kbunny

I run a software-company as well (e-commerce, not games), and in the short time I've been here I repeatedly have been impressed by the sheer amount of work and (much valued!) communication about the process you (and the team) manage to put out with a modestly sized team. Great work, no need to start rushing things at this point.

With regards to the packing of the files for the Desura version (and the final version as well I suppose): Unpacking to access the files will probably be just the first step, as the game might expect only packed files. Repacking mods might be needed as well, or will the earlier described method (placing the changed files in a separate directory that is checked before falling back to the original files) work with a mix of unpacked modded files, and backed originals? How will this work after the final version is released, will an unpacked standalone version be available then? What method is used for the packing, a regular archiving method like zip, rar or 7zip?

I've encountered this issue again: same map, but this time without any ALT-TAB'ing. What happens is that the soldier walks away, but a ghost image remains. The ghost cannot be selected by clicking on it, but the next turn, it can be selected through the icons. I managed a screen shot of the after action report this time. As you can see it happened to the rocket-bearing Hilda twice (so three Hilda's), and also to another soldier. Screenshot: Full res link to the same image: http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/390972/v171_hilda_dupes.jpg

That looks really nice, I think it should be put in the game as an easter egg!

Do you recall if any transports where underway at the moment you saved? Because there's this bug: V17-1-CTD-when-C41-transferring-Mif-fighter-arrives-at-destination-base

On a farm-map with a downed light scout, I encountered some clipping issues (these have been reported before, alien visible through UFO door). However, after entering the UFO, my soldier did not have enough APs to get out and to the side of the LOS of the enemy. You can't tell from the screenshot, but the alien (rightmost arrow) actually has LOS to my soldier (leftmost arrow), because I entered the UFO from that door, fired a burst and pulled back out again. The alien fired two plasma shots at my soldier; he dropped and apparently died, but the game kind of froze after that. I could move the mouse (with in-game cursor) around, but couldn't select another soldier - I tried both selecting by clicking the soldier in the map, and by clicking the flag-like indicators in the GUI. The cursor did not turn "green" when hovering over one of my guys. The game also didn't respond to keyboard based commands like Escape. http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/390356/v171_ctd_on_kill.jpg

re: "does it hang", sorry, just my attempt at english. What i meant to say is "does the game freeze / crash?"

Giovanni: another report of this occuring is in V17.1 Terror Missions Reloading a save after its made freezes game, so there might still be something wrong on the terror map(s).

It might be a good idea to do a global regexp search for "[digit]E-[digit]" on the XML-files then, it might pop-up elsewhere as well.

I haven't been able to reproduce it, but it seems some weird stuff happened to the game where I created the screenshot in my other thread V17.1 Ground combat Crunching sound on mission start. After saving the screenshot I ALT-TABbed back to the game, and noticed that my rocket-girl "Hilda Schmidt" seemed to be back in the chinook whereas I'd moved her out before. In the screenshot below, notice the grey cursor on the "ghost", where you'd normally expect a green-selector cursor. I even could route another soldier right through her. Even stranger, after a few turns I noticed the "ghost" could suddenly be selected (so I had her join the fight, heh). The original "Hilda" unfortunately took a hit and was hurt. After I ended the mission successfully, the after action report showed 2 "Hilda"s: same portrait, rank, and even the 51% health, but with different stat boosts. I'm afraid I messed up the screenshot, unfortunately only the first Hilda can be seen. I'm not as skilled in using Paint as I am tweaking Excel XML files through a text-only editor... Here's the top half anyway: After the mission, I opened the personel-listing of the base to see if now two Hilda's were stationed, but to my surprise, another soldier showed up twice and Hilda suddenly was a Sergeant:

I've seen mention of it before, but also noticed this on a few maps: sometimes when the ground combat missions starts, crunching sounds can be heard - like there's a spectre underneath the chinook that's being crushed? For instance in the farm map with the chinook orientation in this screenshot/attach:

I understand the civvies in a city-terror map are expected to be in a panic, but I've seen them run through walls like they're not even there. For instance, this dude (see screenshot/attach) ran through the SE facing window with the two bushes in from of it. I've seen it a few other times on this map as well, would it help if I try and keep track of the exact spots where I see this happen or doesn't that really matter?

I was just nosing about in aircraftweapons.xml and stumbled upon the following: <Row> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">AV.PLASMABLASTER</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">Cannon</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">40</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">4500</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">[b][color=#B22222]7.4999999999999997E-2[/color][/b]</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">250</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">10</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">Auto</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">10</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">weapons/airplane/plasmablaster_cannon</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">5000</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">1</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">aircraft/aircombat/missile</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">Cannon</Data></Cell> <Cell ss:Index="16"><Data ss:Type="String">aircraft/aircombat/weapons/cannon_plasma</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">Yes</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">No</Data></Cell> <Cell><Data ss:Type="Number">1</Data></Cell> </Row> Looks like Excel went trigger happy with it's beloved "scientific notation" crap. I haven't noticed anything in-game, but I expect it to cause problems.

+1 Also, I've had occasions where my guys were actually hit by hidden enemy fire. You'd think the dude would at least notice getting shot, even if he did'nt see it coming.

Jup, it is rather unbalanced right now - but if air combat really makes the game unplayable for you, you could improve the stats of your aircraft weapons a bit. Both range and time-to-lock can quite easily be changed in the aircraftweapons.xml file. Just remember to backup the original file in case you break it.

Re: details, I don't think the location might be the cause, I my recently started V17.1 game I put my initial base there too without problems. Does it hang if you try the same location in a new game? If that's the case, a screenshot might be helpful. Did you encounter this issue for other locations as well?

If you're looking to cheat at this point, I used the general purpose Cheat Engine to edit the current in-memory AP-counters for a few soldiers to quickly finish a ground combat mission (strictly for debugging purposes, I assure you ;-) ). While playing, start the cheat-tool, connect it to xenonauts.exe, start a search for the current AP-points of a soldier (20k+ results), ALT-TAB back into the game, move the same soldier around and look for the changed value. Over 3 results? Move around some more and search again, chances are you'll find the AP counter in no-time. You might try this as well with your Geoscape funds. This is hardly the same as actually changing soldier stats, but it might be the next best thing.

Both by disposing of all (three) aliens, as well as by fleeing the map by pressing ESC and aborting the mission. I've retried this map 6 times now, but I guess something in this auto-savegame is just borked. Edit: or maybe my install is, I'll go and download a vanilla V17.1.2.zip, see if that'll help Edit2: all of my (geoscape) savegames (from V16.1) cause an immediate CTD, so something might be off with my install after a V16.1 to V17 and a V17 to V17.1 patch - however, the Desura standalone download "V17.1.2.zip" seems to hate me: I downloaded it 3 times, but still unable to extract anything from it. I'll try again later this weekend, this bugreport should be considered unconfirmed meanwhile. Edit3: I've managed to procure a fresh version using the Desure client, who would've thought! My savegames still CTD on entering Geoscape mode, so something in my 16.1 saves causes a crash in V17.1. Obviously this won't be an issue in the final version, so please don't waste any dev-time on this.

Also see V16.1 Unable to Hire soldiers and V16 geoscape Pool for new soldiers broken. A possible workaround you could try is mentioned in these threads as well.

I saw this as well in V17.1, but after I ALT-TABed away to save the screen shot and returned to the game (and moved around a bit, I don't exactly recall), the walls were rendered and the alian was hidden.

While handling a crash site at a farm map, some hostile alien took a shot at one of my guys! During hidden movement no less, but I heard the distinct scream of pain of my soldier anyway. So, I went into the inventory of another soldier and swapped the ballistic rifle with a (regular) medikit. When I exited the inventory with the Return to battlefield button, the game froze and crashed. This bug report might be a dupe of v9.0- Ground Combat CTD after equiping solider with shotgun, however, V9 seems like a long time ago...

while browsing the forum I found that this is a dupe of a previously (V15.1) reported bug

Also see showthread.php/3477-V16-2-CTD-Buying-a-Hunter-Causes-CTD Transfer a Hunter from your first base for a workaround.

The game froze after an alien fired a plasma-rifle shot at my (missile equiped) Hunter - which to my surprise showed the animation of a incendiary missle blowing up. Did the alien plasma-rifle shot hit the Hunter's ammunition stock/fuel tank? Anyway, the animation froze mid-explosion, and the game crashed before the animation was complete.

Thanks tass, I downloaded your patch and it's nicely humming away. Seems like you even actually verified my version te prevent borking the install, awesome!