Hexing my way out of the Alien Containment bug

[Tristan c]

My captured aliens are dying despite my having completed research on all available live 'uns and even having built an extra AC module in the host base. This is a bug. Aliens are supposed to vanish into thin air somehow when the research topic is completed, or if they get transferred between bases, register their departure. My aliens, though, are stubborn layabouts that continue to take up space when they don't exist. I trialed-and-errored my way through the DAT files to figure out which ones governed live aliens. But all I've been able to determine is that ASTORE.DAT handles the live aliens associated with a given base (and apparently— frustratingly— does not of its own accord get referenced to determine how much containment is available); thus, this file isn't terribly helpful. I did some test runs where I put a clean, Jan 1st ASTORE.DAT into my latest save game, and aliens I captured still died. LOC.DAT and BASE.DAT are my next targets. Trying to figure out a little method I could use to see how they behave.

 

Just wondering if anyone here has problems with alien containment, or knowledge about the base storage, and can give me any advice. Or commiserate

[[NKF]]

I've found containment facilities to be a one-off effect module for the base and any extra do not actually increase containment storage, as it's fixed in size.

 

Have you looked up the Astore.dat file structure on the ufopaedia.org wiki? Here's a direct link:

 

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=ASTORE.DAT

 

Alternately, you can quickly wipe out your containment modules on a global scale with these steps:

 

1. Save your game.

2. Quit and start a brand new game.

3. Save the new game in a different game slot.

4. Delete the astore.dat in your current savegame.

5. Copy the new game's astore.dat into your current game.

6. Reload our game.

 

Voila - an instant worldwide wipeout of captured aliens. If there are any existing aliens you want to research, I recommend doing them first, or at the very least get the interrogation(s) started in the labs.

 

- NKF

Edited July 28, 2011 by NKF

[Tristan c]

Thanks a lot for the response and explanation.

 

It doesn't look like it works. I had tried swapping ASTORE.DAT already, but just to be sure this time, I erased the contents of one of the save directories before saving a new game there. It should have been fine. I tried modifying both battlescape and worldscape saves. I don't know why there's no room other than my guess that containment space is handled in a different file. One real oddity is that the containment appears to discriminate by rank. I ran through a couple missions capturing the following guys:

 

Floater Soldier

Floater Engineer

Floater Navigator

Floater Medic

Floater Leader

Floater Commander

Sectoid Soldier

Sectoid Engineer

Sectoid Navigator

Sectoid Leader

 

The soldiers, engineers, leaders, and the commander all died ("Alien dies as there is no containment facility"). The navigators and medic were captured successfully. Maybe I have captured several of the other classes at this point and their ghosts are haunting the base. I might just restart and try replicating the results, or perhaps avoiding them, in a new game.

[[NKF]]

That's very strange. If you've got a containment module built you should never get the message that an alien has died due to not having the module. Might be a silly question to ask, but were you using teams from different bases?

 

Back to wiping the contents, about the only thing I can think may have happened is that the old astore.dat wasn't overwritten. Have you tried (save a backup first) deleting the astore.dat from the current save and then copying the new save's astore.dat into it?

 

- NKF

[yarrow]

hmmm .... did you captured them with a stun rod?

 

In unmodified version exist some nasty bug ( stun rod bug )

that prevents you to capture aliens ( by ranks ) with stun rods

in my case it were medics, leaders and commanders

 

perhaps you should try to capture them with a small launcher instead

 

yarrow

Edited July 29, 2011 by yarrow

[Tristan c]

It is really strange. I've tried what I think are all possible means of swapping the ASTORE files and I am flummoxed. I've backed up and removed all the saved games and made a Jan1 game through a different copy of XCOM just to be sure. I brought in some other ASTORE files from prior saves which contained different aliens in my home base. These aliens showed up as new topics for research in my leading save, indicating that the file is working at least partly as it should, but aliens still die. The most mysterious thing of all is definitely the fact that I can capture certain ranks and not others. In answer to yarrow's question, I have been using a stun rod, so this probably remains as the last possibility I could check before giving up.

 

I probably will give up, or rather, play through a new game and see if these issues resurface. I really appreciate both of your advice though, thanks!