Men in Black | Cover Alien | Gazer Alien | WIP new thing

[robin]

I'm testing the campaign and...

..maybe the groundtimer for ufos can't be set too high. The game sometime crashes, and I think the culprit is the groundtimer with the insane number; the other long groundtimer, which is 86400 (24 hours) gets "cut": the ufo appears on the ground the disappear (without flying away) and not even 1 hour passed.
I think I was actually totally wrong on that.

..But still the game now crashes during the campaign. And I haven't got a single special mission, so I guess the problem is related to these new special missions. I fear it's their groundtimer or their ufo trajectories.
So, I'm sorry but the current version is broken for the campaign.

[Mr. Quiet]

I see. I haven't seen any either. Please fix it Robin plzzz when you have time. Should I start a new game? or nothing else is affected?

[Iapetus]

I was looking at the rulesets and it appears that the MiBs don't use the sniper rifle/machine pistol even if they are enabled? I could be totally wrong though. 

Keep up the great work I'm really liking this mod. 

[robin]

I was looking at the rulesets and it appears that the MiBs don't use the sniper rifle/machine pistol even if they are enabled? I could be totally wrong though. 

Keep up the great work I'm really liking this mod. 

You're right, new weapons are only for you now, MiB don't use them anymore. This is because maintaining two deployment lists while you're still working on the ruleset, is just annoying.
When everything will be settled and done, then maybe (maybe!) I'll add the extra deployment list with the new weapons (at least I'd like the MiB agents to use sniper rifles in terror missions).

[robin]

Nope, can't get the new special missions (MiB terror and MiB base) to work as I intended: with the ufo spawning directly on the ground, and staying there for either 12 hours (MiB terror) or 20 years (MiB base).
Playing the campaign I don't get any “fixed” ufos, until the game suddenly closes up (my guess is that this happens as the firts of these special mission is generated, but I really don't know).

Both missions work in Quick Battle, so there shouldn't be any problem with the battlescape part itself. Although the MiB terror doesn't use the URBAN terrain as listed in the “alienDeployments:” section, instead it still usese the geoscape terrain (it is normal for this to happen though).

To make the ufo spawns grounded and stay down, I created new ufo trajectories with groundtimer set to 36000 (= 10 hours, for MiB terror) and 630720000 (= 20 years, for MiB base) and with a single waypoint [1, 0, 0].
These trajectories are, I think, the culprit for the crashing campaign. Are perhaps the standard initial [5, 4, 100] and  final [5, 0, 100] waypoints, mandatory for some reason (serving as entering and exiting “door” for the ufo)? The game doesn't seems to crash anymore with those added in, but no ufo stays on the ground more than 1 hour.. is there perhaps a hardcoded "move-to-next-waypoint" timer, that forcibly cuts the groundtimer when it's time for the ufo to move on?
Also: what are the “globe zones” in the waypoints, I mean: what stands for "0" or "5"?

Down there I've attached the ruleset as it is right now.

If anyone could give me some hints. Maybe what I'm trying to do is just impossible.

[Solarius Scorch]

Dioxine tried to make his own trajectory as well, and it also crashed the game when it tried to spawn this particular UFO. Some info on this matter would be priceless.

[robin]

By the way, is there a log that can give me some info about the crashes\errors?
Getting "Where's my memory, Lebowski?" is hilarious but not exactly helpful

[Warboy1982]

a trajectory must have AT LEAST 2 entries in it, the first is where the UFO appears, the second is where it moves to, these are BOTH used when the ufo is spawned.
when it reaches the waypoint, it sets the next entry as its destination, if the next waypoint says altitude 0, it will land immediately and start counting down, then lift off and move towards the waypoint. it repeats this until it reaches the last waypoiny, and then it disappears.

so you need at least 2 waypoints, the first one can be at 0 altitude and it will spawn on land and not fly anywhere until the 20 year timer is up.

edit: that last bit is true as of this commit

[robin]

Thanks.
So..

Code: [Select]

ufoTrajectories:
  - id: F1
    groundTimer: 630720000
    waypoints:
      - [1, 0 , 0]
      - [1, 0 , 0]
this will spawn an ufo right away on the ground for 20 years.. right?

And what does the "1" stands for (I mean this --> [1, 0, 0] )? Arctic?
I've found this: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=ZONAL.DAT
but it doesn't seem the same numeration frankly, since the numeration in trajectories has "5" as the highest value used.

[Warboy1982]

there are mission zones defined in the regions in the ruleset, the number there corresponds to which set of zones to use. in order to SEE the zones, enable debug in your config and hit ctrl+D in geoscape a few times. the  first set of boxes will be regional borders, the second set is country borders, and the third set is mission zone borders.

if you want to see the boxes for one region at a time, i can only suggest temporarily removing them from the ruleset, this is a debugging feature, not a common use feature, it's not going to be user friendly, it's ME friendly.

here's a small key for reference:

0: pink
1: orange
2: white
3: green
4: aqua
5: yellow

[SupSuper]

By the way, is there a log that can give me some info about the crashes\errors?
Getting "Where's my memory, Lebowski?" is hilarious but not exactly helpful

There is an "openxcom.log" in your User folder, but by definition errors are exceptional and not something we can just make "human-readable" easily, or our job would be much simpler.

[Solarius Scorch]

Not really on topic, but regarding the trajectories:
Can you have one that has no landing point? The UFO just appearing, flying some and then disappearing?

[Dioxine]

Dioxine tried to make his own trajectory as well, and it also crashed the game when it tried to spawn this particular UFO. Some info on this matter would be priceless.

Oh yeah, no big deal making a trajectory, it just bombed out when UFO tried to land because I set landing timer to 0 (I didn't want that particular UFO to land, just kinda zip around the place, since it has powerful guns but a tiny crew). Setting it to 5 "solved" the problem. The error message said something about THOU SHALL NOT USE TIME UNITS SMALLER THAN 5 SECONDS

[Warboy1982]

P0 and P8 never touch the ground

[robin]

Ufopaedia graphics for cover alien mod is done. So it reaches finally 1.0 status. Ooopss, still the bigobs to do!

Should work since I didn't touch anything other than powering up the Injectrod (still not sold on the name, maybe cybermite is better) melee damage.

Download at first post.