V4.21 - Gameplay - turning soldier on spotting enemies

[Xeferah]

This is most likely intentional, but for my gameplay I started to notice it getting annoying: I use the preview mode to determine how to run and what weapon to use, which fits exactly within my TU budget. And while the soldier is running, he spots and enemy and stops in it's tracks (so far, so good) and then TURNS to the enemy! But now I have to spend TU to turn back, which leaves me with not enough TU to finish the planned action.
Spotting the enemy and stopping, that's fine, but please let the character not turn automatically, as it can sometimes really screw up the planned action.

Edited August 8, 2024 by Xeferah

[Skitso]

I've noticed this too. Definitely not intended.

[Chris]

On 7/24/2024 at 10:55 AM, Xeferah said:

This is most likely intentional, but for my gameplay I started to notice it getting annoying: I use the preview mode to determine how to run and what weapon to use, which fits exactly within my TU budget. And while the soldier is running, he spots and enemy and stops in it's tracks (so far, so good) and then TURNS to the enemy! But now I have to spend TU to turn back, which leaves me with not enough TU to finish the planned action.
Spotting the enemy and stopping, that's fine, but please let the character not turn automatically, as it can sometimes really screw up the planned action.

 

On 7/24/2024 at 11:21 AM, Skitso said:

I've noticed this too. Definitely not intended.

Thanks. This isn't intentional and should be reported as a bug if you can figure out what's happening.

Basically, interrupting a movement by spotting an alien should never cost you TU. Your soldier shouldn't rotate towards any aliens it spots, and it shouldn't need to anyway - by definition they already should be facing towards the alien when they spot them. So something is going wrong here.

I'll ask Koki to take a look at it too, but if you guys find a reproduction case or have screenshots / saves then let me know.

[Skitso]

28 minutes ago, Chris said:

 

Thanks. This isn't intentional and should be reported as a bug if you can figure out what's happening.

Basically, interrupting a movement by spotting an alien should never cost you TU. Your soldier shouldn't rotate towards any aliens it spots, and it shouldn't need to anyway - by definition they already should be facing towards the alien when they spot them. So something is going wrong here.

I'll ask Koki to take a look at it too, but if you guys find a reproduction case or have screenshots / saves then let me know.

I have reported this issue some while ago. Check here: 

 

[Chris]

23 hours ago, Skitso said:

I have reported this issue some while ago. Check here: 

 

We looked at that and it seems like the user right-clicked just after the alien was spotted, which is what caused that soldier to turn and lose TU.

There's not much we can do about that, really. If we blocked clicks for a period after an interruption people would have problems with the game not feeling responsive.

[Xeferah]

I'm still trying to find an exact replica, but I can confirm for sure that units turn when they get hit during running. Will try to create a good example in-game with screenshots.

[Skitso]

On 7/28/2024 at 12:24 AM, Chris said:

We looked at that and it seems like the user right-clicked just after the alien was spotted, which is what caused that soldier to turn and lose TU.

There's not much we can do about that, really. If we blocked clicks for a period after an interruption people would have problems with the game not feeling responsive.

Yeah, that example video might not be the best one. But as Xeferah mentions above, getting blind shot from the shroud while moving and getting an auto turn towards the shooter might result in some unfair situations from time to time.

It is per rules, so not exactly a bug, but might ruin some poor xenonauts day from time to time.

Edited July 29, 2024 by Skitso

[Chris]

3 hours ago, Xeferah said:

I'm still trying to find an exact replica, but I can confirm for sure that units turn when they get hit during running. Will try to create a good example in-game with screenshots.

Ah - yeah, units will always rotate towards the target if they take damage (X-Com games have always done that). Is that what the issue is? 

Because that's a slightly different issue to units turning when they spot enemies. That would be definitely be a bug. The issue above is a design question, really. I guess maybe we could limit that to only occuring during the enemy turn.

[Xeferah]

2 hours ago, Chris said:

Ah - yeah, units will always rotate towards the target if they take damage (X-Com games have always done that). Is that what the issue is? 

Because that's a slightly different issue to units turning when they spot enemies. That would be definitely be a bug. The issue above is a design question, really. I guess maybe we could limit that to only occuring during the enemy turn.

It might be. I'm gonna do some tests this evening, see if I can get soldiers to turn on just spotting enemies. For shots I'm sure off, but I think it was also just on spotting enemies, but I'm gonna test that this evening.

[Chris]

18 hours ago, Xeferah said:

It might be. I'm gonna do some tests this evening, see if I can get soldiers to turn on just spotting enemies. For shots I'm sure off, but I think it was also just on spotting enemies, but I'm gonna test that this evening.

Actually, I did find a bug - thanks for flagging it up. It seems like if a rotation reveals an enemy then you get charged the TU for the entire planned rotation, even though the soldier will stop turning at the point they spot the enemy. This can cause you to lose a few extra TU.

[Xeferah]

I'm gonna update this one. I noticed a new bug appearing. See screenshots. I move to the cover, preview the throwing grenade. I do the move and attack option. While running, the soldier spots an enemy and stops, but still turns! He does not throw the grenade, but the turning costs more TU again for a loss of 4 TU.

Edited August 8, 2024 by Xeferah

[Kouki]

1 hour ago, Xeferah said:

I'm gonna update this one. I noticed a new bug appearing. See screenshots. I move to the cover, preview the throwing grenade. I do the move and attack option. While running, the soldier spots an enemy and stops, but still turns! He does not throw the grenade, but the turning costs more TU again for a loss of 4 TU.

Just to make sure, did you encounter the bug on 4.21? A bugfix for this was included in that version so if this still happens then we might've missed something

[Xeferah]

1 hour ago, Kouki said:

Just to make sure, did you encounter the bug on 4.21? A bugfix for this was included in that version so if this still happens then we might've missed something

This is not the same bug, but most likely completely related. The soldier did not get hit.
What happened was that the soldier was queued to do the following actions: run to location, turn, throw grenade.. What happened was: run, stop (because it spotted an enemy), turn. (And did not throw a grenade). So the walking was stopped, and the throwing action was stopped, but not the turning.

Can confirm this was in 4.21:

[Kouki]

22 hours ago, Xeferah said:

This is not the same bug, but most likely completely related. The soldier did not get hit.
What happened was that the soldier was queued to do the following actions: run to location, turn, throw grenade.. What happened was: run, stop (because it spotted an enemy), turn. (And did not throw a grenade). So the walking was stopped, and the throwing action was stopped, but not the turning.

Can confirm this was in 4.21:

Thanks for the reply! Do you happen to have a save file before this scenario happened so I can attempt to reproduce it? Thanks

[Xeferah]

1 hour ago, Kouki said:

Thanks for the reply! Do you happen to have a save file before this scenario happened so I can attempt to reproduce it? Thanks

Sure, here is ituser_day_217_crash_site_manual_save-32.json

[Xeferah]

I tried it several times, it should work for you too.

[Chris]

On 8/9/2024 at 12:46 PM, Xeferah said:

I tried it several times, it should work for you too.

Thanks, yeah, I can reproduce this. We'll take a look.