I strongly suspect it has something to do with the way they transform objects when they change states the object is in.
There seem to be a number of bugs along those lines, which seem to have to do with corrupting memory or linking and unlinking the objects incorrectly.
Ive done a fair amount of game programming (and research robotics when I actually had to get back to what they paid me for....) and seen this sort of thing a lot, and in a lot of other games since then too.
I found a lot of these when I was experimenting with what objects could be used on each other. I have the latest patch install BTW.
For example check out what happens when you pick up a number of items that group together, such as straw or barrels, then drop them.
If you open the straw it becomes a single item no matter how many were in the original group. It is also interesting that if you open a straw bundle, then reclose it, you will get the horizontal bundle only no matter what orientation the original straw bundle had.
If you smash the grouped barrels you will have 1 smashed barrel only.
It seems to lose track of state and number along the way and based on what I see I expect that they are doing a transform of one item into another, actually making a new object and freeing up the old one in most cases.
You see something similar if you use a stack of empty bottles on an herb. It uses them all instead of just one. Quite a hassle if you dont catch it and prevent it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/alien.gif" alt="" />
Another related bug is that you can throw an object clear across the map if you do it right. This seems to have some nasty side effects though, which is to be expected when you hit bugs, and especially those that might trigger issues with memory area subcells and object linked lists, which again I have to expect they are using as that is the best approach overall for such things.
I threw a filled barrel of all sorts of stuff all the way from where you blow up the supply wagon to the area behind the blue boar inn in a single throw. It took a while to go there and land but it got there intact, even though it weighed something like 60 thousand weight units and went over top of various buildings and structures. One odd side note, it made a beep when it landed, like some sort of error sound and since then my crossbow bounces my own poison bolts back in my face..... A really bad side effect which is probably corrupted memory overflowing into either the bow skills or some related area. It happens even if I change to a different crossbow.
Kind of a game killer at that point, and it may be from something else and I only think this was the cause.... cant say without the code to debug first hand.
Let me know if you know of a work around, other than no crossbow for the rest of the game.
I recently got the game as something I had heard was a sleeper game here in the US and it is a really nice effort so I hope that finding bugs like this is still useful to Larian and others as code from one version often ends up in later games and versions. A patch would not be a bad thing to see either.....
Well, happy hunting.
