Live Captures Not Being Counted On Post-Mission Screen (Resolved)

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When I stun an alien and end the mission, it's being counted as a corpse instead of "Live Alien Recovered". I've tested in multiple saves and battlemode and it keeps happening. But I don't think it's a "bug" because I reverted to an older version of the Nighlties from March and February and it's still happening and I haven't noticed it until now. I turned off all my mods with no effect and I have no idea what I could have done to make this issue start happening all of a sudden.

Anyone have any ideas?

Save file and post-mission screen screenshot are attached. Soldier is just standing on unconscious Floater, I end the turn and that's the screen I get.

Thanks in advance.

[SupSuper]

You don't have an Alien Containment facility.

[g5-freemen]

Try your modified save
I make alien containment on your base, so everything OK

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WOW I'm a freaking idiot. It was my first time catching a live alien with my "secondary" base team and of course when I re-loaded saves with that team or battlemode I also didn't have an alien containment. Here I am re-tracing my ruleset changes, moving files around, and re-installing older versions of the nightlies and it was something that dumb.

Thanks for the help. I was driving myself crazy trying to figure out what I broke.


PS - I think what really threw me off was in OXC 1.0 (which is what I played until a month or so ago) if you stunned an alien it counted as "Live Capture" on the post-op screen even if you didn't have alien containment. So that really made it look like I did something wrong with the Nightlies.

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Actually, I just looked and the original vanilla game did give you points for live alien capture even if it died because you didn't have an alien containment. Out of curiousity was this one of the many bugs in the original or a decision to change in OXC?

[Arthanor]

Don't you also get a "alien has to be put down because of no holding capacity"? That should be a pretty obvious hint?

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Yes I did get that screen, but it was the point screen that was confusing me. I knew I couldn't actually bring the live alien back to my base, but the fact that it was being counted as a corpse rather than a "live alien" capture in the point totals was different than what OXC 1.0 did or what the original game did.

In OXC 1.0 (which is what I've played most) and vanilla it would still say 1 live alien captured (20-points or whatever).

I didn't put two and two together and realize in this case the post-op screen was awarding points differently because I didn't have an alien containment. I thought it just wasn't recognizing that I stunned an alien at all. It seems obvious now, and probably should have been to me, but I was used to the previous way and I've been tinkering with rulesets so much I really thought I just screwed something up.

[yrizoud]

I remember the message "Alien dies as there is no containment facility" from vanilla game.
The message is still present in the openxcom files (STR_ALIEN_DIES_NO_ALIEN_CONTAINMENT_FACILITY), is it ever displayed ?

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yrizoud, yup, that message is still there. That's what I meant by this:

Yes I did get that screen ... I knew I couldn't actually bring the live alien back to my base

It was just the UFO recovery points screen I thought was wrong as I didn't realize it had changed so you need alien containment to get points for stunning. I was looking for it to say:

Live Aliens Recovered Recovered ... 1 ... 24 points ----> "Alien Dies Because No Containment" (OXC 1.0 / Vanilla)

But now if you don't have an alien containment, it goes:

Alien Corpses Recovered ... 1 ... 12 points ----> "Alien Dies Because No Containment" (Latest Nightly)


All good, I understand now. I really just originally thought it wasn't recognizing that I stunned an alien. Had I tested with my base with alien containment, I would have realized what was going on.

[Warboy1982]

https://youtu.be/GUCKLA3tnJ4?t=2031

[g5-freemen]

https://youtu.be/GUCKLA3tnJ4?t=2031

Display filter looks not very good, not as in original game

[SupSuper]

I've fixed the message so it shows up before the debriefing, like in the original.
Don't know if it should be applied to New Battle mode though...

[Countdown]

https://youtu.be/GUCKLA3tnJ4?t=2031

Interesting. To counter that, here is this short 1min video I did with the original game in DOSBOX (game files from GOG): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIjBRZ5WlX4&feature=youtu.be (sorry, no recording software so just used my phone).

You can see, that in the first clip even though I don't have alien containment, I get credit for a 1 live alien recovered after stunning a sectoid (even though I stunned 2). HOWEVER, in the second clip, I do the same to a floater and credited for recovering a corpse (like the video you show above) (although I got no points for that).

So I guess when I asked, "Was this one of the many bugs in the original or a decision to change in OXC?" the answer was "bug in the original" ... or at the very least an inconsistency in the original. I didn't do enough tests to establish if there was a pattern. It's not mentioned in the known bugs wiki page, so maybe we found a new 1994 XCOM bug. 

I've fixed the message so it shows up before the debriefing, like in the original.
Don't know if it should be applied to New Battle mode though...

Just to clarify, I wasn't pushing for any kind of change or anything with my follow up questions. I was just curious about the point distribution differences I was observing (from vanilla to 1.0 to the Nightlies). I think the conclusion is that it was a bug in the original that carried to 1.0 and was corrected in the Nightlies. As far as the message placement, not a big deal either way, but I agree with your update as it makes more sense to tell you the live alien died and then give you 10 points for a corpse rather than give you 10 points for a corpse and then tell you the alien died.


PS - After playing OXC, even doing a few tests in the vanilla game was infuriating. Just the number of extra clicks you have to do (plus not being able to click a UFO to intercept it, etc) was driving me nuts. Makes me appreciate OXC all that much more.