A number of issues

[Vanth]

Hello, I have been playing with the 2.2 for Mac for a while now, and I have noticed a number of issues:

1) Every now and again during the missions a pink floating "cube" is shown instead of an alien (always either a Sheevar or a Bloodspider). This happens randomly, the said aliens are shown correctly other times.
2) I built a base purposely as a production and storage center: when I load a saved game it always tell me production was stopped due to lack of storage and storage capacity returns -5536. This is solved by destroying a storage and building a new one.
3) Even though the normal flavour text is shown, I had two instances when, on completing a recovery mission, some scrolling text would appear (I assume some crucial turning point) but all it said was <TODO> <TODO> and Click to continue at the bottom of the screen.
4) Is there a maximum number of bases that can be built? Because I have eight now, would like to built more (and have the credits to do so) but clicking on "Create a New base" does not bring any result.
5) Strangely enough not all my aircraft show on the list when selecting for a mission: I can see the dropships of all bases bar one, and as for the fighters I have one missing in a base and two in the base where also the Firebird doesn't show. Needless to say all crafts are duly equipped and armed.
6) Something most annoying is the fact that the little cube that should show the end position you are aiming for your trooper is not even remotely accurate: sometimes the trooper will stop into it, sometimes just before or to the right of it (or left) without an apparent set pattern. Sometimes you click just two squares ahead of your trooper and he starts in a completely different direction, refusing to go where you want for no evident reason.
7) Even more annoying but connected with the above reason, sometimes the troopers end up walking into obstacles (in spite of your efforts) and end up stuck in them without any chance for me to do anything. In the Shelter mission within minutes I had all eight troopers stuck in walls or parapets: since there is no quit mission option the only chance was to force quite the whole program (or to wait for ages until the aliens could kill all of the men...)

Are these bugs or is it just me? And if they are bugs, are they known issues? Is there a way to solve them?
Thanks...

[tchristney]

1) I have heard of this happening for other people - it means that there is a missing graphics resource. I'm not sure what it means to have this happen sometimes and not others. I personally haven't seen it yet.

2) I just took a quick look at the code for saving base capacities and I think I know what is going wrong - I'm pretty confident it's a bug. By any chance does the base capacity in question exceed 32767? If it does, then I'm 100% certain where the bug is.

3) Probably not a critical story point, but just an unfinished portion of the back story. AFAIK, there is still quite a bit of work to do on that front.

4) Eight is the max - I'm not sure why, but it is a limit built into the game. Plan well where you want them. Also, I never put drop ships in all bases. I have three or four with drop ships, and all the rest use that space to store extra interceptors, labs and workshops.

5) Try using page up/down - it could be that the dialog needs a scrollbar and doesn't have it yet.

6 & 7) Sometimes the route troops have to take is not obvious. Always check the TU requirements before moving. I have seen troops get stuck in objects as well as seeing the troop offset by some small amount from the cursor. Try to get screen shots when this happens and file map bug reports. FWIW, there is a quit mission option - click on the "wrench" icon on the right side of the screen and then select "Abort" or "Retry".

HTH.

[Mattn]

2) i think this was fixed by Kracken in trunk already
7) yes, for some reason the client and server position of the actor seams to be out of sync - you can just end the game and reload your last game with the qucikload feature - use F1 to save (this is also done automatically before every mission) and F2 to reload a mission

[Vanth]

2) I just took a quick look at the code for saving base capacities and I think I know what is going wrong - I'm pretty confident it's a bug. By any chance does the base capacity in question exceed 32767? If it does, then I'm 100% certain where the bug is.

Yes, it's 60000 if I remember correctly.

5) Try using page up/down - it could be that the dialog needs a scrollbar and doesn't have it yet.

Will try: still there is an issue with one base (not the last in the list) where only one interceptor out of two shows up. Surely the list of bases for drop missions is shorter, still one base does not show up.

Sometimes the route troops have to take is not obvious. Always check the TU requirements before moving. I have seen troops get stuck in objects as well as seeing the troop offset by some small amount from the cursor. Try to get screen shots when this happens and file map bug reports. FWIW, there is a quit mission option - click on the "wrench" icon on the right side of the screen and then select "Abort" or "Retry".

Thanks for the suggestion. It is not an issue of TUs, the trooper becomes permanently stuck and at times it is plainly difficult to figure out which route the soldier will follow and therefore how to avoid getting stuck...

[kracken]

EDIT: I quoted wrong bug, sorry  :-(

2) I built a base purposely as a production and storage center: when I load a saved game it always tell me production was stopped due to lack of storage and storage capacity returns -5536. This is solved by destroying a storage and building a new one.

Yes, I fixed that bug in current trunk

[Sophisanmus]

Re #1) I had the purple/pink cube show up in one mission while transferring a medkit into the hands of a soldier who was standing in the dropship next to a wounded comrade.  The cube appeared between the medic and the wounded.
Re #2) I had the same thing occur with a base with 4 Storages (40,000 total), figured that was the problem because selling one fixed it (down to 30,000, though).
Re #6) When playing on a weaker computer, I encountered this problem.  In actuality, the soldier seems to be at the proper location, but his visual model can get stuck anywhere from 1-3 spaces short of his destination.  I can click on the visually empty space to select the soldier properly, however.  The visual error does not correct when crouching, but will correct once he begins moving again.

[tchristney]

Yes, it's 60000 if I remember correctly.

I can see why it has been only fixed in the trunk. kraken, it should be possible to also
fix this to some degree in 2.2 by using an unsigned short instead of a signed short - then at least people could have up to 65535 storage spaces without breaking save game compatibility. The work around for now is to not build more than three storage buildings in each base.

Will try: still there is an issue with one base (not the last in the list) where only one interceptor out of two shows up. Surely the list of bases for drop missions is shorter, still one base does not show up.

Make sure both interceptors are armed and there is enough hanger space - each interceptor requires one small hangar. The only way to really see what is going on is to take a look at your save game.

Thanks for the suggestion. It is not an issue of TUs, the trooper becomes permanently stuck and at times it is plainly difficult to figure out which route the soldier will follow and therefore how to avoid getting stuck...

I should have been clearer - when you click on a space only two away and the soldier goes off randomly, it is usually because there is an obstacle in their way. You can see if that is the case by looking at the required TUs when moving the cursor around.

[kracken]

I can see why it has been only fixed in the trunk. kraken, it should be possible to also
fix this to some degree in 2.2 by using an unsigned short instead of a signed short - then at least people could have up to 65535 storage spaces without breaking save game compatibility. The work around for now is to not build more than three storage buildings in each base.

This will be fixed in 2.2.1 without breaking savegame: capacity will be recalculated after loading a game

[tchristney]

I hate redundant information in files. Cheaply derived values like that shouldn't even be saved at all - they are just a source of conflicting information. 

[Vanth]

I should have been clearer - when you click on a space only two away and the soldier goes off randomly, it is usually because there is an obstacle in their way. You can see if that is the case by looking at the required TUs when moving the cursor around.

That does not seem to be the case. Actually something I noticed happens sometimes is the following: I point to some place, a number of squares away. The bounding box is green and the TUs numbers say something like (for instance) 13 (17), which should mean everything is fine as far as this move is concerned. You click once and nothing happens. Try it again and TUs are detracted, still the trooper does not move; again and he remains where he is but turns to face the other way...
This seems to occur in a specially bad way in the map corruptcity04d, which is also, for reasons I do not know, extremely jerky...
An example is the attached image: I have been trying to move the selected trooper to the stop where the bounding box is for five turns, with no success. The trooper on the left was also directed to the same spot (starting a couple of paces behind) but ended getting stuck in the police car instead...




[attachment deleted by admin]

[Mattn]

as a workaround you activate confirm-mode in game options (you click once and hit enter when the route is ok)

this might be a bug in the pathfinding code - what's your system specs?

[Vanth]

CPU Type:   PowerPC G4  (2.0)
Number Of CPUs:   1
CPU Speed:   733 MHz
L2 Cache (per CPU):   256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU):   1 MB
Memory:   512 MB
Bus Speed:   133 MHz
NVidia GEForce2 MX
Mac OSX 10.4.11

[Vanth]

I have switched to confirm mode and this surely hels gameplay in that jerky map. Unfortunately it is still not a 100% accurate: at times it happens that even with the confirmed path the trooper ends up a little short or aside of the chosen position. In particular it seems that the problem I mentioned in that peculiar area of the map (between the pedestrian crossing lines and the hole in the tarmac) is still unaffected: the trooper remains where he is in spite of the actions being subtracted, or turns to face the other side. Another problem area seem to be on the right of this one, in front of the nose of the alien starship, where troopers seem unable to go forward: this time the bounding box simply shows the move as impossible. I see there is a ledge and I understand they might be unable to climb unto it, but there seems to be a gap between the ledge and the starship which should be at the same level of the road, still the troopers cannot proceed past the line of the ledge.

[Mattn]

please open a bug tracker item at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=805242&group_id=157793&func=browse

be as verbose as possible there - also attach a screenshot of the affected area - thanks

[mrwiggles]

4) Is there a maximum number of bases that can be built? Because I have eight now, would like to built more (and have the credits to do so) but clicking on "Create a New base" does not bring any result.

Eight is most likely the limit because in Xcom, the number of bases you were limited too were Eight. And that was limited due to how it stored its information, if I recall correctly a byte for the number of bases. Though I never much found a reason to have more then six really in Xcom. Though I just started playing UFo:Ai, I dont plan on having to many more then that. Currently have four up and going then I had to restart as I ran into the storage bug, I coulndt figure out how to disassemble base facilities. My production base was plagued by it.