Topics

1

Bugs in development version (2.6-dev) / Happiness calculation must have changed in the player's favor at some point

« on: September 13, 2020, 10:34:35 pm »

I just won some mission with 1 out of 8 civilians surviving. I remember that such an outcome used to reduce nation happiness. It was 3/8 that was needed for avoiding happiness loss. The game got a good deal easier here it seems. It may be an in intended change of course. Perhaps it's also important that it was a crashed UFO mission, as they work differently (e.g. they don't reduce happiness at midnight). (Perhaps my memory stems from non-crashed UFO missions ?)
As a result, I managed to reach maximum happiness late July already. I recall that this is some months earlier than it used to be.

2

Discussion / Avoiding the need for battlescape saves

« on: May 04, 2017, 08:26:30 pm »

I'd like to point out that on my system at least, it works to put the computer into suspend mode. On the next evening I can continue the tactical mission and end it correctly by defeating all aliens. There is some strange behavior or bug related to music and sound, both are unusable after resuming from suspend until I restart UFO:AI. This is a problem as sounds are important for a few things such as knowing whether an alien is hit.
So, if there is only an hour or two of playing time this method can be used to "save" during a battle and to turn off the computer. The machine is a desktop btw, and OS is Lubuntu 16. Probably depends on the board and/or BIOS too. The other method (running UFO:AI in virtual box) didn't work for me, IIRC the guest system crashed after restarting the saved guest system, with an UFO:AI mission running.

3

Tactics / Detecting missions out of radar range

« on: February 27, 2016, 04:23:14 pm »

I just had a case of an undetected scout landed in the middle eastern alliance. It's pretty weird it managed to slip through my radar, as I got bases in Europe, South Africa and Asian Republic and a few towers near the Indian Ocean. When I noticed there must be an undetected mission, since happiness was going down, I launched ships trying to get the mission. I must have flown at least twice over the spot, to no avail. The location must have been somewhere on the Southern Coast of the Arabic Peninsula, where I only have the outer radar. I can conclude this from the course the scout hat once it launched again and entered my radar afterwards.
Was anyone ever successful in detecting missions outside of radar range with ships, without the flying UFO being previously visible ?
If this is no game feature then it probably should be.
I also had one interesting case of a mission which appeared right in the moment the advanced radar was finished, it was located in the area now covered by the inner radar, but only by the outer previously. I know that the mission had been present previously as happiness went down. This suggests that base inner radar works differently than a ship's inner radar, which is weird.

4

Discussion / AI is exploiting reaction fire buggyness

« on: February 25, 2016, 01:22:49 pm »

Sometimes an alien is standing in such a position at the beginning of its turn, that it could shout right away. This does however generally not happen. Instead it previously moves onto such a position that it's slightly behind a corner or similar, aims apparently slightly onto a "wrong" position and kills. There is no reason why my soldier shouldn't reaction shoot (only obstacles in the way - no friendly units) but doesn't. All such cases should be considered bugs. While I am also aiming onto "wrong" fields frequently, I almost never do it to exploit this bug as I cannot risk that it doesn't work. The AI appears to perfectly know whether it will work however. In all the cases it exploits the bug my RF didn't work, while I sometimes got reaction shot in cases where there was a red line from my soldier to the alien, both on the same height. The RF indeed hits the obstacle then, but only most of the time.

5

Mapping / Feedback regarding mapping in 2.6

« on: February 21, 2016, 07:37:34 pm »

I just finished a mission on an assembly called "Urban". I realized the supermarket, the disco and the community center, all of which have their individual maps. There were only 5 aliens in total. Aside from that there is not much relation between the map size the engine chooses and the number of aliens, this map is just needlessly large. "Large" meaning ways to go and ways to hide, rather than actual map size. I suppose that such assemblies are created in order to improve map variety, but the cost is IMHO too high. The cost is increase in playing time per mission, annoying search time for aliens and turn waiting time, because the increased size results in sometimes massive computer resource load increase. This is most noticeable on "forest" themed maps, where alien and civilian turns are sometimes *very* slow now, apparently due to a combination of increased map sizes and a new tree model. Forest themed maps used to be pretty small and quick in 2.5 still, but they often have become annoying in 2.6.

6

Tactics / A mission gone awry due to suffocation and smoke blocking IR sight (in 2.6)

« on: February 14, 2016, 09:54:03 pm »

This is now my first saveload or the first de facto lost mission since ages.
It happened on (guess what) Old mine, which is a known pain in the ass anyway since most of the time all of those civies which are not on the surface have little chance to survive and there's no way to help them.
The mission was running about normal, I had lost 2/4 cannon fodder, 3/4 civies dead (normal for this map) and 2/8 aliens remaining.
Near the end of my turn my scouting cannon fodder happened to spot an alien when I had little TUs left. I decided to try rescuing the cannon fodder by blocking the alien's sight with smoke. In hinsight this was the main mistake. I should instead have let it die, that perhaps would also have wounded the killing alien with reaction fire as I had enough TU left for that (but not for a kill). Flashbanging was also impossible. The alien killed my cannon fodder anyway, despite having to move through both fire and smoke. In my next turn I had to search for the alien, moving through the smoke causing more suffocation to my remaining units. If IR sight wouldn't be blocked by smoke I would have discovered it. But now I decided...okay, pointless, not going to find it. I spotted the other alien and killed it. Moved my last cannon fodder into a position so that it would be the unit the alien would likely kill its next turn, retreated the other (valuable) soldiers. I wanted to throw a fire grenade then, roughly onto the area where I suspect the alien would have to move through to reach my smoke covered soldiers. Distance 4 fields, line green, enough space around the green line...blargh. It hit the crate I wanted it to throw over and exploded exactly where it should not, stunning 3 soldiers in return, 2 of them valuable. As they were also on fire there was no way I could have helped them, they suffered fire damage each turn and died. I had 2 soldiers left, one of which was on the surface, and the other also 1 or 2 turns away from being stunned. Since the last alien was bleeding 1 points per turn I could have waited a very long time to still win the mission but shamefully decided to retry.
The point is that if it was either not for suffocation, or not for IR sight being blocked by smoke, or even not for both of these, this would not have happened.
I also think grenades (thrown, rolled or shot) should be somehow more precise in general. It can be applied to aliens (plasma grenades) as well. Using grenades is too much of a luck issue for a strategy game. The green line always tricks you into believing this would be safe, but beware if there is any kind of fence or similar obstacle it is guaranteed to be hit, don't even think of it.

7

Tactics / Attack which UFO with what ?

« on: November 17, 2015, 03:16:10 pm »

As I never do saveload - also not when in the campaign environment - I would like to hear some experience.

Is there a way to take down a harvester with only human tech for instance. Generally, I attack anything larger than a fighter only late in the campaign when I have starchaser already, which can take it down safely (with 2 particle beams, 1 laser and 2 alien warefare suits, no armor). Recently I downed a fighter with a saracen (2 particle beams, 1 alien warefare suit, 1 targeting computer, no armor) and survived with 4% hitpoints or so. When I already was that low I decided that only killing the fighter would safe me now, as I would probably have been hit again while trying to flee, and it worked. So this was too risky, I can't afford losing the 50000 credits or so which this ship is worth. This was in 2.6, where saracen has less hitpoints than in 2.5. IIRC a fighter can be taken down by a stilletto with 3 lasers too, don't recall about the electronics but at least 1 alien warefare suite seems mandatory, and no amor. As armor makes the ships slower, I often don't use it.
Human techs only are insufficient to attack anything armed as to my knowledge, so only scouts and supply ships are possible with those, which makes the human tech air rockets useless.
EDIT
IIRC I also once, in despair, destroyed a harvester which was chasing my firebird dropship with all the good soldiers on board using 2 stilettos and a ground SAM site. The stilettos were IIRC armed with 3 lasers each and no armor, don't know about the electronics. The harvester ignored the stilettos and continued chasing the fleeing firebird, which made victory possible. As stilettos are slower than harvesters, which appear very soon, I normally prefer saracens instead, as stilettos cannot flee from a harvester chasing them.

8

Bugs in development version (2.6-dev) / UFOs cruising over Phalanx installations ?

« on: November 13, 2015, 11:04:26 pm »

Sometimes UFOs are flying back and forth over a base (or apparently phalanx installation in general) and aren't doing something in particular. It looks as if they are waiting for a phalanx craft to pass by which they can attack. In the save I will now lure the UFO towards my ground rockets to shoot it down. It's a harvester over a radar tower (!)...what is this supposed to be ? Bombing failed because of a bug ? I read that that can happen but it never did for me.
EDIT
It was eager trying to shoot down my Saracen and is now wrecked.

9

Newbie Coding / fast-forwarding the battle situation for debugging

« on: November 03, 2015, 05:06:12 pm »

This question is directly related to my desire for battlescape saves, since being able to fast-forward the battle situation to the desired testing prerequisite for debugging a certain bug is only a workaround for the lack of battlescape saves. For instance, how to debug a bug such as this http://ufoai.org/bugs/ufoalieninvasion/issues/5543 without needing to play through the map ? What I would want is a save from directly before the end of the mission. However, in lieu of that, are there ways to fast-forward instead, such as killing some units, moving some units a long way in an instant, creating some units ? (Needless to say that that would be cheating in normal play.)
In my work for wesnoth I even created explicit debug functionality in some cases to jump forward with only one or two clicks. A wesnoth scenario is pretty similar to an UFO:AI tactical mission, there you can do such modifications as mentioned by running scripts on-the-fly.

10

Bugs in development version (2.6-dev) / contrib/map-get/update.py not getting certain maps

« on: October 30, 2015, 09:10:41 pm »

This is not actually a bug report, more a statement and question.

I deleted all of the downloaded or self-compiled maps and wanted to get all of the maps anew by running python contrib/map-get/update.py
However, that omits quite a few maps, 69 are reported as version mismatched. For instance, all of the bsp files for a human base are missing. Is this perhaps since the .map files have been edited since the last time the corresponding downloadable .bsp files have been updated ? As the .map files are under version control and my repo is on recent master.
I modified update.py to just download the latest available version anyway, now I can launch a base defense mission. Using ufo2map on all of the required maps would likely have worked as well. IIRC it can happen that that doesn't work because of the version mismatch, in which case I would have to compile those myself.
So that would have been the reason why the .bsp files weren't downloaded back then: http://ufoai.org/forum/index.php/topic,8691.0.html
Anyway, might be better if update.py would just ignore or optionally ignore a version mismatch.

11

Discussion / UFO:AI on a low end machine

« on: July 06, 2015, 03:57:29 pm »

I'm checking out how well various programs I use perform on hardware from ~2000. This machine has
1 GHz, 512MB RAM, a Nvidia Riva TNT2 with Nvidia's driver for that card, and win xp. The dual boot Linux system's graphical desktop performs much worse than windows - driver issues. So first time I try UFO:AI on windows. Had to set color depth to 32 bit or otherwise it complains about no hardware acceleration. I used one of those nightly downloads for 2.6 and a source checkout. fps in battlescope is ~7, geoscope and menus are better or much better. Pagefile goes up heavily though, I don't expect "mansion huge" (this is the most problematic map I've seen) to be usable.

I strongly suggest an option to disable "animations" of some things, especially fire/smoke fields. Other fires (crashed UFO parts and sometimes others are scattered on the map) should also be included. Probably a good idea to include unit animations as well (soldiers, aliens and civilians on the map, and the soldier image in the HUD). Fire fields are a total CPU eater. I hope this can all be done with a single option. Just have all of those display as a static image.

As the nightly is debug, I will have to compile myself for a release build I guess. I already have a recent CB with MinGw install. If I take headers, libs and dlls from the package at http://ufoai.org/wiki/Code::Blocks as usually, reference them so CodeBlocks finds them, is that supposed to work, basically ? Is the site I linked to the least out-of-date guide for windows compilation ?

12

Linux / Minimizing the build prerequisites list

« on: June 07, 2015, 04:48:49 pm »

I just replaced my main Linux system, ubuntu precise, by a fresh Lubuntu trusty install (no upgrade) and am getting several projects to compile again, of which UFO:AI happens to be the first one, so there is little chance for some other project/package/whatever to already have required some prerequisite for building/running UFO:AI.
remarks regarding http://ufoai.org/wiki/Debian (building master):
-git-core is now git
-I have installed nothing of (but all are available in my repo and mentioned as build requirements on the site above)
libtheora-dev libjpeg8-dev libxml2-dev libopenal-dev p7zip-full binutils-dev libxvidcore-dev libmxml-dev
but yet I get a working ./ufo binary, how can that be ?
For a good number of the prerequisites, I basically waited for make to stop the build due to a missing header and then installed the corresponding package, and I had used make clean to ensure g++ should need all those headers.
-libcurl3-dev: This package doesn't exist in my repos and IIRC it was the same in precise. ./configure complains about not finding the header but the build succeeds anyway...

I didn't attempt building the tests or radiant for now.

13

Tactics / changes in 2.6 related to combat

« on: May 28, 2015, 05:16:48 pm »

I happened to see a combat hovernet reaction fire for the first time ever, in current master. I wonder whether this is an intentional change, as there's no related commit message ? Hovernets and combat hovernets used to never do that because of some bug perhaps. This is an important change, making the game harder. (Combat) hovernets need to be treated similar to organic aliens then (basically, put a smoke grenade immediately). Considering that they cannot be flashbanged to alternatively disable reaction fire I wonder whether this change is "fair".
It would be nice if the radar window could be closed by clicking onto the icon that opens it as well so I don't need to move the mouse. Or if hovernets would look different based on into which direction they are looking. At least the radar window got some real use now.

Also I read that IR goggles are blocked by smoke now. This is a very important change, making the game harder in that phase where it's already hardest (about June-July, when nanocomp armor and lasers aren't yet available, but sheevars kick your ass).

The bleeding effect appears at the end of turns now I read, does this apply to aliens as well ? This should make the game somewhat easier, as that additional bleeding when your turn begins is often responsible for some soldier dying. Now there's a chance to rescue him/her. However, an alien that's bleeding heavily will no longer die before he can act but instead first act and then die, so there's no hope for an almost dead alien to be finished by bleeding anyway before he kills you. Provided it affects all teams.

14

Tactics / The various aliens

« on: February 09, 2015, 01:16:29 am »

I feel as if I should write a tactical guide for the aliens one can encounter and what weapons I prefer for them, ordered by difficulty, from least to most difficult.

blood spider:
Attack has a range of only 2 fields, no ranged attack. Hardly manages to kill anything after turn 1 is over. Civilians know very well how to run away from spiders so that they cannot attack them (much better than me). Hard to kill, but can often be ignored safely in favor of more pressing targets, if it's not near to me or civilians. Explosives and sniper rifle seem most effective. Interestingly, the more advanced sniper types seem less effective than the basic sniper rifle with EP ammunition. Seems to need about 10 TUs to attack, so ~30 TUs of movement away from them should be save.

combat blood spider:
Harder to kill and attack deals more damage. Other than that, see basic version.

armored Taman:
Lasers work well. Can move almost 30 TUs and then apply a plasma blade,  so ~30 TUs away I am safe.

Ortnok:
Extremely hard to kill. Lasers work well. Has the lowest TUs, less than armored Taman, so still not very effective in killing me or civilians. Making them bleed is a great help, since aliens never use medikits. If one is near my starting position, delaying killing him by flashbanging him can be useful, since I can then use my TUs on more pressing targets and kill several aliens, while I would have needed a lot of TUs for killing just that one Ortnok. This tactic can be applied to other organic aliens as well, but with lesser effect. A plasma blade is a elegant way of killing an Ortnok, the rate of TUs or ammunition needed for that action to get this kill (as opposed to killing with ranged weaponry) is very good.

Hovernet:
Pretty effective in killing me or civilians. Robotic aliens don't bleed, but never use grenades or plasma blades. Sniper EP, sniper or explosives seem effective. In 2.6, (basic or combat) hovernets very well manage to retreat behind cover after firing. This is very problematic in combination with the fact that civilians don't hide behind cover, so if I hide, they kill them. Killing with reaction fire is too dangerous, since even if it works and I do hit, it very likely still doesn't kill due to the damage scaling. Sniper weapons and grenades can hit it while it's behind cover. Seems to have more than 40 TUs, the shot takes 10.

unarmored Taman:
Their TU boost clearly outweighs that they are the easiest alien to kill. I stay away 40 TUs. Extremely effective in killing civilians or soldiers with a plasma rifle.

Sheevar:
Extremely effective in killing civilians or soldiers with a plasma rifle. Can spend almost 40 TUs and then pull out a plasma blade and kill however strong the soldier is (8TUs for taking out and applying). Plasma weapons seem to work best, including plasma explosives, since they never wear armor. Lasers also do. Incendiary grenades are a good idea if I cannot quite kill a sheevar on my turn. Once it's his turn, he will try to get to me, but the fire always deals good damage (no armor) and will likely deal the little additional damage I need. They sometimes walk into their death with open eyes.

Combat hovernet:
I consider these the most difficult enemy now, due to them almost always retreating after shooting. Extremely effective in killing civilians or soldiers thanks to 3 shots with 10 TUs. Seems to be equally hard to kill as the basic version, which isn't too hard though. One hit with sniper EP is often enough on easier levels. Explosives are also good.


For all organic aliens, their difficulty/killing priority also strongly depends on what weapon they are wearing, the plasma rifle is most dangerous (more than any particle weapon - it's more precise and more shots), while a plasma blaster or plasma pistol will often miss when trying to hit civilians or me. If any alien is within movement range of me, it outweighs everything else though (plasma blade!).

This btw means that the campaign is unbalanced - Sheevars should appear after Ortnoks, unarmored Taman after armored ones (lol), plasma weapons after particle weapons.

So, I try to use basic sniper ammunition or sniper EP and explosives against robotic aliens, lasers and advanced sniper weapons against organic aliens. Of course, if it's a high priority to kill that thing or the soldier has nothing better to do...
Particle weapons need a good research time I like to use for other things and are less precise in comparison to lasers. While they deal more damage, alien armor is better against them than against lasers, which takes away some of this better damage.

EDIT 12.09.2020
Corrections to weapon time units. According to base/ufos/otheritems.ufo, (combat) bloodspiders need (10) 12, (combat) hovernets (16) 16 time units for their attacks. So, moving around a little and throwing a grenade is safe while in a hovernet's field of view.

15

Tactics / A ridiculously tough mission

« on: January 09, 2015, 09:48:13 pm »

In this savegame (2.6, very hard), my dropship is holding over one of those missions that appear without an UFO that has been flying there. Let the time run a bit then it appears. When such missions happens, it seems there can be up to 24 aliens (I had 23), as in base attacks or bomber missions. Now, this is just at the start of the campaign. There can also be only 4 aliens, was no problem to win the second time I tried. You need to restart a few times so that there are that many aliens. The first time I did the mission it was (I think) impossible to win, with that kind of team at least. The only tactics should be to have at least a second sniper or more, shoot through the rooftop and slowly wear them down, using bleeding. Constantly stay near or inside the dropship, don't even think of going down or saving any civilians, they will all die. Perhaps block a few of the starcases (fire); sheevar can very well reach the "secure" area inside the dropship when already on the stairs and instakill anything. Don't use the team I have there, there's only one sniper and too much cannonfodder (without armor), since I usually rush down on this map to save as many civilians as possible. Suffocation is a huge problem here; there can only 4 soldiers hide inside of the dropship, aliens can come from all sides every turn, and you need to wait a long time on the rooftop until maybe at least half of the aliens are dead. Everyone who thinks that smoke grenades are overpowered please try this. So, I knew city high rise is very difficult, but that...let it appear with 12 aliens at maximum please, until late game.

EDIT
My second trial with an optimized squad. 13/23 aliens dead, one bleeding. I lost one guy. Looks like I could win, with a lot more patience. 1/10 civilians still alive since he spawned on the top. Certainly a necessary nation happiness decrease. In addition to the things above, IC grenades shot down the staircases with grenade launcher help killing the occasional sheevar, maybe by fire damage even, without reaction fire, as its damage doesn't seem to be affected by the difficulty while they are eagerly trying to get to me.