Talk:Known Bugs (TFTD)

More Unconscious Bugs

OK maybe TFTD is just plain buggy. This may be related to the Mind Controlled units MIA bug. What I saw was:

• All human units are killed or stunned, but the game does not end, a Coelecanth keeps working (this is a bug right?). I ran the Coelecanth for at least 4 more turns, with all Aquanauts either dead or stunned.
• If I saved and restored this game with the Coelecanth, on the first restored turn I had no units. I could not use the Units menu, the Next Unit button, or the Centre on Unit button. Nothing. After letting the aliens move for one turn, I could see my Coelecanth again.
• If I aborted this mission with the Coelecanth in the ship, as expected it says "Submarine Lost" and the stunned crew - who had been placed aboard the Triton - do not make it back to base.
• However, one of the stunned crew members does make it back to base. The stunned crew were all psi weak but some were stunned whilst under alien mind control, others were not - they were just panicked. I'm not sure if the crew member who teleported back to base was mind controlled or just (morale) panicked. But I would guess he was panicked, since most of them were mind controlled.
• When this crew member gets back to base he is shown as being assigned to craft called "Weapon-1" (since the craft he was assigned to no longer exists). Since this craft doesn't exist, there is no way to unassign him from it. Even if I had a new Triton I doubt I would be able to assign him to it. Shame he wasn't injured!
• Like in a similar incident I saw before, the affected Aquanaut was the first in the list and also the most senior rank. So that might be a factor.
• In this underwater mission I saw that the Hallucinoid's melee attack definitely works, and is lethal against unarmoured Aquanauts. The melee attack is ineffective against a Coelecanth (with XComUtil improved tank armour I think). I saw no evidence of its ranged attack working, ever, despite many opportunities. It may be possible that (like the HJ Cannon on land), the Hallucinoid's ranged attack might be able to reaction-fire underwater. I didn't do enough to test this, I might try that later.

Spike 14:08, 8 August 2009 (EDT)

Gill-men reported as Snakemen

I get these interesting bugs playing TFTD. A Gill-man corpse is described as a Snakeman corpse. And I get messages saying "Snakeman soldier has panicked", "Snakeman soldier has gone Berserk", when the Gillmen have morale failures. Now the game I'm running using XComUtil, and these Gill-men were created by using XComUtil REPlace command, changing them from Aquatoids and Tasoths. So this may be a fluke. Has anyone else ever noticed this? Spike 17:27, 8 August 2009 (EDT)

It's due to XcomUtil. There isn't a string containing "Snakeman" (or any variant thereof) in ENGLISH.DAT, ENGLISH2.DAT or even the executable. --Zombie 19:45, 8 August 2009 (EDT)

Survey Ship v. Escort

The Survey Ship and Escort are not interchanged on the battlescape. The sub that comes up matches the UFOpaedia entry and the picture that pops up during interception. Magic9mushroom 04:31, 21 August 2009 (EDT)

Not sure what you mean exactly. I would expect that during Interception it would look like an Escort, but when you shoot it down you see a small 1 room craft (Survey Ship) on the Battlescape map but the expected large crew and loadout from an Escort. And vice versa. Is this not what you see? Spike 16:17, 21 August 2009 (EDT)

No. When you shoot an Escort down the picture (although not the size of the blob) matches the design of what you term a Survey Ship, the 1 room craft. When you shoot down a Survey Ship the picture (though again, not the size of the blob) matches the larger, 3 room craft. Which is also confirmed by the UFOpaedia entries. The UFOpaedia entry for the Survey Ship looks like the larger craft and the UFOpaedia entry for the Escort looks like the smaller craft.

So the sub seen on the battlescape matches the sub picture seen during interception and the sub picture in the UFOpaedia. There's no switching in the Battlescape relative to the stuff seen in the interception window and UFOpaedia. It may be that the Survey Ship was intended to be the one-room craft (and indeed, this seems logical) but if that's the case, it's switched in all three. I checked and double-checked this. Magic9mushroom 05:03, 22 August 2009 (EDT)

Ok this is interesting, you may have uncovered a general misunderstanding. It's been suggested before that maybe it's just the names that are switched.

I know you have double checked that you have never run XcomUtil or a map pack? Definitely a virgin install?

Do you still see a large crew on a small craft and a 1 man crew on the larger craft?

That the sonar blob size is wrong does suggest maybe a problem in the .exe rather than the map files.

Spike 05:47, 22 August 2009 (EDT)

I don't even know how to use Xcomutil and have never downloaded it, so I can guarantee it's not been run on my Collector's Edition version.

I see multiple aliens on the 1-room craft and 1 alien on the 3-room craft.

I don't think the names are switched, since IIRC the Survey Ship still appears first and the Escort second in a mission. Besides, it'd have to be names and crew switched to make sense.

The sonar blob size isn't wrong, it coincides with the reported size of the craft. Escorts are reported as Small while Survey Ships are reported as Very Small. The problem, however, is that that reported size doesn't agree with the actual size of the ships, although it does agree with their loadouts. Magic9mushroom 05:57, 22 August 2009 (EDT)

Ok you have been very thorough on this. Let me try to summarise. The battlescape map, UFOpaedia picture and Interception window picture all agree in showing the Survey Ship as the larger of the two. The reported detection size, crew loadouts, spawn points, order of appearance, combat power, & sonar blob size all agree in showing the Escort as the larger. (We haven't looked at Mission types, a further clue.)

I think the most likely explanation is your earlier suggestion that all 3 "pictures" (map, intercept, UFOPaedia) were switched. Probably the last 2 are configured in the same place in the exe. As Zombie said, a miscommunication between different parts of the development team. Good investigative work! Spike 12:57, 22 August 2009 (EDT)

You two have convinced me that it is probably unintentional. I don't think it should be listed under bugs though, as it always happens and doesn't actually screw up the game or anything. It's a very odd state of affairs and one that should be listed on the pages for the ships though. I still think the Survey Ship and Escort pages should reflect what actually happens in-game, ie that we should have the bigger floor plans under Survey Ship and the smaller ones under Escort, along with listing the UFOpaedia pics as they're actually noted in-game. Magic9mushroom 05:00, 23 August 2009 (EDT)

Magic9mushroom, your investigation has improved the understanding of this issue. It should definitely be flagged up on the wiki pages of both craft. And the other picture-swapping case, the supply ship, should also be flagged on the relevant wiki pages. I think both should be considered Bugs, as they are illogical / inconsistent and don't behave as a player would reasonably expect. It's not necessary that an issue is unpredictable, nor that it damage game play, to be called a bug. Most listed bugs are always repeatable, and quite a few arguably aid gameplay. So I think we should list these as bugs, add your additional findings, and update the craft wiki pages. I'm not sure if we should swap the pictures and descriptions on the wiki pages back to the unmodified state or not. I'm thinking it over. You're right that it's confusing to players who use the unmodified game. Spike 09:57, 23 August 2009 (EDT)

I'll put my support for the motion that Wiki should present this information as per what players will find in an unmodified game. So if they see pictures of an apple in the Ufopaedia but find an Orange in the Battlescape instead, while the Ufopaedia Orange entry comes up with a Battlescape Apple, then let it be so, but also note that the objects have been unintentionally swapped either in one place or the other. There are plenty more inconsistencies in TFTD anyhow. -NKF

So then, if there are no further objections, I plan to do the following:

- Swap the listed UFOpaedia pics for the Escort and Survey Ship to match the ones found in the in-game UFOpaedia.

- Swap the listed floorplans to agree with what is actually found on the Battlescape

- Add a note to both articles that there's likely some sort of mixup.

Any objections? Magic9mushroom 19:47, 25 August 2009 (EDT)

Generally agreed but you could consider putting both images on each page, listing the unmodified one first, and saying "it looks like THIS but should probably look like THIS". Spike 07:45, 26 August 2009 (EDT)

I'll link each page to the other of course, so that seems a bit redundant. It's been over a day by my count so I'll do the switch. Magic9mushroom 07:54, 26 August 2009 (EDT)

...and done! Magic9mushroom 08:32, 26 August 2009 (EDT)