r28869 Flamethrower appears to do no damage

[Destructavator]

It's been a while since I've actually fired up the game, so I don't know if this is new or not, but I noticed one of my soldiers was accidentally hit by a flamethrower blast which didn't do anything to that soldier.  As an experiment (I was testing in skirmish mode) I fired a full "inferno" at one soldier with no armor, and it didn't do any damage at all.

To compare, I also had a few soldiers blast each other with shotguns and rifles, those all worked fine, with expected results.

I only had this happen in one mission, a skirmish, I'll try to see if I can reproduce it.

Edit: A quick search in the bugtracker didn't reveal anything previously reported regarding this issue.  If I do find I can reproduce it I'll open a bug report.

[kibber]

Banana Boat SPF 1000 Suntan lotion -- it really works wonders........

[Duke]

I happend to play r28869 yesterday and the flamethrower DID do damage.
Maybe a scripting issue ?

[Destructavator]

I happend to play r28869 yesterday and the flamethrower DID do damage.
Maybe a scripting issue ?

Hmmm.  I don't really know what the culprit is, but let me ask this:  Is it possible to "miss" with a flamethrower attack, so it doesn't hurt anything/anyone only sometimes, even though the animation still shows flames going across the target?

[Sgt. Hatter]

Is it possible to "miss" with a flamethrower attack, so it doesn't hurt anything/anyone only sometimes, even though the animation still shows flames going across the target?

If it is possible, then this thread might interest you.

[Destructavator]

Yup, it is indeed reproducible.

I did more testing, here's how to do it:

- Start Skirmish Mode, with a mission where someone has a flamethrower

- Have that soldier shoot flames at another soldier who isn't wearing armor

- Check the targeted soldier's health - it doesn't go down!

I've seen the flamethrower hurt other units on other teams (civilian, alien) but it seems a team's own units can be immune to friendly fire with this weapon.

Edit: I found this happens with other weapons too, friendly fire only occasionally hurts a team's own units.  I did a test where everyone attacked each other, and even a rocket launched right in another soldier's face went straight through the guy's head and out the other side!

[Duke]

I can confirm now. In my above post I was referring to killing aliens.

[Mattn]

please open a ticket for this with high priority.

[Destructavator]

please open a ticket for this with high priority.

OK, done.

[MCR]

I can confirm this problem also with r28889 !
Maybe a more precise description of the problem will help finding the bug:

- The bug appears only in the first turn, ending the turn makes soldiers & aliens feel pain again.

- In the first turn all shots will go straight through the soldiers or aliens not hurting them, as long as they just look around, but do not move.

- The problem occurs with all weapons, just explosions will hurt them (from grenades or an exploding rocket next to the target).

- Moving the soldier makes him vulnerable again, ending the turn makes the bug disappear also.

I hope this description helps eliminating the problem...

[Duke]

MCR,
very good observation/testing/reporting, thx
That should help us to narrow it down.

I also noticed that after skirmish->start the autoselected soldier doesn't have his path precalculated (no green cursor).
==> something is fishy with battlescape initialization.

[Mattn]

that's because CL_ActorResetMoveLength always sets le->actorMoveLength to -1 (unreachable) - until you select another soldier. if you reselect the first soldier, everything works again. so i suppose CL_ActorConditionalMoveCalc is doing the Grid_MoveCalc too early for the first actor (though i don't know what is missing there)

[MCR]

BTW, Civilians also don't get hurt in the first turn except from explosions...

[Stedevil]

It should be easy to track down the error, because I'm using svn 28860 for the last week or so and have no problems what so ever to damage aliens in the first turn. So something in 28861-69 breaks things.

[Duke]

A very helpful hint, thx
I've been able to further nail it down: r28863 broke it.
Stay tuned.