Topics

1

Tactics / Survival problem using smoke - enemy attack without spotting.

« on: September 04, 2020, 02:57:50 pm »

Previous times I successfuly used smoke to prevent enemy attacking soldier without getting right to next tile near him. At such distance units are usually spoted if in field of view (3 squares in front of my soldier, side squares are out). As result, enemy could not attack without reaction fire. Of course if enemy did not split spotter/attacker roles between different units.

Now I try latest July master commit (build near of mid-august), finally decided to master very hard level. I'm not sure, is it due to difficulty or code change (probably regression), but at least in some cases none of my soldiers spoted anyone (no even dedicated spotter) before being attacked. Smoke definitely works even if soldier stays at last covered tile before open area (otherwise reaction fire would be triggered from there too).

Examples (usually with shevaar, though could be with tamans too):

1. At mansion with panic room defense objective, minimal version (no garden part, spawning near underground far entrance).
- Two soldiers, one sabot-shotgunner with bomberman approaching underground service transport entrance in main building, shevaar is wondering inside. Those men are staying so, that full slope width is in fov (even if enemy passed behind, there would be spotting message with camera movement). People where attacked when slightly more than half of slope length remained, shevaar still was inside. Noone was ever spoted. I'm just not sure if attacker got close. On next round I discovered possible attacker (one shevaar outside) at side upstair (spoted with men, approaching main entrance). No way shevaar could do it if approached where could be spoted.
1.1. Same, but with armored taman with plasma rifle, this time it did not move after shot, yet it was right near of jalousie gates. Both cases - there is no dedicated spotter.
1.2. Other case on same mission - two men approaching to farthest (service non-underground) entrance. Again shevaar. Men stoped behind protrusion from side wall, before light column and car. One right behind protrusion, second near. Shevaar ended at other side of protrusion, right in inner corner, still trying to fire - probably to second one. Though this time line of fire reliably crossed protrusion.
2. Military bunker map. Several man approaching left entrance (ground level). Sabot-shotgunner in middle of corridor (3 tiles wide), filled by smoke. By some reason only 2 tiles wide part was filled. Two more man ended up right befind that part: sniper, who made two shots to shevaar inside (at entrance to baracks at left). Shotgunner, from seating missed 4 shots, left last for reaction fire (it was expert-level, but distance was maximum for sabot shotgun). Shotgunner was several tiles back from entrance corridor end. I don't know, who was target, but that shotgunner got hit, than that shevaar fall to sleep closest to split wall, leading to lift. There was shevaar in room, pretty able to shoot and hide remaining soldiers (that highly wanted sniper), but it only ended closer to barrack door.

2

Discussion / Carbon nanotubes is not best armor material on earth

« on: August 28, 2020, 05:21:32 pm »

I just discovered carbon nanotubes could be not best armor material against alien weaponry (even today).
Hope it will make sence to be noted here .

This link is from CNT wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boron_nitride_nanotube

It's claimed to have same mechanical properties (or at least tensile strength - not sure if it same about others, including pressure resistance), but higher thermal stability - CNT is claimed to fail at 400°C with BNNT at 90°C.

One publication clames BNNT is even stronger than CNT.
https://www.materialsforengineering.co.uk/engineering-materials-news/boron-nanotubes-are-stronger-than-carbon-nanotubes/111959/

Yet during previous search I noticed SiC nanotubes mentioned, but can't find anything about it with unrestricted read access. Everything I could find requires some login (for begining... did not try to go any further).

3

Bugs in development version (2.6-dev) / Antimatter transfer vanishes after reloading game

« on: February 09, 2019, 05:29:59 am »

Someone already made this topic in Mac section, but it seems to be independent. If i start new antimatter send, than save and load new save, antimatter disappears from send, while on sender it is like sent, so antimatter is just lost.

4

Bugs in development version (2.6-dev) / Some fuzzy bugs, appearing simulteneously in current 2.6

« on: February 07, 2019, 08:57:42 pm »

I'm playing 2.6, from commit f8a652df9221007449fed3b21c66b28de5a314dd:
* Make it possible to utilize the whole screen on "fill"-ed windows (set proper window size)

During game runing session three bugs begin to appear (nearly at the same time, listing in order i usually notice them during gameplay):
- Movement time indicator doesn't appear when i'm to move soldier.
- For some (but not all) soldiers it is impossible to fire weapons: if i choose fire mode from menu, cursors changes from crosshair with movement position marker to simple green crosshair, but not aiming one. For some soldiers, however, it still works. E.g., i fired with two soldiers than switched to next. Bugs happens with most soldiers, excepting previous two (may be more, but most - exactly).
- Soldiers health bar disappears - i faced it both at geoscape during base management and during mission.

For first i found similar bug:
https://ufoai.org/bugs/ufoalieninvasion/issues/5389

Other two - i don't know what search phrase is suitable, probably it is not reported.
"cannot fire" search on bugtracker gave something seemingly unrelated.

Since first bug could not reproduced by anyone - i don't know, what exactly leads, so i will describe my sequence.
I began new standard game.
- Founded base at africa, added new one lab, factory, interceptor hangar to base.
- Built ufo storage and two radars in south america.
- Dearmed soldiers, pulled out, repulled back 12 soldiers, watching to stats.
- Bought aircraft and soldier gear, selling unused (autopistols, rocket launchers, TR-20, etc).
- Loaded dropship crew with full weight for better training - so base inventory has dozens of GL frag ammo (i made set of versatile groups, each with AR, close combat, sniper and bombers/GL).

Accelerated time until March 26, at then got first scout on base radar (at africa). It landed in close asia city before fighters could reach it - when i got africa happiness lowered just before, i sent stiletto for some patrol to look to edge pieces, uncovered by radar, and it was too far to make it in time.
Bugs appeared during tactical mission. With my full-encumbered soldiers i managed to kill one taman and corner another and spider, tamans are with blades (i prefer snapshots for training, using bursts only in critical situations, as well as pistols intead of shotgun due to better accuracy by default).

I don't know, when healthbar disappeared from stats (i don't monitor it specially during play - it is just crazy, i even forgot about this bug, as it did not happen while i played post-endgame just before this new attempt). So, the only warning that can't be missed is inability to activate firing cursor mode for most soldiers.

Game restart fixes all bugs.
When i played endgame and later at previous attempt, game simply began to slowdown gradually, making some operations torture, e.g. selling/buying or adding items to be sent. But i remember it appearing in begining - can't remember, when this sort of bugs disappeared.

Edit: forgot another symptom - in geoscape time control keys stop working (don't remember what if just click these buttons).

5

Feature Requests / Geoscape labels and hiding alien transports

« on: February 05, 2019, 05:39:11 pm »

I had complex situation while on geoscape, where i had potential alien base search point (i could catch exact coordinates only after transport left base, though even with almost fine positioning base doesn't appear several days), two more transport approaching (one already corrected course to possible destionation), and for better aircraft load - 1 scout, 2 harvesters (unclear, which are hunting) and 3 missions with 1 terror (can't wait).

To cope with that i had hercules, two saracens and stingrays (using rarely, if no other mean reachable like lure craft, due to pressure of work) and firebird, which i keep specially for alien base search, staying long on same place.

Problem is that transport ufo are more important for tracking, because there is no events for ufo, disappearing by going to base. For now it needs to be manually tracked by transports. One time i waited about week, just keeping 3 crafts just covering disappearance point, and still not found. After reloading to moment of transport approach, i did it in just a day after by finest aircraft placing transport hide point with full zoom). But it was the only job for moment, now it is way harder. For another base i could not remember exact location, because crafts where busy, and determined it exactly only when catched it taking off, but placing on exact takeoff point seems to need much longer than previous case.

Would be very useful to be able to place custom labels, which either don't have functions unlike crafts, installations or missions, or have just one - send some craft to these coordinates, which acts like for mission, but doesn't trigger any actions on arrival, and craft just stays here. In addition, event system could have special events for ufo hiding and unhiding (different from appearing and disappearing in space), where hiding could automatically add label (which may be manually removed when not needed) and unhiding - just like appearing transport - allow to stop time or just make notification.

There could be more uses for labels, such as drafting objects before actually instantiating, for better planning. Some alternative for draftable objects, which may be created like objects, but don't begin build, unless confirmed.

Edit: Added screenshot with all objectives.

6

Discussion / Is high resolution texture pack still available?

« on: February 02, 2019, 04:57:27 pm »

I discovered today, that there is separate texture pack, but the only pk3 link i found obsolete:
https://ufoai.org/forum/index.php/topic,5583.msg45052.html#msg45052

Not sure yet, how my i965 sandybridge videosystem will work, just wanted to try.

7

Discussion / Some means about rail/coilguns and transport

« on: February 02, 2019, 09:21:42 am »

Some of my notes, i would like to share:

- New ammo unification for RL, railgun and coilgun.
It just looks strange, that newer antimatter nano-rocket ammo is proposed for older railgun, but not for more advanced coilgun. While RL looks unable to launch AM rocket of proper size (as rockets seem launcher only by engine without pre-acceleration), hybrid rocket looks suitable for anything, that can launch AM rockets, too. As for coilgun - it naturaly looks like infantry adaptation of ufo missile launcher. Since it has, according to description, highest caliber  than any human infantry weapon (bigger than railgun), would be essential to prefer it for micro-missile experiments. However, it doesn't mean, that it obsoletes railgun...

- It is strange, that railgun with its relatively lower caliber (lower than coilgun) has only 2 shots capacity. I remember 2.4 time, where it had 8 or 6 shots and even had assault weapon class. While it is naturally rather sniper, than assault, it should have obviously bigger ammo capacity than coilgun - its image showes changeable barell and clip, including obviously more than 2 shots. To better attenuate barell errosion, each next shot with same clip could have degrading damage, e.g. by 5 per shot. It could just subtract 5*<missing_shots> for current clip from max damage, if such thing is possible - thus, after 8 shots it will barely better than SR (only by precision), also decrement itself could optionally progress, e.g. by 1, begining e.g. from 4 or 3 (if evaluation of missing ammo shots is ever possible).

- Should not micro-rocket ammo be explosive? One time i tried skirmish with antimatter railgun ammo, at dam. After passing bridge and checkpoint building on its end, i noticed enemy, hiding behind bulding right in front of exit from bridge. I found it as ideal case for AM railgun. Though it did not kill hovernet, it clearly pierced both walls. According to description, AM rockets are really frag explosive. Applying this property to initially piercing ammo, it could create splash damage at hit point, on both sides of pierced wall, and fletchette-like shot behind of wall (consisting of both rocket and wall fragments, each with slightly different damage).
  Btw, even for solid AP sniper shots, wall piercing damage could completely convert to weakened original shot with difference going to wall fragments behind. Of course, it would depend on wall material - metalic walls (e.g. gates) would generate much less shrapnel, but it could have light fire damage.
Specially for coilgun/railgun solid slugs, hitting metal surfaces and probably alien armor, it could create blinding effect at hit point (though i'm not sure, wether carbon nanotube plate can generate same amount of flash as metal plate).

- Is it ok, that ufo armor may be penetrated by human coilguns? Railgun is initially researched in response to alien infantry armor, but ufo armor should be way taughter (in tactical HP scale may be 200 for harvester and even higher for later - not transport). It may be fun or not, but it is possible to eliminate last  usually badass survivors in corrupter just by staying under proper side section with one or more men seeking via IR googles and coilgunner shooting through floor. I'm not sure though, how ufo armor is scaled to tactical gameplay.

- In above case is ok, there could be some interesting way of intentionally damaging ufo engines (for studied ufo), thus turning possible harvest/terror mission into crash site if mission is aborted (though happiness impact could be same for first aborting, before conversion is happened). Though i usually don't agree such resolution (for alien base 1 abort is enough to turn complete all-extatic state into begining or worse, at standard hardness).

8

Discussion / Recovering transport from alien base

« on: February 02, 2019, 07:46:58 am »

When transport once appeared, i tracked it carefully under some magnification (to fit continent to screen), then sent aircraft to exact location (not just to radar range). I managed to ambush it before transport took out (i noticed it previous time, since i waited too long with 2-3 aircrafts constantly in area, as i tracked disappearance location not enough exactly).

As i can see, alien base has just one transport dock. If transport is meaned to be in base during capture, it probably should be recovered as usually done with any land mission.

9

Discussion / Indroducing metalic hydrogen (was: What if alien plasma tech used MH)

« on: January 20, 2019, 07:59:28 pm »

I heared about this matter type many times, but only not long ago it attracted me - mostly by its possible metastability and by amount of energy, accumulated in it. One real-world guessed usage for it - is spacecraft fuel. It is currently as experimental as stable and usable fusion reactors - there was one probably successful experiment, when microscopic amount of this stuff was created between pikes of adamant press with hardened surface, which existed only subtle amount of time. The only reason, why it was proved success, is sudden change in sample appearance, including transparency and reflection.

In game.
Aliens have stable production of metalic hydrogen for their needs. Their tech allows them even to mine raw hydrogen from gas giants. Due to this, water decomposition is probably obsoleted for them - so, they are unlikely to be interested in decompositing earth water. Though are they...

I'm not sure, wether idea of metalic hydrogen will fit into storyline, as plasma grenade reasearch report already tells, that grenade contains a hydrogen amount and accumulates energy for its heating. It would probably required separate research for metalic hydrogen production - it even would be in same relation to plasma weapon as animatter relates to ufo engines, with only difference that this topic should appear after first plasma tech research and be a prerequisite for production.

10

Discussion / Thermobaric ammo

« on: January 07, 2019, 02:20:05 pm »

This type of ammo is usually used in big ammo, such as missiles or bombs. Smallest implementations includes rocket launcher missiles.
Even if this ammo type is unsuitable for most treat handling missions, it could be very useful during alien base/carrier assault, as there is noone, but aliens.
And probably going to be exceptionally useful at aliens home.

Besides of relatively big RL ammo, 20mm sniper rifle ammo as well as coilgun adaptation.
Also ammo could be splited into fuel-only and fuel+ oxydizer implementations.
- First is conventional type, relying on atmo properties.
- Second may be specially useful for extraterestrial cases or others, when there is unclear, wether destionation air supports fire. While seemingly less powerful, it could get advantage by using specially picked oxydizer, especially fluorum-based.

As for effect in tactical gameplay - such ammo should create blast wave of pretty big radius, but it need support for fuzzed epicenter. Ammo detonation may be implemented as hybrid of smoke, fire and concussive damage.
- First explosion creates fuel cloud in same manner as smoke grenade;
- Resulting fuel field explodes itself with much greater strength after some fracture of second. Each tile generates own explosion, whose waves are summed, resulting in powerful shockwave, spreading in notorious distance beyond fuel cloud;
- Each original cloud tile generates very small cloud of very aggressive gas, which deals fire damage and some sort of smoke damage; if created from versatile fuel+ox ammo type, it should have increased toxic damage.

This ammo type is expected to knock down most aliens in pretty wide area, if not kill them.
Smoke may be enhanced to have increased blinding or/and smoke effects (smoke should dissipate quicker).

Edit (09.01.2019)

Would be wrong to compare fuel-spreading explosion to smoke grenade, as according to sound, smoke grenade works rather by quickly sinking smoke into air through holes. This first explosion should probably do some knocking damage at least to unprotected targets (without shockwave-safe armor).

Yet my proposal about per-tile independend explosions seems to be wrong, as in real case there should be single detonation wave, producing single strong shockwave outside of fuel cloud, as well as mentioned above fire and high pressure inside.

11

Sounds and Music / Do we need to update contribution help article about music/sound artwork?

« on: May 14, 2018, 11:55:11 pm »

Hello there again. While watching forum for new discussion about development, i stoped attention on this page:
https://ufoai.org/wiki/Music_and_sounds

It attracted me by listing usually freeware software. Not so numerous however.
Page is last modified in 2010 (can't remember, wether i have seen ever this game that time, but that was peak of active learning of linux audio software for me). Many things were changed then, when more and more of this stuff became available for other OS.

While i'm not so skilled at composition practice, i could take part in extending of this article.
My current questions to community:
- Does anyone use this stuff, or composers of ufoai tracks rather prefer commertial branded tools instead?
- Do we need ever more compositions ever? While this page has link to TODO section about music/audio stuff, that section is actually empty. Or is it related only to world sounds?
(my assumption, that still could get improvisation, as well as more music styles - including for more contries).

I made short research in last week, which is still not completed. What is done for now, is simple check for info update about known open-source tools, all of which are initially created for linux, but are cross-platform, and support most important "industrial" standards, such as VST/AU and ASIO. My goal now is to test, how much integrated and easy to maintain resulting production environment will be. Below is first draft if this list of what i could find available for download. Now it just needs to be tested.

I'm going to test it under wine, but i stucked into problem of simply running executables...
While it is always recommended to have wine supporting 32-bit (while 64-bit could be optional), last windows versions are 64bit, we have 64-bit skype, and open-source crossplatform software is usually built for 64-bit as well. But reality appeared harder. Some things are not built for 64-bit, and most, if not all, existing 64-bit versions of most audio software, i have ever stored (including vlc, smplayer, soundfont editor, libreoffice... all that i use under linux) fail under wine64 as if if run under wine32 or wine64 runs 32-bit versions. Some are claimed to be hybrid versions (asio4all installer also fails to run).

Now i need to rebuild all for both 64/32bit, so 32-bit windows versions could be tried. For now i wait completion of big upgrade, after which i can get to rebuild wine with its deps (will keep only necessary features, like audio, video, with disabled printer/textures support).
Would be appreciated if anyone else try it as well.

Note, that some tools in list go under interesting distribution license: while code is open (you may just download or clone from git and build it), ready to use binary installers (no matter of what OS) are commercial, but price is either low or even may be varied by purchaiser. This is about Ardour. Just visit its download page and you well see, what i'm about. However, just for test, demo version should be enough (usually demo restrictions don't affect features). Such license is really good way of monetization: while it is open, non-devs (anyone, who unable to build from source) are motivated to donate by money.

About expected software list. For overview, we have these possible building blocks:
- Ardour: sequencer (Reaper replacement),
- ZynAddSubFX/Zyn-Fusion: pure-synth type virtual instrument plugin (those, composed of oscillators, modulators, filters, etc),
- LinuxSampler: modern sampler, supporting sf2, sfz and extended gig variant (supports scripting as in kontakt),
- DrumGizmo: drum sampler plugin with several free banks, whose size is more than 1Gb each,
- Hydrogen: drum machine (dedicated sequencer),
- Carla: modular environment, similar to NI Reaktor, which supports several formats of processing plugins, yet has embedded support of sampler banks,
- Audacity: digital sound wave editor - just because must have (it is already in article)
Below are secondary tools, that could be useful for environment:
- JACK Audio Connection Kit: modular audio environment with both native and ASIO interfaces;
- Catia: nice graphical patchbay tool for jack, which probably could be replaced by carla, shipped in Cadence software suite by falktx.

Also, this list might be extended with free/opensource plugins, built for windows either in VST or LV2 formats.

For samplers some list of good free instrument banks may be added. While for hydrogen and drumgizmo enough much banks are concentrated in one place, those for linuxsampler are usually spreaded. Of course, it is not going to be clone of existing forums: just a compact list.

For many of these links to video or other tutorials are available.

 _________________________
/   Verbose descriptions  \
===========================
Ardour: Digital Audio Workstation and sequencer (see website info about distribution).
Quite mature sequencer and digital audio workstation.
It may be downloaded as source code, demo version or bought in ready to use form. Price is not fixed - you decide, how much to pay (pay more to get some optional bonuses). Think about it rather as required donation (really, without donations project would die).
   Platforms: Win, Mac, Linux
   Website: https://ardour.org/
   Plugins: AudioUnit, VST, LV2, LADSPA

ZynAddSubFX or Zyn-Fusion:
Great "pure" software synthesizer, providing dozens of sound parameters (some of them may be automated).
Zyn-Fusion - commercial version with redesigned user interface (promised to become open one time).
   Platforms: Win (+VST), Mac (+VST), Linux
   Website: http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/, http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=268277

LinuxSampler, QSampler: Virtual instrument synthesizer, using sampled instruments.
Maximum instruments size is not limited by RAM.
   Platforms: Win (+VST), Mac (+VST, +AU), Linux
   Website: https://www.linuxsampler.org/
   Formats: gig, sfz, sf2

Hydrogen: Drum machine sequencer, using sampled instruments in own format.
Drum sampler.
   Platforms: Win, Mac, Linux
   Website: http://www.hydrogen-music.org/, https://github.com/hydrogen-music/hydrogen, https://sourceforge.net/projects/hydrogen/

DrumGizmo: Sampled drum synthesizer. Available as VST plugin. Several very HQ banks are available with size >1Gb. Windows version is tested in Reaper and Cubase.
   Platforms: Win (=VST), Linux:
   Website: https://www.drumgizmo.org

Audacity: Multitrack digital sound wave editor.
   Platforms: Win, Mac, Linux

Carla: Modular virtual studio, capable to load external instrument plugins, as well as virtual instruments, supported by linuxsampler.
    Platforms: Win, Mac, Linux
   Website: https://kxstudio.linuxaudio.org/Applications:Carla
    Integration: ASIO (Jack Router)

Draft notes about environment structure
---------------------------------------
For now i have just few notest about that.
- Applications, supporting ASIO, may be connected all each to other via JACK Router. They are unlikely, however, to have MIDI channels, so each component in jack environment must have some sequencer mean.
  - While carla provides LV2 plugin in linux, but i did not discover it in windows/wine yet (not before i can try Ardour demo in wine). Without this - still possible to use it with any plugin sequencer, if any available, so audio from Ardour still could be passed through it.
- LinuxSampler, unlike usual plugins, loads in single instance, while VST plugins refer to its single instruments.
- JACK may be configured to use real ASIO backend, like asio4all, but according to documentation, it is now not via GUI.
Still very possible, that ardour disro uses own jack instance.

12

Bugs in development version (2.6-dev) / contrib/map-get/update.py ends with temporary problem with name resolution

« on: May 10, 2018, 03:07:33 am »

When i run this script it doenloads maps, but ends with python traceback, caused by this error:

Code: [Select]

building file list ...
895 files to consider
./
bunker.bsp
     27,734,916 100%   61.01MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#1, to-chk=893/895)
city_train.bsp
     15,610,744 100%   19.26MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#2, to-chk=892/895)
corrupter_crash.bsp
     19,233,944 100%   17.13MB/s    0:00:01 (xfr#3, to-chk=891/895)
dam.bsp
      9,583,008 100%   37.00MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#4, to-chk=890/895)
excavation.bsp
     18,164,888 100%   31.38MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#5, to-chk=889/895)
........<tldr; to not exceed max 20 000 chars>.......
village2/vil_b2x4_mart01.bsp
      7,460,868 100%    4.93MB/s    0:00:01 (xfr#829, to-chk=32/895)
village2/vil_b2x4_station01.bsp
      4,838,900 100%    6.18MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#830, to-chk=31/895)
village2/vil_craft_drop_firebird.bsp
        535,608 100%  681.95kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#831, to-chk=30/895)
village2/vil_craft_drop_herakles.bsp
        460,720 100%  558.91kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#832, to-chk=29/895)
village2/vil_craft_drop_raptor.bsp
        483,916 100%  549.50kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#833, to-chk=28/895)
village2/vil_craft_ufo_fighter.bsp
      3,404,996 100%    3.08MB/s    0:00:01 (xfr#834, to-chk=27/895)
village2/vil_craft_ufo_scout.bsp
      3,143,828 100%    9.06MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#835, to-chk=26/895)
village2/vil_mp1.bsp
        444,796 100%    1.14MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#836, to-chk=25/895)
village2/vil_mp2.bsp
        444,796 100%    1.08MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#837, to-chk=24/895)
village2/vil_mp3.bsp
        444,796 100%    1.03MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#838, to-chk=23/895)
village2/vil_mp4.bsp
        444,796 100% 1019.65kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#839, to-chk=22/895)
village2/vil_p2x2_garden01.bsp
      1,700,132 100%    2.41MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#840, to-chk=21/895)
village2/vil_p2x2_playground01.bsp
      1,671,464 100%    1.90MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#841, to-chk=20/895)
village2/vil_p2x2_playground02.bsp
      1,821,260 100%    1.91MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#842, to-chk=19/895)
village2/vil_p4x4_fountain01.bsp
      7,984,912 100%    6.26MB/s    0:00:01 (xfr#843, to-chk=18/895)
village2/vil_sc_ne01.bsp
        390,116 100%    1.54MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#844, to-chk=17/895)
village2/vil_sc_nw01.bsp
        421,436 100%    1.36MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#845, to-chk=16/895)
village2/vil_sc_sw01.bsp
        389,608 100%    1.21MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#846, to-chk=15/895)
village2/vil_sh1x1_01.bsp
        378,836 100%    1.13MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#847, to-chk=14/895)
village2/vil_sh_01.bsp
        443,780 100%    1.26MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#848, to-chk=13/895)
village2/vil_sh_02.bsp
        475,128 100%    1.27MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#849, to-chk=12/895)
village2/vil_sh_03.bsp
        456,320 100%    1.15MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#850, to-chk=11/895)
village2/vil_st_east01.bsp
        412,140 100%  969.83kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#851, to-chk=10/895)
village2/vil_st_north01.bsp
        414,124 100%  839.04kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#852, to-chk=9/895)
village2/vil_st_north02.bsp
        435,172 100%  851.65kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#853, to-chk=8/895)
village2/vil_st_south01.bsp
        414,124 100%  786.81kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#854, to-chk=7/895)
village2/vil_st_west01.bsp
        411,996 100%  762.01kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#855, to-chk=6/895)
village2/vil_sv1x1_01.bsp
        377,788 100%  676.94kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#856, to-chk=5/895)
village2/vil_sv_01.bsp
        445,660 100%  756.90kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#857, to-chk=4/895)
village2/vil_sv_02.bsp
        620,012 100%  952.01kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#858, to-chk=3/895)
village2/vil_sv_03.bsp
        468,040 100%  699.95kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#859, to-chk=2/895)
village2/vil_sv_04.bsp
        669,228 100%  952.69kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#860, to-chk=1/895)
village2/vil_sx_01.bsp
        475,344 100%  619.76kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#861, to-chk=0/895)                                                                                                                            [ ok ]
map-get version 0.0.5.0
http://ufoai.org/maps/2.6
Local ufo2map information:
* version_from_binary: None
* version_from_source: None
* hash_from_source: 255076719a0cc938f747bce2c3f484d9
* version: None

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "contrib/map-get/update.py", line 198, in <module>
    main()
  File "contrib/map-get/update.py", line 195, in main
    upgrade(repository)
  File "contrib/map-get/update.py", line 94, in upgrade
    data = download(repository + '/UFO2MAP')
  File "contrib/map-get/update.py", line 44, in download
    f = urllib2.build_opener().open(request)
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 429, in open
    response = self._open(req, data)
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 447, in _open
    '_open', req)
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 407, in _call_chain
    result = func(*args)
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 1228, in http_open
    return self.do_open(httplib.HTTPConnection, req)
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 1198, in do_open
    raise URLError(err)
urllib2.URLError: <urlopen error [Errno -3] Temporary failure in name resolution>
According to log, it downloads all maps at least from first list.
I can't understand even, what url: data = download(repository + '/UFO2MAP').
Yet can't find such error text neither at form nor bugtracker.

runing with python 2.7

13

Bugs in development version (2.6-dev) / Some settings are not used after restart

« on: October 24, 2017, 01:11:22 pm »

Texture resolution:
i have choices up to 8192, but if i set it to 2048 or higher, after reload it drops to 1024 without reason, with only this feedback in log:

Code: [Select]

max texture size: detected 8192
...but using 1024 as requestedLightmap brightness: silently, can't even find in log something related

14

Feature Requests / Mounted weapon points inside transport

« on: October 20, 2017, 12:51:41 pm »

This was supposed to be reply for thread about Pilot' support at battlescape, both more logical and probably acceptable.

Few preexisting turrets, may be with some shielding, may be added at transport's cargo doors. For firebird this would mean one turret per side, like in blackhawk heli, for hercules - one turret behind. Still no idea to propose about predator: could it have crew turrets retractable, embedded in transport's bottom and deployed from pilot's console (for game - already deployed in battle begining).

Turret could have mounted heavy laser (maybe twin), rapid-firing (think automatic) grenade/rocket launcher, heavy needler with reduced dispersion, some heavy MG. I remember this already discussed, but that was about turrets, spreaded over battle field.

Some random soldiers should be spawned on turrets as gunners at battle begining. Those, with both hands free, may get precision/speed bonus over those, with one hand busy.

15

Feature Requests / Make complexity-related adjustments less obsqure

« on: August 10, 2017, 03:42:26 pm »

Before this moment i tried latest trunk (18.07.2017 from master) at standard and hard levels  (hard is in the middle state, i just began to get needler and ortnoks).

I noticed, that on hard level my units get more damage, than assumed by weapon properties in ufopaedia and base management / soldiers.
Thus, unarmored unit with health 100 must survive at least one hit from plasma rifle, but in begining it was instant kill (even without bleeding), when some was hit with either rifle or hovernet's plasma bolt.

At enemy - i don't know, what is affected (seems to be weapon damage), but for example, bloodspirers are now bulletproof against MG (only sniper or shotgun APDS ammo can penetrate their armor). Or is it intentional...

I propose to don't affect gear properties (ammo damage, armor strength), but instead give better skills and health for enemy units and less for ours.
More exactly, complexity could affect range bounds, used to assign skills and health to all units - human soldiers, pilots, enemy - including bots, civilians (this is one weapon, which must make several hits to kill civilian, and if enemy opens fire from far, civilian has a chance to survive entire burst, moreover if partially covered by someone else and also if some human soldier has a time to heal that civilian).

For example:
- human: standard health - (85..115), hard - (60..90)
- taman: standard health - 110, hard - 140
- ortnok: standard health - 140, hard - 170

p.s. No idea, what are ranges for aliens - all i have seen is various recruits parameters in camaign, and for aliens - units parameters in custom team gear setup for skirmish.