Talk:UFOextender

From UFOpaedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Feel free to report any problems or comments you have on the program.

Feedback

Using Extender in Steam (seamlessly)

Hello,

Do you know of any way for me to use your XCOM extender through Steam, without using a separate executable? My games are on Steam precisely for ease of use (double-click on game, game loads), and digging through executables is the thing I'd like to avoid. (Nor is "add the extended executable to Steam" acceptable.) Rampancy 00:01, 17 January 2012 (EST)

Steam now gives you the option to run the CE version as an alternative to the DOSBox version. The easiest way to use TFTD Extender and UFOExtender with the Steam distributions is just to unpack them into the TFD and XCOM folders (respectively) and directly invoke the TFTD Loader or UFO Loader. There is no need to use or run Steam in order to run these games. Steam is only required for installation. You can create normal Windows shortcuts to run the games directly, and/or to run them via their respective Extender Loaders. The installed game folders can usually be found under C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common. Spike 06:33, 5 October 2012 (EDT)

Initial alien bases bug

I have a bit of a problem. I use Steam version of UFO with most recent UFO Extender. Every time I start a new game on superhuman difficulty (I didn't test other difficulties) I get alien base directly on my base (with initial alien bases enabled). So far, I started 5 new games, where first three (1st Europe, 2nd North America, 3rd Island in the middle of Pacific Ocean) all had Alien Base 3 directly on it. 4th game (Madagascar) didn't, while 5th (Europe again) has two alien bases directly on it (I have save from this game for you if you want to check this out). I don't think this was intended?

Music problems

MP3 fails to play or crashes the game

I seem to have an issue with the music patch. When I originally installed the loader months ago, everything worked flawlessly. Now however, the game crashes upon entering the main menu. To track down the problem, I enabled first the intro then the language selector screen; no problems with either. In the process, I discovered that the problem is with the music: if I disable it, the game loads properly. If enabled, the loader exits without an error message upon entering the main menu. I did a full reinstall of the game, didn't work. The only other thing I've changed away from the fully working configuration is an upgrade from WinXP to Win7 (VC++2010 is installed).

All the files exist and all settings here unchanged from the time they worked. I have NO idea what's going on. Additionally, if the patch is disabled, the game only has music in the main menu and nowhere else until Alt-Tabbed out and back at least once.--amitakartok 12:53, 22 September 2012 (EDT)

There is MIDI music but it only starts to play after I Alt-Tab out of the game; it stops again during the next Geoscape/Battlescape transition. Without the loader, I get no graphic output whatsoever and it gives up after a few seconds, producing the generic Windows error message about the executable having stopped working. Also, tried your lines above, didn't work.
One more thing: I read it elsewhere on the net that the patch works with OGG files too, once the INI file is edited with proper filenames; it allegedly fixes some music-related crashes as well. I'm trying it out now.--amitakartok 08:06, 23 September 2012 (EDT)
Alright, tried out the OGGs and the loader now crashes at 0x754CD36F with error 0x406D1388. So much for that.--amitakartok 09:21, 23 September 2012 (EDT)

I wasn't able to find any solution to this. I want to use PSX mp3s but game crashes every time I put apply=1 to music section of the config. I tried converting them to ogg files and it's the same thing. Is there any solution to this? --OpT1mUs 15:21, 26 September 2012 (EDT)

Hello! I've had the same problem, so I dug into the source to try and investigate what's going wrong. The problem is indeed with my machine and NOT with the application, though I believe it might be more stable if the source wasn't using MCI to play MP3's. UFOLoader works fine on two copies of windows I have handy, but not another, bombing out when hitting the main menu when MP3 music is enabled. Yes, you're right, the problem is with some sort of codec setup, as things work fine if I convert the music to wma files. However, this also requires altering the code in music.cpp to change the call to mciSendStringA to omit "type mpegvideo". This works fine on my machine, though it's by no means a sensible solution, just a work around for me. I've only done this because I've no idea where to start debugging MCI codec issues, as this is a really antiquated way of actually playing an MP3 (though easy).
Anyway, for your info, the code bombs out at line 165 in music.cpp, in the method PlayMP3MusicFile. The call to mciSendStringA (with the command to open a given MP3) fails with an MCI 263 error, which translates to MCIERR_INVALID_DEVICE_NAME.
Unfortunately, this won't help you debug your (or my) codec issue, but it's at least confirmation that it's an issue on your side and not a problem in the source. I suspect a minor rewrite to use DirectX calls to play the music would cause this problem to go away. I'll be happy to do this, is the latest version of the source available (IE for UFOLoader built on 27th Sept 2012)? DaveG

Someone on Steam developed a good method to help isolate and resolve codec conflicts that keep Extender from playing MP3s. See TFTDextender FAQs

I looked into that article but didn't help: neither of the splitters are present on my system. Also, I tentatively added UFODefense.exe to ffdshow's list of programs not to load for; now it loads into the main menu but there's no music whatsoever and the game crashes if I leave the menu and try to enter the game itself.--amitakartok 18:21, 4 November 2012 (EST)

The only suggestion I have now is for you to remove the current version of UFOextender. Download the last version the Seb posted and try that. If the game works, try the next release, until the problem reoccurs. If not, your probably going to have to "shotgun" troubleshoot this by uninstalling anything and everything that deals with sound or video (aside from drivers) from your system and then try the game. I had the crash problem on my system and after uninstalling about 10 different programs (converters, codec paks, alternate sound players, etc), MP3s play fine now. -Tycho
I've been using Seb's version to begin with.--amitakartok 08:57, 16 November 2012 (EST)

Video Problems

"XCOM Crashed at 0x45E6A5 with error ..."

Usually this occurs with the split exe that you get after installing XcomUtil. One part that gets altered conflicts with the Extender's option to skip the intro. Disabling this option will stop the error.

Adjusting animation speed

Is it possible to adjust or change the animation speed of other objects such as internal objects and alien numbering marks in bottom-right side of screen?--Xcomplayer

I have the same issue, I'm quite fond of arctic bases but the water animation speed is hilarious. -- Splicer
Try adjusting the MaxFPS in the INI to something like 60~75. I found that this fixes a lot of the speed issues without the need for the other patches. -- Tycho May 2012
Version 1.29 introduces an option to set the base battlescape speed which will slow down scrolling and animations. -Tycho 23:47, 29 December 2012 (EST)

General Store Capacity

I have an odd issue where a new base I just built (second base of the game) has 1 total storage capacity when I have the "General Store Capacity" mod on (set to 1). The main base can only transfer a total of 1 storage space's worth of items before it says I must build more stores. However I can transfer goods back just fine (with the main based having over 50 total storage used).

The value after the INI entry is not an 'Enable(1)/Disable(0)' option but the maximum space that you want each storage facility to have. Since you set the value to one, each storage facility will only have one space. The initial base seems to hold more only because the stuff in storage is set when the base is first created. I've change the code now so that any value below 51 is ignored by the Extender and it uses the game's default value.-Tycho 23:42, 1 January 2013 (EST)

Where is UFOLoader.exe?

I tried downloading the Zip in the link, but it only had a file called Patcher.dll. Where is the rest of it? Thanks, Herbert West.

The minor versions / patches only include an update to the patcher.dll. For the other files you need to download the most recent major version. So right now you would get major version 1.28, and then get patch/minor version 1.28p3. If you look at the page for the zip file, you will see the current version, which (at the time of writing) is 1.28p3, and then beneath that you will see a table that has links to all the previous versions, with the version number listed in the comments field. Spike 14:59, 19 October 2012 (EDT)

No DosBox

The only executable file in the download is an .exe file. .exe files don't work with dosbox and with X-com being a 16-bit program it doesn't work on 64-bit system either. Is there any way of getting this mod running on a 64-bit windows? Is there a workaround or am I just being stupid?

The first paragraph of the main page of the article does say:
This program only works with the Windows version and will not work through DOSbox. 
Furthermore, a version compatible with DOS will not be created due to difference in memory management used.
Workaround - can you boot under a 32 bit Windows instead? Spike 18:27, 19 October 2012 (EDT)

Suggestions

i hope to be posting in the right section for this.. otherwise excuse me, please.

Here are some features UFOextender currently lacks that I would love to see integrated in a future version:

  • 1)editable starting soldiers attributes (cuttently UFOextender only allows you to set the maximum caps of those STATs, yet for those that, like me, don't like the idea of soldier's health raising much through experience, this could be useful).
  • 2) editable HWP stats of chassis and their weapons (currently possible with XcomED only for the first part, yet is not possible to change the damage dished out by HWP weapons)
  • 3) editable fire/stun damage of equipment that does this type of damage(currently the stun damage of things like smoke bombs is so low that it's almost of no strategic consideration.. it would be cooler if stun bombs had an higher stun per turn value, in order to make them more complicated to use and also extend the value of equipment that gives soldiers stun immunity. I've tried increasing the stun damage of granades with Xcom ED, but this only makes a wider smoke cloud with stun damage per turn remaining the same.. tweaking with fire damage maybe could allow thins like flamethrowers to be moddable!).
  • 4) editable fatal wound system (current system basically gives you 3 fatal wounds anytime a soldier is damaged by 10+ hits.. I would love that to be tweakable to something like 1 fatal wound for every 10 hp lost, maybe with some added random factor). It would also be cool if part of those fatal wounds could be in stun damage, making the need to rescue with a medikit collapsed soldiers even more frequent (something which however already happens due to the fact that frequently weapon damage gives also a bit of stun damage if I recall right).
  • 5)a critical hit chance system (without this - unless you want to bring soldier HP to something like 100 and retweak all the weapons around that value - it's hard to regulate weapon power against armor and HP since, unless you plan that some weaker guns like plasma pistols CAN'T oneshot a soldier in heavy armor, you'll later have to give more powerfull weapons even more punch, risking to make them having a very high oneshot rate, especially if you have original HP values ffor your soldiers. If a crit chance could be added like a % random factor that allows a bigger multiplier than usual to be applied to te base damage, even a low damage weapon could happen to oneshot or cause severe wounds albeith that wouldn't be possible - and thus, rare - due to it's base damage).
  • 6)option to chose % chance of aliens having a weapon over another (currently, later on in the game it seems alien only carry heavy plasma and, occasionally, blaster bombs.. that's quite boring. I would love instead to be able to choose which weapon they use and mod those weapons, in order to differentiate more the various aliens: e.g. by making the light plasma some sort of sniper rifle with low snap shot accuracy but high on aimed, and maybe making some sort of heavy plasma cannon with good autofire rate but not of great accuracy)

Thanks for the attention, and the great job done with UFOextender to keep alive a game that, even with the release of a fun 2012 XCOM, still shines as the best of the series IMHO.

Tarvis' Suggestions

12/24/12

I have to say, the UFO Extender is a great leg up from the DOS version! The stats on loadout screen is my favorite feature. I only have a couple minor gripes/observations, and some of them don't necessarily apply to UFO Extender:

  • XCOM CE's Sound effect volume is excruciatingly high (about 5x) compared to DOS version. This means that, at least for me, music is relatively quiet. At least it is so on Windows 7. I'm using modified SAMPLE/SAMPLE2.CAT files to compensate for it, but it would be great if there was an option to adjust this. Maybe this isn't an issue on Windows XP.
There problem here is that there is nothing in the program to manage aspects of sounds/music. The game selects the music entry or SFX and then dumps the data string directly into the OS's sound mixer. - Tycho
    • After some investigating, the DOS version's 1.4 SAMPLE/SAMPLE2.CAT audio is the same volume as the CE .CATs, yet is played in-game at a much lower volume than the CE version. Perhaps there is some sort of volume adjustment going on in-game, which isn't being performed in the CE version, or not on Windows 7 at least. The fact that the audio data in the DOS 1.0/1.2 SOUND1/SOUND2.CAT files is a lower volume than the 1.4 sounds (yet still played at the same volume in-game) seems to suggest this.
    • This is also another minor gripe, but it seems some weapons (namely the Heavy Cannon) use the wrong sounds (for example the Heavy Cannon HE rounds firing and hit sounds both use the explosion sound ,and it definitely isn't this way in DOS. Is this a SAMPLE2.CAT problem or is this defined elsewhere in the game files?
The music is playing as a MIDI channel (usually via the OS's built-in SW Synth), whereas the SFX is all handled as standard wave channel. In anything earlier then Vista, Windows let you change the volume on those two channels separately (along with whatever other output channels your system had). From Vista on, you can now adjust volume on a per-program level (which is good), but you lose the ability to do so on a per-output-device level (which is bad). I'm not aware of any workarounds. -Bomb Bloke
The Windows version did change the sound. Check out my user page for a lot of information on how sound EFX play in the game.-Tycho
  • Geoscape dialog animation speed (window opening animation) is very slow compared to the rest of the game. If I lock the game to 30FPS then the Geoscape and Battlescape animations are perfect, but windows in Geoscape take about a second each to open. Perhaps an option could be added to change the window animation speed?
This is a direct result of having the FPS too low.
  • It would be great if a fullscreen resolution option was added instead of forcing the desktop resolution. This would be useful because I think XCOM looks best when scaled partly by nearest neighbor, and partly bilinearly. If I could set the game resolution to 640x400, I could get the exact same effect I want, but right now the only way to do that is to disable D3D which does not sit well with Win7.
    • Another alternative is to add more scaling methods: nearest (current), bilinear, Half n' Half (First pixel-doubled to 640x400 and then scaled from there with bilinear), HQ4X and more
It will be a long while before something like this might be possible, unless someone with experience in this were to help.-Tycho
I don't know about the scaler options, but I'll see if I can get a resolution option added. It looks simple enough; the code for using a different resolution is already there, but it's simply fed the current width & height from the primary display. I'll make it read from an INI option instead. Of course, I'll use 0x0 to represent the current resolution, just like DOSBOX, and that can be the default. -Tarvis
  • On Windows 7 it seems that the D3D Window Position width and height options correspond to the entire window with borders and not the actual game screen area. Is this an oversight or is this the intended behavior?
  • Sometimes when firing or moving soldiers, you can notice that a bit of the background moves with them. This only seems to happen some of the time, so I can't seem replicate it exactly. If I do though, I'll post a save file. It's most evident when firing shots through smoke tiles.
    • This seems to have been fixed with Extender v1.29. Probably has to do with hiding the mouse during shooting/moving. Nice!
  • It seems that you can click during soldier moving or shooting, and then the soldier will execute that command as soon as the action is completed. Has it always been this way? I remember that if you did this in the DOS version then nothing happens. This has resulted in a lot of mis-commanding and I'm not too keen on using double-click (too used to single-clicking!)
I'm not sure of the specifics but I think Windows is buffering the input and allowing it to be executed it at the next opportunity. I think DOSbox eliminates this in some way directly or indirectly. The only solution is to use the double-click mod.
  • The mouse can leave the screen in full-screen mode in dual-monitor setups, but only if D3D is enabled. Also, turning off mouse scaling (providing the best mouse speed) means the mouse can also go lower and to the right of the game. Perhaps the mouse-clipping modes used in the windowed mode could be applied to fix this?
Scale mouse was created to fix the issue that mouse-clipping can't be used in full-screen mode.
This does fix the mouse going too far down & right in-game, but even with mouse-clipping on it still leaves the game and still goes to the other monitor. -Tarvis
Oops! My mistake (I've been working with TFTD for so long I just defaulted to that program). Try this string: 68 CC F2 02 10 6A 00 68 04 F3 02 10 68 14 F3 02 10 FF 15 10 F0 02 10 85 C0 0F 84 90 00 00 00. Use a hex editor. Search the Patcher.dll file for the string and change all the bytes to 90. - Tycho
Works great, in battlescape and geoscape! Thanks a bunch. Just for the record, it doesn't work in Geoscape with mouse scaling off, but that should be turned on when the game is fullscreen anyhow.
Great! That tells me enough that I know what to change to resolve that problem. Thanks for your feedback!-Tycho
I tested it in the new patch, and just realize it can still leave the window in the main menu.
That is intentional. Last chance to resize the window or access the sound mixer to adjust volume before starting a game.- Tycho
I see. When is the source going up for 1.29? I've finished the scaler/resolution features and I want to add them to the most recent version.
I'll have it up right away. Are you about finished with the new resolution? That was fast! I'm not sure how Seb managed other people's contributions. Looking at his talk page, it seems Seb had contributers upload or email him the new files: I guess you could zip up the new cpp files, upload them to the site, and then add a link to it on your user page. I'll then be able to put them into an offical release. Does that sound OK?- Tycho
Thanks. I updated my page with the info. Zip contains a built patcher.dll too if you want to try it out (see new INI options first) - Tarvis

The following is definitely wishful thinking, but would be wonderful if it could be done

  • Replace MCI MP3 handling with DirectX calls. This would make codec issues that cause crashes much less unpredictable.
It may be a long time before this, too, could be implemented, unless someone experienced with modding in Direct-X were to help.- Tycho
Not sure if you saw this or not, but someone on the forums made a patch to use BASS.dll for music instead of MCI. - Tarvis
Thanks for the information. I played around with it and it works. Niklata, the creator, did a great job. I've already incorporated the changes into the music.cpp file -Tycho 23:25, 29 December 2012 (EST)
    • I would like this mainly because MP3 playing works fine on my Windows 7 64 bit machine but not at all on my Windows 7 32 bit machine, and I can't figure out why. Both are configured to use the Windows default MPEG splitter and MP3 DMO Decoder, yet using MP3s crashes on the 32 bit machine every time.
Check out the reference on the TFTD Extender page about problem with playing MP3s.
I've tried all that and couldn't get it to work, but I'm able to use AbraM's FMOD patch for UFO Defense.exe with UFO Extender just fine so that'll work. I wonder though, if I wanted the game to play GMMARS instead of GMSTORY during debriefings, what should I change? CE by default seems to use GMSTORY instead, and Abram's Fmod patch uses the game's default music mapping instead of letting you define one.
check my user page. At the bottom, I've listed the addresses for all the events that call a sound. You'll need a disassembler like IDA. The list will help you locate the hex address that you'll need to change to call a different sound entry.-Tycho

UFOLoader ver. 1.29 Geoscape Speed possible bug - CONFIRMED!

Hi Tycho

I have probably found some bug in new version of the UFOLoader. - LAST TEST and MODS CONFIRMED THAT BUG!

It is very nice that the geoscape works fluently now with the Geoscape speed set to 1 but I think this CAUSE PROBLEM WITH THE GAME SPEED at all.

I tried to compare the game played with this speed settings on and off and I have noticed that there are less detections of UFOs with the settings on then with off.

The other not good behavior happend to zoom by mouse - with ON it is very slow if you have 5 seconds mode, in 1 Day mode it is fluent. I think - this could also moddifies the game heart speed so the first ufo is detected after few more days (it is very complicated to confirm that behavior, but you can try DOSBox UFO and see the difference and also it works better if you turn the Geoscape speed setting off.

The other thing is that the mouse affecting the speed of animations when is moving (but it does also in all previous versions) - it could be seen on the radar lines in the interception screen.

Can you please check the speed and the detection of UFOs? It seems to me that because of the speed modification the detection notification doesn´t appears so often and happening randomly. ElfKaa

The test I made confirmed that the UFOs are not detected. It is caused of the POP instruction in the GEOSCAPE SPEED code inside the patcher.dll

The test I made: 

.100237D8: 68980B0310                     push        010030B98 ;'Slow Geoscape
.100237DD: 6814030310                     push        010030314 ;'Video'
.100237E2: FF1510000310                   call        GetPrivateProfileIntA
.100237E8: 83F801                         cmp         eax,1
.100237EB: 7510                           jnz        .0100237FD
.100237ED: 58                             pop         eax
.100237EE: 90909090                       nop
.100237F2: 8B0DD0240310                   mov         ecx,[0100324D0]
.100237F8: 668901                         mov         [ecx],ax
.100237FB: EB0E                           jmps       .01002380B
.100237FD: 58                             pop         eax
.100237FE: 90909090                       nop
.10023802: 8B0DD0240310                   mov         ecx,[0100324D0]

I have moddified the code and similar under like as on address 237ED and under, if you do so the detection will be very rare. This code affects the detection directly. Can you implement something simillar to the code in the UFO ET version? There the geoscape speed is also slowed down but it doesn´t have these problems... ElfKaa 18 January 2013

I was successfully able to use 1.28.3 along with the following modified exe to have the Geoscape clock work perfectly. (Obviously using 1.28.x means the geoscape speed change is not enabled, since it is not present). The exe is available at http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=242035086 , and is allegedly includes only the geoscape time fix from MOK's 2xSAI patched exe. The exe still works UFOExtender just fine. The result ticks at the same rate as stock steam dosbox, and running it for a few minutes makes it look like UFO detection has not been reduced.
Perhaps UFOextender should simply apply exactly the same changes as that exe provides. Tacvek 19:29, 20 January 2013 (EST)

The above code is for the shortcuts that change the time-reference. If you don't use shortcuts, the code will not be placed into game memory.--Tycho

Now that I have looked closer at the code, the code shown above is part of ApplyPatches(). That portion is completely compiler generated, single-run code, and therefore is simply correct. I'm not sure why you thought it was related to the shortcuts, but it is not.
Almost everything in the Extender is part of 'ApplyPatches'. I recognized the code and its part of the HookSpeed() routine which is called from Shortcuts(). The code for the new lines matches the code for the original shortcut routine, the only difference is that it checks to see if the Clock mod is enabled and send the appropriate value to the Geoscape_time variable according to the button pressed.~~
On the other hand the exe I posted is still interesting, because for me at least it better matches the original game than the 'Slow Geoscape' option (the original game is , and it is simpler code than is used in 1.29, because it does not actually change the geo_timeSpeed variable so no need to patch in a new set of values for it.
Here is what the posted exe does: At 0x00440ef0 "2b44 2410 83f8 107d 10" is changed to "e9f8 7f02 0090 9090 90". Then a new chunk of code is added at 0x00468eed (i.e. right after the end of the .text segment executable segment).
:Disassembling it shows that the first change has the effect off changing
    1000:00440eeb e800d70100           call   _timeGetTime        
    1000:00440ef0 2b442410             sub    eax, [esp+10h]      ;CHANGED
    1000:00440ef4 83f810               cmp    eax, 10h            ;CHANGED
    1000:00440ef7 7d10                 jge    loc_00440f09        ;CHANGED
    1000:00440ef9 ba10000000           mov    edx, 10h
    1000:00440efe 2bd0                 sub    edx, eax
    1000:00440f00 52                   push   edx
    1000:00440f01 e8fad60100           call   loc_0045e600
    1000:00440f06 83c404               add    esp, 04h
    1000:00440f09                  loc_00440f09:
:(shown with context) into 
    1000:00440eeb e800d70100           call   _timeGetTime   
    1000:00440ef0 e9f87f0200           jmp    loc_00468eed        ;CHANGED
    1000:00440ef5 90 90 90 90          nop nop nop nop            ;CHANGED
    1000:00440ef9 ba10000000           mov    edx, 10h            ;Unreachable code
    1000:00440efe 2bd0                 sub    edx, eax            ;Unreachable code
    1000:00440f00 52                   push   edx                 ;Unreachable code
    1000:00440f01 e8fad60100           call   loc_0045e600        ;Unreachable code
    1000:00440f06 83c404               add    esp, 04h            ;Unreachable code
    1000:00440f09                  loc_00440f09:


:The new procedure is as follows: 
    1000:00468eed                   loc_00468eed:
    1000:00468eed 89c2                 mov    edx, eax
    1000:00468eef 2b1554c24900         sub    edx, dword ptr [loc_0049c254]
    1000:00468ef5 81fa80000000         cmp    edx, 80h
    1000:00468efb 7325                 jnc    loc_00468f22
    1000:00468efd 66c705e0b849000000   mov    word ptr [loc_0049b8e0], 00h
    1000:00468f06 90                   nop    
    1000:00468f07                   loc_00468f07:
    1000:00468f07 2b442410             sub    eax, [esp+10h]
    1000:00468f0b ba20000000           mov    edx, 20h
    1000:00468f10 29c2                 sub    edx, eax
    1000:00468f12 7e09                 jle    loc_00468f1d
    1000:00468f14 52                   push   edx
    1000:00468f15 e8e656ffff           call   loc_0045e600
    1000:00468f1a 83c404               add    esp, 04h
    1000:00468f1d                   loc_00468f1d:
    1000:00468f1d e9e77ffdff           jmp    loc_00440f09
    1000:00468f22                   loc_00468f22:
    1000:00468f22 a354c24900           mov    dword ptr [loc_0049c254], eax
    1000:00468f27 ebde                 jmp    loc_00468f07
It would be pretty straight-forward to incorporate that into the patcher.dll Tacvek 14:55, 21 January 2013 (EST)
I think I've narrowed down the issue here. It's not detection that is the real problem but how the geoscape loop determines when to update alien activity. I believe that the check to run the updatealienactivity() routine is thrown off when I changed the based rate from each loop = 5 seconds to = 1 second. The check is based on a calculation of the current time being evenly divisible by 10. I changed the base rate back to = 5 seconds and it appears UFO are generated more frequently. I'm trying to compare the average # and frequency to unaltered code now.
I looked at MOK's code but it has the 'step' problem at higher time rates that I am trying to avoid.-Tycho

UFOLoader ver. 1.29 Hot Grenades and Aliens Bleeding bugs

If you have Hot Grenades enabled, prime a grenade and end turn without throwing it, the item to explode won't necessarily be the primed grenade. I had my equipment in Skyranger explode while priming grenades in the field.

Seb's mod was just a quick omitting of the check to see if the grenade was being held to check if the timer limit had been reached. The problem here is that the location of the item is not updated until thrown or dropped, so the location where to center the explosion was usually where the grenade was picked up (in the craft). I have altered the idea of hot grenades to be like most grenades which have a short fuse that is lit when the grenade's safety is sprung and the grenade tossed. Hot Grenades mod now means that only the High Explosive will prompt a timer. All other grenades will just armed and will explode on impact at their destination. They will not explode as long as the soldier holds them to reflect that the safety mechanism is still in place. - Tycho

If you have Aliens Bleeding enabled, your soldiers might randomly receive same injuries as aliens. Noticed that when I critically wounded a floater. He went down unconscious, and so did one of my soldiers (without being shot at). When the floater died, my soldier died, too.

The alien bleeding mod doesn't affect how units receive fatal wounds only which units with fatal wounds are damaged at the end of a turn. Originally, wounds only affected the Xcom faction. The mod changes this check to the type of creature and skips the apply- wound-damage routine only for a select few unit types (tanks, cyberdisks, etc). -Tycho

Random crashes on W7 64bit (but possibly all systems)

I have random crashes of the game in the base deffense mission. The addresses I have noticed are: 004035EE movsx eax,b,[ecx] (eax is probably 0 - causes illegal address access) 00422483 mov cl,[eax] (same problem - it looks that eax maybe 0) and (I am not sure) (00402CDE) lea ecx,[eax][eax]*4[004]

The two address are the offset where the program attempts to load data after it references the wrong variable when checking to see if an alien will attack the locations in a base. This will be fixed in the next release. -Tycho 19:01, 3 February 2013 (EST)

Thank you for the fix and all other improvements and fixes you actually did and the whole support of this great game! Lukas

Hi Tycho, I was trying to find the reason for the crash, as I was playing the mission with Etherals again and it has crashed again but at address 0x4A2CBE with error 0xC0000005 trying to access 0x00000000 - so I was looking at the address and it seems to me it maybe is not inside the UFO game code. It is the second time I played it after I tried to change the mp3patch I was using before by the one in this forum http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8576&#entry191093 in the post #28. It doesn´t crash at the first time so it seems to me it is random, so it shouldn´t be caused by the mp3play patch but even so it may be caused by mp3play patch then. ElfKaa

I think I've narrowed a problem to part of the fix for the clip weight. Specifically, the part that handles removing clip weight when a unit drops a weapon from panic. - Tycho 10:36, 11 February 2013 (EST)

I was correct. The game would crash as described above whenever a unit would drop an item from Panic and the clip weight mod attempted to locate the clip in the weapon dropped. A fix will be in the next release. - Tycho 00:00, 16 February 2013 (EST)

Clip cursor behavior

I know that there are two different settings of clipping the cursor on screen, but the game Intro sequence and the menu is not clipping yet. Can be possible to force the cursor to clip surely for the whole game at all e.g. as option three?

ElfKaa

In my upcoming changes patch I've forced mouse clipping at all times in fullscreen mode. It should probably be ready by the next UFO Extender release. -Tarvis

Graphical small distortion

Load of the saved game to geoscape or load geoscape after mission end causing small graphical distortion of the first screenline of the Terror message and other e.g. Build facility window choose. Can you fix it? It is not caused of the extender, it does the UFO Collectors Edition all versions to me even without extender. I also tried older extended UFO CE ET version and it also happenings in CE ET version even as it uses DirectDraw instead of D3D. I will make you screenshot if you will need them.

ElfKaa

MP3 play feedback

I have tried all the MP3 patches I found and to me is the best the AbraM´s MP3play (new ufo_patch.dll). The integrated one works great but it last long on music changes. I have also tried your suggested niklata´s UFOExtenderMP3Fix-v2.zip but it is to me very complicated, you should have bass.dll and also installed VS2012 respectively msvcr110.dll. Also it is not good that it is integrated to the original ufoloader patcher.dll so it is not possible to use it with another version of the patcher. And the bass.dll itself is 4 times bigger then the AbraM´s whole patch at all. The AbraM´s works great, it is small, only 25kB. It needs only slight moddiffication to the main app and only one dll and support all geoscape and tactical music if you add _(a number).mp3 after GMGEO1 or GMGEO2 or GMTACTIC or you should use the original MIDs if the MP3s doesn´t exists.ElfKaa

You only have to do all this to get that version to work because the author of the mp3 code was using vs2012. I put his code into the Extender, compiled with VS2008, and it works without having to do anything extra, except to have base.dll in the folder of XCOM. Since it will be included with the full version, there won't be any problems.-Tycho

I still prefer AbraM´s patch. Why you think it is good patch if its size is 259kb and also needs bass.dll 103kb comparing to AbraM´s working great! patch with 25kb(36kb) at all? :o) Has this one something special comparing to AbraM´s?

I've already incorporated all the code for BASE and I'm not revisiting it unless it proves to cause some issues. I've been using it as I've been testing and have had no problems with MP3 music. I understand you prefer AbraM's but I'm going to use BASE for now.

OK, I have nothing agains another music patch, but I am also using it because it also support MP3 music in Intro and is able to play MP3s using the same original files names instead of MID if they exists also in Intro. I made that files by myself moddifying the Lorcan´s MP3 intro music for - yet probably dead project - UFO: Cydonia's Fall

Hidden Movement speed

Hi Tycho, could you please slow down the battlescape Hidden Movement speed as well? It looses the magic of the hidden movement. Nowadays computers compute very fast and the inteligence of the game is now very fast too and you could not see or hear what is happenning e.g. if somewhere in the battlescape - in the dark where you couldn´t see - aliens kill two civilians, you will hear two screams together, not one after one. It is very fast and not readable yet and loosing the main meaning of the hidden movement part. ElfKaa

This is a direct result of the game running fast on modern computers. Unfortunately I don't think there's anything that can be done about this without overhauling how the framerate limiter works, since the FPS limiting method only adds delays to calls to update the screen, which only some of the game timers wait on, and isn't called during the HIDDEN MOVEMENT screen. You could try lowering the game's processor priority, because that will have the most impact on overall game speed.-Tarvis

I believe that if Tycho is able to slow down all the animations correctly he will be able to call that slows also for the logic in hidden movement then :) Or - yes - limit frame rate when in hidden movement will maybe solve that problem.. Now to me the screen is only flashing if something is happening, so you can not recognize what was happened and where.. ElfKaa

This is a lot more difficult than you would imagine and would require a lot more time than I'm able to invest at this time: The alien turn routine doesn't follow an easy to understand path and the code has no capacity for time management as the Geoscape and the human tactical routines do. Tycho 10:24, 15 February 2013 (EST)

I believe that understanding that piece of code is very complicated and - as I see it - it is the main reason why this game is still on the table even that many remakes was made, and also the main reason for that the game crashes mainly or only in this part because of that complexity. But I though that you yet understand it as you can mod the game that way you did, but never mind, I know this consumes very very much time that anyone can have for the no money making project like this even it is this interesting stuff.

Then I have an idea. If you know, where the part begin and where it ends, (when the Hidden movement screen is shown) isn´t it possible to make some hook inside the extender that will be activated and slowdown the processor speed at all when in Hidden movement part and revert back the speed to original when the part will end up? This will maybe solve this problem and should not be so difficult... --ElfKaa 11:28, 15 February 2013 (EST)

Luckas, I appreciate your help and feedback in testing the Extender. However, I don't appreciate advice from people who are ignorant of the topic on which they are discussing. Your suggestion, while in a spirit of helpfulness, is slightly insulting, whether or not you intended it to be so. If the solution were as simple, as you suggest, do you not think that it would have already been implemented or that I would NOT have pointed out the complexity and time that would be involved in such an endeavor?
I and many other moders use the Interactive Dissassembler/Assemblier (IDA). It is free and fairly easy to use. Try it, look at the pure code, and then you'll begin to understand the complexity of the problem. Also realize that there are huge areas of the game code that are still undocumented and mostly unknown. Just yesterday, I finally unraveled a section of the sound file initilization routine which allowed me to write the ultimate fix for the special movement sounds in the battlescape, something that I first worked almost a year ago. - Tycho

Don´t be anger to me Tycho, I am not coder and I can not read the code, I just trying to understand using trial and error method :) And then - if I have another chance to write you I will not be using this discussion to contact and share ideas.. :) Please, let it left or delete it if it is out of the topic. Yes, I don´t know what you can imagine and what is possible and what is not.. If it is some nonsense do like I never told it :) Thank you for the message, then I will better not write any idea because I in fact don´t understand how it works and also this discussion. I will enjoy your next update and will be still watching and testing it.

ElfKaa 03:33, 17 February 2013 (EST)

I suppose you could try using BES to slow the game down. --AMX 06:06, 17 February 2013 (EST)

Wrong name of Cryssalid EFX patch in the v1.29 patcher

Hi Tycho, the UFOExtender_INI-readme.txt of the package UFOLoader contain an option Enhanced Chryssalid EFX=1 but the patcher is looking for Enhanced Chrysallid EFX - with double l and single s. ElfKaa

The fix will be in the next release. Thanks for your feedback. - Tycho
I am glad if I could help you! But I am not a coder, I only test things and trying to understand.. :) Lukas

ElfKaa

Retrieved from "https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Talk:UFOextender&oldid=44696"