Several minor, random, unimportant nits

[ExoticMandibles]

I am happily playing through the single-player missions from the start with the 1.3 patch installed.  Here are several minor behaviors I noticed.  I wouldn't call them bugs, 'cause they aren't nearly that bad.  None of them really affect gameplay in a major way.  I'm only reporting them in case you guys really want to go for spit & polish.  (I bet you're gonna mostly say "don't care", which is fine by me.)

• Following instructions, I installed a fresh BZ2 into a new directory, then installed the 1.3 publicbeta 1 patch in the same directory.  Then, striking out on my own, I ran it with -nointro.  It appeared to go into some sort of infinite loop; I had to kill the process.  I then ran it again without -nointro and it worked fine.  Subsequent runs with -nointro have also worked fine, including skipping the intro animation.
  
• I have yet to get -login to work.  My profile name is Leech and I have tried -login "Leech" and -login Leech and neither worked; it still dumps me at the Select Pilot menu.  (Whether or not -nointro is specified.)
  
• In "Too Hot": if you race over to the scrap pool, it's possible to build the extractor before Shabayev asks you to.  If you do that, she never figures out that you built it, and iirc the game eventually scolds you and you fail the mission.
  
• In "Dark Planet", the level starts out with an in-engine cutscene rendered from the first person, then switches directly into the game.  When it jumps from one to the next, the jump was pretty jarring.  I think the whole game paused for a second or two.  (I did mention these were minor.)
  
• At one point on Mire I foolishly lost my tank.  I used the jetpack to head back to base, and landed on top of an extractor.  While I waited for enough scrap to make myself a fresh new tank, one of those mini-dinos ambled over nearby and started chewing on me, even though I was twenty feet higher than his adorable little mouth.
  
• In "Rumble In The Jungle", I built a service bay apparently right on top of a service truck.  As a result, the poor little service truck was somehow glued to the side of the service bay, never to escape.  I've uploaded a screenshot here: http://www.midwinter.com/~lch/wallwalking.service.truck.small.png
  
• Also in "Rumble In The Jungle": I sniped the two guardians NE of my base only to discover the cruel enemy AI built a gun spire just past the wee bit of ruins.  (And it left a builder there to rebuild things too!  Very nice!)  At one point, the gun spire shot my tank and knocked me back inside one of those columns.  (There are these H-shaped structures, made of two columns connected by a catwalk.  The columns are hollow, and have a V-shaped opening at the base.)  No matter how I shimmied and shook, I couldn't get my tank back out of there.  Why could I not leave the same way I came in?
  
• In the same level: I built an assault tank and told it to come over to take out that gun spire, 'cause I'm a total wimp when it comes to gun spires.  Unfortunately, it had to be led by the hand the whole way:
  • It got stuck trying to pass between the factory and the recycler.
    
  • It got stuck trying to get into the ruins.  It was trying to climb the wall to the right of the guardian on the entrance's right.
    
  • Once I got it into the ruins, I told it to attack the gun spire.  It went left instead of right, into a cul-de-sac from which it could seemingly neither aim at the gun spire nor pathfind its way out of.[/list:u][/list:u]Thanks again for sticking with the patch (and the game) over these long years.  I sincerely hope you had fun doing it... don't let the bastards get you down.

[Fishbone]

many thanks for posting your feedback!
We dont get much postings from SP players. (I guess thats one of the reasons why some clan players believe they are the only ones playing the game) But as I mentioned before, all aspects of the game are important.

If Nathan comes back, he might be interested in savegames just before some of the things happen that you describe here. So if you happen to have savegames like that, make sure to store them in a save place.

[ExoticMandibles]

Another SP problem, and this one is major imho.  BZ2 will not let me complete "Snow Blind".  This is the one where the general tells you to drop a nav beacon at the cave entrance, then go through the cave, and the cave collapses behind you.  Unfortunately, in 1.3, the cave never collapses.  There's an ominous rumbly sound, and the ground shakes, but no rocks fall.  I even went over and ID'd the Black Dog transmitter, and still nothin'.  I've played it twice up to that point, and the same thing happened both times.

So now I'm kind of stuck.  Any suggestions on how to unstick this?  Barring that, is there some sort of "cheat" I might use to jump to the next level?

[Gummo.nz]

This probably won't work, but still....

When I played that level (I think on v1.0) the cave DID collapse.  Then I went and ID'd the transmitter and nothing happened.  I finally realised that I was taking a 'shortcut' over some small hills to the transmitter from the cave, instead of taking a longer way around on the flat.

This is probably a different bug that is probably already fixed and probably won't solve your problem.  But it's probably worth a shot anyway as you've probably got the game saved at that point.

Probably.

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

hmm weird.. i just flew over the hill anyawys to get to the transmitor.. just flew with my scout and it worked good.. i even got to my base back before i was told to go to that drop off

anyways.. if ur stuck u can always use

ctrl+~

and write

game.cheat bzwinner

[Avatar]

• In "Rumble In The Jungle", I built a service bay apparently right on top of a service truck.  As a result, the poor little service truck was somehow glued to the side of the service bay, never to escape.  I've uploaded a screenshot here: http://www.midwinter.com/~lch/wallwalking.service.truck.small.png
  

OMG that is about the funniest thing I've ever seen...  Poor little guy is probably wondering how the world got flipped on it's side...

-Av-

[Commando]

I've seen that quite a few times. I even have a save game with a haler stuck like that.  It basically drove into the dower so I used my blink to get in there so.  When I made it in there, the force of the blink pushed the healer against the wall and caused its treads to go parallel to the wall.  I eventually was able to push the healer out of the dower after blinking it several times.

[ExoticMandibles]

Ah!  Yes.  It's not a new bug, rather it's an old hole in the scripted events.  If upon exiting the cave you turn right and follow the ruins up the hill, you never trigger Shabayev's "you're close" speech (or one of those), and she never gives you a sort of tracking-y thingie (not a nav beacon) to find the transmitter.  You need to head southeast as she originally suggests, taking the long way 'round, and then the level completes just fine.  I played it through on 1.2 and 1.3, and I am more-or-less happy to report that they behave exactly the same.

I found it a bit confusing that at one point Braddock tells you "Now build a bomber in your bomber bay", given that this level (Snow Blind) has a stunted tech tree and you can't actually build bombers or even bomber bays.  I was going to file it as a bug, but then I (re-)discovered that Braddock sends a bomber to blow up the transmitter, so it sorta kinda makes sense in a way, and clearly was the intent of the level designer.

By the way, I hope I'm not spoiling the tumultuous events of the SP game for anyone here

[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

hmm...this should be renamed 'spoliers' somewhere..

oh...and your post assumes that the bomber bay doesnt get destroyed...- - _ - -, llike it did with me....

the blue building (i assume bomber bay) in a far far away corner was flashing red and giving the bleeping noise, apparently the new ai is so good it even kills the things off-map lol.

[ExoticMandibles]

I never realized that!  I figured it was a deus ex machina bomber, sent from the heavens to keep the plot thickening.  But yes indeed, it does exist as an actual building on the map; it's a bomber bay with its own adjacent power node.  Which is interesting in two ways:

• It can be blown up.  You can't approach it from your tank, as you hit the Edge Of The World (Columbus was wrong!).  But yes indeedy the Scions can cruise over and attack.  I also discovered it's within mortar range.    If the bomber is killed, it regenerates immediately--you'll see the bomber bits fly away revealing another bomber underneath, like a snake shedding its skin--but if the bomber bay gets destroyed the bomber never arrives to destroy the building.  (Wonder why.)  Thankfully this doesn't throw off the rest of the scripted events, and even with a blown bomber you can complete the level without a problem.
• The Scions left the bomber alone in 1.2, but sent a sentry over to attack it in 1.3.  This results in mysterious "Base Under Attack" messages... wha? I don't see any Scions attacking my buildings![/list:u]Onto another topic.  While I was fooling around on "Snow Blind" today I discovered a minor rendering bug that could theoretically give players opposing Scions a minor tactical advantage.  If you jump into a relay bunker and scroll around the map, you can't see enemy buildings, but you can see the units being built by those buildings.  Click here to see a screenshot of a Scion sentry in mid-construction, spied upon with this technique: http://www.midwinter.com/~lch/visible.scion.build.png
  I wasn't able to confirm this rendering bug in 1.2.  There is a building there (whazzit called, the kiln? the forge?), but as far as I could tell the torpid 1.2 AI wouldn't build anything, even when I sent in my tanks.
  
  larry
  
  p.s. Sure, if it's possible, add "(spoilers)" to this thread's subject line.  But I kinda suspect everyone on these message boards has already played through the SP missions.
  
  p.p.s. I apologize for the inadvertent and unintentional alliteration that plagues this message.  It just came out that way, and I was too lazy to go back and rework the text so as to purge it.

[Bull Dog]

The scion build thing is also in 1.2.  I think it applies for the ISDF als

The rest was deleted due to it being in the WRONG TOPIC

[ExoticMandibles]

Two more comments, both about SP level "Payback":

• Every time I play it, Braddock gives me verbal instructions, but there's a big gap in the middle, as if a more important sound is stealing the channel.  He says "Get your asses to the south [-------] -cycler there!"  Since he's actually telling me to go to the south-east, this is kind of a bad time to steal a channel.
• The nav point he sends me to is identified as "Scion Leader".  Which is wrong--the Scion Leader isn't until the next level.  The nav point on Payback should be named something else, like "Hidden Recycler".  I think it was like this in 1.2, too.[/list:u]
  Cheers,
  
  
  larry

[BZZERKER]

EM, I just poked through the "data.pak" and found that you are hearing the entire message (no channels being stolen). There are 2 messages where Braddock speaks to a "group" of ppl (rest of squad on Rend) and 1 where he talks only to Cooke. All messages say basically the same thing but with different degrees of "radio interference". The other message where Braddock talks to the group he actually says south-west.

The Nav name was also brought up in Beta by several ppl but I think it got labeled "back burner" as it's a very minor problem to fix. There is a bigger problem with Navs that are "pre-placed" by the dll or by map makers where it doesn't show up on your nav list and is non-selectable unless you look right at it and use the spacebar to select it.

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

u havnt figured it out? the all message is getting cut off and then err whats his name.. manson tell him to repeat because he didnt hear! so u do get the full mesage! then he "dies" (disapper from the mission) or something and bradrock gives you the correct information

[ExoticMandibles]

Ah, so it is revealed.  I never noticed the "please repeat" thing, 'cause, you know, at that point in the level I am usually beating cheeks to head to the south... east.

As for "navs don't show up on your nav list", I've been wondering about that.  There are lots of times that I'll be told to go somewhere, and it appeared to be a special sort of nav point that isn't shown on the nav menu.  Truth be told, most of the time I don't even seem to have a nav menu.

Thanks for clearing it all up,


larry