Few questions / notes about BZ 1.3 TA 5

[Shadowsun]

since this is my first post ever...

Hello 



i have a few questions related to the latest patch (1.3 TA 5) and to an earlier version

first of all, when playing the campaign i often get a DX9 error in-game, while i've never discovered any graphics failing on the campaign,  some of the units do act strange however
(example on mission: Thin Ice (11)  when the recycler clears of the ice fields about 2,5 min after deploying it a swarm of 20+ scion vessels attack your base)
another example on mission: Counterattack (12) after securing the base that is under attack,  scion pilots would enter the derelict scavengers (required for mission) pretty much killing your chance of ever gaining enough rec's (no recycler on that mission)


i can imagine the campaign not working and that i should dual-install the earlier 1.1 / 1.2 for the campaign, 
though i am unable to find the 1.2 patch :/ (used Filefront and google,  neither of them worked 4 me...)
(i did find the 1.1 patch,  but when playing a game with that version pressing escape (opening the menu) does not apear to be working

could anyone tell me if the campaign fails on 1.3  and where to find the 1.2 patch  ?

[bigbadbogie]

1.2 is hosted on Bzscrap.com.

And there may be a few bugs in the SP campaign in 1.3. Small tweaks to multiplayer have had some strange effects on the campaign over the years and they are yet to be fixed.

The Scion pilots always try to get into the scavengers in mission 12. That has happened since 1.0. I suggest that you kill all the Scion pilots you can find before they can get into the scavs.

[Axeminister]

I like that on ThinIce they come at you full force. I suggest deploying two extractors, make scavenger to scavenge, then build turrets for that onslaught, put them all around your base.
On Counterattack the first thing I do is deploy the empty scavengers on pools west of base and build guntowers at the the farthest pool to get ready for the titans. Put units like sabres and the rocket tank at the closest empty pool you find to keep them from destroying it. Then beef up towers at base. Snipe the guardians East of base and deploy your only manned scavenger.
TA5 is the best patch so far. Join us in some mpi action when you can.

[Red Spot]

first of all, when playing the campaign i often get a DX9 error in-game

could anyone tell me if the campaign fails on 1.3

I think those are caused by explosions, at least it "seems" it "can" happen when things say poof! while on your screen.
So far they havent caused me not to be able to finish any mission, I've played the ISDF mission up to the last one (which I havent played as I dont like it..) and the scion campaign has been completed without problems.

example on mission: Thin Ice (11)  when the recycler clears of the ice fields about 2,5 min after deploying it a swarm of 20+ scion vessels attack your base)
another example on mission: Counterattack (12) after securing the base that is under attack,  scion pilots would enter the derelict scavengers (required for mission) pretty much killing your chance of ever gaining enough rec's (no recycler on that mission)

(11) Pretty much as it has been, perhaps they trow a bit more at you at once but it also happened in 1.2.

(12) Also happened in 1.2 ... however a lot and a lot less. You can however still get all scavs and end up with 4 pools, which is one more than you will need. (right after the fight lead the tug to the scavs, let it pick up the one nearest to base and take the wheel of the other one yourself ... the "titan attack" is of a much bigger issue than getting scavs .... )

[Vid]

On Thin Ice:
With TA5, and perhaps 1.3 in general, I believe they decided for the enemies to send more or less, their entire force at you when they attack(that means almost every last ship).  While the original 1.0 version usually has a medium size force guarding the base and never venturing out, this makes it so there is a very large first attack that will come at your base in this mission.  There are two methods of dealing with this, but you have to be fast on both.  

Method #1 as posted above could/probably does work and involves pumping out as many turrets as possible to try to have a good enough fire rate to kill the enemy ships before you dig your own grave.  Method #2, which is my favorite, just involves rushing everything you can to get 1 power, a relay, and 2 towers up as quickly as you can.  However....  once those 2 gun towers are up(later fortified by a third),  the game is pretty much over... you have a sufficient turtle because the enemy won't come in an attack group large enough ever again to do enough damage to those towers.  

If I remember correctly, they focus in on your transport in the attack, or they did in one version.   It may be possible to try to take that transport around somewhere and lead them away, but being its very slow, and sentries are fast....  If you can get past the first few minutes and survive that first assault...  the game is pretty much yours after that because other waves will be weaker and theres a few ways to get almost unlimited scrap on this level(not that 3 pools won't give you enough as is).  Also you can deploy the recycler on the far side of the first pool at the base site to get more buildable room(not sure why, but if you put it on the near side,  you can't build as much around the pool as you can if you put it on the far side).

I retried on thin ice with the turret method and it works very well as well, not as flawless as towers though.
You have time to get 6-7 total turrets made, and 5-6 deployed if you don't waste much time before that first wave comes.  This was fine to hold off that first wave.  I wouldn't want to try it with less than 4 though.


Counterattack -
For this mission, TA5 has really helped the scions focus on you at the beginning...  
When you first drop to your tank, they will almost immediately switch to firing at you, and there has been a time or two I was killed before I ever got in my tank, or lost my tank shortly after since its already low on health.  Do what you can to survive this assault with 2 gun towers intact, and your own tank intact.  Take out a building after that to restore power(my favorite is the armory).  Now you have to be speedy again.  Right after you take out that armory(or before if you want to be risky), the primary objective is to get both those scavs to your training facility as fast as possible.  Order the tug to follow you, have it pick up one, you jump in the other.  

Get both back to base and set them down/hop out.  Go run back and get your tank.  While you are doing this, you could have dropped a nav at the service bay, and had your remaining tanks gather there for repairs.  You don't have service trucks this mission, so I advise putting the scavs on the service bay priority one over the tanks, and then sending one out to the pool.   At this point you will soon have 40 scrap limit soon.  You need 60 for gun towers.  The west pool is unguarded, but will soon have titans coming through (especially it seems if you move any units/yourself over there.. as they seem to focus on you with some of the attacking units).  Have one constructor put down a power or two, while you send your other constructor over to that nav point(may have wanted to have him walking before hand or have the tug pick up the constructor).  

Have your scav and your hover tanks follow you as soon as that constructor is close.  Put the scav on the pool and soon as it hits 50, put down a relay.  You may get attacked by warriors/lancers here, but try to hold.  Soon as it hits 50 again, put a tower down and keep holding.  You'll need at least two towers to stop titans if you have no other units there, so stay til you can put down a 2nd or 3rd.  Generally this early I don't see my two scav pools near my base get attacked much so they will be ok, but its time to give them at least one tower too just to be safe.  Move the constructor back to the 2 pools and put a tower/relay on the west one.  With 3 towers holding the NW pool and 1 tower holding the W pool, you should in theory be ok at this point.  You have your 4th scavenger way up in the NE, but I've not seen him ever get attacked unless he moved.    Reinforce your base if you need, upgrade your extractors if you didn't while putting towers down.  Two towers should protect your base from hovercraft, but later on maulers will come.  I don't recall the enemy building any additional titans.  Snipe or assault the turrets on the NE pool and you may get attacked by warriors/lancers.  

Draw them back to your base's gun towers if needed.  Send your constructor ahead of you again, as the enemy seems to only attack "your base" and "you", so by staying in your base, all attacks come to you usually(titans still have to go around).   Race up to the constructor when its near and lay a relay/tower, and then another tower, call the scav in to the pool.  At this point you are pretty much fully secure.  Only a mauler attack can really do any damage.

You will not be able to build walkers(4 pools max), and will only need 4 pools for assault tanks/rocket tanks/APCs if memory serves(building for APC requires 70).  Even with 3 pools, you can manually put sp stabbers or whatever weapon you like on your tanks manually and take mortar bikes or whatever else you want to assault the base with besides walkers/rockettanks/assaulttanks/APCs.  They really don't have that substainal of a defense.

Personally my only campaign crash I've encountered was in PB4a where the first scion mission would AV and crash.  Although I seem to get random A/Vs or crashes on Hole in One after about 30-60min into the mission.  Sometimes it works just fine though.  Usually its during my attack on one of the bases or just after I've cleared one and am about to head to clear the other.

[bb1]

So... to regain focus, how about those DX9 bugs that flash throughout? DX9 Issue Something something something noted...constantly on those two missions.

EDIT: which seem to go away when headlights are turned off...peculiar.... (even though headlights and DX9 hate each other, these two missions seem limited to the issues)

[GSH]

So... to regain focus, how about those DX9 bugs that flash throughout? DX9 Issue Something something something noted...constantly on those two missions.

Our crystal ball is a little cloudy. We can't read what's on your screen. Describing an error as "something something" isn't specific enough for anyone to help you. Go look in your battlezone.log file for the full text.

-- GSH

[Nielk1]

Screen flashing is almost always a drivers thing. ALMOST.

If that is what he meant.

[Shadowsun]

alright thx for some tips,  the guntower thing rly sped up the prev mission ( to think that i took all the trouble of sniping a scion sentry and using assault mode to kil em faster.... (also works !!! .. mostly)

going to try counterattack and hop in a scavenger (never considered that i could pilot one... or.. drive)


about DX9 errors,  i have seen them on other missions aswell,  but 11 and 12 are the only ones where i could not advance and noticed a significant change in enemy behaviour

it apears the extra challenge on the campaign only adds up to the fun... previusly when u deployed 2/3 guntowers ure victory was olmost certainly secured (unless u went walking into their base)

[Vid]

Generally two-three towers was enough before, because the enemy(scion) never sent enough units at a time.
two-three towers is still enough for most missions in TA5.  Fanning the Flame, they can sometimes send 2 maulers + 2 titans which can overwhelm 3 towers at times.  4-5 towers puts them down though.  Payback will also see some titan assaults, but usually 3 towers will hold,  2 may not.  However payback has a more interesting enemy because of the difficult terrain in that mission.

You'll find more fun in the scion missions later when towers won't be able to handle some of the ISDF units without proper planning/diversion.  Hole in One is also notorious for overwhelming two towers, but it was also in 1.0 I believe.

[GSH]

about DX9 errors,  i have seen them on other missions aswell,  but 11 and 12 are the only ones where i could not advance and noticed a significant change in enemy behaviour

You still haven't done what's been asked: post the EXACT error message. And it's still in the battlezone.log file, as above. None of this handwaving about "an error occurred." Your posts are uselessly vague if you want to get help fixing the problem locally, and/or help get this issue fixed for the next public release.

-- GSH

[bb1]

On thin ice

Code Select Expand


ERR |            AudioSys:3650 |00:08:08|50706  |Play 'ieng01b.wav' failed with hResult 80004005. Flags were
ERR |                 vid:256  |00:09:19|122498 |IndexBuffer::Create(0x00000000 (0 * 2), 0x00000008, D3DFMT_INDEX16, 1
ERR |                 vid:259  |00:09:19|122498 |.\IndexBuffer.cpp(330):  failed with DX Error 0x8876086C(-2005530516) == 'D3DERR_INVALIDCALL'
ERR |       ConsoleHelper:28   |00:09:19|122498 |DX Error(0x8876086C) noted.
DIAG|            runcodes:154  |00:09:25|127853 |[Mission] Entering run code [ESCAPE]


[TheJamsh]

Thats probably not enough. Just post the whole log.

[AHadley]

If you can replicate the error and get a dialog box on-screen, copy and paste its contents too.

[GSH]

Does the DX error go away if you turn reflections off? If so, that's already been fixed.

-- GSH