bugs (in Mac version at least)

[ovvldc]

I enjoyed getting Mattn's new package and running it, and for a while I had a good game running. Until it crashed and made my computer irresponsive..

Some bugs that I found:
* It is not obvious that you have to press a button to switch to a new resolution. I found myself in 1024x768 and because of the window decoration, that means the bottom of the window is pushed offscreen, which makes in impossible to scroll down. This can be solved by rotating, but it is just tedious. As all recent Macs are widescreen, I suggest making 1152x720 the starting resolution, unless you are aiming for older Macs as well (as in iBooks).
* After I got my first UFO, I could only sell it because I do not have a UFO yard. I thought I was supposed to keep it in a workshop. Or maybe that is the default, but it was not obvious.
* I had a nasty crash as soon as my second ground mission came up that kept me from switching away, and therefore made the whole MacBook irresponsive. I had to switch it off and back on to get anywhere, which is very bad form. I stupidly forgot to get the logs and they were overwritten when I started it again.

Will try more. My basic gripe is the the UI is not intuitive in some features.

[ovvldc]

Let me expand on the crash. It is not a crash, it is a hang. It actually allows for some activity outside UFO, but only in a brief, less than a second flash once every minute or so.

I got the following from my console.log, and I am attaching the other files below, including a savegame just before the fatal mission.

14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   Calling subsystems
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'campaign' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'base' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'research' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'hospital' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'market' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'employee' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'aliencont' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'aircraft' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'alien base' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'interest' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'installation' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'mission' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'ufostores' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'production' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'messagesystem' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'stats' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'nations' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'transfer' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'xvirate' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ...subsystem 'messageoptions' - saved
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   XML Written to buffer (99200 Bytes)
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   setting game random seed to 78655
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ------- Loading game.dylib -------
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   not found at '/usr/local/lib'
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   not found at '/Users/oscarvanvliet/Documents/UFOAI-2.4-dev/base'
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   found at './base'
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   tiles: -ufocrash/uc_ +craft_drop_firebird +craft_crash_scout +h02 +h02 +h06 +h07 +h02 +h02 +h07 +h02 +h02 +h02
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   pos: 8 -16 0 -8 0 0 -24 16 0 -16 16 0 -24 0 0 -16 -16 0 -24 -16 0 -24 -8 0 8 0 0 8 16 0 16 16 0 24 16 0
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   tiles: 12
14-08-11 11:59:13   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   CM_LoadMap: "-ufocrash/uc_ +craft_drop_firebird +craft_crash_scout +h02 +h02 +h06 +h07 +h02 +h02 +h07 +h02 +h02 +h02" "8 -16 0 -8 0 0 -24 16 0 -16 16 0 -24 0 0 -16 -16 0 -24 -16 0 -24 -8 0 8 0 0 8 16 0 16 16 0 24 16 0"
14-08-11 11:59:15   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   Rerouted for RMA in   0.0s
14-08-11 11:59:15   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   checksum for the map '+ufocrash': 1561625736
14-08-11 11:59:15   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ufo script checksum 609084391
14-08-11 11:59:15   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   -------------------------------------
14-08-11 11:59:15   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   Connecting to localhost...
14-08-11 11:59:15   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   ==== InitGame ====
14-08-11 11:59:15   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   Created AI player (team 0)
14-08-11 11:59:15   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   Created AI player (team 7)
14-08-11 11:59:15   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   Used inventory slots after ai spawn: 0
14-08-11 11:59:15   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   connection attempt from loopback connection
14-08-11 11:59:18   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   load material file: 'materials/ufocrash.mat'
14-08-11 11:59:18   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   added light, ambient=0.476837
14-08-11 11:59:19   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   Starting the game...
14-08-11 11:59:19   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   oscarvanvliet has joined team 1
14-08-11 11:59:19   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   music change to PsymongN1 (from Crystan-Geosphere03)
14-08-11 11:59:20   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   Used inventory slots: 0
14-08-11 11:59:20   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   music change to van_mission3 (from PsymongN1)
14-08-11 11:59:22   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   Used inventory slots client oscarvanvliet spawn: 0
14-08-11 11:59:22   [0x0-0x21021].net.sourceforge.UFOAI[379]   (player 0) It's team 1's turn!

[geever]

* It is not obvious that you have to press a button to switch to a new resolution. I found myself in 1024x768 and because of the window decoration, that means the bottom of the window is pushed offscreen, which makes in impossible to scroll down. This can be solved by rotating, but it is just tedious. As all recent Macs are widescreen, I suggest making 1152x720 the starting resolution, unless you are aiming for older Macs as well (as in iBooks).

The game is not for Macs only so we can't wire that resolution in. I'm thinking about possible UI notifications we could do, so created a Feature Request.

* After I got my first UFO, I could only sell it because I do not have a UFO yard. I thought I was supposed to keep it in a workshop. Or maybe that is the default, but it was not obvious.

Will try more. My basic gripe is the the UI is not intuitive in some features.

What is really missing from here is a good interactive tutorial. Currently we only have the Tip of the Day window and tooltips, but they can be missed too easily. (We have some tutorial slides but they're not the best)

-geever

[ovvldc]

@Geever: The flashing the button for actually changing the resolution sounds like an excellent fix.

The tutorial is a bigger issue. Perhaps it would be possible to start with expanding the manual on the wiki? There is only an empty link to a page on how to deal with UFOs. The build bit should now also talk about SAM sites, radar sites and UFO yards in addition to Phalanx bases. It would also be great if this manual could be copied into the UFOpedia so you can find the most important bits in the game, instead it being of just a big collection of in-game reference pages. Speaking of reference pages, some of those on the wiki (weapon stats) could do with some updating too...

I hope someone can figure out why my version is hanging. One additional bit of information: the Firebird was on its way home until I diverted it to deal with the second UFO that was shot down (they appeared very close to each other). It has two lightly injured soldiers on board and six healthy ones.

Good luck,
 Oscar

[ovvldc]

Did anyone have luck reproducing my crash from the savegame? It might not even be mac-specific, but I have no machine to compare it to.

Are savegames compatible between platforms? I could try installing UFO:AI in Wine and run it there..

best wishes,
 Oscar

[geever]

Did anyone have luck reproducing my crash from the savegame? It might not even be mac-specific, but I have no machine to compare it to.

No. it worked fine on 2.4-dev here AFAIR.

Are savegames compatible between platforms? I could try installing UFO:AI in Wine and run it there..

Meant to be. We have however heard problems with savegames on big endian machines, we couldn't yet investigate it because we don't have such a hardware.

-geever

[ovvldc]

No. it worked fine on 2.4-dev here AFAIR.

OK. Not much help them. Let me know if I can be of further help to find what is going on.

best wishes,
 Oscar

[virag0]

Hi,
I have played with my 2.4-DEV PPC version for a couple of nights now.
Apart from the GL shading problems I noted the following bugs, but I am not sure if they are intentional, just not done yet or actual issues.

First one is that the mouseover "hover" text in various locations is not displayed correctly.   In the 2.3.1 version I seem to recall these
little tool tips were encapsulated in a box with a slight background and made easier to read.   In the 2.4 version, it is just the text
strings and so you get cases where you cannot read the text in the tooltip because there is other text behind it.

Second problem appears in the tactical maps.   If I shoot at an alien, there is no weapon sound, no "tracer" of a projectile and
no animation of an impact etc.    A flamethrower doesn't produce any flames or anything.  There's no indication of a hit
or anything - if I kill an alien, it will scream and die, but it seems there is something missing.   Reaction fire from an alien happens
almost instantly, so it looked like in many cases, I would line up a shot and click the mouse and the alien would shoot back
in the same instant, so it looks like my trooper shot himself!     So I do not know if these are bugs or just not coded yet.
The action of an alien or trooper dying seems to still work, but there's no gratifying Kaboom.
 
Also, in the Credits view, there's  a collection of troopers, some great music and their names.    They are all headless warriors however,
so they look a bit weird.   Please supply heads for these brave troopers!

Thirdly, as mentioned previously, the Save game slots do not display any text, but appear to save/load just fine in spite of a "save slot corrupted" message.

Lastly,  enabling any GL features "not supported" will overload my G5, the fans kick in and the mouse cursor becomes very unresponsive.
I work around this one by not selecting any too-hard features in the graphics control panel, which seems to have lost a few options since 2.3.1.

The last time I did the 2.4 build was early this year and it ran very badly on the PPC G5.    This one seems to run a lot better, so I say it is getting there.....

If anyone wants a copy of my game build, please let me know and I will see what can be done to upload it somewhere.   I have a fully packaged binary,
relocatable to any 10.5. PPC system.


rachel

[geever]

I would be interested in a savegame (and maybe a multiplayer team definition file) created on your PPC machine with the original (not patched) UFO:AI code, so I can investigate the possible savegame issues. Thanks!

-geever

[virag0]

Hi,
here is my savegame and other files - I could not find the multiplayer file or I do not know the name!

The files are from the 2.4-DEV release pulled down this week and compiled.
I have not modified the code in any way, just some of the local make config settings.


Please let me know if you want anything else.....


rachel

[virag0]

Hi,
further playing around tonight and I realise that none of the troopers or NPC's in the tactical maps have heads
either.   They are all quite literally headless. 

Any ideas?


rachel

[Sandro]

Hi,
I have played with my 2.4-DEV PPC version for a couple of nights now.
Apart from the GL shading problems I noted the following bugs, but I am not sure if they are intentional, just not done yet or actual issues.

Guess I can give you some pointers here

Second problem appears in the tactical maps.   If I shoot at an alien, there is no weapon sound, no "tracer" of a projectile and
no animation of an impact etc.    A flamethrower doesn't produce any flames or anything.  There's no indication of a hit
or anything - if I kill an alien, it will scream and die, but it seems there is something missing.

That's obviously a problem with a particle system, which is responsible for rendering tracers, explosions and such. Most probably, you have some problem with reading the .ufo files defining those particles.

Reaction fire from an alien happens
almost instantly, so it looked like in many cases, I would line up a shot and click the mouse and the alien would shoot back
in the same instant, so it looks like my trooper shot himself!

That's an actual bug, and I'm constantly forgetting to report it

Also, in the Credits view, there's  a collection of troopers, some great music and their names.    They are all headless warriors however,
so they look a bit weird.   Please supply heads for these brave troopers!

Again, heads are defined in .ufo files (unlike the models IIRC), so it's probably the same problem.

Thirdly, as mentioned previously, the Save game slots do not display any text, but appear to save/load just fine in spite of a "save slot corrupted" message.

A some sort of generic text file processing problem? Remember, saves are zipped XML files, essentially, the texts. Maybe you have stumbled upon some sort of text-processing problem specific to big-endian machines?

Lastly,  enabling any GL features "not supported" will overload my G5, the fans kick in and the mouse cursor becomes very unresponsive.

Enabling GL shaders is a big performance hit as for now. Future optimizations should (and will) address this problem.

[virag0]

Thanks for your input. 
How do I get these .ufo files onto my system in the right place?
I seem to have them in source tree but how do I set them up correctly?

I am running make macinstaller to see if it picks up the correct data.


rachel

[Sandro]

./base/ufos/ and ./base/ufos/ui -- but most likely, you already got them there (considering your build is able to load maps and textures, which are also in the various ./base/ subdirectories)

[virag0]

./base/ufos/ and ./base/ufos/ui -- but most likely, you already got them there (considering your build is able to load maps and textures, which are also in the various ./base/ subdirectories)

Soooooo,  in the hope of getting the exact answer..... ......what is the exact name of the files that contains the heads of the troopers and aliens, particles etc?

I have been through my 2.4 source tree and know I have a lot of .ufo files under the base directory.   
But I do not know what files are actually missing.     So this is why I tried to "git" the latest repo in the hope of getting the heads and instead going down the twisty little path into git-mania
which is in fact making me sick again with anxiety.

So given this is failing and I have an almost working game, to paraphrase a great philosopher - "can I please just have the heads"?  (and the particle files) and information
on how to make these appear in the game?

The 2.3.1 version seems well equipped with heads and particles etc......


rachel