Spore Launchers—bugged or randy buggers?

[Guv’ner]

In putting together rewrites on the datalinks articles on native wildlife I was looking at the bug of wild spore launchers attacking both bred and captured spore launchers as well as wild ones: http://www.civgaming.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7738

This can also extend to your spore launchers defending adjacent territory against your own artillery bombardment: http://www.civgaming.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7528

It only just occurred to me that since spore launchers are, well, launching spores they’re engaged in something reproductive. The bedroom life of the native wildlife is happily treated discretely in the literature but if the spore launchers represent a peak of native-life fornication we could regard spore launchers as simply ruttish and territorial hence their hyper aggression.

Where there’s a will, a bug/exploit can always be explained away however I think I prefer my explanation to leaving it as a bug.

[gwillybj]

I like it the way it is. As you said, they could simply be very territorial and the uber-baddie of native life.

[Buster's Uncle]

Thinking of it as spore porn puts a whole new light on things. 

[ete]

but.. it's a bug.. these super co-ordinated telepathic attackers trying to cleanse humans are not going to be killing each other. Plus I thought they attacked other AI controlled artillery units occasionally?

[Guv’ner]

This can also extend to your spore launchers defending adjacent territory against your own artillery bombardment: http://www.civgaming.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7528

To quote myself, it seems your own spore launchers can end up in combat with your own artillery. That could be a bug, but it makes sense in terms of their general aggressiveness.

If you turn it around, when you pop a pod and it’s infested with multiple spore launchers and mind worms those combined bombardments would be quite overpowered.

As it is they are mainly a pest destroying terraforming improvements which mind worms don’t do and again that looks territorial.

I started thinking the behaviour was a bug but one that I like having in the game and would rather explain away, but the more I look it the more the behaviour makes sense.

[Yitzi]

It's definitely a bug; perhaps whoever fixes it (probably scient; Kyrub focuses on AI, and I mainly do modding, calculations, and crashes) can add an option in alphax to re-insert it if there's demand for such.

[Yitzi]

Well, I found the problem, and it's not just spore launchers.  When determining artillery "interception" (i.e. engaging in an artillery duel with a unit that bombarded a different square), it ensures that an artillery unit cannot intercept when the square being attacked is in another player's territory, and cannot be intercepted when bombarding a square in it's player's territory, but they never did anything to prevent an artillery unit from intercepting another one by the same player (including native) in neutral territory.

As of patch version 3.1, this will be fixed; interception should now only occur when the bombarding unit is owned by a different player than the intercepting one, and there is no pact, treaty, or truce between them.  (There might be rare cases where someone with a pact/treaty/truce does intercept; if it happens, post a savegame and I can probably fix it.)

[Lord Avalon]

Here is a situation where two native spore launchers landed. Sometimes one will attack the other. Using v 3.1e.

[Yitzi]

Here is a situation where two native spore launchers landed. Sometimes one will attack the other. Using v 3.1e.

Thanks, I'll take a look.

[Yitzi]

Well, it's definitely happening; I thought that the spore launchers were an aspect of the larger "friendly fire artillery" bug, but apparently not.  I'll have to investigate more to figure out what's going on, but it should be possible to find and fix the bug.  (Because it's not a bug I introduced, it'll be harder to track, so it probably won't be fixed until 3.2.)

[Nexii]

My vote is for it being a bug that should be fixed, if that counts for anything

[Yitzi]

My vote is for it being a bug that should be fixed, if that counts for anything

I think it's pretty much known that it is in fact a bug that should be fixed, so thanks but it doesn't really count.

[Yitzi]

Here is a situation where two native spore launchers landed. Sometimes one will attack the other. Using v 3.1e.

I am pleased to announce that I found the problem and managed to fix it; the fix will be available in 3.2.  (Note that there may still be some irregularities if a native unit and player-owned unit share the same square, but that shouldn't happen anyway.)