UFO Extender

[Kir'jaeden]

With more experimentation, I've figured out how the transfer dialog creates its list of items. I've been able to modify it so that only those items I want can be displayed during the defense preparations of a base defense mission. I have also been able to allow soldiers to be "transferred" so that they would not be available. My question to everyone, is that really necessary? Or would anyone care?

 

I believe the base defence commander has 2 options:

1) Sack the base due to overwhelming alien forces. Then there is no need for special choose in items listed in transfer dialog.

2) Take a fight. In this case the option of assigning the list of items and soldiers for base defence, like an assigninig for craft, could be suitable. For example, base defence needs no flares. Now the procedure whick picks items for 80-limited object list works strangely. Same to soldier list. Fixed list of soldiers and equipment for base defence would solve the abnormalities.

[Tycho]

I believe the base defence commander has 2 options:

1) Sack the base due to overwhelming alien forces. Then there is no need for special choose in items listed in transfer dialog.

2) Take a fight. In this case the option of assigning the list of items and soldiers for base defence, like an assigninig for craft, could be suitable. For example, base defence needs no flares. Now the procedure whick picks items for 80-limited object list works strangely. Same to soldier list. Fixed list of soldiers and equipment for base defence would solve the abnormalities.

 

I'm made it so that all unusable items in a base defense mission will not be listed (like flares and unknown alien artifacts). I've also fixed the code in the spawn item section to ensure that unknown artifacts will be skipped. I've included code in the base defense transfer area to automatically make all alien items be ready for transfer. The player would only have to scroll back the items he would wish to keep.

[DkMirage]

Hi Tycho,

sorry but i decided to throw all feedback on v1.34.beta2 in one long post:

 

* your question on base defense prep.: it's cool as already implemeted in v1.34.beta2! If you want, you can hand-pick soldiers and items, if not, you leave the transfer list untouched and get the usual surprise. More comfort like excluding all useless items right from the start is, of course, always welcomed. Perhaps a note on the 80item and soldier number limit in the readme would be helpful for newbie commanders. Was that the question, or did i miss some sort of problem with the transfer list? Are all items and soldiers in base are listed?

 

* bugs:

i) TFTD doors not working

ii) Roswell mod not working (or occurance rate so low it never happens)

iii) Intercept menu list mod: No entry in readme - What the heck is this?

iv) Abort terror mission (possible bug): Despite difficulty description file implies, you get at all difficulty levels no scoring, i.e. 0 points when aborting a terror mission. pro: I'm not charged 3fold when things went bad. contra: it just doesn't feel right. As i understand you deleted this by the Terror Site Abort Exploit Fix? Does actually anyone exploit terror missions this way? Is it possible to deactivate single fixes? (I tried Terror Site Abort Exploit Fix=0).

v) So far no application failures :-)

 

*notes/discussion:

a) 'Explosions will occur in semi three dimensional blast in open places' (from the Extender Difficulty Settings): Is the impact so high you include this only at veteran+ level?

b) The auto-save function can be 'exploited' for resuming games lost. But please leave at it is, this is of great help for quick playtesting and an elegant way to allow people to go on if they want.

c) The hacks can no longer be activated?

 

*final wishes:

1) There was a time when the hot grenade mod caused grenades to explode instantly in turn. Please re-enable as a mod option!

2) Display of time units in soldier equipment screen.

[3) Rescue Civilians: In case you decide to activate scoring for terror mission abort: Now that one can stun civilians (thx), it would be fun if civilians can actually be rescued by stun and abduct onboard, then abort mission.]

[4) Optional minimum cap for soldier abilities on hiring]

[Tycho]

* your question on base defense prep.: it's cool as already implemeted in v1.34.beta2! If you want, you can hand-pick soldiers and items, if not, you leave the transfer list untouched and get the usual surprise. More comfort like excluding all useless items right from the start is, of course, always welcomed. Perhaps a note on the 80item and soldier number limit in the readme would be helpful for newbie commanders. Was that the question, or did i miss some sort of problem with the transfer list? Are all items and soldiers in base are listed?

I've made some further improvements in item selection for base defense: Unknown Alien weapons and flares will be skipped when the game makes the items list . The "transfer" list will only display those item that would be available in the battle. I automatically set all usable alien items to be transferred so that a player only has to click to keep those items he wants. Nothing will get transferred if CANCEL is selected and it doesn't affect the item selection process if the TRANFER menu is never used.

 

* bugs:

i) TFTD doors not working

ii) Roswell mod not working (or occurance rate so low it never happens)

iii) Intercept menu list mod: No entry in readme - What the heck is this?

iv) Abort terror mission (possible bug): Despite difficulty description file implies, you get at all difficulty levels no scoring, i.e. 0 points when aborting a terror mission. pro: I'm not charged 3fold when things went bad. contra: it just doesn't feel right. As i understand you deleted this by the Terror Site Abort Exploit Fix? Does actually anyone exploit terror missions this way? Is it possible to deactivate single fixes? (I tried Terror Site Abort Exploit Fix=0).

v) So far no application failures :-)

1. Strange. It does work for me and I just verified this again. What OS are you running?

edit: Under beta1 and 2, TFTD doors is active only while the DoubleClick mod is active.

2. I changed the way the game selects the number need to cause a crash but its hard to know what is a good chance without more feedback!

edit: the hook for the Roswell mod was being skipped due to the changes I made in the Geoscape Clock mod.

3. It changes the way craft are displayed on the intercept menu: Now they are categorized by base and alphabet (=1) or base and craft strength (=2). I'll make sure to put something in the readme.

4. I'll check my code about the difficulty setting. Since every new attack on the same site would generate a new list of aliens, this is the only way to prevent the scoring system from being exploited and be fair: If the player aborts and sends another team to the site, a whole new list of aliens and items will be generated for an entirely new battle. As you said if things go south, the only penalty to the player is the potential loss of items and soldiers. The site doesn't go away with an abort, so if it expires the alien get 1000 points.

 

The auto-save function can be 'exploited' for resuming games lost. But please leave at it is, this is of great help for quick playtesting and an elegant way to allow people to go on if they want.

Could you explain more about how the auto-save can be exploited for resuming lost games? I imagine you mean that you do something to force the game to load the last battle which will be from the start.

 

*final wishes:

1) There was a time when the hot grenade mod caused grenades to explode instantly in turn. Please re-enable as a mod option!

2) Display of time units in soldier equipment screen.

[3) Rescue Civilians: In case you decide to activate scoring for terror mission abort: Now that one can stun civilians (thx), it would be fun if civilians can actually be rescued by stun and abduct onboard, then abort mission.]

[4) Optional minimum cap for soldier abilities on hiring]

1. Another instance where I haven't updated the readme: =1 will make grenades be unable to be picked up after thrown, changes the timer and TU usage, =2 same features as 1 but makes grenades explode when thrown.

2. I can see about this. It shouldn't be too much of a change to the original code to implement.

3&4. I'll look into it.

 

Thanks for all your feedback. I always appreciate it.

[DkMirage]

OS is win7, ufo exe from gold edition 17. ‎September ‎1999;

* TFTD Doors: Add info: Working on same install and OS with Extender v1.33 but not v1.34beta2.

* Roswell: I let the game several times run for several months without doing anything and it just occured not a single time. Therefore, i assume it either not working at all or current chance way too low to ever happen (both v1.34beta2 and v.1.33).

* hot grenades: All right, setting=2 works.

* Autosave & lost games: If final game over (alien win) drops in at end of month, e.g. due to bad scoring, you can load the current autosave and resume game from 1st of next month as if game over didn't happen. As said, i actually consider this a good thing.

* Terror missions: Well, ok, just not my style to exploit terror missions...i like more to knock out civilians and retreat with 'em, if needed.

[Tycho]

OS is win7, ufo exe from gold edition 17. ‎September ‎1999;

* TFTD Doors: Add info: Working on same install and OS with Extender v1.33 but not v1.34beta2.

* Roswell: I let the game several times run for several months without doing anything and it just occured not a single time. Therefore, i assume it either not working at all or current chance way too low to ever happen (both v1.34beta2 and v.1.33).

* hot grenades: All right, setting=2 works.

* Autosave & lost games: If final game over (alien win) drops in at end of month, e.g. due to bad scoring, you can load the current autosave and resume game from 1st of next month as if game over didn't happen. As said, i actually consider this a good thing.

* Terror missions: Well, ok, just not my style to exploit terror missions...i like more to knock out civilians and retreat with 'em, if needed.

 

TFTD Doors only works if DoubleClick Movement is enabled, at the moment. I've separated the two in the next build.

 

After cross checking the code for Roswell mod, I realize that the changes to the Geoscape clock mod bypass the point where the Roswell mod would be triggered, so I changed the address where it occurs in the overall Geoscape loop. It now works much better: The original way it was implement, you could see the Geoscape slow down. Now, there is no noticeable difference with the mod enabled than without it.

[Tycho]

1.34beta3

• TFTD Doors can be enabled separately from the Double Click mod
  
• Roswell mod is enabled correctly and now has less of an impact on the Geoscape speed.
  
• The pre-battle inventory screen will also show the soldier's time units.
  
• Added missing stuff to the INI_readme file.
  
• Base Defense will only spawn items that can be used or are useful in the mission: No unknown alien artifacts and items, like flares, will be generated in the item selection process.
  
• The transfer screen in the base defense scenario will only display soldiers and items that can be used. All alien weapons will be initially set to be transferred to allow a minimal amount of clicks for the player to choose the items they want.
  
• Aliens in containment can be managed through the menu that is accessed by clicking on a containment module.
  

Click here for download

[DkMirage]

Hi Tycho, regarding v1.34.beta3:

 

Thoughts:

* The small terror continues screen feels much better, good idea.

* If people exploit terror missions, how about alien bases?

* Roswell mod should only display info about ufo size, not ufo type

 

Caught some minor and language specific bugs:

*france and german version: Rewriting Craft ready and Wreck analysis text strings in the Extender.ini will only take effect in the english version (RoswellInfo string however displays in all language versions correctly).

 

*german version only: Under unknown preconditions, exit of base transfer screen (normal base transfer, not base defense transfer) causes: Xcom chrashed at 0x430061 with error 0xC0000096 (or 0x00006E65). E.g. transfer in the following savegame an interceptor (Abfangjaeger) to another base, then exit transfer screen GAME_1.zip

 

*scraping radar systems does not influence ability to detect ufos in geoscape (build bases all over world with radar systems, then sack all radars and u' will still see ufos)

 

*Big brother and Alien Pets causes occasional crash at landing site when attending soldier equipment screen: Xcom chrashed at 0x100099E8 with error 0xC0000005 trying to access 0x00000000. (Can provide save game if wanted).

 

*Don't know: Is it rigth that the treshold for the orange cursor in Extender.ini is 95 and the one for the red cursor is 75, or has it to be vice versa?

[Tycho]

Hi Tycho, regarding v1.34.beta3:

 

Thoughts:

* The small terror continues screen feels much better, good idea.

* If people exploit terror missions, how about alien bases?

* Roswell mod should only display info about ufo size, not ufo type

 

Caught some minor and language specific bugs:

*france and german version: Rewriting Craft ready and Wreck analysis text strings in the Extender.ini will only take effect in the english version (RoswellInfo string however displays in all language versions correctly).

Thanks for all the feedback!

 

For an alternate language you need to add either _1 or _2 to the end of the variable before the equal sign:

 

CraftReadyTitle_1= ->would be for the second language option on the menu

CraftReadyTitle_2= ->would be for the third option.

 

The entries for the Roswell mod come from the text database so those phrases will already be translated.

 

I have fixes for base exploits, but if one only plays on the easiest diffculties you may not encounter them: There is a penalty for failing to destroy the base control center and there are rules that limit how often a supply ship occur.

[Tycho]

*german version only: Under unknown preconditions, exit of base transfer screen (normal base transfer, not base defense transfer) causes: Xcom chrashed at 0x430061 with error 0xC0000096 (or 0x00006E65). E.g. transfer in the following savegame an interceptor (Abfangjaeger) to another base, then exit transfer screen GAME_1.zip

 

This isn't a problem with the Extender. Its a problem with something about the planes at the initial base under GERMAN. You'll get the same crash if you run the UFO Defense_patched.exe loader and do the same steps. It doesn't happen with French nor if I move one of the planes to another base via hacking the CRAFT.DAT and then transferring it, even under German.

[NKF]

Since Ufopaedia.org came back up after the spambot attack, Xuncu's antivirus was reporting the ufoloader.zip as having a trojan/malware. When I checked it myself, Firefox was blocking it as well. At least the most recent interation of it is blocked. The older iterations seem okay.

 

- NKF

[Tycho]

NKF: Do you get any warnings when you download the latest verion from this forum?

[NKF]

The forum copy's fine. It's only the copy on Ufopaedia.org that my browser is blocking (both Firefox and Chrome).

 

edit: It's the 89kb file uploaded on 14 June 2015. That'll be a patch going by the file size.

 

- NKF

[Tycho]

The forum copy's fine. It's only the copy on Ufopaedia.org that my browser is blocking (both Firefox and Chrome).

 

edit: It's the 89kb file uploaded on 14 June 2015. That'll be a patch going by the file size.

 

- NKF

 

Someone with both Chrome and Firefox please try downloading the file from this link and see what is reported:

 

edit: linked removed

[Ros]

Someone with both Chrome and Firefox please try downloading the file from this link and see what is reported:

https://ufopaedia.org...xtender1.33.zip

Everything is fine - neither of them is blocking download link.

 

P.S. Tycho please release new version of TFTDextender - even Beta!

[NKF]

That link works fine. Are you okay with me deleting the old ufoloader.zip file? Not all of them, just the iteration that's causing the error message. I'd rather remove the (allegedly) infected copy. Cheers.

 

- NKF

[Tycho]

I just uploaded a null file (a zip containing a dat file with a single byte if 0 ) to the site and tested it under chrome. The previous file should download fine now from the archive list but Chrome will still report the main file UFOloader.zip as harmful. For some reason UFOloader.zip on ufopaedia.org has been flagged in some database that Google maintains. This is probably because the file doesn't contain a digital signature from a recognized authority and is on an open site. There are a lot of complaints on the Chrome forums about this from a lot of small independent programmers.

[Tycho]

Beta4 notes:

• Added a total to the alien containment management screen as a convenience.
  
• Large alien units on the Skyranger and Avenger ramp will maintain the proper height after they finish moving.
  
• Some reported problems resolved.
  
• Hyperwave info will now be added to an already detected UFO, once it reaches the range of the Hyperwave Decoder. The information will be available for as long as the UFO is detected, even if not always in range of a Hyperwave decoder.
  
• Hyperwave Decoders are detectors only at Easy difficulty.
  
• Bases will stop detecting craft when the last radar is removed from the base.
  

[2016/02/29]Difficulty settings:

• The document has been updated.
  

Download from here

[Tycho]

*Don't know: Is it rigth that the treshold for the orange cursor in Extender.ini is 95 and the one for the red cursor is 75, or has it to be vice versa?

 

The cursor turns orange if the modified accuracy is less than 95% of the original, it turns red when the accuracy drops to 75% of original. To be honest, I hardly pay attention to the color of the cursor, just the number.

[Cerberus]

Hello, Tycho and anyone.

 

As a long time lover of X-Com, I'm happy to see it developing, and as a junior programmer, I'm very impressed by the work you've done. Although, there are several moments I should point at.

I'm using the last version (from the topic), but the same issues are with 1.32 and 1.33 versions from UFOpaedia. Base game was installed from the Collector's Edition CD images.

• There are many crashes in very common conditions. I'm sure that it's some problem from my side, not from the Extender (because of a mentioned commonnes), but the old version of Extender (released at 27 July 2008) with the same base game doesn't suffer from this (I can't have large testing on base game because of the video pitch problem).
  
  • Game always crash, if I try to get into the battlescape for the second time (either by reloading the game saved in battlescape, or by ending the first mission and launching the second one). Error is "Trying to patch the same place twice: 0x00401307, 0x00401307". I have to quit the game entirely and launch it again to get to the battlescape.
    
  • Game sometimes crash at the end of alien turn - I couldn't find any reason yet. Error: "XCom crashed at 0x4A0001 with error 0xC0000005 trying to access 0x00000000". If we have saved the game just before ending the turn, the save can't be loaded in this version of Extender (but can be loaded and re-saved in the early one), error - "XCom crashed at 0x42AA58 with error 0xC0000005 trying to access 0x00000035". The example of such a save: GAME_5.zip
    

  [*]Another problems:

  • I haven't seen any engines surviving the UFO crash during the whole company. It can be understandable for Terror Ships, but the same appears to be with Large Scouts (1/4 to survive, if we trust the UFOpaedia) and Abductors (even larger chance that one engine survives).
    
  • When we assault grounded UFO, we get the engines, but no Elerium. Checked several versions, but found to work for this only the early one, not the 1.32 or 1.33.
    
  • We can't also retrieve live aliens. They are stated in the debriefing, give us score, but aren't added to the Alien Containment. Again, early version do the trick just nice, but new one doesn't.
    

Anyway, I must thank you for great mods, such as Heavy Laser one. I'm not the one of a "Founding Nations" for your project, but if I was, I'd say - "keep up for good work"

 

By the way: is it possible to make another mod for psionics? The idea is to make the mind-controlled target instantly released by disabling (killing or stunning) the controller, without having to wait for the end of turn. It'll be the nice addition to the "line of fire for psionics", especially if it's also possible to make soldiers with Psi-Amps a high-proirity targets for AI.

 

 

upd: there's another moment - I'm not sure whether it is something to do with the Extender, but anyway, one of the saves unexpectedly beacme extremely corrupted - GAME_5-2.zip - so that it crash the game after several graphical glitches (even the un-Extended one). Also, at that battle I mentioned the Cyberdiscs exploding not at the moment of death, but at the end of turn - not sure whether this is intentional.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Cerberus

[ElfKaa]

Hi Tycho,

 

I don´t wanna criticize a lot, you did of course unbelievable job, there is so huge number of settings and possibilities I never will understand all of them.. But I better prefer to be everything optional. You changed lots of things and lots of behaviors that is unable to set to be back switched off now, for example the tactics of difficulty levels - I can not restore the original behavior anymore with new 1.34 patcher. I would like to set the game on my own - and decide by myself what I like and what I don´t.. The another thing can be e.g. the message about patching the same address twice - this should be a debug message but not critical error that will kick you off the game! I know that then when I will be using another version like me that it may behave unexpectedly but why to force create error while nothing has even happened then detection of different version that may crash lately because of this - and more - it will be then better if it could tell me which patch has caused this patching twice (different original bytes then expected - or what is patched twice and that you should disable that patching by disabling this option in ini file.. (if debug selected to ON - if is debug off then nothing should be displayed and if is it really a problem - so the game will then crash with an error message of that something happened on some address)..

 

And now to what I noticed at the latest 1.34 beta 4.. Played just for a while - and on beginner level. When you ignore UFOs and don´t shoot them down and go on missions, when terror once happened then next time no ufo detections will appear anymore, just next terror will appear, if next time ignored then after some time - next month - another terror side will appear but as told - no UFO detections anymore..

 

In the missions I have all sectoids (maybe also other races later) holding no guns - looks like they are not holding anything until they will use a gun that they in fact holds - but it is not visible - so they looks like they goes with free hands, until they like to fire on you..

 

I haven´t found any option in the .ini file to switch this behavior off - is it an improvement or it is a bug?

Can you add all the patches to the the ini to be possible to set up everything or by theoretically disabling all the patches to behave exactly like the original game? Then I will one by one enable what I like and what I dislike, what may cause problems and what may not..

[ElfKaa]

Hi all extender fans,

it seems Tycho has not been active for long.. I hope he could continue his work on this soon! It will be a big loose if he will not continue in this improvements and fixes.. Because of that this fixes are based on the real original game!

 

 

I noticed some bugs in the latest release 1.34 beta 4.

 

There is a critical bug which causes crash on Base Defense mission. after pressing "Continue" after equipping soldiers the game will crash. I found a mistake in code and make it to work again.

Change byte at address 15074 from hex:0C into hex:18

Another not as critical bug - the "No Score Game Over" is now "No Score Gave Over" it seems it is a mistyping.. Should be fixed if Tycho will release beta 5 version..

 

I wish if the .ini could contain all the bug fixes and all the other patches in AI also would be possible to enable/disable one by one.. I know that it may cause few non standard behaviors as some of them depends on some another, but could be described better and more better tested if this is possible.

I mean to be theoretically able to remove all the patches by set all of them to =0 to have the original .exe untouched..

 

I also wish if there is a source code available for further development..

 

Tycho, please, fix it and continue with the development and upload please the latest source code..

 

Thanks.

[ElfKaa]

 

Hi Cerberus

I was looking at the Game5 you sent - I had the same problem as you described, but I solved it by enabling one of the bug fix disabling a part of a code of a bug fix. I could successfully complete the battlescape mission without any crash. I have to recheck what exactly I did - but it seems in 1.34beta4 it is fixed and can be solved by patching bytes B11C: c9 c3 . Even that It seems to me the game could be more stable in some cases with 1.34 beta 4 then with any previous versions of the extender. But the game is completely different from the original by the new patches that is now unable to be disabled. If you prefer to have the game more like the original, I recommend you to use 1.31.9 version that is not as stable and still contain some bugs and graphical glitches not yet fixed, but not contain as much modifications to the game style..

 

Yes - cyberdiscs explosions - this seems to be one of the modification I mentioned that is yet unable to be disabled - it seems to be one of some another "improvement" from Tycho force implemented in this beta that is now still making more problems then fixing. It seems this patch also corrupts all the alien moves during your turn - the Sectopods don´t rotate to look on you before firing on you during your turn and if a cyberdisc will fire using autofire during alien turn and you will also fire on it because of your soldier's quick reaction during alien turn during the cyberdisc's autofire and you hit the cyberdisc and it will die then its corpse will continue to fire on you to finish autofire sequence even in fact it already died..

[Justy]

Hi, I'm playing the recent version and I keep getting frequent patch overlap errors when trying to load a game or launch a mission.

This is what it looks like:

https://i65.tinypic.com/2wqh092.jpg

 

Attached is my INI file.

UEsetup.rar

[Justy]

Also, I'm reasonably certain I haven't applied any of the alt research options, but I still can't research any live aliens despite the fact I already captured four (in fact, they don't even show up anywhere, and yes, I have containment built). Game is the Steam version.

 

EDIT: Confirmed, no matter how many live aliens I capture, none ever make it into containment.

 

EDIT2: More crashes at end turn, too. During a mission at a landed abductor, this kept happening at some point during the alien turn, rendering the mission impossible to complete.

 

https://i66.tinypic.com/2nb6lgm.jpg