Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

[-Philosopher-]

Alpha 03

What did you change about the victory conditions for this stage, @Beserk Cyborg?

Otherwise, the only issue with this stage is by design...

In 1.10, it starts with this message:

It’s making the (entirely reasonable) assumption that you didn’t get to research this technology at the end of Alpha 02 (you have to jump through a few hoops to both collect the final technology and not destroy the base, as we all know - not something you’d expect someone starting out with the game to do).

Only after completing those instructions do you get another cutscene and the timer resets.

I know I said I’d drop this, but with the recent changes making jscam far more in alignment to previous iterations of the campaign than it ever has been, this difference sticks out that much more. It is quite clearly the intent of the stage to have two phases and a timer reset after the 2nd cutscene. The current change to this is not in keeping with the terms of reference.

If there are concerns about “power exploits” then why not handle the first phase the way Alpha 01 was, rather than removing it entirely (i.e. give it a time limit where there was none before - say 15 mins - which is then reset after the 2nd cutscene)?

I trust power bonuses are only applied on completion of a stage, so finishing the first phase early would not grant an additional one?

[NoQ]

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.

Yeah, sorry, i mean south If they're not sandwiching you the moment you jump to north-west, it seems incorrect.

[Berserk Cyborg]

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.

I think I discovered why attached unit sometimes do not attack things. It appears that they are stuck on DACTION_SULK for whatever reason. Droids that are sulking do not want to do anything, or at least that is what I would guess.

What did you change about the victory conditions for this stage

Forced return to LZ. I will make the pre-away Alpha 3 two phases again, but with a timer.

Yeah, sorry, i mean south If they're not sandwiching you the moment you jump to north-west, it seems incorrect.

I tested both the south and north entrance and each group moves. Of course, the micro-AI defaults to guarding so a clever player could lure some of them farther away from the trigger.

Edit:
For general gameplay issues, not with the scripts, you all should create tickets for them.

[alfred007]

Alpha 03

What did you change about the victory conditions for this stage, @Beserk Cyborg?

Otherwise, the only issue with this stage is by design...

In 1.10, it starts with this message:

It’s making the (entirely reasonable) assumption that you didn’t get to research this technology at the end of Alpha 02 (you have to jump through a few hoops to both collect the final technology and not destroy the base, as we all know - not something you’d expect someone starting out with the game to do).

Only after completing those instructions do you get another cutscene and the timer resets.

I know I said I’d drop this, but with the recent changes making jscam far more in alignment to previous iterations of the campaign than it ever has been, this difference sticks out that much more. It is quite clearly the intent of the stage to have two phases and a timer reset after the 2nd cutscene. The current change to this is not in keeping with the terms of reference.

If there are concerns about “power exploits” then why not handle the first phase the way Alpha 01 was, rather than removing it entirely (i.e. give it a time limit where there was none before - say 15 mins - which is then reset after the 2nd cutscene)?

I trust power bonuses are only applied on completion of a stage, so finishing the first phase early would not grant an additional one?

I tested it with an old save from he end of alpha 2 and with current master pre-away alpha 3 is still a two-phase level. Only if you researched the power module in alpha 2 and ugraded your power generator this scene is skipped, because it makes no sense to become the information to do something you already did. Either if you not researched the power module in alpha 2 or if you researched it but didn't upgrade your power generator this scene is shown.

[Berserk Cyborg]

Pushed master 73e7f2565fcef866a3120e7574c8e12d9badaf68. So as usual, the "Updated-Campaign" mod can be removed in your mods folder.

I tend to agree with alfred007 on Alpha 3. It is still a two phase objective where players need to 1) build the module and 2) get the artifact. More time only implies that a new player would struggle to know how to build a module in the first place. Many players would not have it built by Alpha 3 and will have the video tell them to build it, and if already done so, the mission starts off with objective two and skips the need for objective one since it is already done.

[-Philosopher-]

What did you change about the victory conditions for this stage

Forced return to LZ. I will make the pre-away Alpha 3 two phases again, but with a timer.

Ah OK - all good. Didn't realise it was another one of the ones that were briefly changed (to total annihilation I guess)? Good that it's put back.

Yeah, sorry, i mean south If they're not sandwiching you the moment you jump to north-west, it seems incorrect.

I tested both the south and north entrance and each group moves. Of course, the micro-AI defaults to guarding so a clever player could lure some of them farther away from the trigger.

They move, but that wasn't the issue I was raising. They seem to be less aggressive in Master - in master you can build a whole base around the northern oil resource without them coming to look; in previous versions they'll attack as soon as you're anywhere near. NoQ's right - they're not sandwiching as they once were. Spitballing here, but could it be they both attack when your units come into their detection range, but their detection range has changed? Or, perhaps something along the lines we discussed in Alpha 08 (guarding not pursuing?). I'm guessing as to root causes but there's definitely a difference. I'll try to capture some images to illustrate.

Edit:
For general gameplay issues, not with the scripts, you all should create tickets for them.

Copy that. Top of my list is the pursue/guard/hold thing (#4303 & viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12197 & viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10415&p=115108#p115107). I was going to re-open it with some associated cajoling/begging/pleading, but I saw you were making some moves already in that direction. Should I still go ahead? Slightly worried I may be kicking over a hornet's nest by even going anywhere near it, but on the other hand it's a bit of a show-stopper for me. I'd have no interest in upgrading to a new public release if it didn't re-include those features - which would make all the work we're doing here for naught presumably, which would be a bit of a disaster... Let me know your thoughts.

I also logged the save-game-reload lock-up thing - #4644 (because that was an easy one). More to come.

I tested it with an old save from he end of alpha 2 and with current master pre-away alpha 3 is still a two-phase level. Only if you researched the power module in alpha 2 and ugraded your power generator this scene is skipped, because it makes no sense to become the information to do something you already did. Either if you not researched the power module in alpha 2 or if you researched it but didn't upgrade your power generator this scene is shown.

I tend to agree with alfred007 on Alpha 3. It is still a two phase objective where players need to 1) build the module and 2) get the artifact. More time only implies that a new player would struggle to know how to build a module in the first place. Many players would not have it built by Alpha 3 and will have the video tell them to build it, and if already done so, the mission starts off with objective two and skips the need for objective one since it is already done.

The mission starting off with objective two if the upgrade is already researched and applied is correct - that's how it's always been - but which videos you see was never the issue. The original campaign had a timer reset after the second cutscene - only relevant if you got to see the first objective of course, but how it was so that's the thing that should be restored... but I think you said you were going to do so?

Pushed master 73e7f2565fcef866a3120e7574c8e12d9badaf68. So as usual, the "Updated-Campaign" mod can be removed in your mods folder.

I've hit some issues when reloading saved games with updated-campaign removed, if they were saved while there was a mod of that name present. Is there a way of overriding this, or spoofing its presence? (or will games from the subsequent stage onward be unaffected by it?)

[Berserk Cyborg]

Ah OK - all good. Didn't realise it was another one of the ones that were briefly changed (to total annihilation I guess)? Good that it's put back.

Unless otherwise noted all jscam victories have provided the freedom of either returning to the LZ or going for total annihilation. Though I will change them to reflect v1.10 when it is shown to be different as it might have changed the playthough of the mission in some aspect.

Copy that. Top of my list is the pursue/guard/hold thing (#4303 & viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12197 & viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10415&p=115108#p115107). I was going to re-open it with some associated cajoling/begging/pleading, but I saw you were making some moves already in that direction. Should I still go ahead? Slightly worried I may be kicking over a hornet's nest by even going anywhere near it, but on the other hand it's a bit of a show-stopper for me. I'd have no interest in upgrading to a new public release if it didn't re-include those features - which would make all the work we're doing here for naught presumably, which would be a bit of a disaster... Let me know your thoughts.

Only thing I would be able to bring back is the hold order in the form of the h button. I highly doubt anyone would get angry over asking about bringing back a removed feature.

The mission starting off with objective two if the upgrade is already researched and applied is correct - that's how it's always been - but which videos you see was never the issue. The original campaign had a timer reset after the second cutscene - only relevant if you got to see the first objective of course, but how it was so that's the thing that should be restored... but I think you said you were going to do so?

Guess I misunderstood the issue. Resetting the time after the second video is easy enough to do. I am not going to complain if someone wants to waste a few minutes to get more power.

Speaking of power on insane, are any of you finding that gaining power should be even more scarce or kept as is right now?

I've hit some issues when reloading saved games with updated-campaign removed, if they were saved while there was a mod of that name present. Is there a way of overriding this, or spoofing its presence? (or will games from the subsequent stage onward be unaffected by it?)

It may affect the mission if it was changed while still offworld. Most of the time just keep a save on a pre-away mission to avoid this problem altogether.

[-Philosopher-]

Alpha 01

Those northern scavs again -

Here's a screenshot the moment they started doing something on master:

They're attacking me only because I've come within their visual range.

Whereas, on 2.3.8 (and 1.10 - it's the same), I don't know what triggers them, but they decide to jump me before I go anywhere near them:

My guys in the NE of the picture have been sitting there for a short while before the scavs decided to move; the only thing that changed is trucks are now on their way to build the requested factory you can see in frame. Can't imagine that having anything to do with it though...?

Is there some sort of trigger area for these scavs? Is it the same between wzcam and jscam?

[Bethrezen]

Do you still have a save for v1.10 with Alpha 8/9?

yeah here ya go

v1.10 Alpha 08.7z

v1.10 Alpha 09.7z

[edit]
in case you want to start at the start of alpha 08 here's my end of level save for alpha 07, just need to build a turret to end the level.

v1.10 Alpha 07.7z

as far as alpha 02/03 goes and the issue with the power generator i don't really understand why the game was set up that way in my opinion that is just stupid design it makes much more sense to give the player the cut scene about building the power generator after they finish researching the power generator tech and then simply remove the requirement to build the generator before letting players continue on i know that strictly speaking this doesn't match the original design, but it is a reasonable compromise given the conflicting opinions on this one.

[Bethrezen]

[edit]

Alpha 10

Ok so just completed my play through of alpha 10 on v1.10 and I have to say this is way trickery do to without taking casualties on hard on v1.10 part of the reason for that is because of balance differences my lancers are weaker on v1.10 so that makes killing there units tougher, since you are facing off against there most heavily armoured units and each of them cannon blasts is nearly as powerful as a lancer blast.

There are however 2 things I noticed about this level, on v1.10 that actually make this trickier then master.

First off there units don't seem to get stuck the way they do on master, you can see the effect in these screen shots.

The first shot is master, the second is v1.10



Now having observed how this works on both master and v1.10 I think the issue might be because all the units are showing up at once on master where as on v1.10 they should up one at a time so you don't end up with units getting stuck, because the next one doesn't appear until the one before it has cleared the entry point, I think part of the issue might also be that scanner, on v1.10 that scanner and the bombards show up after the tanks, in addition that scanner has different orders on v1.10 and tends to make a run for it towards my base presumably, where the scanner on master doesn't instead it just sits there blocking the entry point.

The second thing I noticed on alpha 10 on v1.10 is that the drop shops landing zones seem random, on master the drop ships will come in the following order



However on v1.10 however that seems not to be the case, and the first series of drop ships will drop randomly between landing zones 1, 2 & 3, and then go to landing zone 4, in addition there doesn't appear to be any landings to the north of your base at landing zone 5 on v1.10 or at least not on the play through of that level I just did.

Otherwise everything else seemed to play out the same way with the victory happening once you have destroyed all there troops.

[Bethrezen]

Alpha 11

Ok so as has already been noted the convoy on this level misbehaves on master, presumably due to the formation speed limiting being removed, what follows is a sequence of screen shots illustrating the correct behaviour for the convoy as designed by pumpkin in v1.10 if they are left alone.

As you will see all units should move at the speed of the slowest unit and all members of the convoy should stay together as a single group. To achieve this the convoy should pause at certain points along the way to allow the convoy to regroup



The first regroup point is at the end of the first section in screen shot 5,



The second regroup point is outside the scav base in screen shot 7



The third regroup point is at the bottom of the ramp round the back of the Plateau in screen shot 9



At which point the convoy will drive up to there LZ however unlike master the player wont be given an automatic mission failed instead the artefact carrier will drop the artefact which will then be picked up moments later by the lancer unit as you will see in screen shots 10 and 11



They will then wait for there transport, the appearance of which appears to be triggered by the player, as you will see in screen shot 12 and 13, the trigger point seems to be in the same location regardless of whither you go round the back or round the front however just to be sure it was player triggered I tried siting and waiting but I got the game over screen due to running out of time and didn't see any transport, so it's definitely appears to be triggered by the player



The one caveat to this is that it only happens if the convoy has already reached the LZ.

What happens then is that the unit carrying the artefact gets in the transport the player gets the message that the enemy is escaping and then once the transport has left the map the player gets the game over screen as you will see in these screen shots



what i have noticed about the pick up is that it seems a little inconsistent on v1.10 in so much as i know that the unit carrying the artefact is this unit



however we can see in this screen shot that the drop ship picked up the wrong unit



so technically the player shouldn't actually get a mission failed there because the artefact should in theory be recoverable still, so that's something else you are going to want to look at as well because i noticed the same thing happening on master.

With regards to the building of the lancer turrets there should be 6 of them and they should be built right away and should be finished within the first 6 minutes as you will see in this screen.



With regards to the behaviour of the convoy when they come under attack, you will see in this screen shot that the unit which is actually carrying the artefact will try to escape while the escorts stay behind and engage your units.



In this screen shot we see what happens when the unit carrying the artefact is destroyed, another member of the convoy picks up the artefact, and again the unit carrying the artefact tries to escape while the rest of the convoy engages my units.



Also i checked the timer for when the convoy starts moving on v1.10 I started alpha 11 at 29:35 and they started moving at 27:45 so if my math is correct then that should equal about 2:30 minuets after you land, give or take a few seconds.

As for the victory conditions that was collect the artefact kill all there units and there return to the LZ

few well i think that just about covers things for this level, if you want my save for this level to verify my findings just ask.

[Bethrezen]

General issues

Ok so this one is less a bug and more poor design, when you open up the reinforcement's window on an away mission the bottom half of the rank insignia is cut off by the energy bar as you can see in this screen shot



So what I'm wondering is can the rank insignia can be moved to the top corner of the image like this



So that the player can clearly see what rank the unit in question is, I know this is a very minor UI issue but never the less it is annoying and I'd like to request that it be fixed.

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).

I'm actually of the opinion that its more than that, certainly that would appear to be a factor but something else I have noticed with the repair trucks in v1.10 is that they will move back to there starting position after fixing damage units where repair trucks don’t do this on master which I think is also a contributing factor, certainly the behaviour of the repair truck has been changed from v1.10 because on master repair trucks just go directly from one unit to an other until no units need repair but on v1.10 repair trucks seem to waste a lot of time dancing about in-between jobs so for the most part I think the change is for the better because repair trucks on master are faster and more efficient, having said that though I think whoever updated the behaviour for repair trucks forgot to implement that one little of the code that makes them go back to there starting position when there are no more units to repair which I think would help keep them at the back of the group as you push forward and therefore they would be less likely to get attacked.

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.

Perhaps the most prevalent example of this is on Alpha 12 since they have a lot of turrets set in elevated locations that you are shooting at from below on v1.10 i don't have any issues at all using bunker busters and it makes clearing all there turrets so much quicker and easer because bunker busters will kill a bunker in about 3 or 4 hits where as it will take many more salvoes from bombards, Its a shame bunker busters are not so effective against towers for towers you are better using bombards, i guess towers must use a different type of armour to bunkers.

On master however using bunker busters is a waste of time because they can't hit most of the turrets that are in elevated locations, with a bit of perseverance you can do it but its so much more difficult that you'd be better not to bother and just use bombards instead, not to mention the fact that bunker busters are to slow to reload in my opinion, i get why it's that way because its designed to limit there overpoweredness but it does make them somewhat useless, and about the only time i ever use bunker busters, is on vtols for surgical strikes against troublesome targets.

[Bethrezen]

Ok so now that I'm at the end of the alpha campaign on v1.10 and I only have alpha 12 left to play, I've updated to the latest master.

warzone2100-master-20171003-185446-73e7f25.exe (03-Oct-2017)

I then started a new game since there has been quiet a lot of changes, I'm currently on alpha 02, and it just game me an error.

here is the log

Code: Select all

--- Starting log [C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Desktop\Warzone 2100_portable-master\Warzone 2100 master\logs\WZlog-1006_224538.txt]---
error   |11:12:56: [js_removeObject:2357] Object id 165927 not found belonging to player 12
error   |11:12:56: [callFunction:209] 0 : camSafeRemoveObject(obj = [object Object]) at script/campaign/libcampaign.js:138
error   |11:12:56: [callFunction:209] 1 : __camPickupArtifact(artifact = [object Object]) at script/campaign/libcampaign.js:726
error   |11:12:56: [callFunction:209] 2 : cam_eventPickup(feature = [object Object], droid = [object Object]) at script/campaign/libcampaign.js:2984
error   |11:12:56: [callFunction:209] 3 : <global>() at -1
info    |11:12:56: [callFunction:212] Uncaught exception calling function "cam_eventPickup" at line 138: ReferenceError: psObj failed in js_removeObject at line 2357
info    |11:12:56: [callFunction:212] Assert in Warzone: qtscript.cpp:212 (false), last script event: 'N/A'

[Berserk Cyborg]

Have you found any reliable method that causes the (artifact removal) error? I know you reported this one a few times though I have not seen it happen yet. I myself have nothing interesting to report other than almost having the cam3-ad1 script (Gamma 7) working.

I see balance and such is coming up a lot here so this topic might be of interest to you all.

[Bethrezen]

Have you found any reliable method that causes the (artifact removal) error? I know you reported this one a few times though I have not seen it happen yet.

Unfortunately no it seems to be intermittent, what i did notice this time is that it happened right after a reload, so this could be reload related, maybe on occasion something doesn't reinitialise correctly for some reason after a reload, other than that i have no idea, i do however have a save which i made just after it happened so i could attach that if it would be helpful.

What i might try is to make a save just before where it happened and then try reloading a few time and see if i can get it to happen again.

General Issues

Also i noticed another general issue on v1.10 I'm given the option to save on the level complete screen but on master I'm not, also on master the background image is not displayed either, as you can see in these screen shots.



Don't know if this is deliberate or a bug but if its a bug then it should probably be investigated.