Invincible UFO attacks in Gamma 3

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Skrim
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Invincible UFO attacks in Gamma 3

Post by Skrim »

Yeah, I know. It's a provocative title.

Yesterday, I played through Gamma 3, in my slowly progressing campaign(I play a mission every now and then).

Gamma 2 had gone perfectly, me losing only 3 MG-Bug scout planes and a Wraith-Type bomber(Leopard Phosphor-Bomb). Thanks to those brilliant HellStorms(in emplacement form), I thrashed every last defensive structure and unit NEXUS had, and got all my ground units through(trucks, tanks, commander) completely unscathed at 100% HP. I had recycled my VTOLs, but I stupidly saved the game and lost their XP.

Gamma 3 also went near perfectly. My two dozen artillery emplacements took out NEXUS' 6 Angels after a prolonged exchange for the loss of 1 emplacement. Three MG-Scouts were sacrificed as Flying Bricks(Mantis Bunker-Buster) and artillery knocked out all NEXUS SAM Sites. Artillery and Wraith bombers engaged a large swarm of NEXUS Scourge cyborgs and exterminated them for no loss. The Flying Bricks began their attacks on NEXUS Gamma Base and demolished all air defenses for the loss of 1 plane. Wraiths and ground forces commenced attack on the base and soon reduced it to rubble. Fleeing hovertanks were engaged and destroyed by artillery and HEAP bombers. The isolated CB tower was left to live and gave me a little over an hour's worth of breather time.

But when I pulled out my tank group, I saw this:
NEXUS Transport engaged by tanks.
NEXUS Transport engaged by tanks.
A black Transport, the kind used by the Project, New Paradigm, and Collective, was being engaged by my Assault Gun Tiger Tracks tanks. This one was under NEXUS control.

This seemed totally illogical. NEXUS doesn't need or own any Transports - their hovertanks and cyborgs operate in independent self-reliant groups, are very fast, and even have an in-built auto repair ability. They move in overland from unknown off-map locations in Gamma 5 and 8 and cannot be tracked to be originating from an LZ, unlike New Paradigm and Collective forces. Even NEXUS VTOLs have an ability to fly straight from their home airbase or any off-map location on bombing missions, and need no transporting and no local rearmament facilities, unlike those Project wimps.

Anyway, I moved my tanks away to see if the Transport landed and offloaded anything, in which case I was prepared to fight. But it didn't. It kept hovering there ominously. I ignored it and sent in trucks to take the oil, but the Transport began using it's Heavy Machinegun and shot up the oil derrick.
NEXUS Transport attacks Oil Derrick.
NEXUS Transport attacks Oil Derrick.
So I let one truck handle the repairing of the derrick while the other two set up air defenses, since I didn't have any fighters armed with Lancers or TKs. The Transport was soon surrounded by smoke puffs, but this was just the Whirlwind shells exploding and not any damage done to the Transport.
Whirlwinds attack NEXUS Transport.
Whirlwinds attack NEXUS Transport.
The Whirlwinds fired and fired and fired. But the Transport just hovered there unaffected. It was either armored so heavily that the AA shells bounced off ineffectually, or it was outright invincible. I saved and reloaded the game to see if it would disappear. It didn't, and instead attacked my trucks and then began shooting the Whirlwind sites.

I can only deduce that this NEXUS Transport is some kind of bug, since Team Gamma didn't have an LZ to call in reinforcements that NEXUS took over by hijacking the Transport. :stare: It's nothing more than a minor nuisance, though, since it never tries to enter the map. I'll be playing Gamma 3 again from the start to maybe get a UFO-free result.
themousemaster
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Re: Invincible UFO attacks in Gamma 3

Post by themousemaster »

well that's new. I wonder if that is why that other guy can't finish his stage...

Speaking of, you only call it a minor nuisance. Have you checked if you can actually complete the stage with it flying there?
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Skrim
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Re: Invincible UFO attacks in Gamma 3

Post by Skrim »

No, I haven't checked. I doubt it, though, that the mission will complete with that thing hovering around there. I think I'll check now.

Edit: No, the stage will not finish with the UFO hovering around there. I killed the CB Tower and researched every last tech, but the mission didn't end.
themousemaster
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Re: Invincible UFO attacks in Gamma 3

Post by themousemaster »

This brings up an interesting question. I.E.: was that thing always there?

We know that Nexus likes to attack by bringing in units from off-stage. However, unlike, say, the Collective and their infinitely-spawning planes, it always appears that Nexus has limited troop counts with which to "reinforce".

I'm going out on a limb here, and say that the actual design of the SP levels were not changes in 1.10->2.0.10->2.1.rc1.


So... is Nexus's off-screen troops actually supplied by Airlift, and just (until Skirm's confirmed sighting), we never saw it? Was that Transport always there, and just never actually ended up "on-screen"?
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Skrim
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Re: Invincible UFO attacks in Gamma 3

Post by Skrim »

NEXUS cannot be using airlifts to an off-screen LZ in Gamma 5 and 8 - all their units appear on the same square, just like the Collective's northern reinforcements in Beta 1. The NEXUS VTOL supply, like the Collective's, appears to be unlimited and they just casually fly onto the map from an unknown off-screen location. So I don't see how airlifts by a Transport fit in here.

As far as Gamma 3 is concerned, we have no clue as to what's going on on the northern half of the map during the first part of the stage(the 30-minute part). We can see Gamma Base's defensive structures firing, getting damaged, and sometimes getting destroyed, but that's it. Going north triggers the second part of the stage to start, and all surviving Team Gamma assets are taken over by NEXUS. Maybe the Transport, whether it's owned by NEXUS or Team Gamma, is involved in there somewhere.
themousemaster
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Re: Invincible UFO attacks in Gamma 3

Post by themousemaster »

Skrim wrote:NEXUS cannot be using airlifts to an off-screen LZ in Gamma 5 and 8 - all their units appear on the same square, just like the Collective's northern reinforcements in Beta 1.

I know all their stuff appears on the same square; that said, there's nothing saying that the game code has it such that the only units *available* to appear on said square are ones that were previously air-lifted to a near-offscreen location. And that in previous game versions, this had all happened off-screen, so we never knew.
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Deathguise
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Re: Invincible UFO attacks in Gamma 3

Post by Deathguise »

Have you tried using cheats to kill the transport?

Nexus may use transports after all, i just completed gamma 3 and had the enemy transport detected audio play several times during the mission.

If you still have the savegame you could attach so we can have a look.
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Skrim
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Re: Invincible UFO attacks in Gamma 3

Post by Skrim »

I play with sound off, which is why I never heard a message like that. Anyway, here's the saved game. It includes the folder and it's contents, the ES file, and the GAM file. This is for 2.0.10.

Analysis of the Transport from multiple angles shows that it is actually located beyond the map edge, which bullets can cross, but units cannot. Attacking it with fighter VTOLs results in the VTOLs slamming into the invisible barrier at the map edge before climbing to the Transport's altitude, shooting it, and heading home to rearm. It is invincible to all kinds of weaponry.
Attachments
nexustransport.rar
Saved game 2.0.10 Gamma 3
(233.64 KiB) Downloaded 320 times
Madman_Andre
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Re: Invincible UFO attacks in Gamma 3

Post by Madman_Andre »

That's not a Nexus transport...

Those are Pirates.
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Skrim
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Re: Invincible UFO attacks in Gamma 3

Post by Skrim »

I've partially confirmed that NEXUS does use a Transport.

It carries 2 Vindicator SAM hover-tanks, 1 RailGun hover-tank, and 7 Cyborgs(Needle Gunner and Scourge). I don't know where or whether the Transport landed, but I do know that a group of exactly 10 units appeared out of nowhere and went on an offensive up the eastern plateau(where they were engaged by my bombers and artillery, and got destroyed for the loss of 1 plane). So it could only be a Transport.

The previous time around, this attack group didn't appear but that Transport hovered over there and messed up the mission. This time around, there was no Transport hovering around in the north.
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psychopompos
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Re: Invincible UFO attacks in Gamma 3

Post by psychopompos »

that thing being the reason people wanted destroyable transports...
shift+backspace, enter, letmewin
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Re: Invincible UFO attacks in Gamma 3

Post by bengaltiger »

psychopompos wrote:shift+backspace, enter, letmewin
Exactly what I did, after killing them all and collecting the artifacts, to play it fair and cheat only because the game cheated on me.
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Re: Invincible UFO attacks in Gamma 3

Post by Lothar_Quest »

And 8 years later... I had exactly the same problem. Even saving game before the bug didn't help, because that black transport always shows up on the top of that mountain in the north of taken Gama base. If you attack any mobs on the top of that, here come's the damn black flying thing. BTW, I've tried to use that cheat you guys were telling (Shift+Backspace, then enter "letmewin"), but nothing happened... Tomorrow I'll try this mission again, but next time I WON'T hit the mobs above the mountain... lol... let's hope it works, or at least I find another cheat that works for me... haha... 8^)
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