UFO:Alien Invasion

Technical support => Bugs in stable version (2.5) => Topic started by: kurja on June 09, 2012, 12:49:52 pm

Title: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: kurja on June 09, 2012, 12:49:52 pm
Yes, what the subject line says. Spooky Shit #2: I had this alien sitting in one square for half dozen turns, untargettable and somehow between the squares, projectiles and knives whizzed right through, and the dozen grenades at it's feet didn't work any better to make it fall down or stop shooting back - untill it became invisible and started walking around, only noticeable by the energy weapon shots from here and there....
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: kurja on June 09, 2012, 12:52:12 pm
events log
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: kurja on June 09, 2012, 08:34:52 pm
no comments?

I put this in tracker https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3533933&group_id=157793&atid=805242
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: Mattn on June 10, 2012, 10:46:51 am
thanks for the report - but without a steps-to-reproduce we can't really fix the bug.

is this always happening to you on this map? does it always happen under some special circumstances?
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: kurja on June 10, 2012, 10:57:49 am
This has happened to me only this once, so no, I don't know how to reproduce it :/
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: Bonbadil on June 10, 2012, 10:26:36 pm
I had the same problem on the same map when I played with the stable 2.4. But only once, I don't know how to reproduce it. I managed to kill the ghost with a plasma grenade launcher salvo when I spotted where the shoots came from.
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: DarkRain on August 01, 2012, 03:35:05 pm
I found this bug recently, in my case the alien - a hovernet - was off the grid since the beginning of battle (dam map, it spawned in sight of my soldiers - already off-grid) and it became invisible as soon as the alien turn started (presumably when it started moving)
But there's more, as has been reported having one of these might prevent the battle from ending, I killed it last (reaction fire) and the alien turn didn't end, then I killed the server from the console but the game refused to exit from battlescape! Very odd...
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: H-Hour on August 01, 2012, 03:44:47 pm
When you say it was "off grid", do you mean that it appeared outside of the outer boundaries of the map? Or that it didn't sit in the center of a grid on the map?
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: Nokim on August 01, 2012, 04:09:39 pm
When you say it was "off grid", do you mean that it appeared outside of the outer boundaries of the map? Or that it didn't sit in the center of a grid on the map?
In my case - not in center of grid cell on map. Looks like unfinished move animation.
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: DarkRain on August 01, 2012, 07:10:41 pm
It seemed to be stuck in the middle of two adjacent map cells and, as I said, it was spawned that way.
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: kbs666 on October 03, 2012, 10:38:34 pm
This has happened to me several times. I cannot reproduce it consistently.

The first case the alien completely disappears but continues to move and fire. Reaction fire, AoE attacks and bleeding will usually do it in but not before it kills a bunch of my guys.

The second case the alien will appear to remain at the same location but is unhittable and eventually it becomes clear it is moving and acting as above.

In both cases the 'ghost' is preceeded by a turn where the alien is not drawn in a single cell on the map. This is noticeable by the odd behavior of the reticle when targeting it. It may not be relevant but for me it happens most on the bridge/junkyard map.
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: Sandro on October 04, 2012, 05:26:50 pm
Invisible aliens happen with significant frequency (say, about 1 in 30 games) in the "red lights and machinery" building area at the dam map. Not sure about exact location, though. In that case, they sometimes can be killed with the reaction fire.
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: Mattn on October 04, 2012, 07:28:38 pm
maybe the seed that is printed at game start can help us to reproduce this.
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: H-Hour on October 04, 2012, 08:34:05 pm
Invisible aliens happen with significant frequency (say, about 1 in 30 games) in the "red lights and machinery" building area at the dam map. Not sure about exact location, though. In that case, they sometimes can be killed with the reaction fire.

Does it always happen to an alien at the same location? Could be a mis-placed start position.
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: Sandro on October 04, 2012, 08:38:54 pm
No -- all 8 are normal from the beginning (all cases were in skirmish games), but sometimes one of them walks into that area and turns invisible.
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: ShipIt on October 04, 2012, 08:41:34 pm
... a mis-placed start position.

Not on this map for sure.
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: DarkRain on December 16, 2012, 07:50:04 pm
Has someone seen this after the latest fixes? Hopefully this bug died with the latest threading and dbuffer fixes.
Forget I asked, I just found it again.
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: Telok on December 17, 2012, 03:02:37 pm
If you use the RF test map that H-Hour worked up for me in the RF thread you can force this behaviour really easily. Just stick a few soldiers down on your end and in five to ten rounds the hovernets will off-grid while shooting at you.

It's a good map for testing because it loads and runs really really fast.
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: dragonlordkfb on March 23, 2013, 10:15:15 pm
thanks for the report - but without a steps-to-reproduce we can't really fix the bug.

is this always happening to you on this map? does it always happen under some special circumstances?

The invisible aliens actors are happening because game is out of sync. Any action with camera movement lags, typically on aliens shooting on long distance. As result i see message about wounded soldier long before alien which wounded him even have started to move and movement of previous alien is shown (bullet in flight).
I think that bugs with dead aliens left standing or invisible aliens is related because it's often happens on maps with wide space like dam or farm.

To reproduce, simply open GAS STATION maps or DAM, have one of your agents spot an alien at least a few screens away, and let them shoot at you for a few turns.
 You can force the issue on DAM by staying around the landing pad and playing sniper. As you move your soldiers around the aliens will move around on their side. Eventually you can get one that will seem to be "stuck" partially between two tiles, really he's invisible and moving and shooting.

Force the issue by staying on your side of the Dam map and playing at sniping. You will have an invisible actor in no time.
Title: Re: news: immortal ghost alien goes off the grid and becomes invisible!
Post by: Nokim on March 24, 2013, 09:08:34 pm
The invisible aliens actors are happening because game is out of sync. Any action with camera movement lags, typically on aliens shooting on long distance. As result i see message about wounded soldier long before alien which wounded him even have started to move and movement of previous alien is shown (bullet in flight).
I think that bugs with dead aliens left standing or invisible aliens is related because it's often happens on maps with wide space like dam or farm.
Almost my words ;) But i have impression that this bug is already fixed, however camera movement and bullet flight is out of sync on dam map at least. How "fresh" is your version?