TFMurphy
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3118
Registered: 06-11-2007
IP: Logged

After seeing it in action, I think I've found one of the major contributors to this bug's appearance. I've already gone ahead and committed a fix to the SVN, but you're unlikely to see that in a patch for a while, so I'm writing about the details here.

In short, if you use the F7 or F8 keys to reflect the room horizontally or vertically, then any staircases in this room will be forever broken.

The effects aren't always immediately apparent. If the staircase's right edge was west of (19,y) when reflecting horizontally or bottom edge north of (x,16) when reflecting vertically, then the staircase will immediately show as being broken because the exit area will essentially have negative width or height. If it's east or south of these lines, then the exit area will still include the staircase, and the staircase will still work... until you export the hold and import it. At that time, any exit data whose NW corner is not a staircase is deleted. Due to the broken exit data, this will usually be the case, and the result is that the staircase will have *no* exit data, and will thus end the hold.

Long story short, if you press the F7 or F8 keys in a room with a staircase and then do anything to save that room, then that staircase will most likely be broken and the only thing you can do to be sure of fixing it in all cases is to delete the staircase and remake it again. (Just reassigning the exit may not work if the exit area is broken but the staircase is still within the area.)

Oh, this also affects DROD RPG reflection, so be wary there too. EDIT: Oh, JtRH too, now that I look. So, yeah, keep this in mind.

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[Last edited by TFMurphy at 02-03-2011 02:43 PM]

Tahnan
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2459
Registered: 11-14-2005
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TFMurphy wrote:
In short, if you use the F7 or F8 keys to reflect the room horizontally or vertically, then any staircases in this room will be forever broken.

Just to be clear, though it's implied by your penultimate paragraph: that's any current staircases, not any current or future staircases, right? It's not the case that, once a room has been reflected, any staircase subsequently placed in it will be broken?

TFMurphy
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3118
Registered: 06-11-2007
IP: Logged

Tahnan wrote:
Just to be clear, though it's implied by your penultimate paragraph: that's any current staircases, not any current or future staircases, right? It's not the case that, once a room has been reflected, any staircase subsequently placed in it will be broken?

Only existing staircases in the room, yes. You can create new ones or completely delete and replace old ones fine. "Broken" exit data not deleted by simply deleting the staircase will continue to linger, but will usually not cause problems and will be completely deleted once the hold is exported and imported again.

Also, any staircase that is unchanged when reflected (a 2x2 staircase in the exact center of the room, for example) is unaffected by this bug. But I wouldn't count on this.

EDIT: Oh, right, remember that you can Undo a reflection to reverse the damage. Simply reflecting again will not reverse the damage. This is likely the reason for the majority of the occurrences of this bug. So use Undo immediately if you do make this mistake.

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[Last edited by TFMurphy at 02-03-2011 03:16 PM]

CuriousShyRabbit
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3170
Registered: 10-14-2006
IP: Logged

This bug has been around for ages! Great job finding it!