Aliens hidden from player POV

[TheUbiquitous]

I had an alien hide on the far side of a spacecraft, tucked "underneath" the spacecraft. I couldn't see him from the player POV even though about 12 men should have been able to --- thankfully he was unarmed.

Suggestion: When aliens are not visible due to tiles from the player's POV getting in the way, "ghost" either the offending building tiles or the alien so that the player doesn't have to go pixelhunting so blindly.

Note: This is not a bug, strictly speaking, but a gameplay frustration. Given the player's POV everything rendered just fine. That's what makes this frustrating.

[Gorzahg]

I've had that too, I'm pretty sure it's a bug as it's almost like the alien has spawned in a solid part of the UFO.

[gnarly]

+1

[Gijs-Jan]

I had an alien hide on the far side of a spacecraft, tucked "underneath" the spacecraft. I couldn't see him from the player POV even though about 12 men should have been able to --- thankfully he was unarmed. .

This could be partly blamed on me, I think. :-)

The problem is that the A.I. now evaluates all tiles surrounding the unit, and (among other criteria) selects the one that is the least visible to use for ambushing / hiding.

These tiles are evaluated dynamically, and so use the underlying meta of the tiles. The result is then if you have a glitching / improperly setup tile; you get an A.I. unit that thinks: Damn, I'm near invisible there! Off we go!

It still approaches the tile with the game's pathfinding; so if any alien can move there, so can a Xenonaut.

You could try standing next to it and force shooting the tile. (CTRL)

(Although the logic that differentiates between what blocks a shot and a unit could be different)

Another approach could be to have xenonauts approach the tile from 1 side; which could force the A.I. out of hiding if enough are present.

Edited August 29, 2012 by Gijs-Jan

[Max_Caine]

GJ, I think it's good that your AI finds glitchy tiles, because they can be fixed! We humans see a wall and say "hmm, that's a wall, better not try to walk through it", so we tend to impose what we think over what actually is.

[Gorzahg]

Yeah I've seen the AI exploit glitches a few times now.

[TheUbiquitous]

I didn't see it as a glitchy tile. It seemed more like the alien was tucked in --- in a legal tile --- surrounded on three sides by the spacecraft. He wasn't actually underneath. It was a player perspective issue, the sort that could be solved by having a rotating camera.

(Not that I'm suggesting a rotating camera.)

[Gorzahg]

I thought my alien was bugged because he wasn't shooting back, and wasn't reaction firing.

[TheUbiquitous]

Hrm ... that could be the case, then. But mine was a light scout, and I thought, maybe mistakenly, that aliens on light scouts are sometimes unarmed.

[PRiME]

I had this occur, I was able to kill the Alien by getting within range with sniper and just kept trying to shoot him, did eventually. It looked like my bullets were going through the UFO? LOL

[Gorzahg]

Hrm ... that could be the case, then. But mine was a light scout, and I thought, maybe mistakenly, that aliens on light scouts are sometimes unarmed.

All aliens are armed, or at least they should be. I haven't come across any unarmed aliens ever. And I think everyone here has had this problem with the light scout.

I had this occur, I was able to kill the Alien by getting within range with sniper and just kept trying to shoot him, did eventually. It looked like my bullets were going through the UFO? LOL

My bullets weren't hitting him so I spammed him with rockets and grenades.