Stupid event. I think.

[4I Falcon]

OK, occasionally, when I'm playing a battle level (come to think of it, ANY kind of level) over the net, and I try to fire a seeker at someone, it flies the wrong way, hovers in a particular spot for a few seconds, then explodes. It's like it's found something that isn't there. It's been very annoying, since I've died more than exactly six times because my seekers decided that the air behind me was a better target than the rabbit in front of me. (Did I mention that the "seeker magnet" takes a higher priority than enemy rabbits?) It doesn't matter if the missiles are powered-up or not. And the seeker magnets seem to stay in one place during the entire game.

Could someone please enlighten me as to why my seekers seem to think it more important to float in one spot for no apparent reason than to accomplish their actual purpose and destroy the enemy?

[Iam Canadian]

I've experienced that, and the only cause I can think of is lag. A seeker magnet event would be useful to hinder seeker-happy n00bs.}>

[Link]

Oh those are awful. I think it is just releated to lag.

[Violet CLM]

I think they appear in the spot where someone left the server while seekers were being fired at them.

[KJAZZ]

This is annoying...:o

[Trafton AT]

It's very annoying, and oddly common. There's no solution but switching ammo or getting away from that spot. Rejoining works, but it won't come to that (I hope.)

[Bobby aka Dizzy]

Seeker "holes" as I call them, are related to former players that jazz2 basically does not unregister. Lets say that Bob hosts a server and Jane joins becoming player 2. After that, Eve who is player 3 joins the game as well, but she becomes bored quickly and leaves at the respawn position.

Now, both the server and all of the other clients have a seeker hole at the position where Eve (player3) left. Let's say that Jane who was player 2 rejoined the game (closing jj2 down first) she would no longer have a seeker hole at the player3 position, <b>but since the server does, her seekers will still go there even if she does not see them. This means that she can be firing missles that she sees hit people, but are really going into a seeker hole</b>.

Now, since this is both a client and a serverside problem, there is no easy solution to it.

[Super Saiyan]

Would restarting a server work? Without restarting jj2.

[Trafton AT]

Restarting the server, or even cycling or restarting the level, should fix this problem.

[Bobby aka Dizzy]

Wrong. The only way to fix this is basically for the server to CLOSE DOWN JJ2 and open a new copy of the program. Restarting the server or looping the level does not fix it.

[4I Falcon]

i hate bugs, tralalalala... *pulls out flyswatter*

[Iam Canadian]

This game has more bugs in it than a rotting corpse! :p

[DoubleGJ]

THis bug bugs me too, so I learned to use various weapons instead of seekers. Well, nothing is perfect...

[Cpp]

This basically happens because the server doesn't restart the pos of a player that left the server. So seekers still think there is actually a rabbit standing over there. That's why they home to that pos and start floating. I get annoyed by these as well. I think the solution to this could be a program that automatically sets pos to 0, 0 after a player leaves.

[Bobby aka Dizzy]

A program could be made, but to stop clients from seeing the holes it would also have to be run by clients as well as servers.

[Trafton AT]

Originally posted by Bobby aka Dizzy
A program could be made, but to stop clients from seeing the holes it would also have to be run by clients as well as servers.

If the new players who enter the server after the seeker hole is created are affected by it, then I suppose a server-ran program to eliminate the "seeker magnet" would also stop the seeker magnet from effecting players that join the server after it was created. However, if it doesn't, that's good. If there was a program to be created, I would assume that it would have to be ran by the clients or just the server running it would work. I'm not completely sure about this, but the clients of a server seem to take almost every setting from the server. Wouldn't this include seeker magnets? If so, a program just running on the server could eliminate that, right?

Correct me if I'm wrong, which I likely am. This isn't an area I have much knowledge of at all.

[4I Falcon]

Originally posted by Overlord
I think the solution to this could be a program that automatically sets pos to 0, 0 after a player leaves.

But then there would be a mass seeker hole at 0, 0. That wouldn't be good.

[Trafton AT]

Originally posted by 4I Falcon
But then there would be a mass seeker hole at 0, 0. That wouldn't be good.

Well, it depends on the level you're running and how far away you can get from the hole. If it was possible to set a seeker hole to a negative POS (like -20,-20) then I dobut the seeker hole would ever get into the way. But if you can't set it to negatives, 0,0 would be good enough in most situations.

[Bobby aka Dizzy]

Originally posted by Trafton AT
If the new players who enter the server after the seeker hole is created are affected by it, then I suppose a server-ran program to eliminate the "seeker magnet" would also stop the seeker magnet from effecting players that join the server after it was created. However, if it doesn't, that's good. If there was a program to be created, I would assume that it would have to be ran by the clients or just the server running it would work. I'm not completely sure about this, but the clients of a server seem to take almost every setting from the server. Wouldn't this include seeker magnets? If so, a program just running on the server could eliminate that, right?

Correct me if I'm wrong, which I likely am. This isn't an area I have much knowledge of at all.

Players who enter the server are not affected by the seeker holes already there, not knowingly at least.

Also, clients take many values from the server, but why would clients take the positions of the clients after they have left? JJ2 only has the server send packets that tell clients where old clients moved to if they are actually in the server. A program would have to be run by the server first which would eliminate all seeker holes from the server, then clients would have to remove their own seeker holes so they do not see fake ones.

[Cpp]

True.
I added this bug to my buxfix list I'm planning to make for Jazz 2 Mutation.
The program will not be finished too soon because it is a massive one so I recommend someone else to make a temporary mini-program to get rid of this bug meanwhile J2M construction is in progress.

[DoubleGJ]

Thanks Mr. Egghead aka Overlord! :D

[Taz]

It will happen fi someone LEAVES a laggy server on that place. It's very irritating, yesh.. :o

[Trafton AT]

Originally posted by Bobby aka Dizzy
Players who enter the server are not affected by the seeker holes already there, not knowingly at least.

Also, clients take many values from the server, but why would clients take the positions of the clients after they have left? JJ2 only has the server send packets that tell clients where old clients moved to if they are actually in the server. A program would have to be run by the server first which would eliminate all seeker holes from the server, then clients would have to remove their own seeker holes so they do not see fake ones.

I mentioned that because if this was a server-inherited trait, I would think that just running a program on the server would work, but I was wrong. ;)

Really, it's getting that there are so many programs running whenever I play Jazz Jackrabbit 2 that instead of improved gameplay, I'm getting single-digit frame rates and my computer crashes often. I didn't hear of this "J2M" project before, but I definitely like the idea. It'll be great to have one program instead of many taking up my RAM. Good luck, Overlord. :)