Smithing oddities/bugs in sil 1.1.1

[bron]

I've noticed a couple of odd behaviors while trying to smith high evasion items. The second one is surely a bug; the first one probably so:

1) If I smith a "Shield of Deflection", and then enter the "Numbers" menu, I can increase the evasion rating up to as high as +3 (must know "Artistry"). However, if I smith an *Artifact* shield, there doesn't appear to be a way to increase the evasion bonus to be higher than +2.

2) If I select to smith a longsword (Defender), I cannot raise the evasion rating in the "Numbers" menu above its +2 rating. If I select to smith a longsword (Defender), and then enter the "Artifice" menu, the sword reverts to +1 evasion, and then I can only raise it one step to +2. But, if I select to smith a longsword (Defender), then enter the Numbers menu, then exit the Numbers menu and enter the "Artifice" menu, the sword does *not* revert to +1, it stays at +2. I can now re-enter the Numbers menu, and increase the evasion to +3.

[huiren]

Another bit of strange behavior with the smithing menu is that when making a piece of armor, you can enter the artifice page, exit it, increase what you like in the numbers page, then enter the enchantment page and leave it immediately. Doing causes creating the item to only consume one use of the forge, which allows you to make multiple pieces of equipment with accuracy bonuses quite early on. This doesn't work with weapons, presumably because artifact weapons can be given options on the enchantment page. I'm quite new to Sil, but even if this is intended, it's really weird. There is no indication that taking enchantment will turn artifice into super-artistry, but only for armor.

Edit: I don't know why I got the idea this doesn't work with weapons. After trying it just now, it certainly does work. I'm not sure it makes much of a difference though, since early on, when it matters the most, the requirements seem too steep to be very practical.

[bron]

I tested a few things along the lines of what hurien wrote, and it's even worse than that. It appears that you can put skills onto items without making an artifact. For example: select to smith a Helm. Enter the "Artifice" menu and select the Perception skill "Lore-Master". Now enter the "Numbers" menu, but immediately leave it. Now enter the "Enchant" menu, and immediately leave it. The Helm you are about to smith still grants the Lore-Master ability, but now it only takes one use of the forge, rather than three.

[half]

Wow that's a terrible bug. It should go without saying, but exploiting this is cheating -- don't post to the ladder if you do it with a character. Thanks for finding this as we now have more info about what is going wrong with the smithing screen.

If someone would like to try to fix this, that would be great. I'm doubt I'll have time before the next version is released. It would be the most useful piece of code the community could add (well, the other one is getting tiles working on OS X).

[BlueFish]

I'd like to take a look at fixing the smithing menu but can no longer get a working compile. I installed cygwin for 64 bit windows, installed all three non-default components (bin utils, GCC compiler, make), and removed the compiler flag that had been deprecated, and got an exe. But the exe complained about needing cygwin1.dll. So i copied that there to the exe's folder, and now the exe just crashes on startup.

I did get it to compile once a few months ago, but that was on a different computer. Not sure what's wrong this time.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Originally Posted by BlueFish

I'd like to take a look at fixing the smithing menu but can no longer get a working compile. I installed cygwin for 64 bit windows, installed all three non-default components (bin utils, GCC compiler, make), and removed the compiler flag that had been deprecated, and got an exe. But the exe complained about needing cygwin1.dll. So i copied that there to the exe's folder, and now the exe just crashes on startup.

I did get it to compile once a few months ago, but that was on a different computer. Not sure what's wrong this time.

Which version are you compiling? Sil-vanilla or Sil-mpa? I think deleting the .INI file might help.

I compiled both versions with Cygwin, requiring cygwin1.dll to be in same folder. But, neither of my compilations crash on Windows 7 x64 SP1.

Any reason why cygwin1.dll is even needed to run Cygwin-compiled versions Sil.exe? half/Scatha's official Sil releases never required cygwin1.dll to run.

[bron]

Originally Posted by half

If someone would like to try to fix this, that would be great.

With any luck, attached should be a hack to the file "cmd4.c" that seems to avoid the problems described here. The basic idea is that it prevents you from selecting the "Artifice" menu if you have already selected something on the "Enchantment" menu, and vice-versa. Going to the "Base Item" menu resets everything so you can start over.

It's not very elegant, but it does seem to work. I hereby grant whatever legalese is needed to allow anyone to use this freely, but of course without warranty. I also hope someone comes up with a better / more comprehensive solution.

[half]

Originally Posted by bron

With any luck, attached should be a hack to the file "cmd4.c" that seems to avoid the problems described here. The basic idea is that it prevents you from selecting the "Artifice" menu if you have already selected something on the "Enchantment" menu, and vice-versa. Going to the "Base Item" menu resets everything so you can start over.

Thanks for this bron! I didn't end up looking at your code, but I did use your idea. Enchantment and Artifice were always either/or in terms of the finished object, and letting one switch between them without restarting the object was a minor piece of interface convenience, but it both confused people and allowed certain bugs to appear. In some of the cases in this thread, items were becoming *both* special and artefact (name1 and name2 for those familiar with the codebase)! This led to all kinds of problems and I'm glad to have fixed it!

[half]

I should also say that for 1.2.1 I have:

- fixed what I think was the one remaining smithing bug
- added the capacity to try out smithing without having the requisite Abilities

So no-one needs to spend any time trying to fix the code to allow these things. They will be with you shortly (and hopefully won't introduce new bugs...).

[elliptic]

Originally Posted by half

I should also say that for 1.2.1 I have:

- fixed what I think was the one remaining smithing bug
- added the capacity to try out smithing without having the requisite Abilities

So no-one needs to spend any time trying to fix the code to allow these things. They will be with you shortly (and hopefully won't introduce new bugs...).

Here's a slightly obscure 1.2.0 smithing bug that I found - I don't know whether it is the one you fixed (or related), but here are steps to reproduce it:

1) Get Armoursmith and Enchantment.
2) Go into the smithing menu.
3) Select Boots as Base Item.
4) Select Speed as Enchant.
5) Enter the Numbers submenu, then leave without doing anything.
6) Go back to the Enchant menu. Now you can select a second enchantment and still get Sprinting too... for example, you can make "Boots of Leaping" that give both abilities.

(This works with any ego that grants an ability.)