5 replies to this topic

[yarrow]

Hi all

I recently started to play terror again ( and again, and again )
and found this strange behavior, that never happened to me before

its all about VERY frequent alien missions, which prevents me to build even radar outpost!!

alien mission type is >> floating base attacks
target area >> south atlantic
they are repeated on every day schedule!!

I know mission type and target area cause all my OTHER bases have transmission resolvers already build

and those missions are so frequent, that even if I build a base
this base is under attack right after 3-5 days, and sometimes even in the next day!!!

this started to be really annoying
I can do any mission type ( MC team already trained and operational, leviathan under construction )
but I cannot setup a humble base in this one area of globe

and yes ... I tried to build them in a slightly different places ( like nearer SAmerica coast, or Africa coast )
not just the same place all the time, unfortunately to no success at all

yarrow

ps.
current base count is 9 already build ( and 8 destroyed so far )
those lucky alien bastards

Edited by yarrow, 10 April 2011 - 09:05 AM.

[NKF]

Are you running the game in Dosbox? I'll assume you are as I've seen similar symptoms mentioned before.

One of the possible reasons for that is the Dosbox cycle settings. There are some cycle settings (differs from PC to PC) that causes a glitch that make the game roll its random number generator for the mission scheduling many times per cycle, causing a continuous series of floating base attack missions to be scheduled for that area.

Normally the game will only roll the dice once to tell if it needs to do something, but because a lot of old Dos games were very dependent on the processor/frame speed, it's probably rolling the dice a couple of thousand times each frame. So yeah, definitely there'll be some successful rolls out of that many!

First thing to try is alter your cycle speeds a bit. Either speed it up or slow it down. What missions were scheduled will already have been scheduled in advance, so you'll have to let them all pass before things (hopefully) return to normal.

- NKF

Edited by NKF, 11 April 2011 - 12:00 AM.

[yarrow]

no, no modifications used, or programs or ... well ... read on

I dont like modifications
mostly because xcom is already very fine balanced ( at last to me )
and all mods that I found ( or made by myself ) unbalances this game too much ( again ... to me )

I am speaking of modifications, not battlescape alien route fixes or similiar things,
which I consider bugfixes, and which I use sometimes too

the only thing that I really do use ( but very rarely )
is to modify dye grenade strength to 60 ( same as is ufo )
so they become usable again

again no ... this is not the case
this is just pure clean CE version ( no mods or bugfixes ), run under win98se
which is run on its own, old machine ( intel celeron 333 cpu )
so no dosbox or ANY other programs interfere with xcom ( maybe except for windows itself )

as for those ... other ... programs
I tried dosbox, UAE ( amiga emulator ) and wine ( under linux )

dosbox is a good choice for windows users
but it still has problems with emulating hardware ( especially sound hardware )
cpu cycle problems which you mentioned ( if they interefe with video update refresh cycles to be more precise )
and few more which I run in my case
( no ... I wont be quoting dosbox FAQ )

dont take me wrong, dosbox is good, and runs xcom ( DOS version ) very well
I DO recommend it to any windows user, if anyone asks me
just not sufficient to me, and additionally I wanted CE version, not DOS one
( you can call me perfectionist if you want )

wine is a better program ( in my opinion )... but linux only ( to me ... no problemo )
it performs better, and is better in sound emulating
as it is using native linux alsa sound driver ( linux maniacs know what it means )

again ... wine is good, even better than dosbox ( I can run CE version, which I use the most )
but not as good as ... I wanted ... wanted ... wanted ( yes ... I am greedy )

UAE is amiga emulator for Unix family systems ( linux distributions are of that family )
I wanted to give a try on amiga version of ufo ( it was ufo, not terror from the deep )
I only played it about half an hour, but found no problems here

anyway, my intended target was CE version, so this was not the solution to me

I must admit that I did NOT tried virtual machine simulating programs
( read again the words -> simulating programs, they are just like dosboxes on a bigger scale )

or ... FreeDOS
perhaps they both could perform better, but ...

but ... its still not the same as pure old hardware
I just bought a dedicated machine ( they are cheap after all )
runs xcom perfectly ... and ... problem solved



returning to alien hordes

I just never run into such sitiuation, and wanted to share this with others
( and I was curious too, if someone else runs into the same sitiuation )

I must admit, that at first glance I was angered ( almost furious )
but ... after some thinking about it
I liked it, and I liked it VERY, VERY much

so many ships, so many crash-land missions to perform, so many alien artefacts to sell
and ... sooooo many bases lost

as for solving this problem
I started patrolling south atlanctic area with 2 tritons ( one refuels while second one is patrolling )
but barracudas are too slow to be there in time ( mostly because they refuel/rearm too slowly )
and as it is ironman run, so reload is NOT an option here

I guess I will have to wait for leviathan to come operational
to shoot all those scouts down, this should ... do the trick

only 2 more construction days + another day or 2 for sonic oscillators
additional few hours to complete rearming ... and ...

and ...
we shall see ... who rules the south atlantic sea

you ... alien bastards


yarrow

ps.
base count increased to:
14 already build and destroyed
numero 15 is under construction

Edited by yarrow, 27 April 2011 - 05:38 AM.

[NKF]

Um, I never said anything about mods, but, uh, good on you.

I guess we can't discount that possibility the bug can occur in the CE version as well. The game does inherit a lot of its predecessors bugs. If not by the frame speeds than perhaps through a memory leak.

- NKF

Edited by NKF, 15 April 2011 - 01:44 AM.

[yarrow]

no problemo
I guess I ... 'was in the mood'

as for mem leak, probably you are right, that could be the case

it could be this mem leak that caused mem corruption of the game
which just was simply saved later

or just as simple as simple save corruption
( how many time did it before? .... hmm .... many times )


yarrow

ps.
current base count:
15 build and destroyed
16 under construction
( and no time left to play the game )

[yarrow]

welcome back

yarrow proudly announces that:
finally base 18 is up and running

its itercept base now, not just a radar outpost
2x sub pens, in first one resides barracuda, and in second freshly build leviathan-2
M.C. Generator underway, but still 28 days to complete


it was the leviathan-1, who allowed me to shoot down all of those alien scouts
and got this base up, any other method didn't work well enough
to prevent aliens from detecting my base

lesson to be remembered is:
shoot down scouts, as fast as possible
with no exceptions
( unless you know what you are doing )


side note:
aliens still do a lot of missions in south atlantic
but it looks like number of scouts declined
since the beginning of this ... slaughterhouse


yarrow

Edited by yarrow, 08 May 2011 - 01:29 PM.