Random Npc appears instead of MY Bridge officer

adverbero

I have noticed this for a while

On GROUND/INTERIOR map, my Ship BOFFs are not showing up, instead one of the Random Officers is comming up, often very silly looking aliens, wearing ugly uniforms

This has become so frustrating i have begun to instead create my own characters , Such as Transporter Chief , to interact with instead of using the BOFF
( something i will probably keep doing, as i think it makes good sense anyhow)

But i would like to ask, and perhaps get a response, as to why the players BOFFS are being replaced by the place holders , as it is something irritating enough to effect the way i write missions in the foundry , and i would like to know when, if ever, this problem will be rectified



(I AM AWARE THIS IS NOT A BUG SPECIFIC TO FOUNDRY, BUT I AM POSTING HERE AS MY ISSUE IS IN CONTEXT OF THE FOUNDRY)

thegreendragoon1

I believe (I think) this is a know issue, but it hasn't gotten as much attention in the face of more serious bugs.

adverbero

Thats fair, CTD's are much more urgeant, i don't mind it being on the backburner i guess, just wanted to know if this is effecting ALL/most players or just a minority

crypticfrost

This is a known issue and there should be a fix inbound. Keep an eye on the patch notes.

umaeko

YES! Finally!

maxxstaron

I'm still having this issue...it's been months and it's annoying. It was fine before the LOR expansion. Is there a way to fix this?

thegreendragoon1

I too would like to see a fix for this issue. It's one of those bugs that is player facing and pretty obvious.

crypticfrost

The general issue, as far as I know was fixed and I haven't seen anything like this with Boff dialogs for a while.

Where is this currently being seen? All Foundry missions? All characters? All factions?

zorbane

When you use a ship boff costume in a dialogue pop up on a ground map

designationxr377

It is the same issue as this, Frost. You should be able to use this info or track down whatever got started the first time on your end.

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=707561

Further posts (Some without responses)

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=764491

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=839541

maxxstaron

When I go to my ship's bridge or shuttle. I see all the NPC's officers and maybe only a few of my own. The only ones of mine I see are the ones I have selected for my away team. I tried switching to other officers for my away team..it worked for day but only 90% showed up, I was still missing a few. The next day it went back to just the 4 officers i use for away team. I tried switching them again, this time no effect.


I haven't tried the foundry, this is prob happening there too. I couldn't find anywhere else in the forums with a similar issue. My bridge officers are glitched. NPC's replaced my BO's on the bridge of my ship as if i never created the others. Also when i communicate with the ship for beaming up..It says BO1's name but shows BO2's face.

You can move this to a more appropriate thread..I just couldn't find anyone with the same issue besides here.

overlapo

crypticfrost wrote: »

The general issue, as far as I know was fixed and I haven't seen anything like this with Boff dialogs for a while.

Where is this currently being seen? All Foundry missions? All characters? All factions?

No, it was never fixed. And you are not going to see it because the bug affects only some old accounts.

This here is the latest thread about it. Keep in mind that this is an old bug, well over a year old by now. And I have never seen anyone with a 2013 or newer account reporting on it.

The bug as far as I can tell happens when something disturbs the order of the boffs in the character screen. If they are not ordered alphabetically some will glitch and fail to load on a map transfer. Stuff that causes them to lose alphabetical order is, for example, go into a ground map with your boffs (like New Romulus, the Voth ground Battlezone and most ground story and foundry missions).
It can be fixed in a temporary fashion by following the steps in the post I linked (it will order the boffs alphabetically), but the bug will happen again if the characters are forced out of order again.

And I will repeat it again, it ONLY affects some accounts and the bug can ONLY be reproduced within these accounts.

starswordc

overlapo wrote: »

This here is the latest thread about it. Keep in mind that this is an old bug, well over a year old by now. And I have never seen anyone with a 2013 or newer account reporting on it.

*cough cough hack*

I was having it occasionally before the season 9 update, now it's an epidemic. And I joined in August.

overlapo

starswordc wrote: »

*cough cough hack*

I was having it occasionally before the season 9 update, now it's an epidemic. And I joined in August.

Bummer, sorry to hear that. At least you get a temporary fix now. I wish I had that a year ago...

thegreendragoon1

Hmm, I bet you this is also what's causing the boff appearance errors on the character select screen. I've got one that's hanging in space in place of my starship. This may seem like a display problem only, but it sure is TRIBBLE with a lot of systems.

overlapo

thegreendragoon1 wrote: »

Hmm, I bet you this is also what's causing the boff appearance errors on the character select screen. I've got one that's hanging in space in place of my starship. This may seem like a display problem only, but it sure is TRIBBLE with a lot of systems.

I know it is messing with the new loadout feature. If the boffs are glitched when you try to change loadouts you end up with empty boff stations.
I hope Cryptic can solve this, it will clean up a lot the of white noise they keep getting in the bug reports.

starswordc

thegreendragoon1 wrote: »

Hmm, I bet you this is also what's causing the boff appearance errors on the character select screen. I've got one that's hanging in space in place of my starship. This may seem like a display problem only, but it sure is TRIBBLE with a lot of systems.

Saw that one before when I was upgrading my boffs to purple. http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=898421

thegreendragoon1

Yikes! It's worse for you. At least my suspended Boff wasn't wearing a skirt.

crypticfrost

overlapo wrote: »

No, it was never fixed. And you are not going to see it because the bug affects only some old accounts.

This here is the latest thread about it. Keep in mind that this is an old bug, well over a year old by now. And I have never seen anyone with a 2013 or newer account reporting on it.

The bug as far as I can tell happens when something disturbs the order of the boffs in the character screen. If they are not ordered alphabetically some will glitch and fail to load on a map transfer. Stuff that causes them to lose alphabetical order is, for example, go into a ground map with your boffs (like New Romulus, the Voth ground Battlezone and most ground story and foundry missions).
It can be fixed in a temporary fashion by following the steps in the post I linked (it will order the boffs alphabetically), but the bug will happen again if the characters are forced out of order again.

And I will repeat it again, it ONLY affects some accounts and the bug can ONLY be reproduced within these accounts.

Thanks for the information.

markhawkman

thegreendragoon1 wrote: »

Hmm, I bet you this is also what's causing the boff appearance errors on the character select screen. I've got one that's hanging in space in place of my starship. This may seem like a display problem only, but it sure is TRIBBLE with a lot of systems.

It seems to be a systemic flaw. I hate to say it, but I don't think it's season 9 or 8, but LoR. Here's an example from Season 8. For reference, while the Borg is obviously a Boff, the two science ensigns and the eng ensign are placeholders taking the place of my actual Boffs. Doing a mouseover showed them to be named "Science officer" or "Engineer officer". When I looked at my Boff seats I saw that only the Borg guy was slotted the way he was supposed to be. Clicking on him re-filled the seating the way it was supposed to be, but the ground team was left with the 3 placeholders.

millybun

I would also like to add that this issue and all related to it (*MY* BOffs not showing up in dialog windows and in maps that call for player's BOffs to appear but not be in party, ESPECIALLY on the player bridge) have been plaguing me for the better part of a year if not longer.

I have more than a dozen BOffs on my one character, and they all used to take up every available bridge interior position available until some time ago, now I'm lucky if even one of my BOffs appears on my bridge at all, it seems like.

One thing I've vaguely noticed is that BOffs that I've just taken on a ground map mission tend to usually show up on my bridge afterwards, so not sure if that helps any.

Newer characters (at least since the Romulan expansion's release) also have this issue.


If this could get fixed, I would certainly enjoy seeing my own bridge again without random NPCs taking my BOffs' positions and would be grateful for it.

maxxstaron

I didn't have this issue until LOR. The only place it affects me is the player ship bridge. Yeah like I said before, I only have my 4 away team BOFFs, I tried switching the others to away team...7/9 BOFFs showed up, It worked for a few hours then back to the 4 away team...i repeated and didn't work the 2nd time.

On my ship bridge I should have my 9 BOFFs but I get 4 of them and 6 other "Science/Tactical/Eng Officer" NPCs instead of my other 6 BOFFs.

maxxstaron

I think I found a fix to it!!

Set all "stations" to none..then put BO back into slots, but have them all in a station slot so no BO is placed twice unless you have less than 12 (can move them later). While replacing BOs to slots watch on the left as they rearrange to alphabetical order. Then go to "visit starship bridge"..it should be fixed with all NPC's gone...

if NPCs still showing..go to a place to switch ships and visit that bridge...keep visiting bridges until all of your BOFFs show up again..



this may be a temporary fix.

maxxstaron

maxxstaron wrote: »

I think I found a fix to it!!

Set all "stations" to none..then put BO back into slots, but have them all in a station slot so no BO is placed twice unless you have less than 12 (can move them later). While replacing BOs to slots watch on the left as they rearrange to alphabetical order. Then go to "visit starship bridge"..it should be fixed with all NPC's gone...

if NPCs still showing..go to a place to switch ships and visit that bridge...keep visiting bridges until all of your BOFFs show up again..



this may be temporary....I hope not.

My fix worked but the next time I logged on my BOFFs switched out of alphabetical order and the NPCs came back...if i redo the steps i did before to get them back in alphabetical order...it should be another temp fix.

I want a permanent fix!

designationxr377

I would like a fix that doesn't require someone to find a forum post in an esoteric section of the forums. After all, it's not me who I am worried about here, it's the general player playing foundry/cryptic missions.

overlapo

maxxstaron wrote: »

I want a permanent fix!

This will permanently fix your boffs, at least until you trigger the bug again by doing a ground map with them.

All you need to do is to go to a ground social map and note which one of your boffs would be last if ordered alphabetically. Then use the shuttle boff station to slot all the boffs, one after another WITHOUT unslotting them boffs, just slot them one after another, slotting the boff noted earlier last. Then unslot that boff, change maps twice and you are fixed. At least until the next time you trigger the bug.

Anything more permanent than that is up to Cryptic.

thegreendragoon1

So I've been playing around with this and I can produce it consistently now. From my observations, the boff list not being in order another symptom of the cause (vs. being the direct cause.) It defiantly looks like when the engine forces your away team into a non-standard configuration, some type of back-end mismatch occurs.

CrypticFrost, here are repo steps for you:

To cause the Boffs to become mismatched:

1. Proceed to the Dyson Ground Battle
2. Choose two officers that do not come first in alphabetical order.
3. Beam down.
4. The two officers will now appear at the top of the list instead of in their correct places.

The character now has a mismatched Boffs. This will cause errors on the character screen as well as the space Boffs to appear as generic officers while on ground maps in the Foundry.

(Note: that even if you did pick the first and second boffs as you're choice for the Dyson battle zone, a mismatch still occurs, you just can't see it.)

To get the Boffs back in to their proper order:

1. Open the character stauts window.
2. Go to the Stations Tab
3. Systematically assign each of your Boffs to your shuttle Boff slot. (You will see the Boff list reorder as you do.)
4. Once you're finished, the boff list should stop reordering no matter which boff you assign to the shuttle.
5. Your boffs are now properly aligned and the bugs here no longer occur.

I should point out that the Dyson ground battlezone probably isn't the only zone that can cause this bug, just the most convenient.

overlapo

thegreendragoon1 wrote: »

CrypticFrost, here are repo steps for you:

I gave CrypticFrost the same repro steps but using New Romulus staging area several months ago and he couldn't reproduce the bug.
I tried to reproduce it myself in a second account and couldn't. Those same steps will work every time in my main account. That is why I posted that it only happens on some accounts and why Cryptic has failed to reproduce and fix it so far.

thegreendragoon1

Then perhaps we should get a few people to try these steps and see if we can find a pattern.

EDIT: I tested it with a character that had been created relatively recently and I still had the same results. I'd really like someone newer to the game to test these steps.

crypticfrost

VICTORY!

I finally got this to reproduce!

I can't promise a fix, but at least I can properly report the issue now, and the programmers have an in house account to debug.

Thanks for all the info guys, it helped track this down.

idkode

*blinks* Mein gott! We may get a fix! Huuzah! Three Cheers for Frost!