Amusing Bug in BG: Cannons... of DOOOM

[Earthquake Damage]

I stumbled across a bug in the current v1.1 snapshot of Exult that should prove hilarious at parties. I doubt it matters, but, for the record, I'm running Windows XP.

If you equip a character with a cannon (equip it as a two-handed weapon) and, presumably, a cannonball and powder keg (I didn't test this when there was no ammunition nearby), you become an explosive hellion.

Your weapon in combat becomes the cannon. It's very similar to a wand. You swing from a distance and a cannonball flies toward the target, usually destroying it. I actually somehow managed to eradicate a portion of the battlements in LB's castle by striking them with a cannonball.

Whoever coded the cannon forgot to ensure that it uses ammunition properly when wielded as a weapon.

Furthermore, I've noticed that any explosive weapon doesn't cause an explosion unless it strikes and NPC. Anything else simply takes damage with no explosion effect or damage radius.

I suggest you investigate this yourself as it's possible, though unlikely, that my game is simply acting up. Just fire up the game, pick up a cannon and possibly a cannonball and powder keg, wield the cannon as a weapon (seems to use both hands), and start attacking things.

[Earthquake Damage]

Adding to that bug, I have two more that have proven hilarious in recent history:

#1. Charged items such as Firedoom staves and Lightning/Fire wands never seem to run out of charge. Was this an intentional design decision (In which case I'm fine with it -- I hated the limited charge on those anyway) or did someone err or have you not yet gotten around to fixing that? I have *not* tested rings of invisibility and regeneration (which were also limited IIRC), nor have I tested torches (which I *know* were limited in duration).

#2. Britannia's guards are truly impressive. No matter where you go or how sneaky you try to be, if you attack certain NPCs the guards will come running.
Example #1: The emps. In the middle of the deep forest. No guards around. I attack an emp and BAM, here they come to save the daaay! I don't seem to recall them rescuing the imps in the original BG.
Example #2: If you, in whatever manner, lure an NPC far away from town (I found a wanderer and simply built a cage of chairs around the fellow which I slowly manipulated until he was *far* away from Britain. The beggar was my victim, Snaz or whatever he's called), the guards will still charge you from the screen's edge if you attack the poor sap. This may have been a feature of the original BG, but I don't believe it was.

As with my previous post, you ought to test these for yourselves as I neither own web space with which to post a save file for you to examine nor am I motivated enough to acquire web space to do so. I'm simply bringing to light a few amusements in the easiest manner that came to mind: presenting it in the forum.

[Dino (can't log in)]

About the cannon thing, you can equip the cannon without cannonball and powder and it'll still fire. Pretty cool.

[Darke]

That's not a bug... it's a feature!

Darke
(Grinning and ducking to avoid any cannonballs tossed his way.)

[drcode]

You can pick up a cannon? Was that possible in the original?

[Achile Dragon]

I don't think so except if you do an hackmover.

[Dino (can't log in)]

You can pick up cannons alright, though they're very heavy and require you to throw away all your stuff to carry them.

[AJ]

In the original the Avatar could easily pick up cannons after completing the FoV. Weapon of choice, baby!

[drcode]

BTW: #1 is something we never got around to implementing. I'm pretty sure the number of charges is stored in the item's 'quality' field.

#2: Same thing. I think the original checked to see where you are before calling the guards. I haven't looked into this very carefully.

[Earthquake Damage]

A few amusing responses and one informative one. Thanks all.

About the cannon in the original: You could pick it up though it was heavy. I don't recall it firing as a weapon though.

And to DrCode (or anyone else who would know):
Do you *intend* to implement charges for those items or not? I'm rather curious.

[TheBeerDoctor]

I've also found that the firedoom staff and various wands never run out of charge (I'm sure they did in the original). Also the firedoom staff and fireball traps, used to generate an explosion animation and significant damage in the original. However under exult and windows xp the staff never generates an expolsion animation and also has never done "accidental damage" to my party members (a major feature of the original BG and SI that discouraged useage of the firedoom staff). Same applies for any fireball traps (no expolsion animation and no damage to avatar or party).

[Earthquake Damage]

You're half wrong about explosions not occuring. An explosion effect never occurs unless you manage to hit an NPC with the attack. I don't know if the attack has to connect or not, it just has to be directed at an NPC.
Furthermore, explosions seem to cause sporadic collateral damage. Sometimes they hurt nearby NPCs (including the party) while at other times they do not, with no apparent rhyme or reason.
Those are my observations anyway. Your mileage may vary, so to speak.

[drcode]

Also, some of that (the explosions) changed between the 1.00 release and the current development code.

[Earthquake Damage]

What do you mean, specifically?

If you meant they worked better in the official 1.0 release, I point upward to my initial post where I mentioned that I use the current v1.1 snapshot.

If you meant something else, do explain. I'm all ears.

[drcode]

What I meant is that some explosions didn't work at all in the 1.00 release. The snapshot >should< be better.