Fixing The Most Damaging Bug on Steem NOVA
What a few words do to change a game.
I have been playing Steem NOVA for over a month now.
One of the main issues with a text-based game is the translations of the text that is displayed. With a GUI based game, you can fudge the language and people still can fumble through the controls and play the game without issue. With text-based games, if the text description for something isn't clear, then it could affect how players play or what players expect when they take a certain action. And that's what happened in Steemit.
The Problem: Large Shield Dome
Part of the strategy of Steem NOVA is to build defenses to protect your planet(s) so that your resources aren't stolen by other players. Because you also need resources to build Fleets and to improve Technology to improve your standings in the rankings.
When you start out, spending resources is very important, because you want to grow quickly, but you also don't want to leave yourself open to attacks and lose your resources. You can build missile launchers and laser canons, but one of the best defenses is to have a shield around your planet. Having a small shield can deter smaller players and having a large shield can keep you from being attack from even large players for a time.
However, if you look at the description above, you might notice a difference in the descriptions between a Small Shield Dome and a Large Shield Dome . It would seem that the Large Shield Dome requires Energy to defend your planet for attacks.
substantially more energy
In fact, it would seem that both shield domes need energy, if you go by the Large Shield Dome description. Energy is very important, because you can't run the mines to get resources without it. The first thing that you build on your planet is a Solar Power Planet so that you can operate. Being that Energy is very important for running the mines, players might not want to build shield domes, because they would run out of Energy during any attack.
On the other side of the coin, an Attacker might expect that if they took out all the Solar Satellite(s) in orbit, then it would reduce the Energy levels and prevent the shield from operating, thus allowing an attack on the other defenses. Also, going back to the planet owner, they might decided not to build Solar Satellite(s) thinking that they would be easily destroy, reduce the Energy being produced and then power down the shield domes.
Also, there might be a thought that if the planet produces an excess amount of energy, that the energy could be used to improve the strength of the shield domes. Now, that might actually be a good addition to the game.
So, here we are, with words causing issues with game play.
The Solution: Text Change
Since Steem NOVA is an open source project, the code is available in GitHub. Anyone can view the code and branch off their own version of the game. They can report bugs or even attempt to fix them by using a "pull request". And that's what I did.
I had notice a lot of grammar or spelling issues with the text during game play. I mentioned it to the people working on Steem NOVA, which are just a bunch of volunteers. They said that anyone could help out fix things using GitHub. So, even though I have been on GitHub to download projects, I have never attempted to fix a project.
I found the text under the language/en directory. First I edited the INGAME.php file to fix some basic issues that bugged me most. Then when I mentioned the shield dome issue and caused a small rukus on the Discord channel, I modified the file that held the shield dome definition, the TECH.php file.
By simply changing the text, I have removed a bug in the game. Now (when my changes get approved and implemented), the English speaking players will know that it doesn't take Energy to run the shields, the shields absorb energy from attacks.
You're Welcome!
Let the positive energy sing!
More Power to the Minnows!!
Trading on Bittrex and Binance
Claim Your Stake with a Stake Box
HODLin’
Stellar Lumen(XLM) -- Cardano (ADA) -- Digibyte(DGB)
Get your old school text-based gaming on.
I recall talking about this fix yesterday.
I'll go delete my fork I guess? Thanks...
I might not have caught the one you pointed out. There are a lot. Even the text for when ships comes back seems a bit muddled to me. I didn't want to do to many on my first attempt to help using GitHub.
Having been a very active mud player, the frustration of text based spelling requirements are known to me.
My daughter, who later homeschooled, learned to spell and type before school age from playing on text based muds. She went on to wizard level and learned programming in the interpretted LPC C++ look-alike.
MUDs as learning tools cannot be praised enough in this age of new space saving grammer and spelling. 😎
We used to use 'clients' for ease of play. They would run a series of commands from a saved file; perhaps travelling between two common locations for example. Are there any such playerbots out there for NOVA or are bots a given?
Sounds like it's worth checking out.
There were oGame bots. oGame has been around for awhile.
I don't know if anyone has adapted one for Steem NOVA.
At the rate Steem NOVA is played, I'm not sure if bots would be extremely useful, since people can use basic web browsers on their phone and most people are always connected.
But even megalomaniacs have to sleep. 😎
That happened to me one night playing mud. Fell asleeo in the chair.
You sleep when the game is over.
Way to get in the code and apply a fix. Well done
I'm not sure what the next step is to get it pushed thru.