Dissapearing NPC Groups

thegreendragoon1

I've noticed a bug that while in the Foundry preview, NPC groups seem to on occasion vanish half way through a fight. I haven't seen any evidence yet that this continues after publish, but even for testing purposes, this can be very annoying as it will break any attached objective or trigger.

drogyn1701

Are these mobs that you have patrolling? Cause I had that bug on tribble and it was with mobs I had set to patrol.

areikou

I saw this in my mission yesterday during previewing. Both on ground and in space. Have two large groups in space and they would start vanishing while fighting one another, then reappear half a map away and start fighting again.

Ground is different, they'll just fall through the floor, regardless of elevation settings.

The falling through the floor ones were set on patrol, but not all of them were and it still happened.

Space has none set for patrol.

nagorak

I noticed that my NPCs were falling through the floor when in combat also and they were not set to patrol. It happened with every single NPC group on the Generic Starship Bridge, including my Boffs. I don't know if it happens on other maps because I haven't really checked.

Are the problems fixed after publish, because if not we have a big problem?

nagorak

I'm experiencing the problem in space as well. It seems to happen especially with the Hirogen Battleship when it uses Jam Targeting Sensors. It jumps 30 km away. But it happens with other ships, too.

The Hirogen Battleship also seems to wink out of existence sometimes if it can't immediately engage you. Something really screwy is going on.

And, even if it works after publishing, the current mess makes it so testing is almost impossible.

kirksplat

nagorak wrote: »

I noticed that my NPCs were falling through the floor when in combat also and they were not set to patrol. It happened with every single NPC group on the Generic Starship Bridge, including my Boffs. I don't know if it happens on other maps because I haven't really checked.

Are the problems fixed after publish, because if not we have a big problem?

I just tested this on Generic Bridge 01. I had two mobs (Borg Lt 03 and Fed Lt 03) engaged in combat. Nobody fell through the floor. Was this the same bridge that you used?

markhawkman

I've been seeing a strange bug that causes both NPCs and Boffs to spontaneously relocate to a predefined location. The catch? It's not the default spawn point.... It might be the 0/0/0 point though. I'm not quite sure. Zelatta Space#2 after the battle starts some of the ships suddenly relocate to a spot in the dead center of the map.... and inside a planet... On outdoor ground maps, such as Zelatta surface, the point they move to is off the edge of the map and under the ground.... needless to say they don't come back. In the case of Boffs it seems to be triggered by them bumping into something. In any situation where they would stop moving they warp to the zero point.

this sounds like it might be related to your issue. But I've noticed that the issue disappears when you publish the map.

nagorak

nagorak wrote: »

I'm experiencing the problem in space as well. It seems to happen especially with the Hirogen Battleship when it uses Jam Targeting Sensors. It jumps 30 km away. But it happens with other ships, too.

The Hirogen Battleship also seems to wink out of existence sometimes if it can't immediately engage you. Something really screwy is going on.

And, even if it works after publishing, the current mess makes it so testing is almost impossible.

It turns out the Hirogen Battleship winking out was because it was embedded in an invisible wall. Apparently NPCs despawn if they're stuck now. Increasing the size of the invisible wall cage fixed that problem.

However all other space NPCs warp far away. I think they're jumping to the middle of the map. It makes testing difficulty absolutely impossible in preview. Pathing works after publish, but it's going to be a major pain if we can't test combat balance until after publish.

nagorak

kirksplat wrote: »

I just tested this on Generic Bridge 01. I had two mobs (Borg Lt 03 and Fed Lt 03) engaged in combat. Nobody fell through the floor. Was this the same bridge that you used?

Yeah it's Generic Bridge 01. They're falling through in preview. I haven't tested if it works after publish, but I expect that it does. Of course, reviewing is off, but no one as mailed me that they had a problem so far. I'll check to make sure it's all good in a few minutes.

kirksplat

nagorak wrote: »

Yeah it's Generic Bridge 01. They're falling through in preview. I haven't tested if it works after publish, but I expect that it does. Of course, reviewing is off, but no one as mailed me that they had a problem so far. I'll check to make sure it's all good in a few minutes.

I was also testing in preview. Can you see if you can recreate it and then tell me the exact mobs that you're using?

inkrunner

I'm having this same problem while testing - it doesn't matter what map or which mob I'm fighting. They aren't falling through the floor, they're just vanishing mid-combat.

So far it's happened to Borg NPCs, Breen, Devidians, and Fek'irhi. On the ground, it seems to occur more often when my weapon causes knockback. It is possible that the short time that knockback effects leave the NPC stuck may be enough for the AI to delete it.

I haven't seen any NPC disappearances in space.

markhawkman

Hmm... that reminds me.... in space it seems to happen most often when the AI gets hit with a tractor beam. But in space they always seem to relocate to the zero point on the map.

Each time it's happened in an interior ground map, the characters have also moved to the center of the map. (on some maps this is empty space on some it's part of a room)

Exterior ground has them move to the extreme SW corner of the map.

It happens to my Boffs a LOT on ground. Tripping over a rock causes them to warp to the SW of an exterior ground map.

markhawkman

I did some more testing and made pictures.

My new testing confirms my earlier hypothesis. My Boffs WERE getting relocated to the zero point on the map.(the location of 0/0/0 coordinates)

For some reason on ground exterior maps the zero point is (at least sometimes) outside the actual map.

before

Here we have a tiny wall that barely protrudes above ground.

after

But my boffs "trip" on it and warp to the zero point. Yeah, I can see the location of my boffs on the mini map. I've had this happen in at least one other exterior ground map and it was the same location then too.

Prior to season 7, this same scenario would cause my boffs to stop moving and stand there like idiots.

designationxr377

Well, although I can verify that the preview causes mobs to disappear randomly I can also 100% say there has been no problem with that once published on live.

Not saying we're good here or anything, but, at least it's not happening out there.

markhawkman

Yeah, publishing caused the issue with boffs to disappear. I remember Zero said something about how pathing is calculated when you publish so it could be related to that.

I have no idea how a pathing issue causes the game to blank an NPC's coordinates, but whatever....

nagorak

The problem seems to be how NPCs handle the lack of pathing data in preview. However it used to work was better. They still got stuck and didn't know how to get around, but they could at least perform on a basic level.

It's especially annoying that this happens in space, because frankly pathing data usually shouldn't even be needed in space, since it's so open anyway.

kirksplat

markhawkman wrote: »

Yeah, publishing caused the issue with boffs to disappear. I remember Zero said something about how pathing is calculated when you publish so it could be related to that.

I have no idea how a pathing issue causes the game to blank an NPC's coordinates, but whatever....

I think this is what happened with "Relics." There is eventually a building set to be on top of the spawn point, so somehow the boffs are spawning somewhere else. But I can't really reproduce the bug.

If we can figure it out, then we could make missions without away teams.