#4639 Ammo Weapon Issues with Fighter Squadrons

[Magnus Kerensky]

I think fighter squadrons may also suffer from this issue. They'll generally show the correct number of reloads until they start both expending rounds and/or taking weapon critical hits to ammo-dependent weapon groups. At this point all of the squadron's ammo counters, even those that have not been used or damaged, display (Current shots in slot/0). Weapons in this state are unusable, and if listed first in the display the server will hang. You can reorder the weapon display, placing energy weapons first, to get around this. Sometimes the ammo count will recover a turn or two later and allow the weapons to be used again. I am not sure if this happens on its own or only after further weapon critical hits are taken.

This seems like it could be related to bug [#4517] regarding dropship/warship ammo values. I don't currently have any savegames displaying this issue, but I should be able to add one soon. This is using version 41.9 Dev as there are so many other apparent space combat bugs introduced in 41.10 that it is unplayable. This bug is not new to 41.9 and may already have an open ticket.

[Nicholas Walczak]

I'm pretty sure this issue isn't related to [#4517]. That one is specific to the CustomUnitDialog. The problem there is that the dialog assumes that ammo is going to be loaded in 1ton/crit bins, but for Dropships/Warships/etc this isn't true (in fact, it would be kind of problematic, given how much ammo these ships can have). The maximum number of shots in the dialog is set based on how many shots can be in 1 ton, which is frequently not enough.

However, I'm not exactly certain what you're getting at in your bug report. I think I understand, but it's not clear how best to reproduce. If you add a saved game, it should be a lot easier to figure out what's going on.

[Magnus Kerensky]

Start the attached savegame as either 337th or Word. The damaged Gamma and Delta squadrons of the word player are exhibiting the issue. Dogfight for a turn or two and Barracuda squadron on the 337th side will probably be next, with its entirely ammo-dependent F-700b's.

Note that if you skip through the weapon list of Gamma and Delta squadrons that there is a noticable delay as you try to select an ammo-using weapon. If you change the weapon order on Gamma or Delta so that an ammo using weapon is first, then fire every other unit and let the affected squadron get autoselected, the phase will hang.

[Nicholas Walczak]

I haven't looked at this in a while, but when I tried to look at it before, I wasn't able to make much headway. I wasn't able to reproduce the issue. I seem to recall that I just tried skipping through units, and that didn't seem to work. I'm not very keen on "dogfighting for a turn or two" as I'm not very well versed in space battles, and I feel like it's likely that I won't be doing the same things you would be doing, so I might not be able to reproduce the issue.

Basically, this ticket is sitting in limbo, as it's not going to make progress unless I can reproduce the bug, but I'm not sure what to do to reproduce it.

[Magnus Kerensky]

Steps to reproduce:
Start a new game with a space map of any size. Set Advanced Aerospace Rules to all on except: Aero Sanity (This issue happens whether it's on or not).
Allow return Flyovers
Reduce to-hit mods for StratOps AAA

Create two or three fighter squadrons for each of two players. It doesn't matter how many fighters are in them, or what models of fighters are chosen, but the squadrons should carry a mix of energy and ammo-using weapons.

Start the game and deploy the opposing squadrons within firing range of each other. You should not have to move any of the squadrons to reproduce this issue.

Try firing the ammo-based weapons only for a couple of turns. Sometimes just firing can cause the issue. Otherwise you may get it by inflicting weapon critical hits on an ammo-based weapon.

Either the same or a similar hang can be caused if a squadron takes enough weapon critical hits to reduce a weapon line to (0) functional weapons, and then that weapon line is fired in a subsequent turn.

[Magnus Kerensky]

Since testing using only Streak SRMs doesn't seem to reproduce the issue:

I can still get it to happen nearly every space battle in 41.13 and 41.11. Whenever a squadron is affected, all of its ammo-fed weapons are affected, including Streak SRMs. Perhaps you can try a squadron with Autocannon or Gauss Rifles of various types. I've always run squadrons with a variety of ammo-fed weapons and I start fighting at ranges beyond Streak SRM range. I use RAT-generated squadrons much of the time. Pretty much any 6 ship squadron in the Total Chaos RATs should give you a mix that will reproduce this.

Also, I'm using the windows client. Is it possible that this is platform-based?