2 lowers strength, and Attack 3 lowers speed. The only attack that has a chance of missing is the first one - I'd like to have the entire chain fail or end early if the first attack misses.
Another example: An enemy uses a fancy magic spell to lower the target's stats. Attack 1 has an animation and displays the spell's name, Attack 2 shoots a projectile at the target, Attack 3 lowers accuracy, and Attack 4 lowers dodge. Attack 2 has a chance of missing, hypothetically preventing the target's stats from being lowered.

However, as they behave now, all of my chains continue with the next attack in the list regardless of whether the previous attack connected or missed. This remains true whether the Do not chain if attack fails bitset is on or off. I've tested it both ways in an environment where the accuracy-checking attack in the chain is guaranteed to miss. No matter what, the chain continues.

Am I missing something? Is this a bug? I'd like to have these attack chains running with a chance of failure based on the standard Accuracy and Dodge stats. I'm using the Alectormancy+2 2012-06-15 build.

James will have to weigh in with the definitive answer, but I think this is unfortunately an "obvious" feature that noone ever got around to implementing.

what, chains? almost every single move in AR-PUH-GUH! uses chains.
If I can figure out your problems and fix it, I'll probably tell you tomorrow, bacon.

I'm going to run with what you've said, TMC, and devise temporary replacements for all the attacks that can't have a perfectly operating chain. This shouldn't affect battles too much; I'm just very detail oriented about these things and like to have a little extra flourish. Bows, for instance, I like to use two animations and sounds when shooting - the projectile and the impact. Logically the impact animation should do the damage and have the target flinch, but for the time being I'm content with just having a wisp of an arrow flying at an enemy to deal damage.

In that case, consider not having the arrow use a projectile animation -- it should really fly much faster. Having it appear instantly in the enemy's torso might be more satisfying, too.

Sounds like the problem here is that "do not chain if attack fails" only breaks the chain on an elemental-based failure.

I guess we need a new chain bitset for "do not chain if attack misses"

EDIT: wait, I just read the code, and "do not chain if attack fails" was *definitely* intended to also apply to misses... the code also looks correct, and should be breaking the chain already on misses, so I am really baffled as to why you are having this problem.

EDIT2: I just did some testing on this, and for me, the "do not chain if attack fails" bitset is indeed breaking the chain when the attack misses.

Are you setting the bitset on the first attack or the second attack? Because it belongs on the attack that can miss, not on the attack that it chains to.

I've figured out what was interfering!

From what I can tell, accuracy doesn't get checked when an attack's damage math is set to No Damage. There may be other Damage Math settings that don't check for accuracy, but on this one, I'm certain of it.
I went back to my attack that was failing to have its chain broken and changed "No Damage" to "Normal Damage" with a damage modifier of -100% and the "Do Not Display Damage" / "Do Not Chain if Attack Fails" bitsets turned ON. This turned out to be a perfect work-around, because if the attack connected, it immediately moved onto the next attack in the chain, and if it missed, the "MISS" text string appears and the chain is cancelled.

So, I've got my solution. But this is still a little annoying to work with, and it's more than likely a bug involving how certain Damage Math and Aim Math formulas interact. Again, my suspicion is that the "No Damage" setting automatically defaults to a "Never Misses" accuracy check.

And there was much rejoicing.
At least the prollem is solved now.

Oh, yeah. I noticed that recently (it also prevents all failure conditions from happening), and am planning (real soon, honest) to make Custom "upgrade" attack data by turning all "No Damage" attacks into "Never Misses" attacks. After that, you will be set the Aim Math to whatever you actually want.

I'll likely leave the failure conditions intact rather than upgrading them, since if you set one of the fail bits or elemental conditions on, then that's what you wanted, and the stupid behaviour of No Damage is a bug afterall.

Luckily setting an attack's Damage Math to No Damage is the only thing that will secretly prevent attacks from missing.