I finally read the comments in 140n INSECT.TXT documenting (most of) the changes between 1.31 and 1.40, and what was fixed. I'm THRILLED by many of the fixes, so I want to thank both the person/persons who made 1.40 and the person/persons who documented those changes and later fixed the bugs that it introduced. (If I understand it, that's Kyrub and Seravy?) But I'm less than impressed by a few, and confused by several. I have numerous questions to ask of anyone who knows.
First, does anyone else wish that FILESET would accept a format of:
ADDRESS OLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL NWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNW
to set a long series of consecutive bytes from OL to NW? It would sure shorten the patch files in a lot of places, especially when long procedures are replaced. ADDRESS would be the address of the starting byte, the second line would contain the expected original values (no limit), and the third line would contain the values to replace them with (required to have the same number of bytes). It would be even better if it would accept a line starting with a quote as being a character string to expect or insert, thus allowing self-documenting patches:
ADDRESS "To hit" "To-Hit"
Second, do the frequent references to "raid" (e.g. "major updates here in raid") refer to v1.50? Or was there a version in between? Should I assume all of the "raid" changes still exist in v1.51 RC07, which I am testing on?
Now, about specific patches...
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- Carry capacity of ships up to 8
29B3C
Gonna rip this out. More expensive ships should carry more, and Floating Islands shouldn't be just conjuring up a normal ship. That leaves the bug of a second ship considering the first ship to be a passenger needing fixed, but that bug isn't as bad as all ships being the same capacity.
- Hotkey related (W to space?)
2C417
Gonna rip this out with a vengeance.
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- Changes the way how Runemaster is cumulative with Disenchant True spells.
- original
- Total dispelling power = *2*3 = *6
- insecticide
- Total dispelling power = *(1+3) = *4
82916
Gonna rip this out. If one doubles it and the other triples it, it SHOULD be six times stronger. Also, from the formula given, it looks like runemaster alone makes it 1 times as strong "*(1+0)" (i.e. completely broken).
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- Same as above for Dispel Magic
82A74
Gonna rip this out, same reason.
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- Conjurer rounds upkeep the other way
Gonna rip this out. Conjurer doesn't mean free units.
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- Megining immunity against Crack's Call
AA657
Huh??? Does this mean that 1.31 insanely made magic immunity protect from CRACKS call, and this patch fixed that bug, or does this mean the game originally made CRACKS call work on magic-immune units and this patch BREAKS it, thus creating a bug? Oh, maybe this is for MERGING, which NOW (after this patch) protects from CRACKS call as it should, thus fixing that bug? I guess "Megining" is closer to "Merging" than "Magic" even if it's followed by a misleading word.
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- Fix
- Great Wasting removes all pacifying effects
C2517
Huh??? Does this mean v1.31 had it so GW removed all pacifying effects, and this patch made it so it doesn't affect unrest at all now? Or does this mean that this patch makes it so that GW NOW removes all pacifying effects? If GW used to (in v1.31) remove all pacifying effects, the bug could be considered to be that the spell description didn't SAY SO, just like the description for Gaia's Blessing doesn't say it reduces unrest. If this patch removed the effect for this spell, gonna rip this out and restore it to how it was.
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- same for Armageddon
C2548
Huh??? Same question: does this mean that in v1.31 all pacifying effects are nullified if EITHER GW or Armageddon is in play, and this patch and the previous make it so that neither have that effect (unnecessary)? Or does it mean that neither had that effect, and these patches add it (unlikely AND unnecessary)? If v1.31 had both spells having this effect, the bug is only that the descriptions of the spells didn't SAY SO, and this patch should not have been applied.
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- AI hositility 5A(Fire Elemental) instead of D5(Spell of Mastery bugfix.
- failed, should be byte ptr not word ptr! checks for FFD5!!!
F4246
Hah! Does this mean the enemy wizards all used to get extremely annoyed whenever you summoned a Fire Elemental overland, but didn't care if you cast Spell of Mastery? That would be rich. (And do I understand the "failed" comment to mean v1.40 tried but failed to fix it?)