Mastiffs + invisible wall = trouble

erei1

I have a problem with one of my mission. It was supposed to be easy, and in the end it's a nightmare. Also, I'm running out of red shirts.
Before I start, the mission is not a BOFF grinder or whatever. It's part of the story.

The situation : I have several Mastiffs (same bug with targs, and I any melees) inside a small "arena" made of invisible walls and broken forcefield. Since they can move through the forcefield, I need the invisible walls to "stop" them. I can't use rocks, or anything else than forcefield and invisible wall.
Then, several ensigns appear inside the "arena". Mastiffs and ensigns fight, ensigns loose, the player can't do anything. Sound easy.
However, the mastiffs AND the ensigns go THROUGH the invisible wall, and then start a battle royale with the player. It seems they get "stuck" when reaching the wall, for some unknown reason, and are teleported on the other side.
Also, it seems the more invisible walls I use, the more likely they will get teleported. The more mastiffs I have, the more likely they will get teleported.

I'm working for a solution since a week, and it's driving me nuts. So far, on 3 "arenas" situations, 2 are working as intended, 1 is not. And they are EXACTLY the same.

The mission is not published, because of this bug, and Tribble is down, so I can't show you (I have a tribble "crashtest" mission).

If someone have an advice, that would be awesome.

stardestroyer001

Publish the mission (add to the description that it's a DON'T PLAY, Author testing only) and play it, see if the problem goes away.

Something is wrong with the Foundry editor in regards to pathing. Only way to know for sure whether your map has issues or not is to publish it.

nagorak

There's a bug in preview which has been mentioned.

However, enemies also can and do jump through invisible walls. It's something to do with the anti-stuck behavior. What you can do is double or triple wall the encounter. That should prevent them from making it all the way out, for the most part, and also prevent the player's boffs from jumping inside.

erei1

It's not during preview. During preview they simply goes through the ground, and spawn in the middle of the map, along with the away team. No matter what.
It happen when the mission is published.

That make it even more painful, as I have to publish it each time I want to see if I solved the bug.

As for the double/triple wall, that was my idea at first, but the more I added walls, the more likely they'll bug and goes through.

skydawnknight

Two questions:

Have you tried using the tall invisible walls?

And second, did you try moving the mobs encounter radius away from where the player is standing? Ex: Have the mastiff and ensigns in each other's combat radius but move the radius as far up as you can away from where the player is standing. All you need is one mob in each radius to start the encounter. Not sure if that works with your map, but it's just an idea.

erei1

skydawnknight wrote: »

Two questions:

Have you tried using the tall invisible walls?

Yes. I always do

And second, did you try moving the mobs encounter radius away from where the player is standing? Ex: Have the mastiff and ensigns in each other's combat radius but move the radius as far up as you can away from where the player is standing. All you need is one mob in each radius to start the encounter. Not sure if that works with your map, but it's just an idea.

I can't do that. The map is too small for that (facility 4028), and the radius are large. The problem doesn't seems to comes from the mastiff wanting to aggro the player. They don't go through the wall before the ensigns spawn.

skydawnknight

Hmm... ok. I wonder if it's the mobs themselves? I've never used melee mobs behind walls before.

How about instead of putting multiple walls up to block the mastiffs, you still put a wall up for them but also put a full wall up around the player at the same time?

nagorak

Is it the mastiffs that are jumping through to attack the player? If so, try changing the ensigns to be another faction besides Fed. I think what may be happening is the mastiffs are getting in combat with Fed faction and then identifying the player as being part of the faction they're fighting.

Even if I'm wrong this should fix the problem: set mastiffs to be a neutral group type. Despite the name this sort of group is neutral only to Fed/Klink factions. Set the ensign group to be any faction besides Fed/Klink and the mastiffs will attack them while being totally neutral to the player. In edition you can set the ensigns to Timid to make them even less likely to attack the player (the mastiffs should initiate combat with them).

In this way even it they jump through they should not attack the player.

erei1

skydawnknight wrote: »

Hmm... ok. I wonder if it's the mobs themselves? I've never used melee mobs behind walls before.

How about instead of putting multiple walls up to block the mastiffs, you still put a wall up for them but also put a full wall up around the player at the same time?

Did that to. Makes the bug more likely to occur

nagorak wrote: »

Is it the mastiffs that are jumping through to attack the player? If so, try changing the ensigns to be another faction besides Fed. I think what may be happening is the mastiffs are getting in combat with Fed faction and then identifying the player as being part of the faction they're fighting.

Even if I'm wrong this should fix the problem: set mastiffs to be a neutral group type. Despite the name this sort of group is neutral only to Fed/Klink factions. Set the ensign group to be any faction besides Fed/Klink and the mastiffs will attack them while being totally neutral to the player. In edition you can set the ensigns to Timid to make them even less likely to attack the player (the mastiffs should initiate combat with them).

In this way even it they jump through they should not attack the player.

I already set the ensign to timid. I was trying to make a summary execution, but no matter what I do, the ensign start shooting. I suppose they nerfed "timid" creature because of all the grind foundry mission there is.
I'll try the neutral mastiff. However, the ensigns are "allies" to the player.

nagorak

I think that changing the faction of the Ensigns will solve the problem based on my experience with a similar situation. You can use mirror universe Fed. It may be weird that they are "red" to the player, but it probably won't be that noticeable and they'll die pretty fast.

The setting mastiffs to neutral group is just an added backup to prevent them from attacking the player.

paxfederatica

I'm seeing the same issue with mobs of Devidians. In this case I have them invisi-walled off from other enemy mobs to keep them from attacking each other, but they manage to do so anyway. Like erei1, I am also using tall invisi-walls, but that doesn't help.

erei1

I found my problem. It seems it came from some incompatibility between the broken forcefield and the invisible wall. I removed the invisible walls, just kept the forcefield, and it works fine. Finally.
@Pax, maybe the devidian have some special ability that let them go through invisible wall ? I know they can be "phased", maybe that's it ? Also, they fly. Try with something else, like I don't know, Cardassian, Klingons, just to see if it works.

Now I need to have some of my sanity back. I should ask to the leprechaun and the unicorn I saw before in the kitchen.