Aliens Shooting Through Walls

OK, this issue has been repeatedly reported as a bug, but I'm unclear as to what people mean. There are two possible issues:

1) On loading a saved ground combat game, not all the elements load correctly. The UFO walls and floors don't seem to load correctly, which is a known bug and this will lead to aliens being able to shoot through the walls of their UFO. This is definitely a bug and we'll fix it up.

2) People are also reporting aliens are able to shoot through solid objects, including UFO walls. I can't reproduce this, so I'm not sure if it's actually a bug or people are just misinterpreting the symptoms. A few key facts:

• Aliens have shared sight, just like the player does. If one alien can see your soldier, they can all shoot at him / her.
  
• UFO doors autoclose at the start of the player's turn, so if an alien opens the door to their craft to shoot out (or just runs through it), it will appear closed when the player sees it during their turn.
  

These two facts could lead to a situation where people thought the aliens were shooting through walls as they were firing from beyond LOS, potentially "through" the UFO door that was actually open at the time - although this would only happen if the aliens were shooting out of the shroud at you.

Is that a possibility or is there definite evidence that aliens are able to shoot through UFO walls or other solid objects in a ground combat mission that has not been loaded from a save game?

Chris - the situation from what I seen is as follows, the aliens shots go through the blackened spaces that are supposed to be the UFO walls

What UFO types?

For me it happened in the scout (not small)

OK, you're right. I have managed to repro this now. It doesn't seem to happen if the soldier can see the walls of the ship. If they're not in the LOS of the team, the aliens can apparently shoot through them.

Thanks all, we'll get this fixed up then.

Don't know if it helps Chris but the aliens seem to only be shooting through the walls of the ufo if they've spawned inside a peice of cover, it happens in the light scout missions where occasionally one is fused with the ufo computer.

The alien LOS makes sense for 90% of "shooting through walls".

Chris, I've noticed 2 things that may be the same or different problems but i dont have screenshots or video yet but I will try to be mindful to capture some if i recreate it when I get home from work. The first and most obvious is the UFO walls themselves and i've seen it on light scouts and scouts which are as far as ive gotten so far. I've approached UFO's from the sides and my soldiers can uncover fog of war tiles on the other side of the ufo, also if alien present in the ufo you will get the red indicator on side of screen of visible alien and if you slowly move your mouse over all the tiles of the ufo you will get a cross hair to shoot once you mouse over the alien, you the player cant see it cause the ufo roof doesn't hide but if you can mouse over till you find the alien you can shoot and kill him. approaching from the front the door will block shots and LOS, but the rest of the ufo wont.

TO the point of "shooting through objects" that arnt the ufo. It seems the aliens shoot thru things but is very hard to prove, but i have a suspicion that the game is struggling with shared alien site out of the fog of war. I will try to video capture some if i see it again and remember but, the easier maps to recreate this are the hedgerow ones, If you make contact with an alien (which you usually do in the field across the road and hedges from where you start) the aliens back by the ufo will take shots from in the shroud of fog of war. Sometimes if hidden movment screen allows you to see these shots (usually if the shot is at your people you see it originate in the fog of war and fly towards your soldiers) you will see these shots originate in the back of the map by the ufo and they will land near your guys, but once you scout the rest of the map you realize those shots would have past thru multiple hedgerows to get there, once you scout the uncover the hedgerows from the fog they block shots, but on maps with definite blockages like hedgrows you will see shots originate out of the fog of war, and once you scout the map you think back and say how the hell did the shot make it all that way.

I hope this helps, ask me questions for claification and i'll try to capture evidence but I wrote this up quickly and with out proof reading because I'm trying to be a sneaky ninja at work.

I also had this on a terror map where the shots passed through a bus and the building next to it (in 17.91).

The above was not from a loaded game. It was just after landing, 1st or 2nd turn.

In 17.91--not in a loaded game--I've had aliens shoot from within the shroud at my men from the other side of a building and a fence. On one of the industrial maps (power station up top, train tracks in bottom left, large building in middle) this has happened to me. It was a light scout, and unfortunately I'm not sure exactly where the alien was since he was shooting from within the shroud.

Once I have a chance to play v18, I'll keep an eye out for odd behavior. The trouble is that almost by definition, this bug happens when aliens are concealed by the shroud/FOW. That makes it hard to tell what all they're shooting through/from.

Just took two (admittedly poor quality) videos of team insta-kill occuring through just about every thing on the map.

I admit i used 17.91 as I can't get very far in v18.

Will Edit this with the link once they have uploaded.

ETA - When I say everything I mean Through and through on a landing ship, fences, other aliens, walls, hedges, the hunter/its wreck......

LINKS

http://s159.photobucket.com/user/ka_screech/media/20130404_175157_zps277bdb7c.mp4.html

http://s159.photobucket.com/user/ka_screech/media/20130404_175441_zpsfa38da00.mp4.html

Again sorry for poor quality, at least they are all the right way up this time?

I'll post this in the other thread as well. I got killed by reaction fire from inside a light scout through a closed door. That is, I opened the door, wounded the alien, got killed in the alien turn, and the door closed. Next turn I move another soldier up, and get shot through the now-closed door. Another soldier moves up and is killed (!). Alien finally bleeds to death and mission ends (didn't know that could happen. cool). This was not a reload--I'm assuming loading a game in the geoscape doesn't count. I played the mission from landing to finish without saving or loading, anyway.

It did look a little bit like the alien was inside one of the computers. I couldn't tell from that angle whether he was inside the object or behind it. I tried reloading to see if I could confirm that an alien was stuck in an object, but the UFO art glitched out and the roof wouldn't disappear from the UFO, as it does when you reload. And yes, I did get shot at through objects a lot more when I reloaded.

Thanks for the video Hairyscreech, I was worried everyone was thinking it was just a ship issue, but i've definitely had shots from outside of the FOW kill my guys through hedges, barns, train cars, all kinds of stuff.

Hairyscreech - thanks, but have you thought about using FRAPS instead of videoing your monitor?

Having looked at them, I think that particular instance is caused by the aliens having spawned inside the UFO walls and being free to shoot out through them in a way they wouldn't be if they had spawned in the walkable area of the of the UFO. That bug will be fixed up in the next build (it's a mis-set UFO map) but I'm not sure if it's the same as aliens being able to shoot through solid objects.

Hairyscreech - thanks, but have you thought about using FRAPS instead of videoing your monitor?

Having looked at them, I think that particular instance is caused by the aliens having spawned inside the UFO walls and being free to shoot out through them in a way they wouldn't be if they had spawned in the walkable area of the of the UFO. That bug will be fixed up in the next build (it's a mis-set UFO map) but I'm not sure if it's the same as aliens being able to shoot through solid objects.

They seem to be able to do it with just about any terrain that hasn't been revealed and even some terrain that has sometimes. It's honestly kind of hit-or-miss when it happens, but I'll try to get something for you.

Now I know FRAPS exists then I may just consider it.

I gather it works fine with Xenonauts and doesn't just get the desktop?

FRAPS actually only works in games. I believe it's impossible to use it for anything else, though I could be wrong.

Also: Hypercam 2 is free now, so you can use that if you want a program which is free legally to record games.

With Xeno you generally have to play in a window to be able to capture screenshots / video I think. Stupid engine.

Alien reaction fire and shooting through UFO

With Xeno you generally have to play in a window to be able to capture screenshots / video I think. Stupid engine.

This would be incredibly funny if you were the engine coder. I would laugh and laugh all day at it.

They seem to be able to do it with just about any terrain that hasn't been revealed and even some terrain that has sometimes. It's honestly kind of hit-or-miss when it happens, but I'll try to get something for you.

I've seen this too : one one of the farm maps they were able to shoot through a barn and the big green hills that divide the farm maps (hedges or something?) when i hadn't gotten good sight on it, but once we got some people and the walls showed up properly no more shots came.

It's going to be harder to get some good shots to prove, but I think the above observation pins down the cause pretty well.

If you're looking for videos of Xenos shooting through things from the fog, you should check out ClosetYeti's first LP video:

I tried to grab it right before the hidden movement section. (Yes I know it's being worked on for another patch, just saw the video recently and thought I'd drop the link in case Chris was still looking for vids on this)

The style tile on the building in the north africa map (which I've played ~5 times in a row. plz go to europe dear aliens) has a LOS issue.

Worse than this, I have aliens walking in and out of the Scout walls (and shooting through them) such that while on the starboard side I am being shot by an alien on the port side (whom I can't even see).