Glitch

[Psy Guy]

Im not sure how this happened but i got about 65000 small disruptor shields for my craft (and no i didn't play the game for years). I think this happened because i transfered shields from one base to another but i some how was able to transfer a shield twice (once through the air equipment area and once through the ground equipment area). A couple of game hours later i saw that the shields at the origin base was 65000. (my stores keep saying they were full). Im not sure if anyone else has had this happen.

 

-PSY GUY-

(Never had so many shields)

[NKF]

This is a problem that occurs with unresearched alien technology that's global to both air and ground vehicles. Namely the shields.

 

It works with unresearched items, but, for me at least, the transfer counters are updated properly after the item's been researched, but not before. You only end up with 65535 items if you leave the quantity of items in storage at -1. You get less for numbers below that.

 

It's to do with value wrap around (same thing happens in really old versions of UFO with the soldier stats, only in Apocalypse it's approached from the other direction).

 

- NKF

[Psy Guy]

im not quite sure what that means but all im wondering is what happens when i research small shields? will they stay will they return to normal?

[NKF]

Oh, the quantity will stay the same all right. You just won't be able to do the bug again after you've completed research on the 'alien artefact'. But from experience, once is definitely enough.

 

- NKF

[bevan]

money is no problem after it and your craft are pretty well protected

[Strong Bob]

You know... Whenever I encountered a problem in Apocalypse it usually involved the game crashing or the screen going "Crazy-Go-Nuts" with the graphics. Why the hell won't any of the good bugs happen to me!?

[The Demi-Godly One]

You sure it only happens with unreaserched alien technology? 'Cause I've heard it happening to other objects.

[penchant]

I have had this happen with Megapol torso armour. If memory serves me correctly, it happened after I kitted out a new recruit and then shipped some armour and stuff between bases. The vital point is that, starting with just a single unit of Megapol torso armour at the base, I used it to first to equip a recruit and then, as part of my transfers, I also shipped it out to another base. Or maybe it was the other way about and I tranferred first, then equipped the recruit. Either way, after time was reactivated in the Cityscape I ended up with 65535 items in stock.

 

My guess is that you did something similar with the shield. I think you fitted it to a vessel at the base and then transferred it (the shield) to another base as well, resulting in a spurious stock-level of -1 shields.

 

The reason that you see 65535 items is to do with the way integer numbers are stored/interpreted. When doing 16-bit binary arithmetic, one way to represent a value of -1 is with a bit pattern of sixteen 1s (Hex: FFFF). When I tell you that this same "all-ones" bit pattern can also represent the decimal value 65535, I think you might see what has been going wrong. Stocks aren't supposed to go negative and when they do, the unexpected negative value gets interpreted as a very large positive one.

 

Anyway, I fixed my crazy armour surplus by stripping a torso unit from a soldier at the overloaded base. You can no doubt do the same by sending a shielded vessel to your base and removing its shields. This works by bumping the stock level "round the clock" and back to zero.