Following the general trend of this week, we have just released another patch for the game.
It’s nothing major, but we have fixed two identified bugs, and one that we suspect is there but hasn’t reared its ugly head yet.
A quick summary of the issues:
Fixed the duplication of units when removing the OccupyLand and LeaveLand actions after they have been completed. Thanks @kobus-v-schoor for reporting this bug!
Fixed the root of the occasional null pointer reference when occupying land (thanks @kobus-v-schoor for identifying the cause)
Added some extra validation when adding buildings:
ensuring that the building is placed in the bot’s territory
ensuring that available nodes can’t be reused accidentally
When distributing resource node space, actions that have their units set to zero are removed. Included a log for this.
@kobus-v-schoor Let us know if the fix for the null pointer reference is all good
Sorry we don’t have any bigger news. I’m sure a lot of you wouldn’t mind another extension
With less than a week remaining, it’s probably getting pretty intense! Let us know how you’re feeling in the comments!
Once again, thanks for all the feedback so far! It’s been really helpful (as you can see by the frequency at which we are releasing patches!)
Thanks for the new release! A change made in 2022.3.6 is currently stopping me from running the engine though, not sure if anyone else is experiencing the same issue?
Looks to me like the if (!bot.Territory.Contains(building.Position)) return; check added in AddBuilding fails when initially setting up the game when adding the base, because the bot doesn’t have any territory registered yet (since it doesn’t have a base yet).
I have a random question, I haven’t tested it yet, When your population starts going down because the resources are finished, does the units stationed at nodes get less or will they magically just live there in a new free country?
What I’ve seen is, once your population starts declining your available units are also decremented by the same amount. Once your population sinks below your currently allocated units your available units just starts going negative So while you technically have the units allocated, since your available units are negative you won’t be able to send a unit to leave the nodes so your bot will become stuck, unable to perform any actions.
At least anybody can use this as advantage or as a burden, so the playing field is still even. But negative available will cause food to drop causing a score decrease so guess it should be ok
Imagine your units get to a node and before they can apply pressure they need to first burry all the dead units that didn’t get food and was forgotten about
I ran into two different errors after attempting to claim land with the latest release (2022.3.7, but with a patch to get the runner to start), I’ll see what I can find out about the triggers:
[ERROR] [Core]: Failed to run GameRunLoop with error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
[DEBUG] [Core]: at Engine.Services.TerritoryService.CreateNewLand(BotObject bot, Position position) in /home/runner/work/2022-Arctica/2022-Arctica/game-engine/Engine/Services/TerritoryService.cs:line 138
at Engine.Services.TerritoryService.<>c__DisplayClass15_0.<AddBuildingTerritory>b__0(Position position) in /home/runner/work/2022-Arctica/2022-Arctica/game-engine/Engine/Services/TerritoryService.cs:line 118
at System.Collections.Generic.List`1.ForEach(Action`1 action)
at Engine.Handlers.Actions.BuildActionHandler.ProcessActionComplete(Node node, List`1 playerActions) in /home/runner/work/2022-Arctica/2022-Arctica/game-engine/Engine/Handlers/Actions/BuildActionHandler.cs:line 93
at Engine.Services.EngineService.SimulateTickForBots(IList`1 bots) in /home/runner/work/2022-Arctica/2022-Arctica/game-engine/Engine/Services/EngineService.cs:line 438
at Engine.Services.EngineService.ProcessGameTick() in /home/runner/work/2022-Arctica/2022-Arctica/game-engine/Engine/Services/EngineService.cs:line 193
at Engine.Services.EngineService.GameRunLoop() in /home/runner/work/2022-Arctica/2022-Arctica/game-engine/Engine/Services/EngineService.cs:line 83
at Engine.Services.SignalRService.<Startup>b__8_1(Task task) in /home/runner/work/2022-Arctica/2022-Arctica/game-engine/Engine/Services/SignalRService.cs:line 122
[ERROR] [Shutdown]: Shutting down due to a critical error
[INFO] [ActionService]: Invalid action received
[ERROR] [Core]: Failed to run GameRunLoop with error: Destination array was not long enough. Check the destination index, length, and the array's lower bounds. (Parameter 'destinationArray')
[DEBUG] [Core]: at System.Array.Copy(Array sourceArray, Int32 sourceIndex, Array destinationArray, Int32 destinationIndex, Int32 length, Boolean reliable)
at System.Collections.Generic.List`1..ctor(IEnumerable`1 collection)
at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToList[TSource](IEnumerable`1 source)
at Domain.Models.BotObject.GetNewActions() in /home/runner/work/2022-Arctica/2022-Arctica/game-engine/Domain/Models/BotObject.cs:line 129
at System.Linq.Enumerable.SelectManySingleSelectorIterator`2.MoveNext()
at System.Linq.Enumerable.WhereEnumerableIterator`1.MoveNext()
at System.Linq.Lookup`2.Create(IEnumerable`1 source, Func`2 keySelector, IEqualityComparer`1 comparer)
at System.Linq.GroupedEnumerable`2.GetEnumerator()
at System.Linq.Enumerable.SelectEnumerableIterator`2.MoveNext()
at Engine.Services.EngineService.DistributeHarvestingActionSlots(IList`1 bots) in /home/runner/work/2022-Arctica/2022-Arctica/game-engine/Engine/Services/EngineService.cs:line 224
at Engine.Services.EngineService.ProcessGameTick() in /home/runner/work/2022-Arctica/2022-Arctica/game-engine/Engine/Services/EngineService.cs:line 192
at Engine.Services.EngineService.GameRunLoop() in /home/runner/work/2022-Arctica/2022-Arctica/game-engine/Engine/Services/EngineService.cs:line 83
at Engine.Services.SignalRService.<Startup>b__8_1(Task task) in /home/runner/work/2022-Arctica/2022-Arctica/game-engine/Engine/Services/SignalRService.cs:line 122
[ERROR] [Shutdown]: Shutting down due to a critical error
Failed to run GameRunLoop with error: Destination array was not long enough....
I think this is a race condition, PendingActions (the variable on which ToList() is being called and which throws the error), is locked in GetNewActions, but in AddAction in the Bot object where it is modified it is not being locked, so it could lead to a race condition where a new action is being added (I’m guessing async) while the PendingActions list is being copied, leading to the copy failing.
Unfortunately since it’s (possibly) a race condition the error is hard to reproduce and I can’t confirm whether that is indeed the case
@kobus-v-schoor
Yeah, this is what I was thinking as well. I’m pretty sure it’s only the PendingActions variable that has this issue, not the Actions one, but I’ve added locks onto the main areas where both of them get accessed to make sure.
If it is a race condition, then it’s been around for a while and has probably come up before but gone mostly unnoticed.
I think it’s the same as that other bug where the return was “triggering” the exception, but the issue was actually a few lines up - I think dotnet is doing some weird optimization, which causes the null ptr exception only to trigger when the function returns. I think containedNode might be null again (similar to the bug where I was attempting to claim a scout tower position IIRC). I haven’t been able to trigger it again unfortunately, once I get it to trigger consistently I’ll try to do some debugging
I got the same exception ( Failed to run GameRunLoop with error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.) in 2022.3.5 when adding a building. First three lines of the stack trace basically identical @Jordan
So while you technically have the units allocated, since your available units are negative you won’t be able to send a unit to leave the nodes so your bot will become stuck, unable to perform any actions.