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Crystalline Entity - possible bug(s)
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Greetings.
I just returned from my latest attempt to destroy the Entity with my tac / advanced escort. Let me just give you a little after action report:
At first, we were only a few people and barely able to do enough damage to even work against the entities self-heal. But over time more and more people joined the fight and we started to hurt it. All was mostly well until...
Problem 1.) ... until we brought the entity down to about 34%. The creature "flashed" for a moment, disappearing completely. At the same time all the shards stopped moving.
After a few seconds, the creature returned, we resumed our attack and the shards started moving again. Well, at least for a little longer up to...
Problem 2.) ... up to somewhere between 30% and 25%, I didn't pay much attention to the hit points of the entity at the time. Anyway, the entity warped away. It just vanished completely, as did all the shards.
For some reason, as we discovered moments later, the entity had aborted the fight and returned to it's starting location just behind the cracked planet - having regenerated to FULL HP.
However, since we had a few good people and we all were working together nicely, we once again attacked. We inflicted serious damage, much faster even than before. At this point I was convinced we would have a serious chance of killing the entity.
All went extremely well until, once again....
Problem 1.) .... once again we reached about 34%. The entity once again flashed and vanished for several seconds, while all the shards stopped moving. It returned moments later and the battle resumed, as did the shard movement.
We kept wearing the creature down, and safe for only a few minor mishaps we were definitely bringing it down. Or so I thought up to....
Problem 3.) ... up to about 3% to 5%. The entity was regenerating it's hitpoints now at a rate that almost matched the damage we dealt to it. I guess some more people got hit by large fragments, though I was too busy to stay alive myself ant keep firing to get a clear view of all my comrades.
Then, as we reached 2%.... well, the entity flashed again, and then disappeared for about the third or fourth time. However this time it was gone much longer while the shards not only remained but kept chasing after us.
In all the confusion I guess some people were hit by large shards, as well as a few npc ships that had gotten in the way.
When the entity finally reappeared and was targettable again, it was already back to about 43% hp. Within the following 30 seconds, most of our battle group was destroyed and the entity was back to 98%.
I left the area at that point, giving up. From what I was able to gather some others left as well, irritated and frustrated.
To make matters worse...
Problem 4.) ... worse, at least as far as I could tell zone chat was inoperable during almost the entire time. It didn't even show me my own messages that I had typed. It almost looked like as if I had put myself, everyone in the area and even the combat messages that are shown in the normal chat window on ignore - which I clearly didn't, as I was able to use zone chat normally once again after exiting the encounter and returning to sector space.
To summarize my report:
- The entity disappeared several times during the fight, each time becoming completely untargettable.
- For reasons unknown the entity aborted the fight once and completely reset itself.
- At very low hp, the entity "combined" it's "disappearing trick" with an increased self-regenaration rate.
- Also for reasons unknown zone chat was seemingly completely disabled, at least from what I can tell, during practically the entire time I was inside the Crystalline Entity fleet action.
Now, I truely wonder if any of this is intentional or if the entity has "contracted" a few nasty bugs.
I just returned from my latest attempt to destroy the Entity with my tac / advanced escort. Let me just give you a little after action report:
At first, we were only a few people and barely able to do enough damage to even work against the entities self-heal. But over time more and more people joined the fight and we started to hurt it. All was mostly well until...
Problem 1.) ... until we brought the entity down to about 34%. The creature "flashed" for a moment, disappearing completely. At the same time all the shards stopped moving.
After a few seconds, the creature returned, we resumed our attack and the shards started moving again. Well, at least for a little longer up to...
Problem 2.) ... up to somewhere between 30% and 25%, I didn't pay much attention to the hit points of the entity at the time. Anyway, the entity warped away. It just vanished completely, as did all the shards.
For some reason, as we discovered moments later, the entity had aborted the fight and returned to it's starting location just behind the cracked planet - having regenerated to FULL HP.
However, since we had a few good people and we all were working together nicely, we once again attacked. We inflicted serious damage, much faster even than before. At this point I was convinced we would have a serious chance of killing the entity.
All went extremely well until, once again....
Problem 1.) .... once again we reached about 34%. The entity once again flashed and vanished for several seconds, while all the shards stopped moving. It returned moments later and the battle resumed, as did the shard movement.
We kept wearing the creature down, and safe for only a few minor mishaps we were definitely bringing it down. Or so I thought up to....
Problem 3.) ... up to about 3% to 5%. The entity was regenerating it's hitpoints now at a rate that almost matched the damage we dealt to it. I guess some more people got hit by large fragments, though I was too busy to stay alive myself ant keep firing to get a clear view of all my comrades.
Then, as we reached 2%.... well, the entity flashed again, and then disappeared for about the third or fourth time. However this time it was gone much longer while the shards not only remained but kept chasing after us.
In all the confusion I guess some people were hit by large shards, as well as a few npc ships that had gotten in the way.
When the entity finally reappeared and was targettable again, it was already back to about 43% hp. Within the following 30 seconds, most of our battle group was destroyed and the entity was back to 98%.
I left the area at that point, giving up. From what I was able to gather some others left as well, irritated and frustrated.
To make matters worse...
Problem 4.) ... worse, at least as far as I could tell zone chat was inoperable during almost the entire time. It didn't even show me my own messages that I had typed. It almost looked like as if I had put myself, everyone in the area and even the combat messages that are shown in the normal chat window on ignore - which I clearly didn't, as I was able to use zone chat normally once again after exiting the encounter and returning to sector space.
To summarize my report:
- The entity disappeared several times during the fight, each time becoming completely untargettable.
- For reasons unknown the entity aborted the fight once and completely reset itself.
- At very low hp, the entity "combined" it's "disappearing trick" with an increased self-regenaration rate.
- Also for reasons unknown zone chat was seemingly completely disabled, at least from what I can tell, during practically the entire time I was inside the Crystalline Entity fleet action.
Now, I truely wonder if any of this is intentional or if the entity has "contracted" a few nasty bugs.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
The shards stop moving when a player uses Scramble Sensors on the Entity. It can be very beneficial during the third phase of the fight.
As for the Entity momentarily disappearing, that happens because there are too many objects (likely crystalline fragments) in your field of view. The game will only display a limited number of objects on your screen and once you pass that point it stops rendering objects. I don't know for a fact, but I suspect it usually chooses the oldest objects in the scene first, which is why the Entity himself is one of the first things to vanish.
You can get around this problem by panning and zooming in your camera so there's less objects to render on the screen. But, honestly, if you can spare the loss of firepower it really helps to have a few ships killing shards so the space around the Entity never gets this cluttered. It's going to be very difficult for you to spot the much more important Large Crystalline Fragments and Small Crystalline Fragments with so many normal Crystalline Fragments in the air.
Same reason as above. When a Large Crystalline Fragments collides with an object that can be targeted (certain torpedoes, player ships, mines, etc) they splinter into three Small Crystalline Fragments that head back to the Entity to heal it. Each of those Small Crystalline Fragments restore 1% of the Entity's health. Going from 2% to 43% takes a mere 13 Large Crystalline Fragment collisions. Plus, that's one crystal turning into three, which just compounds the problem of already having too many objects on your screen.
I don't this is a CE specific problem as I've had it occur on several occasions in other zones, even the Sol Starbase. I had to log out and back in to fix it.
If you're interested in more details on the Crystalline Entity encounter you can find some here:
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=148543
I am familiar with the basic tactics required to combat the entity - I was using scramble sensors myself during the fight.
However I found it to be an interesting coincidence that absolutely ALL fragments stopped moving when the entity "disappeared", including a few small fragments I saw.
Normally, even when scramble sensors is used, a few fragments would still keep moving. But upon those "vanishing" occurances ALL fragments stopped dead.
Ihave to admit though that the area was practically filled up with countless fragments, so your rendering explanation might be valid.
In that case it would be prudent for Cryptic to limit the maximum amount of shards (no matter what type they are) that can be in the area at any one time.
Also, this does not explain why the entity once aborted combat and completely reset itself during the fight - the only times I have seen this behavior from npcs is either if all targets on their aggro list have left the area / been destroyed or if an npc moves "too far away" from it's original position.
The first case was unlikely, as there were ships still engaged with the entity and the shards.
The second case would only be possible if there is some sort of "area limitation" in place for the entity - I recall that, shortly before the entity warped, we were quite close to the warp-in point (where players appear when they enter the area or respawn after death).
I've seen that occur before as well. I'm not sure if has to do with pulling the Entity too far away from his spawn point, or something to do with the state of the player highest on the threat list. Perhaps a combination of the two. I watched the Entity reset once after it destroyed its target.
I see ships in sector space using the warp-reset after chasing players too far away from their patrol area all the time.