UFO Extender

[Fraktal]

Just in case Tycho hasn't abandoned this project yet, bug reports from a completely new game.

• When trying to build a Living Quarters, the game put down a Hangar's bottom left corner. My money still got deducted for a LQ, the dismantle message identified it as a Hangar too and dismantling it didn't return my money. Looking into BASE.DAT with a hex editor reveals that while the relevant facility slot's content was set to 12 (Hangar bottom left), the "time until completion" value was set properly. So the game recognizes which facility I picked, it's just that something seems to be hardcoding the facility's ID to 12.
  
  • Did some more testing on this one. Non-Hangar buildings placed next to existing ones get affected by this bug, buildings that get queued via the Base Building Stacking mod do not. Hangars and Access Lifts are unaffected, queued or not.
    

  [*]Game crashes with a "patched 0x00401307 twice" at the start of every tactical mission. Reloading the nearest savegame and entering the same tactical mission does not crash - but the next tactical mission will, 100% of the time. Reloading a saved tactical mission also crashes the game, but restarting the game and loading it again works.

  [*]Neither UFO recovery nor ground assault missions provide ANY Elerium. I had to edit some into my base inventory to even get the option to research it.

  [*]First terror mission did not spawn any civilians, but I still got points for saving them.

  [*]All mission briefings say the mission is being carried out by Skyranger-0.

  [*]Snakeman terror mission, access violation crash at 0x3 (trying to access 0x00000003). Have one snake and one zombie left; killed the snake first and ended the turn, crash. Killed the zombie and its chryssie to make sure it's not the auto-hatch acting up, crash. Killed both, crash. I ultimately hacked UNITREF.DAT to set every alien's health to 0 at the end of the turn (turns out there were another 2 somewhere in the darkness), which resolved the mission successfully without a crash.

  [*]Skyranger shadowing a UFO on what seems to be an infiltration or base mission over Australia. The moment the Skyranger tries to return to base, divide by zero crash at 0x453B8E. I have a backup save for this if anyone wants to look into it.

During a mission at a landed abductor, this kept happening at some point during the alien turn, rendering the mission impossible to complete.

 

If you want to get past the mission but don't have any other save, send it over and I'll hex-edit it for you to end the mission successfully so that you can continue.

[ElfKaa]

If you want to get past the mission but don't have any other save, send it over and I'll hex-edit it for you to end the mission successfully so that you can continue.

 

Yes, send the file, I will try in my modified version if I have the same crash.

[Justy]

Sorry, I nuked it since. It was just unplayable (ended up encountering all of the bugs Amitakartok mentions, and then some).

[ElfKaa]

Okay, never mind.. But if you are still interested PM me and I can upload you my modified patcher with the message about patching twice disabled.. (because it is nonsense to behave like a crash even nothing then patching twice happened..)

 

NEW: I also fixed Base Building Stacking bug

[ElfKaa]

• All mission briefings say the mission is being carried out by Skyranger-0.
  

I also always have Skyranger-0 even it is in fakt e.g. Skyranger-1.

It is because of sorting planes style is now different and probably contain bugs - unable to be disabled in .ini

I found that bytes and patched - removed and returned back normal sorting..

 

I still please Tycho if he could put all the settings (every single patch) into the .ini for any patch to be possible to be disabled..

[ElfKaa]

When trying to build a Living Quarters, the game put down a Hangar's bottom left corner. My money still got deducted for a LQ, the dismantle message identified it as a Hangar too and dismantling it didn't return my money. Looking into BASE.DAT with a hex editor reveals that while the relevant facility slot's content was set to 12 (Hangar bottom left), the "time until completion" value was set properly. So the game recognizes which facility I picked, it's just that something seems to be hardcoding the facility's ID to 12.

-fixed

 

Game crashes with a "patched 0x00401307 twice" at the start of every tactical mission. Reloading the nearest savegame and entering the same tactical mission does not crash - but the next tactical mission will, 100% of the time. Reloading a saved tactical mission also crashes the game, but restarting the game and loading it again works.

- patching twice message removed

 

Neither UFO recovery nor ground assault missions provide ANY Elerium. I had to edit some into my base inventory to even get the option to research it.

- NEW: fixed

 

First terror mission did not spawn any civilians, but I still got points for saving them.

- I can not confirm (I spawned one and I get the points using my modified patcher)

 

All mission briefings say the mission is being carried out by Skyranger-0.

- fixed - the sorting patch completely removed

 

Snakeman terror mission, access violation crash at 0x3 (trying to access 0x00000003). Have one snake and one zombie left; killed the snake first and ended the turn, crash. Killed the zombie and its chryssie to make sure it's not the auto-hatch acting up, crash. Killed both, crash. I ultimately hacked UNITREF.DAT to set every alien's health to 0 at the end of the turn (turns out there were another 2 somewhere in the darkness), which resolved the mission successfully without a crash.

- I can not confirm without .ini and crashing address.

 

Skyranger shadowing a UFO on what seems to be an infiltration or base mission over Australia. The moment the Skyranger tries to return to base, divide by zero crash at 0x453B8E. I have a backup save for this if anyone wants to look into it.

 

Please send me the game where the game is crashing at 0x453B8E

fixed patcher here (rename back to patcher.dll):

 

elerium fixed (by removing the corrupted patch):

NEW link:

https://posilej.cz/zasilka/yL5ctb9h :obsolete

https://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/topic/10341-ufo-extender/page__st__520#entry156691

[Fraktal]

Oh, thank god someone's still working on this. This latest release is a mess and Tycho seems to have pulled down all earlier versions.

 

- NEW: fixed

 

If you don't mind me asking, what caused the Elerium bug?

 

Please send me the game where the game is crashing at 0x453B8E

 

Here you go.

divzero crash.zip

[ElfKaa]

Hi, I am sorry, amitakartok, I must disappoint you.. I can not continue developing the patcher.. It has to do Tycho..

 

I can only try to make few patches or fixes into the latest patcher binary - if someone tell me about errors in there. But I don´t have the source code and even if I have it, I am not as skilled to continue in development.. It could only make it easier for me to identify bugs and make fixes into it. But the latest source code is not available and the latest source is only for 1.31.9.

 

I was looking at the game you sent me, it seems the problem is in the savegame. Something is wrong with the Skyranger 2. The plane can be sold off the base which solve partially the crash.. But the icon will still remain and by clicking on it it will then crash with some other crashing address.. I think probably it was happened by the bug in the game or patcher.. But I can not identify the bug exactly what caused the problem with the savegame 10. (the only imagination I have is that it is causing Autosave you are using.. But maybe not..)

 

If you don't mind me asking, what caused the Elerium bug?

I only know that it seems to me it was a try to make the game more hard by not getting any Elerium from simple missions. But it seems it does not behave as expected.. So I force removed the patch so the original behavior is applied instead..

If you are asking which option in ini is causing the bug, so that there is no separate option in the ini to be disabled. The patch is applied always while [bug Fix] Apply = 1. So it is applied together with other patches (bug fixes).

 

You can download earlier versions of the patcher here:

https://www.ufopaedia...e:UFOLoader.zip

and sources (the latest is 1.31.9) are here:

https://www.ufopaedia...xtender-src.zip

 

If anyone of you has the 1.34.3 or 1.34.2 or 1.34.1 version of the patcher, I am a lot interested to compare them - if there is also the build stacking bug or other bugs present.. Please upload.

[Fraktal]

Do you happen to know which version was the one where Tycho started forcing per-difficulty modifications?

[ElfKaa]

It is also written in ufopaedia that it is since 1.32 including.. The last is then 1.31.9.

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/UFOextender

[Fraktal]

Too bad.

 

In the meantime, I came up with a quite more complex tech tree than Tycho's Alternate Research Tree, mostly in the form of requiring a ton of interrogations to get everything. Specifically...

• Weapon research: interrogating any alien soldier unlocks for research all alien weapons in base stores at the time, except for the Small Launcher. If a weapon is not in stock at the time, you need to get one and interrogate another soldier. Plasma ammunition and blaster bombs require E-115 to be researched first, in addition to the requirement of interrogating an alien soldier. Small Launcher and Stun Bomb require an alien medic instead of a soldier.
  

• Armor research: researching Alien Alloys and dissecting a Muton unlocks the Personal Armor. Researching Personal Armor and UFO Power Source, then studying a Sectopod wreck, unlocks the Power Suit. Researching Power Suit and New Fighter Craft unlocks the Flying Suit.
  

• Craft research: interrogating an alien engineer unlocks UFO Power Source. Interrogating an alien navigator unlocks UFO Navigation. Interrogating enough alien engineers to acquire all UFO schematics (ie. completely fill out the Ufopaedia's UFO section) unlocks UFO Construction and Grav Shield. The Avenger only becomes available for research once the Cydonia mission is unlocked.
  

• Psionics research: researching and using Mind Probes requires dissecting a Sectoid and interrogating a Sectoid leader or commander. Dissecting an Ethereal unlocks the Psi Lab and the Mind Shield, but not the Psi Amp. Interrogating an Ethereal is what unlocks the Psi Amp.
  

• Endgame research: Interrogating and dissecting enough aliens to acquire detailed data about them (ie. filling out the Ufopaedia's section on alien lifeforms, with medic interrogations substituting for terrorists that cannot be stunned) unlocks Alien Origins. Interrogating enough alien navigators to acquire detailed intelligence on alien operations (ie. filling out the Ufopaedia's section on alien missions) unlocks The Martian Solution. Interrogating an Ethereal Commander unlocks Cydonia or Bust. So if you want to finish the game, prepare for a long haul
  

How's this?

[ElfKaa]

Nice idea, but for this you will need the source code and a well skilled programmer.. like Tycho was..

Did you read the personal messages I sent you? I sent you a fixed file for the game 10 you sent me previously and my modified patcher..

[Fraktal]

I did read those messages but to be honest, I'm thinking of downgrading back to 1.31.9.

 

I also took a peek into the latest publicly available source code. What's your issue with programming? C++?

[ElfKaa]

I am a graphician and I have no programming skills.. I never programmed any for PC in any programming language.. That is why I can not help to continue on this.. If you are really interested in this project and wants to continue the work Tycho started you really need a well skilled programmer.. I don´t think it is as easy to make improvements without well knowing the original code and it´s meanings - this means to disassemble and well understand it - then you will be able to make new patches into the patcher code with few programming skills.. I can only help you with disassembly and to understand.

 

Well and about the 1.31.9 - if you really like to continue, I may help you then to reimplement the new patches Tycho did from 1.32+ if Tycho will not offer the source lately..

 

You can also be interested in Open XCom Project - but it is not based on the original code (based only on observing behavior and not by disassembling the source..). It is programmed from the scratch and it only uses graphics from the original game. But then it is the new game.. It should behave similar to the original game - but as I told - it is not based on the original game source code! That is why I prefer this patcher..

But in the opposite it could be more easy to modify and improve then trying patching the original game code..

Details in the post here:

https://www.strategyc...post__p__129161

[Hammarberg]

Hello guys. I decided to chime in after lot of lurking....

 

I got a problem, the aliens I'm capturing are not showing up in the alien containment. Is this some sort of a bug or is it the extender doing it? The aliens show up in after mission briefing as captured but nothing shows up in alien containment. I checked it also with XCOMhack and there's nothing in there.

[ElfKaa]

It is probably the extender.. I can not tell you well which settings exactly to disable.. You can try to disable all the patches in .ini by putting Apply=0 into Bug Fix section to see if it is caused by the extender. Then try to disable them one by one and see which one causing the problem to you..

If you are using 1.34.4 download my fixed version first..

But I recommend you to use 1.32 version or 1.31.9 version of the patcher..

[Fraktal]

I can confirm that the same bug is present in the newest version.

 

Meanwhile, I keep coming up with more ideas on how to modify the game. At this rate, I might end up actually writing a .dat mod... Anyway, my latest idea is to swap the damage values of the Blaster Launcher and the Fusion Ball Hovertank, as well as crank up the Rocket Tank's damage to that of the Large Rocket, on the basis that a vehicle-mounted weapon should be able to pack more destructive warheads that would realistically be too heavy to be man-portable.

[Hammarberg]

It is probably the extender.. I can not tell you well which settings exactly to disable.. You can try to disable all the patches in .ini by putting Apply=0 into Bug Fix section to see if it is caused by the extender. Then try to disable them one by one and see which one causing the problem to you..

If you are using 1.34.4 download my fixed version first..

But I recommend you to use 1.32 version or 1.31.9 version of the patcher..

 

Lets see what happens. I replaced the 1.34.4. with 1.32.8a. What do you think, should I start a new game to test the containment or will the old one work? I guess it should work if this is caused by the extender.

 

 

EDIT:

I guess it might be actually working now... I can't access the Alien containment now, I presume that accessing it instead of getting "facility in use" message is newer feature not yet present in 1.32? I'll need to test it out, go do a mission and capture something and see if it shows up. I guess I can do that with X-com Hack.

[Hammarberg]

I can confirm that the same bug is present in the newest version.

 

Meanwhile, I keep coming up with more ideas on how to modify the game. At this rate, I might end up actually writing a .dat mod... Anyway, my latest idea is to swap the damage values of the Blaster Launcher and the Fusion Ball Hovertank, as well as crank up the Rocket Tank's damage to that of the Large Rocket, on the basis that a vehicle-mounted weapon should be able to pack more destructive warheads that would realistically be too heavy to be man-portable.

 

Great idea! HWP's should definitely be able to carry heavier, more destructive weaponry than a soldier. Would that change affect Blaster Launcher toting aliens also?

[Fraktal]

Aliens use the same item as you do, so yes. With this, the Blaster Launcher would still be more powerful than the Rocket Launcher, meaning that getting hit with it would still really hurt; it's just that the title of absolute murder machine would go to the Fusion Ball Hovertank now.

 

Regarding the Rocket Tank... should I also give it manual guidance akin to Blaster Bombs on the principle that heavier platform means bigger missile means room for warhead guidance electronics? The handheld Rocket Launcher would still be dumb-fire.

 

 

 

And while we're at it... would there be objection against me renaming Fusion Ball Launchers to Fusion Detonators? Just a simple ENGLISH.DAT edit.

[Kir'jaeden]

Hello guys. I decided to chime in after lot of lurking....

 

I got a problem, the aliens I'm capturing are not showing up in the alien containment. Is this some sort of a bug or is it the extender doing it? The aliens show up in after mission briefing as captured but nothing shows up in alien containment. I checked it also with XCOMhack and there's nothing in there.

It is an original XCOM bug. Nasty fruit of the buggy Research tree. Sometimes it can wreck RT so you can not finish the game and you will be forced to spawn necessary alien units by editor.

[Kir'jaeden]

Aliens use the same item as you do, so yes. With this, the Blaster Launcher would still be more powerful than the Rocket Launcher, meaning that getting hit with it would still really hurt; it's just that the title of absolute murder machine would go to the Fusion Ball Hovertank now.

 

Regarding the Rocket Tank... should I also give it manual guidance akin to Blaster Bombs on the principle that heavier platform means bigger missile means room for warhead guidance electronics? The handheld Rocket Launcher would still be dumb-fire.

 

 

 

And while we're at it... would there be objection against me renaming Fusion Ball Launchers to Fusion Detonators? Just a simple ENGLISH.DAT edit.

So we must rename rocket launchers to rocket detonators too?

[ElfKaa]

EDIT:

I guess it might be actually working now... I can't access the Alien containment now, I presume that accessing it instead of getting "facility in use" message is newer feature not yet present in 1.32? I'll need to test it out, go do a mission and capture something and see if it shows up. I guess I can do that with X-com Hack.

 

If you will find the problem is in the new patcher, I may analyze it in 1.34.4 and force remove that problematic patch like I did in case of the Elerium bug.

[Hammarberg]

It is an original XCOM bug. Nasty fruit of the buggy Research tree. Sometimes it can wreck RT so you can not finish the game and you will be forced to spawn necessary alien units by editor.

 

Yes, I thought there's something familiar here.. Lets see what happens now, I'm thinking of starting a new game with 1.32 extender which probably will fix this problem. Any idea what causes this problem in the first place and how to fix it? It has never happened to me before. I tried what somebody said about this on another thread, replace ASTORE.DAT from a new savegame. Tried it, didn't work.

 

If you will find the problem is in the new patcher, I may analyze it in 1.34.4 and force remove that problematic patch like I did in case of the Elerium bug.

 

I'll try it soon and let you know how it goes. I guess I should actually make two copies of the game folder, one with version 1.32 patcher and another with the newer one and then test them side by side using the same save game perhaps?

[ElfKaa]

I got a problem, the aliens I'm capturing are not showing up in the alien containment. Is this some sort of a bug or is it the extender doing it? The aliens show up in after mission briefing as captured but nothing shows up in alien containment. I checked it also with XCOMhack and there's nothing in there.

It is an original XCOM bug. Nasty fruit of the buggy Research tree. Sometimes it can wreck RT so you can not finish the game and you will be forced to spawn necessary alien units by editor.

What Is the exact problem you are talking about?

How you can look into Alien Containment?

If you capture an alien you should be able to research it and should be visible as a new project or you can see all of them if you try to transfer them to another base.. If not - there could be problem in research tree as Kir was mentioned - I do not know much about this and can not confirm that it may sometimes happen..

If you have enabled some extender feature that will enable you to view aliens in the containment by clicking to the facility, then yes - I think there is a bug in the extender and this option don´t work at all and not well as expected.. I recommend you to disable this patch then. This patch was created recently to be able to kill the aliens and convert them into corpse to behave like a stuff that could be sold and produce some money.. This is not well tested and it may contain (and contains) bugs..

 

I'll try it soon and let you know how it goes. I guess I should actually make two copies of the game folder, one with version 1.32 patcher and another with the newer one and then test them side by side using the same save game perhaps?

Comparing the two is the best way of course But I think we know that it may happen in 1.34.4 so what you like to discover by this? I just want to know if the previous version is okay - if yes then I may compare them and disable what is not working in 1.34.4 (to remove not working patches and leave other working improvements..)