If I give the player's mob maptext as part of the mob definition and not at run time (which to be clear is something I only did for testing purposes), then when entering an area, certain other areas will appear to be rendered as the area I am in. Curiously, this can change if I'm also standing on turfs that have a partially masked icon that allow the area to show through while not happening when I'm on a turf that has no icon, so it might have to do with the number of different layers being drawn?
Numbered Steps to Reproduce Problem:
I made a quick and dirty test environment to try to replicate this, adjusting one thing about the code and environment at a time. What specifically triggers is it when I set maptext size and apply maptext in the mob's definition, then run the game and move from one area to another. It does not happen if I am not assigning values to the maptext size variables and maptext.
Code Snippet (if applicable) to Reproduce Problem:
mob
maptext_height = 32
maptext_width = 96
maptext_x = -32
maptext = "Alexandra"
and define a few different areas, giving each one a different colored icon.
Expected Results:
Areas render consistently whether you're in them or not.
Actual Results:
Areas render inconsistently depending on your location.
Does the problem occur:
Every time? Or how often? Every time with the same combination of areas in this project. Generally, things will remain normal when I'm in the area the mob is placed into in the default Login() proc and get hinky when crossing over to another one (I tested this by painting the southwestern corner of the map different areas) but hinkiness increases when traversing turfs that render partially covering the area in their tile.
In other games? Yes.
In other user accounts? Yes.
On other computers? I am not currently able to test on other machines.
When does the problem NOT occur?
When I set maptext as part of the Login() proc or otherwise, as I will actually do in the production version of this. This is just a weird thing that breaks the renderer and while it will not impede me going forward I thought it might be information worth having.
I cannot prove a correlation but this may or may not be related to this bug report which has to do with areas being inconsistently rendered, in which case the visibility/invisibility may be a red herring.
Did the problem NOT occur in any earlier versions? If so, what was the last version that worked? (Visit http://www.byond.com/download/build to download old versions for testing.)
it is not present in 510 or 511. It is present in 512 and the 513 beta.
Workarounds:
Setting maptext at runtime like a normal human being works fine. This is not holding me back in any way. Zero priority bugfix for me, weird corner case for you to know about.
When I did this I saw no problems, so I increased the map from a 10x10 to a 20x20 and still no change.
Do you have a copy of that test project you made that I can look at? I feel I'm missing something fundamental.