UFO Extender

[Hammarberg]

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..

 

 

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..)

 

The problem is that aliens I was capturing did NOT show up in the alien containment no matter what I did. I repeated it few times on different missions and the aliens just didn't show. They were not even visible in X-com Hack so the game just wasn't spawning them at all.

 

Anyway, I'm testing it out with an older version. I'll let you guys know if it works.

[ElfKaa]

Tested 1.32.8a - captured 3 live aliens on terror mission - levit leader, parrak terrorist and levit engineer without any problem..

[Hammarberg]

Yes, 1.32.8a works perfectly... So its quite clear the problem is with the extender. I hope it can be fixed, some of the features of the latest versions are awesome.

[ElfKaa]

Okay, I will try

[Kir'jaeden]

Earlier we discussed issue of disappearing captives with Tycho. It appears when SAME species give DIFFFERENT result in research tree. When you capture someone, game checks if interrogation could open a new UFOpaedia entry. If it could, then game places the alien to prison. If not, it will be killed. Note: game does not check if the alien could affect research tree!!!

Also large aliens can not be captured.

[ElfKaa]

If it will work as expected at the beginning of the game while you capture any live alien researching new entry "live alien" should be possible, but it is not.. (if I understand it well). So - by this mod you will capture large alien in the battlescape and you will then not have it in containment? That is nonsense.. I recommend not making anything like this until you really know how it affect the whole game..

 

Even that I have discovered lots of other bugs in 1.34.4, random crashes while click into soldier status in battlescape, aliens looks like they don´t carrying weapons until they use them, cyberdiscs explodes on the end of the turn but they stays alive until they finish autofire even killed during the fire - so then remains firing large units don´t turns on you before firing on you in the players turn (but maybe also in the alien turn), picture of the ufo in interception windows is shifted up (if we forget no elerium and bulding stacking bug I already fixed) etc.. So I don´t recommend anyone to use 1.34.4 at all..

 

To me it seems the last most stable 1.32.8 but it is also not perfect at all..

[Hammarberg]

I think the new features are good enough to justify fixing the latest pathcer if possible.... Damn Tycho should get back on to this or at least release the source so somebody else can.

 

Btw, I also experienced random crashes and not so random ones. The most typical one happened while entering battlescape. I had to save the game before Skyranger reaches the site, then exit the game, reload and it would work. Same thing happened if I tried to load a game while in battlescape. Then there was also completely random crashes when looking at ufopedia and what not.

[ElfKaa]

yes, but it seems it was working much better with 1.32.8a.

Yes, I hope Tycho become back, because nobody else can continue and the project will probably ends up without him..

Crash on entering battlescape - if you mean patching twice message - I force removed this message (as it should be in my opinion in the best case just for the debugging purposes and should not force crash the game)..

[ElfKaa]

I disabled the patch that modifies capturing live aliens..

link to download here:

 

edit: new fixes here:

https://www.strategyc...540#entry156761

summary:

version 1.34.4 modified

sorting crafts patch removed, elerium patch removed, building stacking fixed, live aliens captures patch removed, patching twice message removed, "no score gave over(game over)" option name fixed

[ElfKaa]

Capturing live aliens is now as usual, you can see them in the containment, but trying to kill them by editing them in Alien Containment facility still don´t work (they are retransfered back into the same containment) and after research the alien disappear completely.. (in case you capture 3 same aliens with the same rank you will have them all there untill all researches on them is finished.. In this case I think this is unfortunately the same imperfection like the original game has..)

[Hammarberg]

I'm testing the patcher you uploaded... So far so good, no random crashing, building stacking works also and it seems to be stable. I also noticed that Roswell incidents also work. On my previous play with the bugged patcher, they never showed up in two months of game time, I guess that's not outside of the probability...

 

Thanks. I guess I'll be switching back to the latest one then.

 

 

EDIT:

By the way, I was reading through the difficulty setting readme and it states that from Experienced and on, Hyperwave Decoder only gives decoded information. Does this mean it does not improve detection percentage or range at all? Meaning that to have 100% detection, you need five large radars? I guess it does balance things out, the alien activity stats will become more useful. (That doesn't bother me, I'm staring at the stats screen constantly anyway.) I'm just thinking how to manage that, I guess the bases need to be even more specialized or sacrifice defenses for detection for example?

 

Then I have another question which is bit offtopic, the mindshield makes the base almost invisible for the aliens, what is the chance that they will find the base regardless? Am I right that there is a slight chance for detection even when the mindshield is active and the base is not found by that particular group of aliens before?

[ElfKaa]

I'm testing the patcher you uploaded... So far so good, no random crashing, building stacking works also and it seems to be stable. I also noticed that Roswell incidents also work. On my previous play with the bugged patcher, they never showed up in two months of game time, I guess that's not outside of the probability...

 

Thanks. I guess I'll be switching back to the latest one then.

With pleasure But I did nothing then this mentioned.. If something another started to work it is just the side effect of one of the bug I fixed - probably the stacking - I changed also wrong assigned variable there..

 

EDIT:

By the way, I was reading through the difficulty setting readme and it states that from Experienced and on, Hyperwave Decoder only gives decoded information. Does this mean it does not improve detection percentage or range at all? Meaning that to have 100% detection, you need five large radars? I guess it does balance things out, the alien activity stats will become more useful. (That doesn't bother me, I'm staring at the stats screen constantly anyway.) I'm just thinking how to manage that, I guess the bases need to be even more specialized or sacrifice defenses for detection for example?

hmm.. I don´t know much about the game behavior and/or new mods Tycho did.. You have to ask Tycho after he will return back and I hope he will!

 

Then I have another question which is bit offtopic, the mindshield makes the base almost invisible for the aliens, what is the chance that they will find the base regardless? Am I right that there is a slight chance for detection even when the mindshield is active and the base is not found by that particular group of aliens before?

The same - I don´t know much about the game behavior.. I don´t know if this behavior was also changed by Tycho.. I hope not

[Hammarberg]

So cool! The aliens do indeed attack with smaller ships first. I had sectoids just attack my base on February 16th, using a medium ship and the group consisted of sectoids only, no terror units and definitely less than on usual base defense mission. I guess its going to only get worse with time..I only took two casualties and was able to capture three aliens, including the Leader. I wonder how the extender modifies the psionics research. This is exactly why I love this mod so much, I play the same old game but there's new things behind every corner.

 

I'm afraid I must start a new game at some point, I'm playing on experienced and so far its been a cakewalk. I guess I shouldn't say so, there's so much randomness involved, one strike of bad luck might doom any mission.

 

Damn I love this game. Btw, I had been away from playing for almost two years until I got back into it just recently. Enough time to make it all feel fresh again and the mods just kick it onto another level.

[Fraktal]

I'll give this patcher a try too.

[ElfKaa]

Yes, Tycho did excellent work! Of course! The only thing I hate on the recent mods that they are not fully customizable.. I think it will need more sections in the ini and in the first place a lots of testings before adding new patches.. I understand that it is hard work and not as fun as making new improvements every single relese and that it slows down development a lot but without it this nice patcher become full of bugs and every new version new bugs is added.

I mean e.g. there could be added few new sections like [difficulty mods] which would contain difficulty patches etc. to make the game also possible to stay original just fixed without mods.. And if Tycho add any new patch it should be possible to be disabled/reverted back. Improvements then could be added one by one and if one will cause problems it will be easier to localize and fix..

[Hammarberg]

Yes, Tycho did excellent work! Of course! The only thing I hate on the recent mods that they are not fully customizable.. I think it will need more sections in the ini and in the first place a lots of testings before adding new patches.. I understand that it is hard work and not as fun as making new improvements every single relese and that it slows down development a lot but without it this nice patcher become full of bugs and every new version new bugs is added.

I mean e.g. there could be added few new sections like [difficulty mods] which would contain difficulty patches etc. to make the game also possible to stay original just fixed without mods.. And if Tycho add any new patch it should be possible to be disabled/reverted back. Improvements then could be added one by one and if one will cause problems it will be easier to localize and fix..

 

I noticed it too that lot of things are bunched up to be either on or off, no choice to choose specifically.... I think this side was better few years back when ALL of the modifications could be customized. If I had to complain about something, its the difficulty changes which are "forced" if you choose higher difficulty. Although I think it can be circumvented partially by playing on low difficulty but changing the interception and combat difficulties, that of course doesn't do the whole thing, appearance of stronger races, amount of aliens and overall activity is still dictated by the low difficulty setting.

 

Having the difficulty changes as separate lines like everything else would be awesome. For example the thing about Hyperwave decoder, apparently now starting from Experienced, the decoder just decodes, it doesn't detect. That means that the basedesigns must reflect this change and need to be planned differently, not bad really, but there's no way of playing Superhuman game with 100% detection with just the decoder like in vanilla.

 

I don't think the difficulty mods are bad at all, they're totally awesome, I would just like to have a choice which ones to pick. I think the big thing about the Ufo Extender is the ability to customize things, that adds a lot of replay value, challenge and fun to the game, having some modifications "forced" on certain difficulty etc. goes against the freedom of choice this mod gives.

[ElfKaa]

My words I didn´t tell that difficulty mods are bad at all, but should be customizable and or have an option to be completely disabled.. More I think it should have its own section in the ini.. I hope Tycho will return and enable all this (and add all the options of all the patches he already did) in the next release..

[Hammarberg]

Does anyone have any means of reaching him? If nothing else, Tycho should come over to release the source code. There's always a good chance that some person with skills and time could step in and help out.

[ElfKaa]

I recommend not to rely on that Tycho will return back and if there is someone with good programming skills he can continue with the source for 1.31.9. Maybe I can have 1.32 source somewhere.. I have to look.. But I may then help him to analyze what Tycho did and he could then recreate the new patches..

[ElfKaa]

I found the reason of UFOLoader.exe false positive detection by some antivirus programs.. The problem is in usage of kernel32 library the way some viruses obviously does..

 

I can not modify the code as I am not a programmer but I found a simple solution in modifying UFOLoader.exe to use renamed library, copying kernel32.dll into game directory and renaming it with yyyyyyyy.dll (the name has to stay with this name as it is defined to use in my modified UFOLoader executable or you will get an error message that the yyyyyyyy.dll library is missing). Because I should not spread MS original libraries and you could have different ones in different versions of Windows, I made an exe that will copy and rename it for you to create necessary dll used with my modified UFOLoader.exe

It is not perfect solution but it works.. Then the patcher will become clean

You can make the same thing manually by yourself or you can download my modified loader with the executable that is copying and renaming your version of kernel32 from system directory into the directory where is it run from..

The whole package is attached:

package_loader.zip

[ElfKaa]

NEW:

added fix for the UFO picture in the interception window (the picture did´t fit well into the interception window)

capturing live aliens option on/off (If you think the original behavior that you can not capture any live aliens is alright (maybe it works the way I don´t at all understand), you can add "kill=1" (without quotes) into bug fix section to enable this in my opinion not functional patch back and revert it to the original 1.34.4 behavior.)

 

summary:

version 1.34.4 modified

sorting crafts patch removed, elerium patch removed, building stacking fixed, live aliens captures patch removed, patching twice message removed, "no score gave over(game over)" option name fixed; fix for the UFO picture, fix for the Base Defence missions equipment screen crash..

patcher.zip

[Hammarberg]

The Ufo Extenders battle difficulty is quite insane btw. The enhanced alien AI thing seems to be doing its trick, Reapers are much more aggressive than they used to be. And I think the armor rating of 2x2 aliens has been drastically changed? Reaper takes two HWP rockets in the face before going down and Cyberdisk drops after several large rockets or high explosive packs....

 

Terror sites are royal pain in the ass. Securing the LZ is VERY difficult if there's any terror units nearby. The problem is that there's no way of making it even on a terror site if you dust off, I think the 1000 point penalty even after going in and having to evac is bit too harsh. I think it would be more fair if the 1k penalty would apply to ignoring the terror site, getting in and having to evac shouldn't be that bad IF you've wasted enough aliens. I dunno, its just very very hard punishment for failure. Specially if you loose the whole squad and skyranger too. I guess it will get easier once I get laser weapons. I have been playing kind of slow research game but its starting to get so difficult that I think I have to pick up the pace.

 

The neat thing is that this added difficulty of tough terror units has made me re-think my tactics... I use a lot of high explosives and rockets to clear paths and pre-emptively strike possible ambushes, that I've been doing for ages. Now I have had to take another approach as I need every single explosivepack to hit a target. Another problem is cyberdisk's crazy high reactions. Getting close enough to assault that darned thing with SEVERAL explosives and rockets is not easy. Having no laser or plasma weapons or armor yet makes things even harder... Oh and no psionics either, Sectoid Leader opened up Mind shield instead of psionics.

 

Its a real challenge go against those terror units with nothing but starting weaponry. I hate cyberdisks with a burning passion now.

[Hammarberg]

Is manufacturing for profit made completely impossible in the extender? Laser weapons are out of question as they now need elerium as material and there usually isn't too much of that stuff lying around. The next best thing seems to be motion scanners in the early game and perhaps fusion ball launchers later? But does the latter also need elerium as material?

 

Also I see that the sale prices of many alien items has been drastically dropped. Its not necessarily bad as in vanilla, swimming in piles of money was rather easy to do... Making it bit harder to get so much money makes the game progress slower and add bit more challenge. What I do not like about this is that it seems that we're now much more dependent on the funding nations, or maybe not as selling surplus alien artifacts is still very profitable.

 

 

EDIT:

Does the extender cause random crashing on alien base raids? I think this problem has been there since the day one but lately I've got way too many crashes during aliens base raids than I'm comfortable with. I just restarted a muton base to generate it again, I'm not sure what is causing the crashing. Its always the same "x-com crashed trying to access yaddayaddayadda.." There's three things that occur almost every time the crash happens, one of my soldiers goes on to certain spot on the map, an alien opens a door or an alien panics or goes berzerk. Those happen most of the time but not always. And some base raids never crash. Its completely random and rarely happens on normal ufo ground assaults and crash site recoveries also. Any ideas on what's causing this and how could it be fixed? (I really don't like my savegmaes going corrupted.)

[Hammarberg]

Ok, that base raid was UNPLAYABLE beacuse of the constant crashing.... I had to use X-com Hack to win it. Something was definitely corrupted with it. I used the hack to initiate "kill aliens" command. It worked but there was one Celatid it didn't kill for some reason. Shooting the Celatid caused the same thing that made the game crash all time but that was the last alien and the battle ended before the crash.

 

The crashing seems to be related to certain spot on the map or aliens going panic or berzerk. I have had this same problem with vanilla and with the extender, it happened also few years ago with an older version, I faintly remember having to hack my game to avoid the crashing back then also.

[ElfKaa]

EDIT:

Does the extender cause random crashing on alien base raids? I think this problem has been there since the day one but lately I've got way too many crashes during aliens base raids than I'm comfortable with. I just restarted a muton base to generate it again, I'm not sure what is causing the crashing. Its always the same "x-com crashed trying to access yaddayaddayadda.." There's three things that occur almost every time the crash happens, one of my soldiers goes on to certain spot on the map, an alien opens a door or an alien panics or goes berzerk. Those happen most of the time but not always. And some base raids never crash. Its completely random and rarely happens on normal ufo ground assaults and crash site recoveries also. Any ideas on what's causing this and how could it be fixed? (I really don't like my savegmaes going corrupted.)

I am not sure what is causing this crashes but it seems I didn´t yet implemented the fix for the base defence crash - an error I found in the latest patcher.. The crashes happens to me before the equipment screen..

Ok, that base raid was UNPLAYABLE beacuse of the constant crashing.... I had to use X-com Hack to win it. Something was definitely corrupted with it. I used the hack to initiate "kill aliens" command. It worked but there was one Celatid it didn't kill for some reason. Shooting the Celatid caused the same thing that made the game crash all time but that was the last alien and the battle ended before the crash.

Celatid clones is the think that I hate at all I don´t know if it does this patch but when I will find that patches I will remove them - or will add an option to be on/off if it will be possible..

Stay tuned

I will soon upload new version with the base defence crash fixed.. Maybe it will solve you the ingame (battlescape base) crashes also..