Hardmode Expansion - Bugreports

[hellrazor]

That'll would help a little, thank you.

But yes, there is no guarantee that you never face the situation when a cowardly muton is sitting inside UFO and never pokes his nose out of it, so you'll have to accept defeat and escape.

There should be some graph-testing algorithm like Dijkstra's which would test if path graph is connected. Or at least if UFO and craft are located in the same connected component.

I will optimize it a little bit this evening, once I am home, the number of blocks with water will vary a little bit more, but still will stay within a somewhat safe amount.
The map will not be totally 100% random as in vanilla, since the number of the mapblocks will be limited, but thats the only way.

You can suggest such a algorythm to SupSuper or Warboy1982, which are both the lead developers, they will certainly have a open ear for this.

[Meridian]

FWIW, I don't think any of this is necessary.

Possibility that a hostile unit is completely stuck is VERY small.
And aborting a mission is easy as well.

Not being able to cross a part of the map actually adds some refreshing new tactical aspect and I would miss it if it was completely removed.

[hellrazor]

FWIW, I don't think any of this is necessary.

Possibility that a hostile unit is completely stuck is VERY small.
And aborting a mission is easy as well.

Not being able to cross a part of the map actually adds some refreshing new tactical aspect and I would miss it if it was completely removed.

Well lets say, it can not be completely prevented. There are 3 10x10 Mapblocks, one with accessible Path SN, one with accessible Path EW and the last one is not passable at all (except flying units of course).
My goal is basically to limit the amount of these blocks being spawned to a certain degree, 40x40 mapsize have a maximum of 4 to 7. This reduces the likelyhood of having this blocked path. It will not prevent it for 100%, since you can still have several configurations in which the map is generated with the blocked path, especially if the 20x20 mapblock also spawns.
The vanilla script offers no control of the amount blocks, so of course depending on how many of them will spawn, the likelyhood of the blocked paths is higher.
I just want to reduce the occurrance, not remove it completely (thats not possible without a pathing check while generating the map).

I will use the mapsize check to add some more block variety towards other mapscripts, like DESERTMOUNTAIN, just playing around with the block occurancy of 20x20 map blocks.
So you can have cases were a 40x40 map not only consists of 3 20x20 mapblocks and the UFO, but also allows for other combinations, at equal executionchance.

[hellrazor]

I have made a good compromise i think, still having enough variety, but still limiting the inaccessible a little bit.
See: https://github.com/hellrazor4223/hardmode-expansion/commit/61f2527958c538e725ed019c7d1e3152e6d8a673

Goes automatically into the next version

[Constantine]

Can walk over Alien Reproduction on the Alien Base.

[Constantine]

Skyranger is sent to a mission. At that time an Alien Ship destroys Skyranger's base. Skyranger (with all soldiers and HWPs) just dies. As if aliens after taking over the base sent self-annihilation signal to the Skyranger craft.

I think there must be possiblity to let user decide which base should Skyranger be reassigned to. And if there is only one base left, there should be just message like "Skyranger-1 is reassigned to base <OnlyBaseLeftName>". And the same situation for every craft currently in flight.

There might be two problems.
1. Craft can have too little fuel to reach any base.
2. No base have free hangar, and this is veeery likely to happen.

I don't know what to do in these cases. But there must be solutions.

[Meridian]

There is an option called "Airborne Transfers".

[ohartenstein23]

This is part of the original game, not just hardmode.  This would have to be coded into the game to allow for a ship to go to a new base if the original is destroyed, not just written into a mod.

Edit:  The preemptive approach to fixing the problem is as Meridian says - airborne transfer allows you to transfer to another base before the original is destroyed, you just have to catch the incoming base assault in time.

[hellrazor]

Can walk over Alien Reproduction on the Alien Base.

Thanks for reporting this, I will fix this asap.

Skyranger is sent to a mission. At that time an Alien Ship destroys Skyranger's base. Skyranger (with all soldiers and HWPs) just dies. As if aliens after taking over the base sent self-annihilation signal to the Skyranger craft.

I think there must be possiblity to let user decide which base should Skyranger be reassigned to. And if there is only one base left, there should be just message like "Skyranger-1 is reassigned to base <OnlyBaseLeftName>". And the same situation for every craft currently in flight.

There might be two problems.
1. Craft can have too little fuel to reach any base.
2. No base have free hangar, and this is veeery likely to happen.

I don't know what to do in these cases. But there must be solutions.

I do not see any problem there. If you do not guard your base with some tanks and a squad of stay behind soldiers, its not my fault or the mods or the game mechanics fault.
A unguarded base is doomed to be destroyed by the aliens as soon as there is no force to resist them.
Next time keep some Tanks and soldiers behind and ready to fight!

Even thou "airborne transfers" could be used to save your team.

[Constantine]

I know about Airborne transfers option. It is totally unrelated here.

If you do not guard your base

I do. Same situation would arise if base guard will die in the defense mission. In that save I intentionnally sold tanks and moved craft to a mission just before base attack to demonstrate strange game behavior.

All you guys say is that my game style is wrong and that I should avoid such situation by any means. Thanks for advices  , but actually it never happened to me. Its I just thought "what would happen if..." and spent a fair amount of time to reproduce these circumstances. And then I saw its a bug because there is no reason for craft just to fall. In reality it would not fall, it would go to another base.

And when I said I can walk over Alien Reproduction, hellrazor didn't say "do not walk over it" So why nobody sees obvious bug here and everybody says not to do so?

Or maybe that should be posted to openXcom bugtracker?

[ohartenstein23]

The whole losing the Skyranger thing is not a bug, nor is it an oversight on the part of the people who wrote the code.  In fact, it is directly written in the code that if the base is destroyed, so are all the craft.  It has been a part of X-Com since 1994, and it's probably mentioned on the wiki that you will lose your craft if they're out and the base is destroyed.  We assumed that since you posted this as a bug report, you were looking for an answer to a dilemma that you had, not that you crafted this scenario as a 'what if?'.  Sure, in reality the craft could just go to a different base (this is why we pointed out airborne transfers, since it *is* the direct response to this situation), or it could land somewhere and wait for pickup.  But the landing case would be even more difficult to code, and nobody is coding the automatic transfer because airborne transfer is a thing.

[hellrazor]

And then I saw its a bug because there is no reason for craft just to fall. In reality it would not fall, it would go to another base.

Not a bug, it is a reproduction of behaviour of the original game, like it or not, but thats what it is.

And when I said I can walk over Alien Reproduction, hellrazor didn't say "do not walk over it" So why nobody sees obvious bug here and everybody says not to do so?

The Alien Reproduction is probably a wrongly placed Object on the map, its a issue i can fix myself easily, so no need for reporting on the bugtracker.

[Constantine]

Not a bug, it is a reproduction of behaviour of the original game, like it or not, but thats what it is.

If reproduction of behaviour of the original game was so much firm goal, then game would still have many bugs and discomforts. On the contrary, we can see that developers fix bugs and add really cool stuff like mentioned Airborne transfers, custom initial base layout, live alien sale, anytime psi-training, instant grenades, psi-strenght improvement, force craft launch -- all this new features explicitly break original game behavior, don't they?

[Meridian]

No, they don't break anything, all these features are optional, by default disabled and could be considered mods.

The feature you are proposing has problems (as you have pointed out yourself) with fuel and free hangars and thus cannot be implemented.

[Countdown]

And then I saw its a bug because there is no reason for craft just to fall. In reality it would not fall, it would go to another base.

Constantine, I can understand your frustrating with this game mechanic, but it might help to look at the logic another way. Don't think of it as the skyranger "falling" from the sky. If the aliens catch you by surprise with their base attack (and if you didn't detect it beforehand, then they did), then no one is able to send a message to warn the skyranger about the attack. So after you lose the base defense mission, the skyranger remains unaware and returns, right into an alien trap and that is why everyone is lost.

On the other hand, if you do detect the incoming alien base attack, then you can send a warning message to the skyranger before the aliens jam your communication: "Hey guys, not safe, go to another base until we give you the all clear." Then use the "airborne transfer" to divert them. Even if you don't have a free hanger, just sell another craft to make room.


So that is my thought behind this game mechanic which is true to vanilla and why I think it should stay that way. HOWEVER, what bothers me is that if you lose the base defense mission, the soldiers in transit are deleted from the save file, rather than added to the memorial wall. This is obviously not game breaking and doesn't affect game play at all, but from a story perspective, I wish they were added to the RIP list rather than deleted. I started a thread on this in the suggestions section, but I guess others aren't too bothered by it.