Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

[Bethrezen]

Ok so the previously mentioned glitch about being able to build an oil derrick on a burning oil well doesn't appear to be level specific because I was able to do it again on Alpha 06 destroy the oil well tell my builder to build then save and reload and the builder will upon reload commence building the oil derrick even though the oil well is still burning which definitely shouldn't be happening so it doesn’t appear to be a one off it looks like the burning oil well check is simply not being applied on reload, I know you are currently working on Beta but might want to check that one when you get a chance.

[Hironaru]

I have created a sister topic for the purpose of separating the focus of this topic between finding and fixing bugs, and resolving balancing issues.:
Project BOMB

Testing done during balancing that reveals bugs will be reported to this topic, and I will periodically approach the team here for finalization and implementation of proposed changes. Evolving the balance concept I had into a forum based community project seemed to be the next logical step in this process. By unifying the campaign based balancing community under one banner and providing direction to each aspect of the game, the overall player experience will be improved.

Each aspect will be deliberated on with special respect to the games focus and intention at that point, and once a majority is reached it will then be presented.

[Berserk Cyborg]

Pushed the new cam3-ad2 script in: 70767fcf1a4f39dbd7886889c6351634e1de10a4.

Turns out a mere typo in the x and y coordinates for the setNoGoArea() functions was to blame for the build problem earlier and thus rendered those coordinates undefined.

Edit:
Starting with this new conversion it is now possible to finally cheat into this mission. As long as the player is in cheat mode the extra failure condition will not be evaluated. Previously the only way to get into this mission quickly was to cheat into the previous one and capture the nuke silos. So I guess anyone trying to do automated testing for the campaign would find this helpful.

Oh and the cam3-4(s) scripts is the last mission which I am already starting on. Does anyone think we can put video sequences cam34mu1.ogg and cam34mu2.ogg to good use (unpack the sequences file to watch them)? Just a thought.

[Bethrezen]

Does anyone think we can put video sequences cam34mu1.ogg and cam34mu2.ogg to good use (unpack the sequences file to watch them)? Just a thought.

By the looks of it those vids where supposed to part of the mission where nexus is trying to take over your base and you have to research the antiviral / firewall software it seems to me that they where part of an additional mission objective or possibly where part of an alternative mission that was replaced during development by the one we have now where we have to research the
antiviral / firewall software to stop the nexus take over.

I guess we could always use one of the unused maps and add a new mission maybe something along the lines of we have found out where nexus is hacking us from so go there and take out the base to put a stop to nexus hacking us once and for all but you only have a limited time to do so before nexus cracks the firewall and beats the antivirus and takes over.

if you have ever played C&C red alert 2 there is a smiler type of mission where you have to take out the psychic towers with agent Tanya the allied commando before she gets mind controlled by Yuris psychic towers, and if you are not fast enough then you get mind controlled and Yuri wins.

[nick87720z]

Hello. I tried fresh git version from 11.11.2017, tried Alpha up to 07 and Gamma - up to preparations for final battle.
First was Gamma:
- In begining: Nexus units did not retreat to nearest cover on medium damage.
- It may be subjective perception, but i noticed some spread in vtol scorge damage: on first two transport missions they were able to destroy up to two tracked mantis with rockets / assault gun / flash or at least on tracked python, though on mission, runing from laser satellites and wiping out nexus remains from base map, they very slowly damaged medium nexus body (which is equevalent to python, but with a bit better armor), though armor value even for nexus bodies is 6-7 times lower comparing to vtol scorge damage.
- During dance with laser satellites: on first phase, capturing missile silos and when old areas are still opened, satellite front stopped right at the edge between old and new areas (ok, it yet covered narrow passage between them, but not more). This time they stopped at the edge of big mountain, where located airbase with vtol factory artifacts.
-- After 5 minute relax - satellites beging from begining of new area, so this time it would be possible again to take remaining units from temporary gamma base, if any (and if not captured by nexus assault group).
-- It seems, satellites ignore units if any valuable structures are in sight. Building very old good steel sensor towers at enough distance, using max possible amount of hover bug trucks, is enough to keep combat defence groups relatively safe and free for action (even oil dericks are fired rarely, compared to these towers). I don't know, is it supposed (would not be good if they try to destroy first labs, then factories, repair towers, dericks, gens, combat units and structures, and only then sensors).
-- Btw, now in all game units treat even tank traps and bare walls as mandatory target. They don't proceed until all wall / trap blocks destroyed.
-- By some reason all valuable area appart of narrow ribbon at the left edge, looking towards silos, is blocked to build anything (i can demolish what is built there, but not build new things) right during silos assault part - before after this restriction is off.

Now in alpha - just one big issue: problem of completion condition at forward base establishing mission.
I feeled base area with factory, lab with modules, generator, commander tower, two repair towers, 3 sensors, lancer towers at each for entries. Then as somewhere recommended, placed MG unit per each registered NP landing point (building anything at their LZ is impossible by some reason).

And finally: max possible energy reserve of 20000 - is it intentional?
(suppose it is to stimulate to play intensively and not waste time collecting oil at the end of each mission, hehe)

[Berserk Cyborg]

Pushed 6c19b8dc0702bbf8371f5570ae939e6a8be79f0b.

The laser satellite now will target any units over structures (ignoring anything not completely built yet). I redid the timing so that both missions will fire the LasSat every five seconds to make it harder to stall it. I also gave it a burn radius similar (smaller and not as long lasting) to how it works in multiplayer.

Added the scroll limits for cam3-ad2 seeing as I did not to use it. I also destroy everything above what is effectively the top half of the map since the player can not go there anymore at this point in the story.

-- By some reason all valuable area appart of narrow ribbon at the left edge, looking towards silos, is blocked to build anything (i can demolish what is built there, but not build new things) right during silos assault part - before after this restriction is off.

Already fixed in 70767fcf1a4f39dbd7886889c6351634e1de10a4. Though if your master was from nov. 11 then that bug would be present.

Now in alpha - just one big issue: problem of completion condition at forward base establishing mission.
I feeled base area with factory, lab with modules, generator, commander tower, two repair towers, 3 sensors, lancer towers at each for entries. Then as somewhere recommended, placed MG unit per each registered NP landing point (building anything at their LZ is impossible by some reason).

I think you are talking about Alpha 7. It is a survival mission, same as Alpha 10, where you must defend the base from all New Paradigm transporters and any ground forces. You will know when you have enough of a base built when the green objective blip disappears. Building on any LZ is prohibited now.

And finally: max possible energy reserve of 20000 - is it intentional?

Hard and insane difficulty will limit power capacity and accumulation to force the player to use power more carefully.

EDIT:
Half way through the cam3-4 script. There are ten factories. I have no clue how this will be on insane but it will likely be the greatest zerg of all time.

[Bethrezen]

EDIT:
Half way through the cam3-4 script. There are ten factories. I have no clue how this will be on insane but it will likely be the greatest zerg of all time.

Well i can see that level effectively being unbeatable on hard & insane if its like alpha 12 was, either that or it is going to be the mother of all slogging contests and you are going to need unlimited time.

[nick87720z]

Thanks. i made some misprintings though )))
I loose saves for gamma walkthrough, so another issue, i forgot to mention - as far as i remember, when nexus begins to assault missile silos, there should be 3 spawn points for ground groups with one at the end of map, right near of silos, but now there are only two side points (as for near-of-silo side, only air forces came there).

About Alpha 7 - what about to add more detailed text description of mission, about conditions to complete? I remember, there were different conditions accross various versions, including simple set of 1 sensor + 2 repair turrets), then they told to place some unit or structures at each LZ...

Btw, one interesting thing was there: looking from new base point in default direction, there should be one LZ between farthest one (near of ascend to where scavanger camp was) and entry to base, but enemy did not use it. And after all other LZ were found and occupied by 1 MG unit, enemy began to use each time that farthest LZ, ignoring others. When i placed entire squad here, enemy did not appear for very long time, right until i removed all group out of LZ, keeping again one MG unit (it landed to same LZ again).

Btw, i remember, that did not try yet to move command center to new base)
I tought, if entire base moves to new place, then may be LZ also could move, like in gamma?
No sure idea, where to place it on such relief-rich place though - might be one of upper squares - e.g., in place of last LZ, enemy had secured before all its base destructed, or in place, where enemy had its command center... btw, should not enemy use those areas as LZ during alpha 07 ?

[Bethrezen]

About Alpha 7 - what about to add more detailed text description of mission, about conditions to complete? I remember, there were different conditions accross various versions, including simple set of 1 sensor + 2 repair turrets), then they told to place some unit or structures at each LZ...

As far as I can remember the current conditions for alpha 7 is to defeat 11 drop ships of enemy troops, this change was made to prevent people ending the level in like 2 minutes which made the level pointless the other condition is to build 7 structures this change was made to made so the victory conditions matched those of v1.10 the last release of WZ made by pumpkin.

however structures build on alpha 6 within the mission area for alpha 07 are also counted so if you have already build a few structures then you may not actually have to build 7 structures on alpha 07 in any event as Berserk Cyborg points out the flashing green dot will vanish when you have build enough structures.

Btw, one interesting thing was there: looking from new base point in default direction, there should be one LZ between farthest one (near of ascend to where scavanger camp was) and entry to base, but enemy did not use it. And after all other LZ were found and occupied by 1 MG unit, enemy began to use each time that farthest LZ, ignoring others. When i placed entire squad here, enemy did not appear for very long time, right until i removed all group out of LZ, keeping again one MG unit (it landed to same LZ again).

This is normal behaviour in the same why the computer can move units to your LZ and prevent you bring in reinforcements you can do the same thing to computer and block the computers landing zones, you should be aware when doing this however that if you block all the landing zones then you will fail the mission because you will not meet the requirement to defeat 11 drop ships full of troops.

also if i recall correctly players should be banned from building in the computers landing zones, although Berserk Cyborg would need to confirm this.

[Berserk Cyborg]

I loose saves for gamma walkthrough, so another issue, i forgot to mention - as far as i remember, when nexus begins to assault missile silos, there should be 3 spawn points for ground groups with one at the end of map, right near of silos, but now there are only two side points (as for near-of-silo side, only air forces came there).

Looking at the original script, I do not see any position pointing the ground forces to that southern pass (despite looking like a good spot for a phantom factory). Only one of the VTOL spawn positions is there.

If I remember correctly people have blocked the LZs in Alpha 7/10 with structures and droids in the past and it has caused problems. I see no reason droids would stop the transporters, though it is something to investigate. I myself have not tested this to see if it is the structures being too close or droids.

Well i can see that level effectively being unbeatable on hard & insane if its like alpha 12 was, either that or it is going to be the mother of all slogging contests and you are going to need unlimited time.

Only have to do the truck/group management now. I will probably release it as a mod once someone gets that far before pushing it.

Edit:
Pushed a tiny update in bd752be52f1c4d8d755c7bad3c9953b4eac0af8b. Too bad I did not see that earlier because it effectively made that mission impossible to win if all the LZs were blocked by droids.

[Bethrezen]

Edit:
Pushed a tiny update in bd752be52f1c4d8d755c7bad3c9953b4eac0af8b. Too bad I did not see that earlier because it effectively made that mission impossible to win if all the LZs were blocked by droids.

Normally how i handle Alpha 07 is to block the landing zones to the east and west with a few units so the computer can't land units there because they will get the LZ compromised message if they try just as the player does, and then I'll leave the northern drop zones open forcing them to land right in the middle of my trap where they will be promptly destroyed by 36 mortars that are sitting there waiting for them.

Now i suppose doing that could be considered an exploit, but in my opinion all is fair in love and war and the computer tries to do the same thing to the player by moving units in to the players landing zone preventing the players bring in reinforcements so i see no reason the player shouldn't be able to do the same thing to the computer.

Having said that i do recall us discussing the issue of what to do if all the landing zones are blocked on alpha 07 because that would prevent the player from completing the level a few suggestions where proposed but i don't think a decision was ever reached.

To be honest I'm not really surprised that stuff like that could be missed or forgotten about, i can't count the number of times I've reported the same issue on the same level across multiple different versions of master because the problem hasn't been addressed for one reason or another.

This is a prime example although most of this is very minor I have reported all of this stuff before.

General Issues

Upon reload I'm able to build oil derreks even though the oil wells are still burning I've tested this on alpha 1 and alpha 06 and i was able to do it both times and I'm betting if i was to start a new beta campaign and just cheat my way through beta 01 I'd probably be able to do the same thing there, it just seems like the burning oil well check isn't being applied on reload.

Alpha 08

For the most part everything works as it should just 3 very minor glitches, first of all the base detection is a bit too far south as you can see in this screen shot



The second glitch is that this builder just sits there doing nothing



Third even though the enemy base has been destroyed and I'm getting the return to LZ message for some reason the game doesn't seem to detected the fact that the base has been destroyed and I'm still getting the mission marker, so clearly there is an intermittent fault with the clean up for this base as you can see in this screen shot.



Alpha 09

For the most part everything works fine save for the glitch with being able to research the cyborg weapons without first building the cyborg factory, although we already know about that and it's a minor issue since you would be able to research that tech on the next level anyway, and of course getting the required structure check to work correctly is something of a pain which I'd assume is why it hasn't been addressed.

Alpha 10

For the most part everything works fine save for the glitch of the enemy units getting stuck when entering the map at there southern entry point, it does work a bit better than before but I'm still seeing issues.

Alpha 11

The issues with the convoy still haven't been sorted out but again this is hardly game braking the level works ok its just the issues with the convoy are still to be addressed, as it is still not functioning as it did in v1.10, now i know that part of that is because of the removal of the formation speed limiting which makes getting the behaviour correct some what tricky which is why it needs a few other adjustments to compensate, but of course this has already been discussed so i wont rehash it here.

[Berserk Cyborg]

Having said that i do recall us discussing the issue of what to do if all the landing zones are blocked on alpha 07 because that would prevent the player from completing the level a few suggestions where proposed but i don't think a decision was ever reached.

Yeah, I sort of remember this. The last time it was discussed was when Philosopher ran into it. I guess I was not playing too close of attention way back when we decided to force the player to battle the eleven NP transporter loads.

Alpha 08
For the most part everything works as it should just 3 very minor glitches, first of all the base detection is a bit too far south as you can see in this screen shot

The second glitch is that this builder just sits there doing nothing

Third even though the enemy base has been destroyed and I'm getting the return to LZ message for some reason the game doesn't seem to detected the fact that the base has been destroyed and I'm still getting the mission marker, so clearly there is an intermittent fault with the clean up for this base as you can see in this screen shot.

Should it only trigger early on the north path then?

That truck does nothing because everything was built or another truck was closer and not busy. The truck code only orders one truck to do something for every 40 seconds. All that is needed is to loop through all trucks available.

I will check the base elimination logic again. Not sure what causes it, but it seems rather rare to observe.

[alfred007]

I tested beta end and there are a lot of problems. The last transporter doesn't leave the map but landed at the exit point. Due to that the level last the whole 30 minutes and doesn't end with the last transport. An old savegame bug also still occurs. When you save beta end after the first transport left the map, reload it and move on to gamma 1 the transport doesn't include the units of the first transport, but random units I didn't produce or loaded into the transporter. This a very old bug #3009, that wasn't fixed since them. I also saw this bug in 3.1.5 and 3.2.3 and now also in master. But in 3.1.5 and 3.2.3 I got random units that I loaded into the transporter, now random units from the AI. Because I knew this bug I played beta end without saving and when the transporter arrived gamma 1 all my units are hero rank, the commander special. When I took them into the transporter the commander had veteran rank and the other units were special. I add a few saved games where you can reproduce these bugs.

Edit: The bug with the upgraded ranks belongs only to the units of the first transport. I moved forward with gamma 1 and the units in the next three transporters had the right rank.

[Berserk Cyborg]

The last transporter doesn't leave the map but landed at the exit point. Due to that the level last the whole 30 minutes and doesn't end with the last transport.

Yep, I noticed it since this post. I will start on a fix.

Edit: Done. Before I push it, does anyone want to increase the transport launch limit from one to three for the minimum victory?

[alfred007]

Edit: Done. Before I push it, does anyone want to increase the transport launch limit from one to three for the minimum victory?

What about if we let it depend on difficulty? One for easy and normal, two for hard and three for insane.