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[thrstein]

Fire -- Choose target...                                                       
 You see : stone wall                                                           
                                                #======#                       
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                                               ##======#                       
                                               #===@==##                       
                                               #======#                         
                                               #======#                         
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                                               #====\=#                         
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                                               #======#                         
 Thor                       Armor : modified red armor [6/6] (80%) (P)         
 Health: 100% Exp:  6/94%   Weapon: modified assault shotgun (7d3) [5/8] (B1)   
 cautious                                                    Phobos Base  Lev10

I'm on Windows 7 64-bit, not sure if that changes anything. Tried shooting at random places on the wall until I ran out of rockets...

On an unrelated note, BBcode screenshots are neat :)

[ParaSait]

Aha. That is probably a cave level with a very unfortunately positioned filled area. Am I rite?
(or well... unfortunately positioned river at least)

[thrstein]

I wondered who made that bridge, and what they were on :P

[raekuul]

They were on phase devices, duh!

[Melon]

They were on phase devices, duh!

Too bad phase devices are only legal in Holland, Portugal and Czech Republic...

[Silhar]

Too bad phase devices are only legal in Holland, Portugal and Czech Republic...

Also, Holland.

[Melon]

Also, Holland.

Yeah, and Holland too!

[tehtmi]

To put this in perspective, I generated 10000 cave maps with vertical rivers.  75/10000 rivers were disconnected.

This is fixable but non-trivial.

[Deathwind]

The simplest answer would be to not spawn vertical rivers in caves.

[thelaptop]

To put this in perspective, I generated 10000 cave maps with vertical rivers.  75/10000 rivers were disconnected.

This is fixable but non-trivial.

Given the probability of this occurring, I'm kinda swinging towards the "uh, it sucks to be you" route of not fixing this.

Though in theory, coding in reachability tests would solve a lot of the very strange placement bugs that occur every now and then.

[Thexare]

Couldn't it be fixed by preventing someone from spawning on water or bridge tiles? They still might phase into the river, but that's the inherent risk of phase devices on cave maps.

If you wanted, you could even negate that with a Cave-specific level feeling, something like "You hear flowing water..." so people know not to phase if they can't see the river.

[AStranger]

Given the probability of this occurring, I'm kinda swinging towards the "uh, it sucks to be you" route of not fixing this.

Maybe I can change your mind. If 75 out of 10,000 were disconnected that means that 9925 were connected giving us a success rate of .9925, which may sound high but over time isn't actually very good. After 10 cave levels you have a 7.3% chance of generating a bad one (1 - .9925^10), after 25 there is a 17.2% chance and after you've seen 100 caves levels there is a 53% chance that you've gotten stuck at least once. I don't know how often cave levels are generated with vertical rivers or more to the point how many games you need to play to see 100 caves with vertical rivers, but I feel that I see them often enough that this is probably worth fixing.

[thelaptop]

I don't know how often cave levels are generated with vertical rivers or more to the point how many games you need to play to see 100 caves with vertical rivers, but I feel that I see them often enough that this is probably worth fixing.

Yeah, but you missed the second part.

There are other strange reachability bugs that we have that are fixed with weird hacks.  I did recommend an accept/reject approach towards level generation, using a reachability test as a measure of acceptance of a generated level.  It can be based on a few parameters, including existence of wall-busting equipment (and how many times it has to be used) and of course the number of indestructible walls etc.

[Deathwind]

That's only how often the level will have the disconnected river, how often you actually spawn in it is again only a small percent of those levels. As rare as it is I still say the easiest answer is just to not spawn rivers in caves.

[ZZ]

The reachability test in my opinion is the best solution of this one and many other layout bugs. It is not hard to write, it will not increase the level generation time significantly (and even if it does, much people think that the longer the level generates, the better level is), and it will definitely close all reachability questions. We can even adjust it for difficulty setting, like count lava/acid as impassable terrain on ITYTD.