aliens

Author Topic: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste  (Read 1393432 times)

Offline Zennaris

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3765 on: July 08, 2023, 04:59:58 pm »
And can I somehow scroll a month report message? Not really important, but with so many countries one screen is not enough.
Something wrong with my doors. Nobody talking about it, so maybe it's just me, but I never saw it in previous versions. When you are running with Ctrl pressed and your path leads through a closed door, if you have less than 5 TU in front of the door you just phase through it and the door stays closed. If you have TU to open it at that moment, you spend TU and the door opens normally.
Another thing that bothers me is spawn points on early maps. There is small garage building on urban maps, you know what I'm talking about, a door and a window on each side, barrel and gasoline pump inside. If that garage exist on the map, there is 100% chance an enemy spawns in it. When you know it, some missions become less immersive, especially if there are few enemies. I like a thrill of hunting the maniac before it kills too many innocents. Did I hear a gunshot? Where? Who opened that door? etc. But If you start the mission and see the garage, well, here is our boy, no thrill, no hunt. Works with monsters too.
Another static behavior is in oriental map. There is 2 or 3 store building with sofa on first floor and a window. Enemy likes to make an ambush here. Most of the time hey just sitting inside and wait until you run next to the window. Ha! Gotcha. Amusing first couple times, but then surprise getting stale.       
And on unrelated note, how can I take a screenshot in Linux build? PrintScreen doesn't work.   

Offline Juku121

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3766 on: July 08, 2023, 07:26:20 pm »
And can I somehow scroll a month report message?
Yes.

Something wrong with my doors.
OXCE issue, fixed in 7.9.7.

And on unrelated note, how can I take a screenshot in Linux build? PrintScreen doesn't work.
Options -> Controls -> Screenshot. I think F12 is the default.

Offline Zennaris

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3767 on: July 08, 2023, 08:07:36 pm »
Thank you, my friend. I will try to look at other boards in the future. Time to build again.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3768 on: July 09, 2023, 07:56:08 pm »
What I found: Reptoid Treaty, Olympianism, Pancor Jackhammer, BO Assault Cannon, AI Unit (quite a bit, and sneakily at that), Black Lotus Host.

Perfect. All instances were fixed. (Wasn't easy, but I managed to retain all the necessary information and even keep the style.)

Also, Saurian Ghost seems to lack a Pedia entry.

This unit is still unused, so technically it doesn't exist yet.

The 'no autopsy' picture might also be better off with a black 'transparent' section instead of the dark blue 'fog' it has right now.
[/quote]

Okay - it was a 10 minutes job, so I changed it.

Another static behavior is in oriental map. There is 2 or 3 store building with sofa on first floor and a window. Enemy likes to make an ambush here. Most of the time hey just sitting inside and wait until you run next to the window. Ha! Gotcha. Amusing first couple times, but then surprise getting stale.       

If you provide a save, I will investigate. It doesn't really sound like harmful behaviour, but I'll check if I can make things less predictable.



EDIT: I moved all posts related to the month 0 missions topic to a new thread, as it's not a bug.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2023, 01:40:59 pm by Solarius Scorch »

Offline psavola

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3769 on: July 14, 2023, 09:43:58 pm »
The Dossier for Dr. Hadriex lists Affiliation as "Children of Aether". While this term is used once in Reclamation of Aether research article, the "official name" appears to be Reclamation of Aether (which sounds actually a bit silly, "Children" would have been better).

In the rulesets there *are* two "Children of Aether" entries (STR_CULT_OF_SPIRITS, STR_CULT_OF_SPIRITS_PREREQUISITE), but the former is only used once in alienRaces under the section "marked for removal" and the latter is not used at all.

So I suppose the Hadriex affiliation is just an oversight or a historical typo and should be changed to be the same as the current "official" name (or the official name and all the research/unit names changed).

Offline Vakrug

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3770 on: July 15, 2023, 11:21:18 am »
I have to rise again this question about SKYRAIDER and KITSUNE that we discussed some time ago in this thread. Right now the problem is not "Kitsune may come too early" but "SKYRAIDER definitely comes way too late".

Requirements for SKYRAIDER are: Promotion II, DRAGONFLY and Alien Power Systems which essentially means interrogating live true alien. The last requirement almost guarantees that SKYRAIDER will be unavailable until the invasion starts. Which goes in contrary to "Promotion II" requirement, that can be obtained far earlier.

On the other hand the requirement for KITSUNE is essentially one: Promotion III.

I don't know about other player experiences, but I always get Promotion III much earlier then invasion starts, that is why SKYRAIDER becomes obsolete before I have a chance to research it. Also, I am not 100% sure, but this "Alien Power Systems" requirement is probably recent addition. I don't remember such problem obtaining SKYRAIDER in my earlier playthroughs.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3771 on: July 15, 2023, 11:36:40 am »
The Dossier for Dr. Hadriex lists Affiliation as "Children of Aether". While this term is used once in Reclamation of Aether research article, the "official name" appears to be Reclamation of Aether (which sounds actually a bit silly, "Children" would have been better).

In the rulesets there *are* two "Children of Aether" entries (STR_CULT_OF_SPIRITS, STR_CULT_OF_SPIRITS_PREREQUISITE), but the former is only used once in alienRaces under the section "marked for removal" and the latter is not used at all.

So I suppose the Hadriex affiliation is just an oversight or a historical typo and should be changed to be the same as the current "official" name (or the official name and all the research/unit names changed).

"Children of Aether" is used in many placed in the mod, not just here. Seems to be a synonym accepted within the setting.

I have to rise again this question about SKYRAIDER and KITSUNE that we discussed some time ago in this thread. Right now the problem is not "Kitsune may come too early" but "SKYRAIDER definitely comes way too late". (...)

Agreed, but the problem is bigger than just Kitsune. I plan to remodel the craft tech tree with various prerequisites, like I've done with Sectopods.

Offline Juku121

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3772 on: July 15, 2023, 12:26:34 pm »
"Children of Aether" is used in many placed in the mod, not just here. Seems to be a synonym accepted within the setting.
That 'many' is three, while 'Reclamation' is used about 20 times. Granted, one of them is the organisation description (but the name of the article is "Reclamation..."!). Which IMO makes the whole thing a bit confusing. Maybe add "Reclamation, also known as Children", or something along these lines, into the main article?

Agreed, but the problem is bigger than just Kitsune. I plan to remodel the craft tech tree with various prerequisites, like I've done with Sectopods.
Cool!

IMO, the problem is still "Kitsune comes too early". Skyraider is a good fast strike craft, with reasonable tradeoffs compared to the Skyranger - but the Skymarshall is already starting to blur that line, and then the Kitsune comes and eats Skyraider's lunch soon after. In my experience. there's a very limited time window where Skyraiders actually fulfill their apparent niche, that being being a Dragonfly successor.


P.S. The 'Alien Power Systems' requirement is not recent. It goes back to at least 1.3, which is the oldest version I had easy access to. Probably much earlier than that.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2023, 12:29:44 pm by Juku121 »

Offline psavola

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3773 on: July 15, 2023, 01:31:49 pm »
"Military shot down a UFO" event has 12 % chance of occurring though months 9-25. So it is likely you get multiple stabs at capturing live aliens before the invasion starts. Though I agree that Kitsune is very useful (and Starfighter comes rather early as well).

The another significant problem with crafts is that alien alloys is rather scarce before the invasion is well underway and you'd like to preserve it for first priority targets (like armors). Competition with crafts using it is fierce (and those that don't use it are next to useless, perhaps with the exception of SKY* transports), especially if you'd want to also have some fighters to protect your transports or even shoot down UFOs.


Offline psavola

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3774 on: July 15, 2023, 01:49:04 pm »
That 'many' is three, while 'Reclamation' is used about 20 times. Granted, one of them is the organisation description (but the name of the article is "Reclamation..."!). Which IMO makes the whole thing a bit confusing. Maybe add "Reclamation, also known as Children", or something along these lines, into the main article?

In a similar fashion, I was at first a little bit confused about "tritanium" vs "alien alloys". Why use two terms for the same thing, wouldn't it be more straightforward to use, for example, Tritanium everywhere? AFAIR, Hardmode expansion used a shorthand "alloy" in the names, which was obvious on the first sight.

Offline krautbernd

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3775 on: July 15, 2023, 03:21:00 pm »
IMO, the problem is still "Kitsune comes too early". Skyraider is a good fast strike craft, with reasonable tradeoffs compared to the Skyranger - but the Skymarshall is already starting to blur that line, and then the Kitsune comes and eats Skyraider's lunch soon after. In my experience. there's a very limited time window where Skyraiders actually fulfill their apparent niche, that being being a Dragonfly successor.

To be fair, the Kitsune is a one-off, while the SKY-series have no such limitations. In the (unlikely) event that the player either fails to get the Kitsune or loses it, the Skyraider becomes more of a fall-back than a niche craft, at least until the Skymarshall becomes available.

Using the Kitsune and the Starfighter feel a bit like cheating to be honest, and I find myself avoiding either craft and more or less jsut use them as display pieces.

For what the Kitsune is, the player really doesn't have to go through all that much trouble to earn it. It's also kind of strange that X-COM get's nothing tech-wise of what might as well be the first actual alien craft they recover. Sure it's not as advanced as the "usual" aliens, but nonethless it's a space-capable combat-landing craft that's more sturdy than anything X-COM can put together at that point. Even if they can't figure out how the engines work there should be some advanced tech in there that is beneficial.

P.S. The 'Alien Power Systems' requirement is not recent. It goes back to at least 1.3, which is the oldest version I had easy access to. Probably much earlier than that.

Still have 0.9.8 here and the requirements are identical. I don't remember, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were the same in 0.5.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2023, 03:30:41 pm by krautbernd »

Offline Vakrug

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3776 on: July 15, 2023, 04:19:16 pm »
Still have 0.9.8 here and the requirements are identical. I don't remember, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were the same in 0.5.
Then how about the requirements for that "Alien Power Systems"? Was that always a live alien? I almost certain I was able to craft SKYRAIDER earlier. (Yet another time when I question my sanity...)
-----
OK, I checked. Looks like it always was a live alien... May be I was lucky with reptiloids? So forget about what I wrote!
« Last Edit: July 15, 2023, 04:35:54 pm by Vakrug »

Offline Juku121

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3777 on: July 15, 2023, 04:47:04 pm »
The another significant problem with crafts is that alien alloys is rather scarce before the invasion is well underway and you'd like to preserve it for first priority targets (like armors).
I see this as a feature, not an issue. :D

In a similar fashion, I was at first a little bit confused about "tritanium" vs "alien alloys". Why use two terms for the same thing, wouldn't it be more straightforward to use...
Tritanium is a specific alloy? So it might not apply in all instances.

Might also be an artifact of mod development history, 'alloys' have been getting replaced with Tritanium with some regularity.

To be fair, the Kitsune is a one-off, while the SKY-series have no such limitations. In the (unlikely) event that the player either fails to get the Kitsune or loses it, the Skyraider becomes more of a fall-back than a niche craft, at least until the Skymarshall becomes available.
True. Though my experience has been that access to the Skymarshall is not so much later, and that one practically obsoletes the Skyraider. If you have the alloys, that is.

It's also kind of strange that X-COM get's nothing tech-wise of what might as well be the first actual alien craft they recover. Sure it's not as advanced as the "usual" aliens, but nonethless it's a space-capable combat-landing craft that's more sturdy than anything X-COM can put together at that point. Even if they can't figure out how the engines work there should be some advanced tech in there that is beneficial.
I was under the impression that the Kitsune was actually more advanced in the "MOO2 tech tree" sense, or at least the propulsion systems were.

It's not much sturdier than a Skyranger (180 vs 150). Not sure how the 'fighter-transporter' thing or space flight translate to tech, but I imagine having access to an early space shuttle might not play well with intended progression?

Then how about the requirements for that "Alien Power Systems"? Was that always a live alien? I almost certain I was able to craft SKYRAIDER earlier.
No meaningful differences in the 1.3 tech tree that I can see. Perhaps aliens were easier to acquire in these earlier versions (although I don't really remember that being so right now), or perhaps you were just lucky with getting one and haven't been since? :)

Offline krautbernd

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3778 on: July 15, 2023, 05:29:03 pm »
True. Though my experience has been that access to the Skymarshall is not so much later, and that one practically obsoletes the Skyraider. If you have the alloys, that is.

Not much later is a bit relative - the Raider is locked behind Promo II, while the others are locked behind III, which can make a small or a large difference depending on how your game is going. Compared to earlier versions it is also actually faster than the Marshall (which used to be 1200 iirc).


I was under the impression that the Kitsune was actually more advanced in the "MOO2 tech tree" sense, or at least the propulsion systems were.

Quote
There was no trace of crew, but the team found some visual representations of humanoid forms with cat-like or bat-like ears. The craft appeared significantly less advanced than typical alien tech in most areas, energy chemistry being a notable exception.

Again, it's not about X-COM being unable to figure out the drive system, but more the potential "this is the first actual alien space-craft I have recovered and all got is this shirt"-issue. Even "significantly less advanced" is probably quite a bit more advanced than X-COM is at that point, given that they are working mothballed Canadian fighters and MIGs. I just think there should be some kind of small technological (or even just lore) payoff for recovering a one-of-a-kind alien craft apart from "we have bolted the doors back on, hopefully shouldn't disintegrate mid-flight now".

Offline Juku121

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Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste
« Reply #3779 on: July 15, 2023, 05:48:10 pm »
Not much later is a bit relative - the Raider is locked behind Promo II, while the others are locked behind III, which can make a small or a large difference depending on how your game is going.

Compared to earlier versions it is also actually faster than the Marshall (which used to be 1200 iirc).
In my experience, that's not what makes the difference. Last time I started building Skyraiders and Skyraiders practically concurrently, while Skymarshalls became available considerably later. Mainly because I lacked the alloys and there were one million other things to research (and the aircraft/avionics research times are not inconsiderable).

I agree that the Promotion tier might make a difference, but alloy availability most likely will.

And, yeah, all my actual play experience is with speed 1200 Skymarshalls.
 
Again, it's not about X-COM being unable to figure out the drive system, but more the potential "this is the first actual alien space-craft I have recovered and all got is this shirt"-issue.
Fair enough. What would you propose as a replacement for the, er, T-shirt? :)