V15 Dumb Camera / Hidden Movement Stuff Megathread

[Chris]

One of the gameplay issues that has been raised by a number of users is that the camera can do some really dumb stuff during the alien turn. The Hidden Movement screen is sometimes (but always) involved in this too, as it often pops up to cover up things that are clearly in vision of your soldiers.

We're planning to spend a bit of time looking into these things in preparation for Build V16, so now V15 is fairly stable it would be great if you guys could post up any turn-end saves games that allow us to reproduce dumb camera / hidden movement screen behaviour. Please just attach them as replies to this thread along with a quick explanation of what goes wrong during the alien turn!

(Note that the Hidden Movement screen should only be shown when alien activity is happening outside the vision cones of your soldiers. Any part of the movement or shooting that occurs across visible tiles should not be obscured by the HM screen - so if you see that happening, post it up here and we'll try to fix it!)

[maxm222]

Great!  The Hidden Movement graphic has been much less intrusive in my first V15.4 game, although I've had maybe one hidden visible LOS incident (I'll get it next time, if it happens).  Also V15.4 has been greatly improved in general in so many ways, especially the pop-up explanations.  Thank you, Chris and dev team!

QUESTION (need to know which situations I need to document): Does an LOS to an alien that's firing at friendly troops always exist?  Can friendlies always see who is firing at them?

[maxm222]

See how they massacre my soldier.*

Also see attached files.  The entire sequence from--Alien A advancing and shooting, and Alien B shooting and advancing--to the untimely death of my soldier was obscured by Hidden Movement graphics at least 2 or 3 times.  I didn't see any out-of-LOS movement at any time--as best as I could tell.

 

*Free dead alien to whomever identifies the inspiration for this sentence.

output.log

auto_groundcombat_turn_5_start-34.json

[Siniestro]

I think ont of the most annoying things is that the image is soo large aswell, could it not just be a small bar with writing or something? 

[odizzido]

I don't understand why the hidden movement box needs to be there at all? If things are out of sight they will be hidden anyways?

[Chris]

On 12/5/2020 at 2:34 PM, Siniestro said:

I think ont of the most annoying things is that the image is soo large aswell, could it not just be a small bar with writing or something? 

 

16 hours ago, odizzido said:

I don't understand why the hidden movement box needs to be there at all? If things are out of sight they will be hidden anyways?

The size of the box is kinda irrelevant, because the purpose of the Hidden Movement screen is to indicate that the game is playing you things that are happening outside of your vision. This is done because it's sometimes nice to hear some of the sounds associated with it like would happen in the original X-Com (doors opening, the sounds of alien footsteps, weapon fire, death screams of civilians) but if the game just displays a black screen as that stuff happens then people are going to think it's a bug. Hence why we display the hidden movement screen.

In X-Com the HM screen literally covered the whole screen and it's a bit smaller here, but it doesn't really matter - it should only ever appear when there's nothing for the player to see anyway. It may not even be the optimal solution to the problem, but we can discuss that later - we need to fix the fact that the game isn't correctly identifying which actions are within your soldier's vision whatever solution we use in the final game.

 

On 12/4/2020 at 5:23 PM, maxm222 said:

Great!  The Hidden Movement graphic has been much less intrusive in my first V15.4 game, although I've had maybe one hidden visible LOS incident (I'll get it next time, if it happens).  Also V15.4 has been greatly improved in general in so many ways, especially the pop-up explanations.  Thank you, Chris and dev team!

QUESTION (need to know which situations I need to document): Does an LOS to an alien that's firing at friendly troops always exist?  Can friendlies always see who is firing at them?

Thanks. Glad to hear you're enjoying the changes we made in V15.4, and there's a lot more of that sort of thing coming!

No, you don't gain LOS via the friendly AI combatants, only the vision cones of your own soldiers team. And no, it's not necessarily true that a unit can see what is firing at them - but any AI (alien or local forces / civilian) shot or movement that passes through the vision cone of a Xenonaut soldier should be shown to the player. Additionally, even if your soldier doesn't have LOS on an alien that's firing at them, the camera should also show any shot that hits them - even if only the impact effect on their back and their injury / death animation.

[Chris]

On 12/4/2020 at 6:16 PM, maxm222 said:

See how they massacre my soldier.*

Also see attached files.  The entire sequence from--Alien A advancing and shooting, and Alien B shooting and advancing--to the untimely death of my soldier was obscured by Hidden Movement graphics at least 2 or 3 times.  I didn't see any out-of-LOS movement at any time--as best as I could tell.

 

*Free dead alien to whomever identifies the inspiration for this sentence.

 

output.log

auto_groundcombat_turn_5_start-34.json

Unfortunately that's the wrong save - I need the one from the end of the previous turn.

I do get that reference, too, but I've got an unlimited supply of dead aliens already

[maxm222]

2 hours ago, Chris said:

>Unfortunately that's the wrong save - I need the one from the end of the previous turn.

Sorry, I can't find anything even close to a turn #5 in my files, --must have come from the Twilight Zone.  I'll try again with the next instance.

>I do get that reference, too, but I've got an unlimited supply of dead aliens already 

But do you have any dead aliens that don't stink!?  I preserve mine in Coke Classic, which seems to kill any life form of any kind and prevents decomposition.

 

[MrAlex]

Soldiers take damage behind the screen of hidden movements

auto_groundcombat_turn_2_end-149.json

[MrAlex]

@Chris

Is it possible to completely hide all events that are beyond the sight of soldiers? Since it was in the old UFO.

Now the image of the hidden move is constantly disappearing although the events take place outside the view of the soldiers. And even when it exists, the camera still moves there as events take place. Informing the player about the positions of aliens.

For start, try placing a picture of hidden movements in full screen.

Edited February 8, 2021 by MrAlex