Disappearing Heavy Ammo has plagued Destiny players since the game first launched on PlayStation and Xbox consoles last September. It’s been a constant source of complaint for the game’s community, but it appears that Bungie may have found the cause and the solution, according to a new weekly update released Thursday. They even took a second to talk about Vault space, too.
The Heavy Ammo bug primarily occurs when Destiny players equip a piece of armor that boosts the amount of ammo they can carry for that particular weapon type. Unfortunately, something occurs when players die, go to orbit, or run through a cutscene that causes them to lose ammo they may have had. Since this ammo type is expensive and critical for taking on Destiny ‘s hardest challenges, it is understandable why players are upset at constantly encountering it.
This Bungie Weekly Update is heavy. https://t.co/8lofM5V9p5 pic.twitter.com/D1YpjuwKP5
— Bungie (@Bungie) January 29, 2015
Bungie Sandbox Engineer Jon Cable hunted down the bug and took the time to explain its cause.
“The basic flaw here is an ordering problem. Our inventory system creates your weapons when your characters spawn. When that happens, it tries to restore the same fraction of ammo that you had when you died. The bug occurred because the weapon is created before capacity modifiers from armor perks are applied, so the persisted fraction yields fewer rounds.”
The problem with this bug for the developers is that it “was at the intersection of a lot of different systems – player profiles, investment, sandbox, perks, and weapon management.” Bungie treads carefully because of this, since the last thing they want to do is make things worse in a game that already has millions of players. Plus, directly addressing the problem with the Heavy Ammo perk turned out to be large scope.
“There are a lot of weapon and armor perks in the game. Changing the order of how they are applied has a huge impact. It would have required a large restructuring of the way the game works to even accomplish this, because the armor perks can’t take effect until the weapon is created anyway. The application of armor perks would have to be inserted in between weapon creation and the rest of the weapon setup code.”
Cable eventually found a fix after “several tries” that “did not cause other problems.” Bungie is currently targeting to release this bug by the end of February, but it sounds like they have much more testing to go through first. “I cannot overstate the complexity of these systems,” Cable stated.
Another common complaint about the Destiny community is the Vault space, too. Players are short on space and it’s not surprising to find that some create extra a character or two just so they can carry armor and weapons for their main character.
The Vault space in Destiny is apparently not an easy fix, either. Community Manager David “Deej” Dague addressed player concerns in the comment section of the weekly update.
“Before anyone asks: We know you want more room in your Vaults for your favorite weapons. We know how much you want it. We want that for you. It’s a think we’re talking about. New game features take time to build. Hang in there, and hope for the future.”
So, there’s a light at the end of one tunnel, but Destiny players will still have to wait a while before they see the light in another.