V22 Experimental 8 Released!

[Giovanni]

Verifying the integrity of game cache does not fix the main menu problem. Anyone else experiencing this?

What's your screen resolution? Is there a background.png in assets\backgrounds\mainmenu?

[Skitso]

Now that you have allowed missing bullets to go past it's target tile, could bullets that hit the ground before target be toned down a bit?

Edited May 14, 2014 by Skitso

[legit1337]

I deleted the entire backgrounds folder and verified integrity of game cache. 22 files reacquired. Main menu is still messed up.

@giovanni

Yes background.png is present on that filepath. It is the normal background screen for the main menu.

I play on 1680x1050.

[Troublechuter]

My main menu looks much the same as legit1337's. It seems as though background.jpg doesn't always load, I hadn't considered that this might be a bug until now, its always been a toss up whether I get an empty geoscape or the background jpg when I start it up. At the moment its not appearing. And yes, the actual jpg is present in the correct folder.

[harrythevet]

I managed to load the previous games by changing their header (older save files start with 'onexF', current starts with 'onexG'), seems to work fine so far.

Bro, where did you find these? I can see my save games in my mydocs/xenonauts folder but they're not labelled as yours are. I too was on a roll, and nowt is more annoying than updates that break saves. I've still never come close to finishing the game. Is there a way to roll back to the last update so I can finish it? The new changes aren't worth giving up the game for . . .

[llunak]

Bro, where did you find these? I can see my save games in my mydocs/xenonauts folder but they're not labelled as yours are.

Not file names, file contents. The first 5 bytes of each save file from 22.7 are onexF and 22.8 has onexG, so the different character needs to be changed (using a hex editor or something that won't break the rest of the file). And of course there's no guarantee that it'll work for you, but it did for me.

[Chris]

The "no menu background" bug is seriously weird and I was wondering if anyone else got it.

I can reproduce it on this computer depending on which hard drive I load the game from. If I load it from my SSD the game loads fine, but if the exact same files are loaded on my conventional hard drive (which has a problem with it and runs veeeery slowly) then then the background doesn't appear. This has been the case for months, though - it's not been caused by the animation update for me.

Presumably it's something to do with hard drive speed? We should probably take this discussion to a separate thread though really.

[Caaygun]

The "no menu background" bug is seriously weird and I was wondering if anyone else got it.

I'm getting another anomaly. There is a 1 pixel wide line flickering in the middle of the main menu background animation. I'll post an image about it in the evening when I get back from work. I'm on win XP, play windowed 1440*900.

[Skitso]

@Chris: Haven't had a problem with the new title screen, but could this be related to the bug I reported months ago where menu's and geoscape load with a noticeable delay in certain situations?

Earlier discussed here: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9314-General-Issues-V21-Stable?p=103780&viewfull=1#post103780

Edited May 14, 2014 by Skitso

[Chris]

I seriously doubt it's linked to anything except hardware given I get the bug using the same files on one hard drive in my PC but not on the other.

[Skitso]

Yeah, but when I first reported the slow geoscape loading, you said you didn't have the same problem... so it could be hardware related too? Like HD search times or something.

They're an engine issue unfortunately, I don't think we can do anything about it. Although, oddly, I'm not really getting it except for fractions of a second.

It's mostly because the game is terrible at loading different things separately. However, we'll have a think about the issue.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Skitso

[Amaror]

That isnt a bug, that is intentional. Psionics have an area of effect. The closer you are, the more likely you are to be affected.

Not, it's not. Chris said earlier that Psionics are either area of effect OR LOS only, like berserk, or Squadsight.

Currently they are always area of effect which just breaks any balance.

[MortuusSum]

I could be mistaken, but it seems that when you go to the over view of your base, the facility that is automatically selected is the radar, rather than the hanger as it used to be.

Ah, I just tried that, and you are correct. Thank you very much.

[Troublechuter]

Hmm, so the menu looks fine on my laptop. I guess that makes sense if its a hardware-related issue. I don't think its related to this patch specifically, I think its just always been like that now that I think about it.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Troublechuter

[Vagabond]

Menu looks fine on my end. And running at 1680x1050.

[Chris]

Not, it's not. Chris said earlier that Psionics are either area of effect OR LOS only, like berserk, or Squadsight.

Currently they are always area of effect which just breaks any balance.

Psionics do not currently require LOS, but they do have a range and their success chance declines with every tile beyond that range. Check the previous changelog if you want to know the updated psionics system and how it works in fully.

[UmberSkies]

Not, it's not. Chris said earlier that Psionics are either area of effect OR LOS only, like berserk, or Squadsight.

Currently they are always area of effect which just breaks any balance.

You are a bit behind times mate. If you read the past updates you will see that it is intentional, as Chris himself says. Further, beserk is gone, replaced by Hallucinate.

Edit: Whoops, didnt check the last page to see if someone had responded already... my bad =p

[StellarRat]

Currently all the changes we intend to make have been made, except for possibly making Mind Control troops unable to attack in the turn that they are Mind Controlled.

I owe you apology. I totally missed the section in the 7 HF 2 change log that detailed the "final" psionics mechanics. DOH! They are exactly what I had been hoping for. Thanks!

[Headnoob]

Things are feeling incredibly final at this point, great job.

I really hope this does well for you guys.

[Troublechuter]

Things are feeling incredibly final at this point, great job.

I really hope this does well for you guys.

I don't want to sound too negative, but I thought the same thing when v22 stable came out, and then the LoS/LoF changes brought about a whole new set of problems. Provided there are no more high-impact changes we're definitely close, but there are still a number of very noticeable (although mostly harmless) bugs to fix before release... which is really soon! I would be more than happy if we pushed the release back by a week or two to fix these, you only get one chance to make a first impression after all.

Even forgetting about bugs, there's a bit of balancing work left to do. The LoS changes seem to have made the whole game significantly harder, as I can no longer move a scout up, spot an alien, move the scout back and have the whole squad open fire with impunity. I'm totally fine with this as a system, but the whole game has been balanced based on the old, "easier" LoS system so far, and this has effectively cranked the difficulty up a notch. In addition, the appearance of fighters early on means I'm getting a lot more "airliner shot down" events, and with the bug that used to make these events provide a funding increase fixed, this has also made the geoscape game harder; I'm losing a lot more funding in the first month than I used to. Personally I'm fine with the increased difficulty as I felt that Veteran was getting a little too easy for me, but then I've been playing for months now; I'm not sure how a newbie would fare. I'd much rather the game be too hard than too easy for sure, though!

And finally there's psionics, which I can't really comment on, as I haven't gotten far enough to encounter them in their new form yet and probably won't for a while, especially if there's another save-breaking patch.

[Skitso]

- We have changed the shooting formula again: it is now taken from any part of the shooting tile to the centre of the target tile, rather than vice versa. This should make cover more effective.

This isn't working. I still can't shoot around a corner.

The wall near caesan could maybe block the shot, but I'm sure I should be able to shoot around the corner I'm standing adjacent to, if the path is calculated from the "best corner", no?

EDIT: Also, the caesan shot and killed my guy from the same spot! Definitely not working.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Skitso

[kabill]

I've noted some things which I thought were odd about the new system as well, with LoF drawing from poor places (I've got some pics I can upload later, actually). I wasn't sure though, as I was thinking that if there isn't a 'best path' then it just defaults to drawing from a particular part of the shooter's tile. (I.e. if the shot is blocked regardless of shot starting place, it won't show the 'best effort' but default to a particular trajectory instead. So in your example, if the wall at the bottom is still blocking the shot then it won't try and shoot around the wall at the top either).

But if you could get shot at from that position without being able to shoot yourself, that implies an issue for sure!

[Skitso]

I wasn't sure though, as I was thinking that if there isn't a 'best path' then it just defaults to drawing from a particular part of the shooter's tile. I.e. if the shot is blocked regardless of shot starting place, it won't show the 'best effort' but default to a particular trajectory instead.

Yeah, I thought it might be the default LoF issue you described, until the caesan just one-shotted the poor guy.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Skitso

[kabill]

I just realised: it's probably the same issue as was the original problem with asymetrical lines of fire.

Since the game is still always drawing a LoF from shooter to target rather than (say) always top right to bottom left, you're still going to get the same asymmetries as under the previous system since the calculation both ways won't be exactly the same.

Under the new system, you shouldn't notice it as much because the LoF is already asymetrical by virtue of choosing the best part of the shooter's tile to shoot from. But in instances were you have symmetry in terms of positioning and cover (like in the example above) the old problem will still be there.

Looks like the only actual solution to this is for the game to always calculate LoF in a fixed direction (e.g. top right to bottom left) regardless of the relative positions of shooter and target.

[Skitso]

But the new system where the LoF is calculated from the shooters best corner to the middle of the target should give symmetrical results in a situation above and the caesan should have 0% change too. The system just isn't working as intended for some reason...

Edited May 15, 2014 by Skitso