bugfix(specialpower): Fix Special Power ready state during construction

[xezon]

• Follow up for [ZH] Fix game crash in MissileLauncherBuildingUpdate::initiateIntentToDoSpecialPower() #1218
• Closes bugfix(specialpower): Fix availability of building based special powers #1444

This change is an alternative to #1444 and attempts to fix the Special Power ready state during construction. To do that, it postpones the Special Power initialization until the construction is signaled done.

TODO

• Have Mauller test this
• Replicate in Generals

[xezon]

I tested this on local player and AI Player and Special Powers worked correctly.

@Mauller please check if this solves all the issues that you have seen.

[Skyaero42]

shouldn't this be m_availableOnFrame = TheGameLogic->getFrame(); ?

[xezon]

It has been a long time and I do not remember if this was intentional. I tend to believe it was intentionally 0. We can try TheGameLogic->getFrame() and see if that works.

[Mauller]

using zero or the current frame at this point should work either way, when init is called it will call initCountdown(); which will set m_availableOnFrame into the future where it needs to be for the countdown to work.

[Mauller]

The main thing to prevent the bugged behaviour is making sure that the m_availableOnFrame is set into the far future while a building is still under construciton or a unit is not ready yet etc.

This then prevents the exploit that can crash the game.

[xezon]

Would it not be enough to just return false with initiateIntentToDoSpecialPower?

[Skyaero42]

It crashes the game for me (RETAIL_COMPATIBLE_CRC = 0

[xezon]

Well that is not good. What do you do?

[Skyaero42]

So I build 1 complete nuke and 1 scaffold nuke, group them in the same team. Then use a hotkey (like F).

• In retail it then shows the red nuke outline. When pressing left button, nothing happens
• In non-retail, it also shows the red nuke outline. When pressing the left button, the game crashes.

So what I have been doing is not exactly the exploit, but something is still not right

[xezon]

I do not understand how you are doing this. I cannot add 2 buildings to the same team.

I have made additional changes that hopefully fix it while keeping retail compatibility.

[Skyaero42]

It doesn't crash anymore, but now I can launch a nuke from a scaffold.

To be able to group buildings, you need to comment out line 1200 and 1217 in SelectionXlat.cpp, as grouping of buildings is not allowed since #1347. - And yes, that does make it a lot harder to crash/exploit the game with the bug(s) that this PR is trying to resolve.

Alternatively, here is a replay with pre-grouped buildings. Press 1, click on the fire nuke icon (even when it is not finished) and fire the nuke from scaffold.

00000077.zip

[xezon]

I am unable to shoot the missile when 2 silos are selected.

I tested with
RETAIL_COMPATIBLE_BUG 0
RETAIL_COMPATIBLE_CRC 0
RETAIL_COMPATIBLE_XFER_SAVE 0

I need a video or step by step guide.

[xezon]

I have applied more changes, but have lost track of what is going on with RETAIL_COMPATIBLE_CRC.

Things look ok with RETAIL_COMPATIBLE_CRC 0, but I could be wrong.

Code is very messy as usual, which makes it cumbersome.

[Skyaero42]

With retail compatibility on and off, I can still do this:

2025-11-08.19-36-48.mp4

You cannot manually group buildings as we fixed that bug. However with cheat engines there are still ways around it, or just disable the code that prevents it. To help out, I already created a replay that has the buildings grouped.

Steps:

1. Download this replay: https://github.com/user-attachments/files/22874036/00000077.zip
2. Press 1 to select the scaffold and build nuke together
3. click the fire nuke icon (it is not ready, you can click it anyways)
   (in the video at around 0:15 there is an assert firing, hence the freeze)
   4 click anywhere.

[xezon]

I cannot reproduce this bug. When pressing 1, the Control Bar does not show this button.

I also tested with Control Bar Pro 1.2. Can you reproduce it with unmodified game data?

[xezon]

Rebased on main.

[Skyaero42]

I cannot reproduce this bug. When pressing 1, the Control Bar does not show this button.

I also tested with Control Bar Pro 1.2. Can you reproduce it with unmodified game data?

I've reinstalled the game from Steam, removed all the Genpatcher stuff and I can still do what I showed in the video.
May investigate later on my end figuring out whats going on.

[xezon]

Ok I wonder where this behavior difference comes from.