Instead-chains

The Ypsiliform whatsnew.txt seems to be saying that instead-chains replace the original attack entirely, which sounds extremely useful.

But when I tested them out in one of the nightlies a while back, it seemed like they weren't working, or at least they weren't working the way they're supposed to. If I had an instead-chain as the only chain for an attack, it acted exactly like a normal chain (the original attack hits, then the chained attack) instead of the instead-chain replacing the original attack.

So... Did that nightly just not have them fully implemented yet, or what?

The "Instead" chain means "instead of the normal chain", not "instead of the current attack" I believe. Does the F1 help menu say anything about it? I remember thinking I had tried my best to clear this up, but maybe I had only cleared it up to myself.

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I am Srime

Totally works for me.

Are you setting the rate above 0%?

Yes, the instead chain should totally replace the original attack. If it is not happening, then you may have found a bug.

Make sure you don't confuse the "Instead" chain with the "Else" chain, they are very different.

Just tested it out, and instead-chains seem to work right in Ypsiliform+1 (they do replace the original attack, which was how I was hoping they'd work.)

Must've just been a problem with the nightly version I was using before.

EDIT: Huh. Maybe not working after all. I just saw a couple of my instead-chaining attacks show up after the original attack like the other chains, instead of actually replacing it... and I didn't accidentally set them as normal or else chains. So either they're not working at all (and just turning into normal chains) or they're replacing the regular chained attack (in this case, none) instead of the original attack.

Unless they're supposed to replace the regular/else chains, instead of replacing the original attack, but...



...it doesn't seem like that's what they're supposed to do.

You're right Fnrrf, it's supposed to replace the current attack. I was getting mixed up. This sounds like a bug.

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I am Srime

Can you send me a test-case? I will check it out.

The only game file I have at the moment that uses instead-chains is Okédoké, which is getting a bit big to be sending over dial-up too often.

I just tried putting together a small test-case type game, but for some reason the instead-chains are working the way they're supposed to be in this one; I can't reproduce the kind of thing they were doing in Okédoké. I'll send it over anyway.

EDIT: Nevermind; turns out the problem wasn't with the instead-chains at all (they work perfectly.) I just forgot to replace "okedoke.exe" with a new version when I downloaded Ypsiliform, so I was still using a version of game.exe from the old nightly version where they didn't work yet.

Ah! Mystery solved!

Well, even though it was a false alarm, thanks for being vigilant on the bug-finding front :)

Er... maybe not such a false alarm after all. For some reason, even in Ypsiliform+2, instead-chains are still not working right for me.

The weirdest thing, though, is that it seems like this only happens in Okédoké. Whenever I try to make a new game from scratch to test instead-chains, they work perfectly. But in Okédoké, it still does the weird "act like they're normal chains" thing.

I thought it might have something to do with the old save file I was using (which was from before instead-chains existed), but I just tested it out with a new game file too... and instead-chains STILL didn't work. But only in Okédoké, which makes absolutely no sense... why would they not work in a pre-existing game even though they work fine in a new game started from scratch?

Here's how the two attacks are set up, if there might be something in there causing problems somehow:

Attack
============
Damage: Default settings, except aim is "Bad" and delay is 3 ticks.
Target: Enemy, focused
Instead-chain: Critcial, 3%, no bitsets, no special conditions
Bitsets: Physical damage, Damage can be Zero, Mutable, Check costs when used as weapon

Critical
============
Damage: Extra damage 100%, aim is "Normal," delay is 5 ticks
Target: Enemy, focused
Bitsets: Physical damage, Ignore extra hits, Mutable, Check costs when used as weapon

I really hope you're setting the rate of a Critical above 3% when testing the attack.

It sounds like Okedoke is being run in an old copy of game, even though you are editing it in the new version of custom.

Do you have an old copy of game.exe on your hard drive somewhere?

Is Okedoke in a different folder? Is there a copy of game.exe in that folder (maybe renamed as okedoke.exe?)

Do you run Okedoke by double-clicking the RPG file, or do you browse to it from game.exe's filepicker?

When I'm testing to see if the instead-chaining works or not, yeah. Unless I'm also testing it to see how often critical hits come up (and speaking of that, I'll probably end up raising the critical rates a bit before the next public release, since they almost never happen with single-digit chain rates... trying to avoid making them come up too often, but at 2-3% they might be too rare instead.)



I thought that was the problem before (when I actually was using an outdated version of okedoke.exe), but I can't see how it could be using an old copy of game.exe now. I probably do have at least a few different versions sitting around, but only the Ypsiliform+2 version is actually named game.exe; all the rest are (insertnamehere).exe files from other games I've downloaded.



I do have an okedoke.exe, but it's a copy of Ypsiliform+2's game.exe, so it shouldn't be acting any different from the regular one. Everything's in the same folder, though; the only thing I have in another folder are my backups of old versions of Okédoké.



I've never used the double-click-the-RPG-file method (I actually forgot you could even do that.) Lately I've been using game.exe instead of okedoke.exe and then picking Okédoké out from the list of games.

Oops! You already talked about okedoke.exe earlier in the thread, and I forgot about it. Sorry. Okay, well, it must be something else.

If you can send me a copy of the game with a save game where I can quickly get into a good battle for testing the chains, I can try to reproduce it myself and track down why.

Aaaactually, I just fixed a bug that Mogri found with instead-chaining. I don't know if it caused your problem, but it is worth checking. I forced an early nightly build, so you can test if you want.