Talk:TFTDextender

Questions or Comments

A place to provide feedback or ask questions

Bug Reports

Crash 0xFFE00B30

1.05p1

"XCOM crashed at 0x7C82A5CD with error 0xC0000005 trying to access 0xFFE00B30."

This was on the first start of TACTICAL. It was an XComUtil modified game of TFTD. I guess that's not necessarily supported? I have a save game so I will try to roll back XComUtil and retry. Spike 21:39, 6 September 2012 (EDT)

The bug was associated only with one specific saved game. Removing XComUtil and using the base TFTDextender.INI file had no impact, the problem still occurred with this game save file, but the problem did not occur with any new games. I can upload the game save directory if that would help. I guess some combination of XComUtil modifications to game save files, plus maybe some combination of .INI options. Spike 22:34, 6 September 2012 (EDT)

Did this error occur after completing a mission or one stage of a mission? I have seen errors like this even in the base game. If memory servers me correctly, the address is related to the clearing the heap stack.

The error occurred at the first attempt to start the Battlescape. No previous missions had been run. This was the very beginning of the first mission. The Battlescape never appeared. It could be related to patches made by XcomUtil, so maybe don't worry about it unless others can reproduce it. Spike 21:02, 8 September 2012 (EDT)

Interesting. I had someone report a similar thing when they were starting their first instance of the battlescape on a new install of the game. I looked into it and the game generated some bad data. When he let the UFO take off and land again, the battle started with no problems..

I tried this suggested technique and it seems to work. In fact, I think I now understand the bug. It's a bug I've reported before (before TFTD Extender even existed), so it's not specific to TFTDExtender / UFOExtender. Which must be good news for you. :) It might be related to XcomUtil (corrupting game files?). What is happening is the Alien Sub is landing on land, and the Triton is also attempting to land on land. Probably the game crashes when it fails to generate the appropriate terrain type? So the GEOSCAPE map/terrain data must be corrupted. I've seen three examples of this. In a couple of cases the landing site is clearly inland, by hundreds of kilometres. In some cases it's right on the sea/land boundary and hard to tell. I have two save games that reproduce the bug now. From memory, the previous cases all happened around North Africa, like these present cases. Spike 08:31, 9 September 2012 (EDT)

I think it might be a loop-hole that the programmers didn't have time to really fix. If my memory of the code is correct, the only sites that are supposed to be on-land are terror missions (and ship attacks) and base defense. Each has a specific dataset to use to generate a map. If some USO sites are indeed on the ground, the random map generator may just be accessing and creating garbage data. Morgan525

OBDATA / Dye Grenade mod not working?

I can't seem to get this to work. Regardless of what I do, the Dye Grenade radius is the same as in the unpatched game. It starts on one square, slowly spreads out to about a 4 by 4 diamond, then contracts and fades out. Am I doing something wrong? Is it using the right OBDATA.DAT file? Spike 09:41, 7 September 2012 (EDT)

I'm not sure this feature is working for me at all. I tried changing the stats of a Dart Gun like this, also with no apparent effect.

[OBDATA.DAT]
Apply=1
;Dye grenade will have similar initial effect as smoke grenade in EU.
Dye Grenade Damage=60
Dart Gun Damage=255
Dart Gun Size=100
Dart Gun Auto TUs=50
Dart Gun Auto accuracy=20
Dart Gun Snap accuracy=50
Dart Gun Aimed accuracy=100

Spike 16:39, 8 September 2012 (EDT)

I've checked that OBDATA modding works ok in UFOExtender. I can't get it to work in TFDExtender though. I have tried modding one-word items like Magna-pack. I have tried using the exact literal names from OBDATA.DAT (TFTD). I have tried using the literal names from UFO. All no good. The record structure looks to be the same in TFTD as in UFO. I am a bit stumped. Spike 22:32, 8 September 2012 (EDT)

OK. I'll look into it. My work has restarted so I am a little busy right now. Once I get readjusted to the work schedule, I'll be able to investigate more.Morgan525 04:23, 9 September 2012 (EDT)

I completely understand. Thank you so much for this amazing contribution. Spike 09:47, 9 September 2012 (EDT)

update: I think I located the problem, the LoadFile command had been referencing the wrong LoadFile subroutine.

Excellent. I will be happy test as soon as you have time to upload an update. Spike 09:45, 20 September 2012 (EDT)

Minor Bugs

Weightless Ammo Bug

Do you think you could fix this bug? Known_Bugs#Equip_Phase_Ammo_Load_Error. Seb76 had a look at it, and diagnosed the cause, but he did not get around to fixing it. It's only mildly annoying and, some probably consider it to be useful as a very minor exploit. For me, it just really bugs me! (No pun intended). Spike 22:55, 6 September 2012 (EDT)

From what I understand right now, I am pretty sure I can arrange it so that weapons are not automatically loaded and soldiers would be given an extra clip. Feedback?

By an extra clip, you mean the clip/ammo that would have been loaded into the weapon is instead carried by the soldier? And for carried clips, the encumbrance effects are correct. For me anyway, in order of most benefit, the options would be

1. Fix the root cause of the bug (ensure all relevant object locations and "contains/contained in" pointers are set during automatic clip loading) so that automatically loaded clips correctly affect encumbrance
2. As a workaround, don't load ammo for multi-ammotype weapons (Heavy Cannon/Gas Cannon, Auto-Cannon/Hydrojet Cannon, Rocket Launcher / Torpedo Launcher). These are the weapons for which the bug has the greatest impact, since it imposes a 'cost' of switching away from the automatically-loaded ammo (usually AP or Small Rocket/Torp). With single-ammotype weapons, there's never any need to change the clips before combat.
3. As a workaround, don't load ammo for any weapons. This avoids the 'switching cost' issue but does impose a fairly significant logistics overhead on each combat, to go through and manually load all clips. Plus the risk that you forget to load a weapon and only find out at a critical moment. :) This is for the "purist" who wants to make the game harder.

If it's tricky to fix the root cause, any of the other two options would be helpful. Suggested text:

• [Multi Ammo Weapons Start Unloaded] - Workaround for the Weightless Ammo Bug. Weapons using multiple ammo types (Heavy Cannon, Auto-Cannon, Rocket Launcher / Gas Cannon, Hydrojet Cannon, Torpedo Launcher) will not be pre-loaded before combat. You will need to load these weapons manually during the pre-combat Equip phase. This will significantly affect the heavy weapons ammunition load your squad can carry into combat without suffering encumbrance penalties, thus making the early game harder.
• [All Weapons Start Unloaded] - Workaround for the Weightless Ammo Bug. This option overrides the previous option. No weapons will be pre-loaded before combat. You will need to load all ammo manually during the pre-combat Equip phase. This will significantly affect the ammunition load your squad can carry into combat without suffering encumbrance penalties, making the early game harder.

Spike 05:10, 21 September 2012 (EDT)

Grenade Resistance in INI file

I think this is a holdover from UFOExtender, because 'Grenade' is not a TFTD object, and in TFTD I think all forms of grenades already have high damage resistance, and so are already "stackable". Spike 09:14, 7 September 2012 (EDT)

Weight Display in Inventory not Localised

At least when I run the game in German, it comes up as "Weight" and not something like "Gewicht". Reactions comes up ok as "Zeitwerte". Spike 09:47, 9 September 2012 (EDT)

That is because there is no entry in the text DAT files for "weight". Seb had to add the text string into his subroutine. Thanks for pointing it out. Morgan525

Useful alien species research

Tycho, I really like this idea you proposed in the StrategyCore forum:

I'm thinking about giving a hp bonus to all aliens until Xcom performs an autopsy on the species to learn the location of their vital organs (like in the movie "Battle of LA"). This would give more importance to performing autopsies rather than just as a stepping stone to new tech.

Definite +1. It would be equally valid to add to UFO Extender. I suppose it could also be implemented using Vulnerabilities (no Vulnerabilities are in effect until the Autopsy is completed), or Resistances (across-the-board increased Resistances until Autopsy is completed). If that's easier.

The bonus to hp was an initial thought. Later, I decided against it since it would make aliens more resistant to HE and stun, which don't rely on hitting the right locations. Increasing resistances would be the most appropriate but the damage routine code is very tight and adding anything new that won't break the existing variable stack pointers is tough. Morgan525

A new idea for this that I recently have been toying with, would be on the damage generation routine: Most direct fire damage is 0-200%, with anything over 100% considered a "critical hit". If autopsy hasn't been preformed, then the base damage would be 0-100% and a small chance (maybe 25%) of another 0-100% for that lucky shot. With autopsy done, the game reverts back to the usual 0-200% on any hit.

That works. And it makes doing Alien Autopsies a no-brainer, as it should be. It is pretty much inconceivable that XCom wouldn't prioritise the autopsy of any newly encountered alien. And any player playing the game for the first time would do autopsies too. This mod will help experienced players to stop playing as if they've "seen it all before". Spike 10:35, 15 September 2012 (EDT)

Would it also be worth adding some kind of bonus for Live Alien research? Maybe the negation of some kind of Morale penalty and/or Psi penalty? Fear of the unknown, know your enemy, that kind of thing?

I thought about that but the game doesn't record live aliens that have been researched. When you finish research on a live alien, it only follows the routine to unlock the appropriate UFOpaedia articles and then checks to see if the finished research can unlock other topics. Morgan525

By the way sorry for posting questions on your User page and on the File:TFTDExtender.zip page. I should have looked here first. Spike 20:41, 6 September 2012 (EDT)

No problem :) Morgan525

Displacer/Sonic damage fix

If I understand this fix correctly, the Displacer/Sonic weapon damage has been increased to 150 from the previous in-code value of 110, and vs the previous UFOPedia entry of 130? SWS Sonic weapon damage has been increased to 150 because this matches the craft-mounted Sonic Oscillator?

I don't think this is the right idea. Increasing damage to 150 gives Displacer/Sonic a higher damage level than Displacer/PWT. That removes some of the distinctiveness of Displacer/PWT, and more importantly it is inconsistent with the general principle in the game that PWT weapons (of a given class) do more damage than Sonic (which in turn do more than Gauss). That is true for infantry weapons, SWS weapons (unless you create this exception), and Craft weapons.

Also, there is no reason why SWS weapon damage should be equated to Craft weapon damage. I'm pretty sure that Battlescape damage values and Craft combat (Geoscape Interception) damage values are completely different, they are not meant to be compared to each other in any way. There is only one SWS weapon that has the same damage as its equivalent Craft weapon, and that is the Coelacanth/Gauss = Gauss Cannon. I think this is a coincidence, as the other equivalent weapons are all different between the SWS version and the Craft version (this applies to Gas Cannon, PWT, Sonic, and also Aqua Jet vs torpedos).

Clearly there is an inconsistency between the code and the UFOPedia, and that should be fixed. It's hard to say if the "right" value is 110 or 130. Is the code wrong or is the UFOPedia wrong? It could be either way. But I would correct this inconsistency either to 110 or to 130, not increase it to 150.

Spike 08:02, 7 September 2012 (EDT)

Or make it an option: Displacer Sonic Fix={0|110|130|150} Spike 09:50, 9 September 2012 (EDT)

Feature Requests

All Units Can "Fly" In Water

It's very illogical that most units are stuck on the seabed in underwater missions. Please provide the option to set all units (X-Com and alien) to have "flying" (i.e. swimming) ability when underwater. This is unlikely to cause an outbreak of 3D combat, since there is no cover except at seabed level, so anyone swimming excessively or incautiously is going to get shot. It might disadvantage the aliens if their tactical map waypoints are all set on the surface. But as some of them can "fly", there is hopefully a mechanism to deal with that in the code already. For me it will just solve the frustration of being unable to swim over small obstacles or swim up a level, and being stuck or tactically limited for no sensible reason. Mag-Ion Armour remains useful as an important step in Sub Research and (if using the Everything Works on Land mod) for land use. Spike 11:36, 9 September 2012 (EDT)