Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

[moltengear]

Hi all! Gamma. The third mission. Transport was surrounded.
I can't destroy the transport. I'm trying to reproduce this error again.
I can't go on to the next mission.

[alfred007]

This is a known bug for that a ticket exists. It will be fixed with the transscript of the campaign into javascript. Until that you have to use the "let me win" cheat. Transporters are indestructible.

[Berserk Cyborg]

Are you using the latest master build? If not, then get it here and retry playing the mission. Any saves from Gamma campaign started on 3.2.3 will not work.

This is a known bug for that a ticket exists. It will be fixed with the transscript of the campaign into javascript. Until that you have to use the "let me win" cheat. Transporters are indestructible.

Only Gamma 7/8/9 are the remaining old WZScript missions that need to be converted. And as far as I am aware, this behavior can not happen anymore, in jscam anyway.

EDIT:
Here is a new mod. It allows the player to produce a truck and MG tank template without the HQ for Alpha 1 as -Philosopher- showed.

Updated-Campaign.wz

[alfred007]

I tested beta 6. Behavior looks good. But I found two new bugs. First I was not able to produce assault gunners despite I researched them. Second, I had no access to the current objectives in the Intelligence Display. This seems to be a problem in beta away missions when you are away. In your homebase you have access to it. I reloaded old saves of beta 2 and 4 and it's the same there. And in the homebase levels like beta 1,3 and 5 you have access. In old alpha saves I had also access to the objectives.

[Berserk Cyborg]

I tested beta 6. Behavior looks good. But I found two new bugs. First I was not able to produce assault gunners despite I researched them. Second, I had no access to the current objectives in the Intelligence Display. This seems to be a problem in beta away missions when you are away. In your homebase you have access to it. I reloaded old saves of beta 2 and 4 and it's the same there. And in the homebase levels like beta 1,3 and 5 you have access. In old alpha saves I had also access to the objectives.

Your save still has the duplicate cyborg templates in the production menu. I fixed it a while ago, but it will not work correctly with saves that were previously affected by it. So unfortunately for that playthrough, you will not get those cyborgs unless you start from a whole new campaign. So the objective only shows in the home maps? I need to see if that happens in 3.2.3.

[Bethrezen]

I just tried it again too - did nothing different to what I did multiple times yesterday and today it downloaded in 6mins. So there you go. Who knows what the issue was before. Anyway, thanks for the upload. Hope to get some time this evening to complete a few stages.

Your welcome, maybe it was just a server issue on there end it happens sometimes, but at least you guys got a complete working copy of v1.10 now which should help with fine tuning things, right now I'm still playing through v1.10 wanted to complete at least 1 play though of alpha campaign and give an overview of any differences i find so far I've only gotten as far as alpha 09 but here is what i have so far.

Alpha 09

For the most part this level seems to be broken on v1.10 because I met very little resistance, so far as I can tell the computer only has about 15 garrison units and of those 10 are cyborgs, and there factories are either not working or working super slow.

I did notice that the new paradigm units come about half way through destroying the first scav base east of your landing zone unlike on master but there are so few of them that it made little to no difference at all.

As far as master goes it's probably just as well the new paradigm units don’t come that quick since having to deal with the constant flood of units from there factories while you are trying to deal with the other scav base could prove kind of annoying, since the new paradigm factories actually work correctly on master, certainly it's doable but you would probably need to adjust the timer on the harder difficulties, and perhaps give players a little more time if you where going to have the new paradigm units come quicker as it was before.

I then moved on to wiping out the northern scav base and then steam rolled my way through the new paradigm base, leaving just a single turret standing so the drop zone wouldn’t close and the level wouldn't end giving me time to finish the research and get pepped for alpha 10 it also means that my units could continue gaining experience by destroying the drop ship troops.

As far as reinforcements go the drop ships keep coming till you shut down the LZ and that seemed to be where 99% of the resistance on this level was coming from the LZ however didn’t appear to have a flashing marker, although it might be a good idea to give it one in master for the sake of consistency since all the other drop zones get a flashing marker so that players know if the drop zone is active or not.

As for the interval between enemy drop ships that appeared to be about 5 minutes although you would need to double check that by looking at the original source, having said that I'm of the opinion that's to long and would make the level to easy on the harder levels, personally I'm fine with the current interval which i think is about 2 minuets if i recall correctly.

As far as research goes here is what you get on Alpha 09 on v1.10 I'm pretty sure that's all of it but I'd need to double check just to make sure because some of the research topics are not listed when you go to the intelligence screen, so far as I'm aware only research topics that are not marked as mk2, mk3 are displayed so perhaps that's something that should be fixed.

Automated factory production mk3
Synaptic link
Medium body scorpion
Automated repair facility mk3
Fuel injected engine mk2
Cyborg factory
Automated Cyborg production
Automated Cyborg production mk2

So no cyborg weapons and no cyborg composite alloys, but of course we already know the fact you get those on master is an unintended side effect caused by the removal of the required structure check which didn’t work correctly, and consequently that is something that will need fixing in due course.

As for the victory condition it seemed to be total annihilation.

Overall I'm of the opinion this level is in fact better on master, and actually how it is on master represents how this level probably should be on v1.10 so I'd be tempted to just leave it alone because I think its fine the way it is.

General Issues

Now while this level might be somewhat broken on v1.10 I do notice a few more general things.

The first thing I notice is that my units seem to have an easier time hitting targets that are in elevated locations. On my way to the scav base that is east of your landing zone I will typically have a tough time hitting this mini rock pit from below on master.



However on v1.10 I don’t have any issues hitting it at all so looks like master has introduced a regression in the code somewhere, it's almost like the vertical tilt of your weapons is less on master then it is on v1.10 not sure what the issue is or what has changed but something isn’t working quite as well as it did on v1.10

The next thing I noticed is that targeting is a lot easier on v1.10, on master sometimes it can be difficult to target things and you have to hover above below or to the sides of an object you are trying to target before the curser will change to the one pertinent to the action you are trying to perform, as you can see in this screen shot



Despite the fact that I have my curser hovered right over the turret the curser won't change to the spanner icon to allow me to order the truck to repair it. This problem doesn't seem to happen on v1.10 so it would appear that this is another regression, however I'm pretty sure I have reported both of these previously.

I also note that commanders seem to work a bit better in v1.10 than they do on master certainly attached units don’t seem to exhibit the auto fire bug where the commander will be targeting something but the attach units don’t react.

Aspects of the movement code also seem better on v1.10 than on master for example units are less likely to get stuck, and when units are retreating for repairs the other undamaged units will try to get out the way.

Similarly when mobile repair trucks are trying to repair a group of units the units being repaired will move out the way to let the repair trucks past so they can get al all the damaged units.

Talking of mobile repair units that’s something else I've noticed when I have mobile repair units and combat units selected at the same time the repair units will typically stay at the back of the pack out of harms way as I push forward on v1.10 so they are less likely to get destroyed where as on master because mobile repair units tend to be quicker than the units they are supporting they tend to end up at the front of the group and as a consequence they are continually coming under attack and being destroyed which is something that irritates me immensely, also I'm not sure if its deliberate but I've noticed that the computer seems to prioritise destroying my repair trucks over other units, which is also pretty irritating and also something that doesn't happen on v1.10, so again this is perhaps something that needs looking at.

[Berserk Cyborg]

Alpha 9 now requires total annihilation to win. Do you still have a save for v1.10 with Alpha 8/9?

A new record for group pile up in ticket #4646. The factory groups were way too defensive so Gamma 3 has been fixed with the mod below. Transporter drop pattern behavior for this mission is a bit different compared to the other missions since it goes to the west and east bases until they are both destroyed. I do not know if that was a design choice or not so I will check the original script logic later.

Updated-Campaign.wz

[alfred007]

About alpha 9:

certainly it's doable but you would probably need to adjust the timer on the harder difficulties, and perhaps give players a little more time if you where going to have the new paradigm units come quicker as it was before.

I don't think so. Even if it's no reference I was able to solve alpha 9 by placing squads in the front of the scavenger bases and one squad to fight the NP troops with no problems. And that before the throttle times of the factories get increased (e.g. scavenger throttles get increased from 4 to 15 seconds) And before you were able to research composite alloy mk2 and python body during alpha 8. I think you and Philosopher should check that again on insane if it's really necessary or not.

As for the interval between enemy drop ships that appeared to be about 5 minutes although you would need to double check that by looking at the original source, having said that I'm of the opinion that's to long and would make the level to easy on the harder levels, personally I'm fine with the current interval which i think is about 2 minuets if i recall correctly.

It's 3 minutes on normal, that means 2 minutes on insane. And I agree, I'm also fine with that.

Overall I'm of the opinion this level is in fact better on master, and actually how it is on master represents how this level probably should be on v1.10 so I'd be tempted to just leave it alone because I think its fine the way it is.

Yup

@Berserk Cyborg

Your save still has the duplicate cyborg templates in the production menu. I fixed it a while ago, but it will not work correctly with saves that were previously affected by it. So unfortunately for that playthrough, you will not get those cyborgs unless you start from a whole new campaign.

Ok, I won't start from the beginning, but deal with that. I don't use Cyborgs in the campaign except as cannon fodder, so it has no influence for my testing.

About gamma 3:

Transporter drop pattern behavior for this mission is a bit different compared to the other missions since it goes to the west and east bases until they are both destroyed. I do not know if that was a design choice or not so I will check the original script logic later.

As far as I remember there were 2 or 3 transports coming in and then no more. They landed in the HQ base or in the NW corner, where they are stuck useless. But I never saw them landing in eastern base, but I never had sensors there, so I'm not sure. Normally there was an enemy transport warning and either I saw them landing in the HQ base or found them later in the NW corner. Because of all the alpha campaign testing it's a while ago that I played gamma campaign and because of the bug #4604 I was also not able to see what the transport behavior really was before. And after taking a look into the code I also don't remember about land reinforcements for nexus. But I think it could be a good idea with ongoing air and land reinforcements so you should wait with changes until we have tested that level.

Edit: Now I took a look into the labels.json files and in gamma 3 on position 10 you labeled the westPhantomFactory that produce units during gamma 5 at the southwestern position. From this position in gamma 3 never came nexus units in. If you want to bring in ground units you should use the NWPhantomFactory from gamma 5 (position 64, 2624 instead of position 64, 10816).

[-Philosopher-]

The next thing I noticed is that targeting is a lot easier on v1.10, on master sometimes it can be difficult to target things and you have to hover above below or to the sides of an object you are trying to target before the curser will change to the one pertinent to the action you are trying to perform, as you can see in this screen shot

I concur with this. I'm actually now playing all the stages on 1.10, 2.3.8, 3.1.5 and master. Targeting is slightly different in all of them, but the misalignment issue Bethrezen describes and often tiny active areas for selecting things (which is particularly bad the further off looking straight down the map is) seems to have been introduced with 3.2.x These issues also apply to trying to build things. I frequently have to slow the game right down and reposition the map to get certain structures where I want them, whereas in earlier versions this was less of an issue. Is anyone aware of any tickets already open on this? I'm considering raising one.

Aspects of the movement code also seem better on v1.10 than on master for example units are less likely to get stuck, and when units are retreating for repairs the other undamaged units will try to get out the way.

I also see this too. It also applies to units attached to mobile sensors - and is particularly bad for them. Units attached to mobile sensors will not move at all for other units in versions 3.2 and on. There were other issues with movement in the 2.x branch, but IMO the 'fixes' for them have introduced new issues and so aren't necessarily better. So far 1.10 seems to handle it best overall, but I'll have to play more on that version to be sure.

Talking of mobile repair units that’s something else I've noticed when I have mobile repair units and combat units selected at the same time the repair units will typically stay at the back of the pack out of harms way as I push forward on v1.10 so they are less likely to get destroyed where as on master because mobile repair units tend to be quicker than the units they are supporting they tend to end up at the front of the group and as a consequence they are continually coming under attack and being destroyed which is something that irritates me immensely, also I'm not sure if its deliberate but I've noticed that the computer seems to prioritise destroying my repair trucks over other units, which is also pretty irritating and also something that doesn't happen on v1.10, so again this is perhaps something that needs looking at.

You may have formation movement turned on. It is by default - press F11 to see. It could be the thing that's keeping your repair units in place in 1.10 (trying it again with it turned off might show this)? Don't know when this feature got removed from the game, but it was fairly early on. It's not in any of the 2.x series I've been playing (nor any since). Pressing F11 in those gives a message that it was 'removed due to bugs' (why things are removed rather than fixed I'll never understand - better to leave them in with an open ticket until fixed I would have thought).

[Edit]
I decided to look into this further too -

The first thing I notice is that my units seem to have an easier time hitting targets that are in elevated locations. On my way to the scav base that is east of your landing zone I will typically have a tough time hitting this mini rock pit from below on master.

I concur with this too. e.g. this is a lot easier to achieve in 1.10 than master:

Alpha 02 example - that northernmost tower, in particular, is difficult to take down (without taking disproportionate return fire) in later versions.

These don't seem to be campaign (specific) differences to me though. @Beserk Cyborg - how would you like us to handle these sorts of things? My inclination would be to raise separate tickets for what - I presume - are core code bugs, or not bother at all for now (depending on seriousness) as this sort of thing isn't the focus at the moment anyway?

[-Philosopher-]

About alpha 9:

certainly it's doable but you would probably need to adjust the timer on the harder difficulties, and perhaps give players a little more time if you where going to have the new paradigm units come quicker as it was before.

I don't think so. Even if it's no reference I was able to solve alpha 9 by placing squads in the front of the scavenger bases and one squad to fight the NP troops with no problems. And that before the throttle times of the factories get increased (e.g. scavenger throttles get increased from 4 to 15 seconds) And before you were able to research composite alloy mk2 and python body during alpha 8. I think you and Philosopher should check that again on insane if it's really necessary or not.

Nothing to check in my mind. I don't agree with messing with the timers in principle - hard to argue such changes are making stages more in keeping with the original intent. Besides, if I were to struggle with it, my first assumption would be the problem lay with me (lacking technique or something), and thus it wouldn't be telling us much, unless a lot of other people had the same experience, and I think just us three isn't a large enough group to know that.

The problem with considering difficulty is it's incredibly subjective and very dependent on what solutions occur to whoever's playing at the time (as your example illustrates). What's the terms of reference here anyway? I thought it was replicating the original campaign, not changing it to make it 'hard/easy enough'. If we stick to the terms of reference there's no reason to walk into this minefield in the first place.

Also, even if we did go there, my view is balancing of weapon strength, body strength, etc. should be looked at instead of timers. Frankly, it's past messing with these that have introduced most of the issues in this area anyway IMO.

[-Philosopher-]

I’ve moved on, but forgot to document this previously -

Alpha 01
These scavs should be aggressive and attack (e.g.) someone building on the oil resource:

In prior versions (including 1.10) units trying to build here wouldn't be able to without an escort. In master the scavs sit and wait for you to go find them.

[NoQ]

I'm quite sure that they, together with the other group to the north from them, were supposed to hide and try to sandwich you when you jump into the canyon. Probably their micro-AI was making them easier to aggro?

[Berserk Cyborg]

As far as I remember there were 2 or 3 transports coming in and then no more. They landed in the HQ base or in the NW corner, where they are stuck useless. But I never saw them landing in eastern base, but I never had sensors there, so I'm not sure. Normally there was an enemy transport warning and either I saw them landing in the HQ base or found them later in the NW corner. Because of all the alpha campaign testing it's a while ago that I played gamma campaign and because of the bug #4604 I was also not able to see what the transport behavior really was before. And after taking a look into the code I also don't remember about land reinforcements for nexus. But I think it could be a good idea with ongoing air and land reinforcements so you should wait with changes until we have tested that level.

Edit: Now I took a look into the labels.json files and in gamma 3 on position 10 you labeled the westPhantomFactory that produce units during gamma 5 at the southwestern position. From this position in gamma 3 never came nexus units in. If you want to bring in ground units you should use the NWPhantomFactory from gamma 5 (position 64, 2624 instead of position 64, 10816).

Fixed the land reinforcement coordinate. The transporter does go to the east base since there is a transporter blip associated within that base. Likely was never used. A lot of times there are unused features or behavior implied in the WZScripts that I bring into the new incarnation of the scripts. Which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing.

I have accumulated quite a few changes so I will probably push all this in the mod as a new master soon.

Updated-Campaign.wz

[-Philosopher-]

I'm quite sure that they, together with the other group to the north from them, were supposed to hide and try to sandwich you when you jump into the canyon. Probably their micro-AI was making them easier to aggro?

That is the northernmost group. Its behaviour is pretty consistent across all the versions (including 1.10) except the latest master. In the latest master it's quite possible to sneak past them to the NW scav base (not that you'd want to - they'll more than likely bushwack retreating units from that fight).

There's another group in a gulley due south of those - it might be those you're thinking of? They'll more than likely ambush you if you try to pass through the gap to the aforementioned scav base.

[alfred007]

I started testing beta 7 and had instantly huge problems. Not only again that pathfinding error occurs again, my tanks attached to a commander didn't fire at CO cyborgs even the commander targeted at them. When I detached them from the commander they shot at the cyborgs. Attaching them back to the commander and they don't shoot. Not shooting units are useless and because of that I stopped testing beta 7 any more. Saved game and logs are added.