OFFICIAL Bug thread

[The Veteran]

Started this post with regards to one particular bug but seeing as I've had so many I thought I'd make it an official pool for all of them. Anyone else with similar or different issues please post them here!

 

Anyway the first issue is with the point at which the game decides to display the final layer of the map, namely the 'roof' of the UFOs. Note that this is only an issue in the larger multi-levelled UFOs and the 2 smaller variants don't cause any issues at all... Basically if I'm moving my squad on the elevated level of large UFOs (read : 1st floor) then the roof is always displayed in place which obviously means I can't see my troops let alone move them. I have to use the mousewheel to go down one level so that the roof is no longer displayed but this has the unwanted effect of placing my cursor on the ground floor of the map. That makes it VERY difficult and sometimes impossible to move my troops into their desired positions on the first floor as the cursor will default to a tile on the ground floor if there is one behind my selected first floor space. Often this can be solved by rotating the map until there is no ground floor behind it but that kinda destroys the immersion and frankly the entire tactical portion of large UFOs... Note also that every time I switch between my troopers, be it by using their points or pressing tab, it resets the cursor to the level that they're on and thus replaces the roof making everyone invisible again...

 

Anyone else having this issue as it's completely preventing me from carrying out most of my plans at this point which sucks massive ass...

 

Another issue which I've now been able to replicate several times on different missions (again ONLY in multi-levelled UFOs) is that sometimes moving a soldier to the edge of their first/blue movement zone will count as dashing even though it shouldn't. This can be avoided but it's a compromise... Basically when moving your cursor for the move phase you will see either the blue OR the blue AND orange movement boundaries. If you hover a cursor on the last line of blue tiles it will NOT display the orange border and so you cna move safely. When this bug is in effect however it will show both the blue AND orange borders despite the fact that the cursor is still on a blue line tile.

 

Again please let me know if this is happening to anyone else as it's happened a few times now...

 

Another bug I've been having (yes there are more!) is one I haven't been able to replicate yet but occurred while on an alien base mission. My whole squad was clustered around a door which one of the soldiers opened silently at the beginning of the turn. My SHIV then moved through the open door and I played out it's turn before realising that I was now unable to move anybody else (including the SHIV) through the now open door. I reloaded and followed the exact same steps and it happened in exactly the same way. In this instance I was only able to resolve the issue by reloading an earlier autosave and carrying out different actions prior to opening the door! For anyone experiencing this bug, note exactly how it occurs as for me it was very unusual. Alien doors on this game are actually TWO forcefields with an airgap in between. After moving through the door I was able to pass through where one of the forcefields would have been but not the other indicating that the game thought that one was down and the other up... I had no graphical issues with this bug...

 

Onto the SHIV, and this is one that google agrees with me wholeheartedly on! It's happened in different ways to different people but to surmise here are the things that can happen to yor SHIV AFTER the original one dies;

SHIV is invisible in barracks and cannot go on missions

SHIV goes on missions but has no weapon

SHIV becomes a headless rookie in tactical and panics often

The only solution I can suggets for this issue is RELOAD IMMEDIATELY IF YOU LOSE YOUR SHIV!!! There's nothing wrong with it because the devs messed up. If you DON'T reload then you'll either have to build several new SHIVs before one of them works or like me you'll never have another SHIV at all...

 

A graphical bug I mentioned earlier now when I had two Chryssalid zombies in a terror mission that didn't actually exist sharing the same square... Confused? Well I could SEE two chryssalid zombies, stood facing the same direction, sharing a square, doing nothing (not clashing they were stood together in the same square as if it had been intended to work that way...) They didn't move, attack or register as enemies and they happened to turn up right beside my own troops so not sure when or how they actually came to be there. Interestingly I didn't notice them until immediately AFTER I'd killed 2 zombies with snipers. So it could be to do with the glam cam or similar as both deaths gave me the cinema treatment...

 

A new one that I think I'll add as a bug because it just doesn't seem right. I'm having a reload fest on this mission because it's happened twice now that a lone Muton soldier has lierally appeared in the middle of my squad. Not wierd cutscenes of a group of them uncloaking somewhere wierd, that would be one thing, this is a whole other thing! Literally the first time it happened I thought 'maybe' he came round that corner and the game just didn't show him until he got there... MAYBE... Now though I know it's worse than that as I have a squad of 6 soldiers covering every inch of a corridor here and it happened again, smack bang between them all! Another similar instance occurred on a map that I actually replayed in the end because it was so massively unbalanced. There were about 3 groups of Mutons (plus others) all spawning in the same turn within squares of each other. But at least three of them were on the roof right so that'll buy me some time??? Wrong! In the alien turn 2 out of the 3 literally climbed THROUGH the ceiling... It's not a special ability, there was no damage to the roof, they just warped right through it...

EDIT : The muton that spawned in the corridor got killed by reaction fire just now before I posted. Just literally ended that turn after writing the above and guess what happened next turn? Yep! Another one... Same exact place, looked like he'd run through the friggin' wall!

 

Another new one, this time to do with audio clues to the enemy position. Just got to the very end of this abductor mission (same one that had almost all of the above bugs in it!) and cleared the entire vessel but apparently missed one. So it gave me audio clues that the last alien was towards the rear of the ship at the cargo bay while I was in the cockpit with my whole team. No matter I slowly moved up in nice tatcical fashion and each turn I closed in on the signal little by little. Well after a few turns of being careful I got bored and sent my support trooper to leggit round the outside of the ship and he got a very close fix on him that turn showing him in almost the furthest west corner of the map. In the next turn I moved him towards the target (rather recklessly tbh!) but he found nothing... I knew he was there so I ended the turn and then suddenly the contact turned up in the bridge behind me... Got an audio clue in that direction and then he just appeared but had no time to fire. I assumed there must be TOW aliens left so quickly dispatched the new contact and the level ended... There is NO POSSIBLE WAY that a Muton can move the entire length of an Abductor map in 2 movement phases, just no way. In order to have avoided being seen by my support near the back of the ship he can't have gone through the cargo bay and therefore must've travelled all the way around the side of the ship, in through the front by the bridge and across the last room to turn up behind my people. Not possible... So what, did the devs make it so enemies 'warp' closer to us if we've spent a number of times failing to find them? I mean I'm ok with that but I basically had the guy pinned down and was closing in on him every turn. Essentially, the way he turned up behind me like that in an area I'd extensively cleared could've cost me the entire team when I was all over him like a rash for the last five moves...

 

Think that's about it for now, so be warned and keep a lookout for more bugs and solutions to any of the above. I seem to be the only person here with ANY issues so far which kinda sucks but we'll see. They can't ALL be hardware related

[Space Voyager]

I've had the item info bug happen twice. While I was equipping the soldiers I opened the grenade info screeny - only to find that I can't close it with any means possible. Crash to desktop.

[Pete]

Had my first terror mission on Classic difficulty - needless to say one of my guys ran in blindly and just managed to eascape the close-quarters confrontation with a Chrysalid before bravely fleeing.

 

I was able to make a decent last stand from the extraction zone which two of my squad sat on and everyone picked off aliens until I lost a guy (extraction zone is in the open, so no fun!).

 

I aborted the mission whilst one of my squad had his second movement phase left - stupidly, the two that had no movement left were allowed to leave whilst the other one stayed on the extraction and it wouldn't let me leave the map at all - tried ending the turn again, using up movement but nothing works because the score board had already popped up and gone away.

 

It's a bug that I suspect is related to remaining movement, so be sure to use up your remaining movement before bravely retreating from a terror mission Sadly I have to reload at some future point and do it again.

[Sorbicol]

That happened to me earlier. I need to sort out my mid game in classic. By the time mutons show up I'm outgunned

[Ki-tat Chung]

I had one sortie with an Interceptor armed with an EMP canon taking on a medium or large UFO. The scuffle ended in Mutually Assured Destruction (I even heard the pilot's mayday call), but my interceptor came back alive. Not sure if I can reproduce this bug though.

[stanno]

I have experienced that bug with the SHIVs, very annoying!! Also, many times now, I've been playing a tactical mission when midway through my turn or in the enemy's turn, a group of units will be 'discovered' in a patch of the map I have already found and/or currently find to be empty. The cutscene where enemies are discovered nosing in some hay (seriously though, what the hell are they meant to be doing?!) then plays and the rest of the turn carries on as normal, though sometimes this happens and the cutscene doesn't play, but it's kind of annoying for obvious reasons. I've also encountered a bug where a killed enemy still appears as a red icon thing for one of my soldiers, but not for the rest, and of course the visual bugs where soldiers appear to aim 90 degrees away from the enemy they're firing at, though the shot still fires in the right direction.

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

I'm not sure if you call it a bug...although it might be. I had a terror mission on a turnpike/overpass when one of the cars caught fire and 3 vehicles exploded. (note the vehicles were not on fire on my previous turn) needless to say the mass destruction killed my captain and a civy.

[Ki-tat Chung]

Oh, the sniper overwatch bug. I have to admit, I've been abusing this bug a fair bit. Just like opening doors and deactivating bomb nodes, changing from primary weapon to side arm (and vice versa) doesn't take any action points. If your unit has already expended all their action points, you just have to click on the unit manually, and then either press X or click on the weapons icon on the bottom right corner of the screen. This can be done after you've moved your sniper, and put them in pistol Overwatch. Quickest way to abuse the bug is to move, X to switch, wait, Y to Overwatch and while you're unit is confirming via radio, switch back to primary weapon.

[Sorbicol]

I'm not sure it's a bug but this drives me demented. On classic, aliens move into my field of view from outside the fog of war. I don't overwatch as a result of this (sure I should though) the "you've discovered some aliens!" Cut scene plays and then the little buggers get their free move. I still don't overwatch and this often leaves me outflanked and in a really bad position. I know the free move thing is difficult because you don't know if they have rushed into your field of view or not (i.e. used up their two moves) but sure as hell I should be unleashing some OW fire at them!

 

 

[Ki-tat Chung]

That does sound weird. When I was playing normal, sometimes I OW them when they come into my FOV even before their animation plays, so what was originally a group of three aliens end up having their little action scene minus one player =p

[Knan]

It's fun when their free move into cover ends up triggering Close Combat Specialist with a shotgun in their faces. But it's quite panic-inducing from time to time.

 

Or a Thin Man From Orbit situation ends with him getting reaction fired into tiny bitty bits by four guys at close range.

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

Ever have a group of aliens spawn right in the middle of your team? I read about it happening to others, but last night was the first time I encountered it. Had a group of 3 heavy floaters spawn right in front of my snipers and behind the others. There was no alien enounter cut scene either.

[Sunflash]

So I have suddenly lost my ability to customize my soliders. As if I suddenly don't have the DLC.

 

The DLC that was just released...

 

Goddamnit Steam, why must you screw this up.

[ricardo440]

someone already mentioned it I think. But on the abductor (I think) the second level doesn't work properly and it always draws the ceiling so you can't see where you are moving or shooting. Move the view down and you can't select hte squares.

[Sorbicol]

someone already mentioned it I think. But on the abductor (I think) the second level doesn't work properly and it always draws the ceiling so you can't see where you are moving or shooting. Move the view down and you can't select hte squares.

 

This can apparently be fixed by using a game controller rather than the mouse/keyboard interface. However you are quite correct where this really needs fixing for the PC UI. hope Firaxis don't use it as an excuse not to sort it out.

[Alan]

Here's another, rather minor, bug: once you have caught but not researched an outsider Dr what's-her-name will still rant on at you about how you should be hugging them and cuddling them and inviting them round for tea instead of killing them.

 

Ok, so I exaggerate, but for some reason I find it amusing rather than annoying. I guess they just put the trigger on "has not yet completed research topic X" rather than "Has captured a Y".

[silencer_pl]

Actually this happens only when you capture Outsider before getting the objective to capture him. Me thinks that if you capture in the "right" order she will not nag you about it.

 

What I would really call it funny is that you get Arc Thrower before studying the thin man corpse and sectoid corps yet in the video she says that she did it. I think that should be "objective" task to examine the corpses.

[Pete]

Nah, se definitely nags you whether you've been given the research option or not and only stops when you do the research.

 

Seeing as you can never sell the Outsider shard, they should have just stopped her nagging when you get one and made her nag you at the base instead.

[AlanatXcomHQ]

I've also had a few bugs that have mostly been around the saving mechanic on the PC version of the game.

 

1:) Autosaves appear to become disabled partway though the game.

This has occurred roughly about 75% of the way into the game and it occurred on the Easy Difficulty as well. Whether or not it was caused by having so many autosaves and so many saves that the game "ran out" of space for more autosaves I'm not sure of. But it meant that the game would not save to a new file and I was forced to overwrite previously saved games in order to save my progression.

Tried deleting some of the save games and it did help, a LITTLE bit, but the problem came back quickly.

 

2:) Sniper's Battle Scanner.

All you have to do to reproduce this bug is to use the battle scanner, save the game and then reload the save, apparently it'll treat it as if the sniper has thrown the battle scanner directly at the Sniper's feet instead of where it had originally landed.

 

2b:) Never throw the Battle Scanner into the UFO, noticed it went through the UFO floor and the scanning graphic never appeared.

 

3:) Chance is NOT RANDOM

I know this sounds really stupid, but there IS a way to ensure you ALWAYS hit an alien, despite the % you have to hit.

I've noted while using the saves that certain moves will always ensure a solider will hit an alien or not. Not once have I come across a situation where on one save, the solider will hit on the first turn and then on the reload of that save, miss that alien on the first turn.

 

Bare this in mind. This was done on Easy Difficulty, however, like any old school X-COM player. I do abuse the saves in this game.

 

Here's an example of what I meant.

Situation: Solider A, Solider B and Alien A

 

Alien A appears and you SAVE THE GAME.

Solider A uses both turns (Using Bullet Swarm to ensure that you can fire your weapon on both turns), misses the first and hits on the second.

Solider B misses both turns (Again using Bullet Swarm).

RELOAD the save.

Solider B uses one turn and misses.

Solider A uses one turn and HITS.

The chance to hit an alien is not random.

Also, having an alien at low health (3HP or lower) will pretty much always ensure that alien will die. Set up your snipers to have the skill "In the Zone" and thus be weaking the aliens down to 3 HP with your other soliders, your snipers can take them out, one kill shot after another.

 

3b:) Aliens don't randomly move

Again, abusing save games here. I've noted several times where the aliens will perform the same movement patterns when they appear or move to during the alien phase. Meaning that you could potentially "ambush" aliens into a killzone of overwatch if your extremely lucky and use save games to "foresee" events.

 

4:) The Darkness can be your friend.

Indeed it can. Sometimes finding an alien on the edge of the fog of war and then reloading the autosave or save before you discovered the alien means that sometimes the alien does not always move and thus follows a "trigger" pattern (eg. it won't move till discovered.)

This can also work where on terror missions if you move a solider to a specific spot, certain civilians won't die during the Alien Activity phase. (I know its weird, but it HAS HAPPENED.)

 

Also look at the Tactics section of this page and see that it mentions the alien squad script bugs I've noted. https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Gameplay_Mechanics_(EU2012)

[Ki-tat Chung]

I've also had a few bugs that have mostly been around the saving mechanic on the PC version of the game.

2b:) Never throw the Battle Scanner into the UFO, noticed it went through the UFO floor and the scanning graphic never appeared.

 

Are you sure the scanner didn't get stuck on the ceiling or the door frame? I throw scanners through doors quite often, and I had that happen to me once, real annoying! I suppose being able to throw things through UFO doors is in and of itself a bit of a bug though...

 

3:) Chance is NOT RANDOM

I know this sounds really stupid, but there IS a way to ensure you ALWAYS hit an alien, despite the % you have to hit.

I've noted while using the saves that certain moves will always ensure a solider will hit an alien or not. Not once have I come across a situation where on one save, the solider will hit on the first turn and then on the reload of that save, miss that alien on the first turn.

 

Bare this in mind. This was done on Easy Difficulty, however, like any old school X-COM player. I do abuse the saves in this game.

 

Here's an example of what I meant.

Situation: Solider A, Solider B and Alien A

 

Alien A appears and you SAVE THE GAME.

Solider A uses both turns (Using Bullet Swarm to ensure that you can fire your weapon on both turns), misses the first and hits on the second.

Solider B misses both turns (Again using Bullet Swarm).

RELOAD the save.

Solider B uses one turn and misses.

Solider A uses one turn and HITS.

The chance to hit an alien is not random.

Also, having an alien at low health (3HP or lower) will pretty much always ensure that alien will die. Set up your snipers to have the skill "In the Zone" and thus be weaking the aliens down to 3 HP with your other soliders, your snipers can take them out, one kill shot after another.

 

3b:) Aliens don't randomly move

Again, abusing save games here. I've noted several times where the aliens will perform the same movement patterns when they appear or move to during the alien phase. Meaning that you could potentially "ambush" aliens into a killzone of overwatch if your extremely lucky and use save games to "foresee" events.

 

This is all related to the fact that EU'12 uses the same random seed state. This is a conscious descision made by the designers, see here for a bit of a break down. So actually, things are (psudo-)random, its just not something that becomes obvious until you start abusing reloads.

[7h30n]

This is all related to the fact that EU'12 uses the same random seed state. This is a conscious descision made by the designers, see here for a bit of a break down. So actually, things are (psudo-)random, its just not something that becomes obvious until you start abusing reloads.

 

And I would be surprised if that wasn't the case. The saving of a random seed is a way to prevent save scumming with one time actions, e.g. you save, fire off a shot and it misses and you keep reloading until you get a shot. It is a reasonable way to deal with save scumming random elements and any sane developer will put it in his game if it has randomness. Of course it brings another set of problems because people can abuse the order of the randomly generated outcomes but that isn't as bad as trying to get the "perfect random" outcomes when the random seed isn't saved.

[Knan]

Looking forward to the bugfix patch so I can use Shivs properly like the old HWPs.

[Yurim_Aster56]

I have encountered a rather unusual a potentially game breaking bug (one I hope gets resolved soon) on impossible. It entails my squad on a council mission to rescue a guy on a bridge. I approach but nothing happens, he just keeps spouting off about him having all the fun. Reloaded the mission and it still happens. And the thing is I need this mission and its monetary rewards.

[NKF]

Is that the one with the VIP that's hiding behind the van in the bridge/street map?

 

One bug I've found with arming Support (and I think Heavies) with grenades after they've gained lots of psi abilities. Basically, I'll arm the grenade, and it doesn't show up in the battle as an option I can select.

 

The work-around for the Support unit I found was to swap the slots around and arm something in the first slot and then the grenade in the other. It doesn't seem to like taking the grenade first.

 

With the Heavy, I think it coincided with the unit also having the Shredder Rocket. Unfortunately I can't check on this one now as my only save has autosaved on the final mission.

 

- NKF

[Misotu]

I finally got the game for Christmas and have played (ahem) a few hours now. Love it. But have hit a few problems.

 

The most upsetting is the problem already described with multiple levels where it displays one floor but sends the soldier to the floor below. Just had to quit a mission when my top assault girl ended up on the wrong floor, out of cover and in the middle of three mutons, with pretty disastrous consequences. But then it got weirder when I hurled the entire squad in after her. One of the mutons standing on a ramp between floors could not be seen by the squad unless they ran past him down the ramp and onto the floor below. Total nightmare. They all survived - just - but then I found I couldn't get the movement thing to work properly at all because, like The Veteran, the game kept sending my soldiers to a ground floor tile underneath the first floor tile I had selected.This was an abductor mission too. I didn't have the problem with the roof displaying so I couldn't see my soldiers though - it just sent my soldiers to the ground floor when I selected first floor tiles to move to. Or just did nothing (presumably when there was no tile to move to under the first floor tile I selected). Very frustrating indeed so I had to stop.

 

I'll try it again tomorrow, but it's a very tedious problem and I'm not sure I can get round it for this mission. Also it stops me from playing iron man, which would be my preferred once I've learnt the game. Losing soldiers as a consequence of my own mistakes is bad enough, but losing them because of an interface problem really sucks

 

I've also had a muton soldier appear from nowhere right next to my troops that definitely wasn't there before, as described by The Veteran. No cut scene or group of three just pouf!

 

I also periodically have a mission where a killed enemy continues to show up as a red icon for one of the squad. Not a big deal that one.

 

I'm not very comfortable generally with the way the multi-levels are handled at the moment. I can't quite put my finger on the problem except that the interface feels vague somehow. It's pretty but I seem to spend quite a lot of time fiddling around trying to get the view I want and I often mess up when trying to send my soldier up a ladder and find they've run inside the building instead I'm sure that's user error (unlike the multi-level ufo problem which definitely isn't.)