Robrob Posted September 15, 2004 Report Share Posted September 15, 2004 Here's a strange one. Has anyone ever had this happen? During a recent game several of my soldiers were hit by a stun grenade. I spent a couple of turns reviving them with med-kits. One soldier seemed to take more to revive than the others (I think she took nearly three whole med-kits!). Finally I get the message "There is no one there" (to use the med-kit on) but I can't see her. There's just the medic and an open field. When I look in the battlefield map, lo and behold - there are two gold squares?!? Searching around with the courser in the tactical map I discover she's awake and I can select her but she's invisible. She walks around just fine and when I walked her over to pick up a plasma rifle I ended up with a "floating" plasma rifle! After the mission she returned to normal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Maniac Posted September 16, 2004 Report Share Posted September 16, 2004 Hmm, usually when you awaken a soldier, he/she is "invisible" for the turn, until the next one, where the unit appears again, unarmed. TFTD corrects this, but it appears to be a minor graphical "bug." Or did this occur over two turns? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robrob Posted September 16, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 16, 2004 No, this lasted for the rest of the mission, probably eight or nine more turns. It was hilarious watching the plasma rifle walk along all by itself! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ros Posted September 16, 2004 Report Share Posted September 16, 2004 No, this lasted for the rest of the mission, probably eight or nine more turns. It was hilarious watching the plasma rifle walk along all by itself!<{POST_SNAPBACK}>You could attach screenshot, it would be cool. Invisible soldier, i must try it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Maniac Posted September 17, 2004 Report Share Posted September 17, 2004 Now that is strange. By any chance, was another soldier occupying the area the "unconscious" soldier was revived into? Maybe the soldier's sprite graphics just didn't load correctly--otherwise, I can't imagine why the plasma rifle would be visible, as I do believe that the weapons they carry are part of their graphics files (I think so, at least). Very odd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robrob Posted September 17, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 17, 2004 1. I agree that the soldier's sprite probably didn't load properly, I was able to walk her around for a while totally invisible. Eventually I realized she was going to need to defend herself and walked her over to a plasma rifle. I picked it up no problem (her inventory screen looked normal). Then I had the rifle all by itself "floating" in air. It moved when I moved her. It even showed different perspectives in the turns. 2. Sadly I just checked the saved game files and even though I saved it twice (labeled "Invisi Girl" 1 & 2) the saved games load with a normally visible soldier. I guess it was a one time only glitch. I have written the screen capture commands on my monitor in case it ever happens again. 3. Based on this I have to guess the weapon graphics are separate from the soldier graphics. can anyone verify that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[NKF] Posted September 17, 2004 Report Share Posted September 17, 2004 Not just the weapons. The left arm, right arm, legs and torso are all separate sprites. - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paladin Posted September 17, 2004 Report Share Posted September 17, 2004 ALL HAIL NKF!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robrob Posted September 18, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 18, 2004 Not just the weapons. The left arm, right arm, legs and torso are all separate sprites. - NKF<{POST_SNAPBACK}> And they must be all manipulated through some bit of code that went "kablooie" in my game. I really wish I had experimented with picking up different weapons and posing for screen shots! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[NKF] Posted September 18, 2004 Report Share Posted September 18, 2004 Well, no, it's simpler than that. Every unit in the battlefield has one little variable that lets the game know what sprite set to draw for that unit (it also holds a number of other things as well, but that's beside the point). The sprite is drawn first and then the object the unit is carrying is drawn on top of it. For your unit, my guess is that this little variable just got set to an invalid value for some reason. Lots of players seem to get this in TFTD with some aliens turning invisible as well. I blame data corruption - the source of all that is evil - and slightly amusing. Or, there's one other possibility. The visibility stat of the unit's set so that your unit is invisible. Because your units are meant to be seen all the time, the game saves a bit of processing time by not revealing your own units if they are seen by your other units. So if the unit is already invisible, the unit will never get flagged as visible. But this only happens until the end of the turn. I could probably tell you more if I had access to the savegame (assuming it keeps repeating itself). All I need are the unitref.dat and unitpos.dat files. A quick rummage through them might explain a thing or two. - NKF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robrob Posted September 18, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 18, 2004 I could probably tell you more if I had access to the savegame (assuming it keeps repeating itself). All I need are the unitref.dat and unitpos.dat files. A quick rummage through them might explain a thing or two. - NKF<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well I would but sadly in the savegames the soldier is normally visible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Maniac Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 Yeah, but raw data that might lead to the anomaly might very well be enough. So, it's a graphical "flag," or a gameplay one? Think line of sight could have been affected as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paladin Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 If it's not reproduced by the savegame, tehn it must be data-corrption IMHO... Besides, if teh bug's not there anymore, why worry? ::that's the kind of detail we'd pay very carefull consideration to, if we were developping the original XCOM, but we just need to make sure that won't happen for us in Xenocide... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Maniac Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 We've learned a good amount of lessons from X-Com, I think. Besides, we're using polygons now, which aren't as unreliable as old sprites and the like were... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paladin Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Then again, programming techniques and APIs have evolved dramatically over the last ten years Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Maniac Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 That's not to say a good Invisi Girl easter egg is out of the question... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paladin Posted September 22, 2004 Report Share Posted September 22, 2004 ?? What do you mean Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GDD Posted September 24, 2004 Report Share Posted September 24, 2004 (edited) you ginks!!!!! i got invisable/phase shiftting ethills on a base defence mission There was one which fired on the alien turn but simply wasn't there on my turn. Evenually he decloaked/ errored and I shot him/her. Edited September 24, 2004 by GDD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Master Maniac Posted September 25, 2004 Report Share Posted September 25, 2004 (edited) Creepy. A line-of-sight error could be the culprit. Apparently, base-defense missions are the buggiest of the lot, and the game sometimes doesn't correctly calculate line of sight, among other things. Hence, aliens that can be standing right in front of you, blasting you to bits, and are somehow "invisible." As for the easter egg thing--perhaps we could have a disappearing female soldier in Xenocide! Woo! Okay, perhaps not. Edited September 25, 2004 by The Master Maniac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paladin Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 Yeah, I can sense some retribution if you use up this age-old "cliché"... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ari Rahikkala Posted November 4, 2004 Report Share Posted November 4, 2004 Creepy. A line-of-sight error could be the culprit. Apparently, base-defense missions are the buggiest of the lot, and the game sometimes doesn't correctly calculate line of sight, among other things. Hence, aliens that can be standing right in front of you, blasting you to bits, and are somehow "invisible." As for the easter egg thing--perhaps we could have a disappearing female soldier in Xenocide! Woo! Okay, perhaps not.<{POST_SNAPBACK}> A female soldier with disappearing clothes, then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now