Singleplayer Bug List

[GreenGuy]

Hello matesfamily, I'm going to make a little list of bugs that I have discovered through my experience of BZ2 1.3, most are focused on Singleplayer. I also point out bugs that were already ingame before 1.3. I am not expecting you to fix all these bugs, just letting you know.

- All Cinematics are in really bad quality, sorry I don't know if you're able to fix this. Just saying.

- Sometimes, the objects in the Missions that get highlighted, for example "Scion Leader" will be called "MISSION1301" instead. Any idea what causes this?

- Shabayev and Simms will begin shooting the Guardian at the start, before it even deploys. They are supposed to shoot when he says "It's doing something". The first to the fourth mission has some weird foes, called "Unknown" and stuff. Having trainer weapons (Guard Cannon, Old Ion Gun) and weird engine sounds. IMO these should be changed to their normal config. I mean I know this is intentional but nobody's gonna suck THAT much at the game, we need some challenge.

- In the first missions we have a different FAF missile too and half ammo on Scouts.

- Why do the Pilots not have Jetpacks or Sniper Rifles at the first four missions?

- At the "We Have Hostiles" mission, the Hauler will appear on top of the Hangar. And the Artifacts are destroyable but it will not make you fail the mission.

- At the "Too Hot" mission, the Dropship leaves without the Traced Sentry.

- Missions "The Dark Planet" and "Through the Looking Glass" lags serverly when facing some ways, I dunno if this is just my weak graphics card. I also have this problem in Alien Dunes and Bridges IA Maps.

- In "Through the Looking Glass" if Shabayev's pilot enters you ship, it will count as her dying..

- If you shoot the "birds" with MDM Mortar or something, they will make a blood explosion and crash with debris as if they were a vehicle.

- The Jak Killers do not attack you, and when they actually do they make very little damage, compared to in earlier patches. Neither do they make that growling idle sound they should, the blood explosion should be bigger.

- The Ice Rhino is not working properly, it's death animation just shows its walking animation and then it disappears with a tiny bit of blood, I'm pretty sure it has a proper death animation. Either it should have some huge gore explosion or just be lying there for some time when dead. Isn't it supposed to be able to damage vehicles and buildings? Also its sounds do not work.

- In the "Snow Blind" Mission you start up with a downgraded recycler, yet in the earlier missions you could build full base.

- The "Thin Ice" on "On Thin Ice" is way too obviously displayed, its pinker than the normal terrain. Also when the Condor crashes and you try to get out, the game lags serverely again.

- Is there any way to "disable" the Radar and the Shift + F2/F3 views when you are inside a Dropship? Like at the start of "This Is Not A Drill" and "On Thin Ice". Because when you can do all that, it makes it too obvious that you are not really flying in a Dropship.

- In the ISDF Mission "Payback". The cutscene will sometimes mess up, but it seems that the Carrier is already on fire before the Condor even hits it..

- In "Fanning The Fire" when the Cthonian temple.. thing rises from the ground, the terrain's color looks wrong. Also when you approach the crashed carrier, the game lags serverely.

- Why is it that sometimes Warriors and Sentries get called "Strike" or "Tank"? Should be changed.

- In Scion Mission 1, the Terrain near the Landslide looks wrong.

- Scion Mission 2 is all messed up. Different Recycler, Tanks and Scouts with weird engine sounds, red headlights. Builders with weird engine sounds, can build 2 jammers and has Add Lung as an option in 6 : Build. It needs to be set to the normal builder config "fvcons.odf".

- In Scion Mission 3 the Scouts are gonna get themselves killed before even discovering the base.

- In Scion Mission 4, not only is the Alchemator called "MISSION0401" or something. But when the cutscene plays, the Maulers will do some spasm ****, like bop their heads up and down and not being able to stand still. And if you get your forces too close to the Rebel Scions they will engage. At the end it shows Rebel Scion Warriors entering the Condor, but when it takes off they magically just go right through? It should just show John's Warrior entering the Dropship, and the Dropship taking off. Also, the terrian near the Alchemator looks wrong.

- Scion Mission 5 is pretty messed up too, because when the cutscene plays it will show the whole AAN base getting overrun. But when it ends they just disappear on the Radar. Also if you approach the AAN base before Shabayev says "Okay John, It's time to get started". The recycler will just magically get destroyed and you will fail the mission.

- In Scion Mission 7's opening cutscene, Braddock's walker will turn around and move in another direction (probably being unresponsive).

- This is not about Singleplayer, but in Multiplayer the xprsxpl.odf when Pilots die doesn't display.

[GSH]

There's a bunch of items in the above list, including but not limited to, the list I quoted below, that come from a basic misunderstanding. The design of the BZ2 singleplayer missions was to train people up, slowly. Things are deliberately simplified during the initial SP missions on both sides. SP is not meant to be IA/MP with more voiceovers. SP had different design goals.

- In the first missions we have a different FAF missile too and half ammo on Scouts.

- Why do the Pilots not have Jetpacks or Sniper Rifles at the first four missions?

And, the BZ2 cinematics were rendered to fit in a 256x256 texture. Blame the 3dfx Voodoo1, which couldn't do more than that. Blowing a 256x256 texture up to fullscreen is going to look lousy, especially on a 24+" monitor. And no, there's no ability to re-render those movies at a moderate resolution these days.

-- GSH

[GSH]

- Missions "The Dark Planet" and "Through the Looking Glass" lags serverly when facing some ways, I dunno if this is just my weak graphics card. I also have this problem in Alien Dunes and Bridges IA Maps.

Try turning local fog off in graphics options. Odds are, that's the cause. If not, get a savegame. "facing some ways" is too vague for me to actually do anything.

-- GSH

[Nielk1]

If you can post a list of 'how it is' and 'how it should be' for script related issues I can take a look down the road.

[Zax]

Hello matesfamily, I'm going to make a little list of bugs that I have discovered through my experience of BZ2 1.3, most are focused on Singleplayer. I also point out bugs that were already ingame before 1.3. I am not expecting you to fix all these bugs, just letting you know.

- All Cinematics are in really bad quality, sorry I don't know if you're able to fix this. Just saying.

CDs can only hold 700mb of info, and hard drive installations were a big concern for space limits at the time. Highly detailed and high res cutscenes can easily eat 200mb all on their own. Do the math. Although, if you've ever seen G-Police, a game of a similar era in which the FMV was absolutely stunning for its time (and even today) it gets a little more difficult to excuse bz2, but still. Cannot be fixed unless somebody wants to remake the cutscenes at a higher res from scratch. That, or obtain the raws, which is extremely unlikely.

- Sometimes, the objects in the Missions that get highlighted, for example "Scion Leader" will be called "MISSION1301" instead. Any idea what causes this?

Specific examples would help in fixing it.

- Shabayev and Simms will begin shooting the Guardian at the start, before it even deploys. They are supposed to shoot when he says "It's doing something". The first to the fourth mission has some weird foes, called "Unknown" and stuff. Having trainer weapons (Guard Cannon, Old Ion Gun) and weird engine sounds. IMO these should be changed to their normal config. I mean I know this is intentional but nobody's gonna suck THAT much at the game, we need some challenge.

That is abnormal behavior, they didn't do that in the original. A lone guardian at the beginning of a game at full spec could demolish the player very quickly and easily. If that guardian had its assaults and targeted the player first, assuming a player is new to the genre (which is any player new to bz2 really) they would be dismantled.

- In the first missions we have a different FAF missile too and half ammo on Scouts.

You don't really need the full armament. Early mission, early tech. BZ1 featured upgraded tech as the missions went on.

- Why do the Pilots not have Jetpacks or Sniper Rifles at the first four missions?

Because that would potentially wreck mission scripts. Also, you are new to the ISDF, therefore not given amazing equipment.

- At the "We Have Hostiles" mission, the Hauler will appear on top of the Hangar. And the Artifacts are destroyable but it will not make you fail the mission.

That is probably a legitimate bug. I think I've seen this once.

- At the "Too Hot" mission, the Dropship leaves without the Traced Sentry.

Probably another cutscene timing issue, which are all the rage in 1.3.

- Missions "The Dark Planet" and "Through the Looking Glass" lags serverly when facing some ways, I dunno if this is just my weak graphics card. I also have this problem in Alien Dunes and Bridges IA Maps.

Localfog. Seems fixed in the latest private build... or maybe I'm crazy. Try setting localfog to off and see if the issue persists.

- In "Through the Looking Glass" if Shabayev's pilot enters you ship, it will count as her dying..

That's an annoying one. She should be set to inactive instead of looking for the nearest ship. That mission is screwed up for so many other reasons than that, but blame the design team. (She could get in the tank with you and drive back to base, nullifying the next mission)

- If you shoot the "birds" with MDM Mortar or something, they will make a blood explosion and crash with debris as if they were a vehicle.

Because they are. That won't likely change, although it WAS a bug when torpedo was doing that, so I'm not sure.

- The Jak Killers do not attack you, and when they actually do they make very little damage, compared to in earlier patches. Neither do they make that growling idle sound they should, the blood explosion should be bigger.

They should, and if they get you that was like instadeath when they ate you up.

- The Ice Rhino is not working properly, it's death animation just shows its walking animation and then it disappears with a tiny bit of blood, I'm pretty sure it has a proper death animation. Either it should have some huge gore explosion or just be lying there for some time when dead. Isn't it supposed to be able to damage vehicles and buildings? Also its sounds do not work.

I remember it falling over when dead.

- In the "Snow Blind" Mission you start up with a downgraded recycler, yet in the earlier missions you could build full base.

Design choice. A bad design choice if you ask me though, since it goes against progression.

- The "Thin Ice" on "On Thin Ice" is way too obviously displayed, its pinker than the normal terrain. Also when the Condor crashes and you try to get out, the game lags serverely again.

That mission killed me when I was a little kid. The mission you mention is messed up anyway so I'll add a bit: After the recycler is deployed, you are attacked by a hellish swarm of Scions. I had to have lightning timing and setup to get past this wave. AIP damage I assume.

- Is there any way to "disable" the Radar and the Shift + F2/F3 views when you are inside a Dropship? Like at the start of "This Is Not A Drill" and "On Thin Ice". Because when you can do all that, it makes it too obvious that you are not really flying in a Dropship.

Not going to happen since dropship sections were assed anyway, but it might be slightly nice to have a dll command to send a "do not draw radar" at certain times for these situations. Points at nielk.

- In the ISDF Mission "Payback". The cutscene will sometimes mess up, but it seems that the Carrier is already on fire before the Condor even hits it..

Cutscene timing as above

- In "Fanning The Fire" when the Cthonian temple.. thing rises from the ground, the terrain's color looks wrong. Also when you approach the crashed carrier, the game lags serverely.

Will have to check that out. Screen shots would help.

- Why is it that sometimes Warriors and Sentries get called "Strike" or "Tank"? Should be changed.

Design. Early on when your faction doesn't know the real name of them they were given code names for what their presumed function was. Good design choice on that front, since it is more logical than immediately knowing the name of your enemy's assets. BZ1 and many mods suffer from this a bit.

- In Scion Mission 1, the Terrain near the Landslide looks wrong.

Certain interesting terrain is actually an XSI model of terrain. This can make blending weird, and is usually caused by a lack of polish. Shouldn't be too hard to fix if a mapper wanted to.

- Scion Mission 2 is all messed up. Different Recycler, Tanks and Scouts with weird engine sounds, red headlights. Builders with weird engine sounds, can build 2 jammers and has Add Lung as an option in 6 : Build. It needs to be set to the normal builder config "fvcons.odf".

Noted; this could either be from design changes later down the road or what have you. Scions were in factions in the single player, so that might have been why that one had different assets. Another possibility is that this is the only mission in the game where the scions are correct and every other mission/map in the whole game is wrong.

- In Scion Mission 3 the Scouts are gonna get themselves killed before even discovering the base.

Might be scripting error.

- In Scion Mission 4, not only is the Alchemator called "MISSION0401" or something. But when the cutscene plays, the Maulers will do some spasm ****, like bop their heads up and down and not being able to stand still. And if you get your forces too close to the Rebel Scions they will engage. At the end it shows Rebel Scion Warriors entering the Condor, but when it takes off they magically just go right through? It should just show John's Warrior entering the Dropship, and the Dropship taking off. Also, the terrian near the Alchemator looks wrong.

Maulers doing that I have seen before. See note below. The scion dropship is not a condor, for clarification. If they go through it that is because they aren't being deleted at the right time. In 1.2 they were deleted properly. Cutscene timing is really messed up.

- Scion Mission 5 is pretty messed up too, because when the cutscene plays it will show the whole AAN base getting overrun. But when it ends they just disappear on the Radar. Also if you approach the AAN base before Shabayev says "Okay John, It's time to get started". The recycler will just magically get destroyed and you will fail the mission.

This mission requires work. It is a dreadful way that the designers made it so that "You cannot come here yet, so you lose without warning" since bz2 is as much about exploration as gameplay, this is absolutely wrong.

- In Scion Mission 7's opening cutscene, Braddock's walker will turn around and move in another direction (probably being unresponsive).

Noted...see below

- This is not about Singleplayer, but in Multiplayer the xprsxpl.odf when Pilots die doesn't display.

Along with the tidbits I put in your quote box, keep this in mind: single player is THE BEST place to get save game files for reproduction, being single player and all. Get to the point of trouble, save game, and submit it. That is 100% the best way to have a code issue looked at.

[GreenGuy]

Specific examples would help in fixing it.

That is abnormal behavior, they didn't do that in the original. A lone guardian at the beginning of a game at full spec could demolish the player very quickly and easily. If that guardian had its assaults and targeted the player first, assuming a player is new to the genre (which is any player new to bz2 really) they would be dismantled.

- If you shoot the "birds" with MDM Mortar or something, they will make a blood explosion and crash with debris as if they were a vehicle.

Because they are. That won't likely change, although it WAS a bug when torpedo was doing that, so I'm not sure.

- The Ice Rhino is not working properly, it's death animation just shows its walking animation and then it disappears with a tiny bit of blood, I'm pretty sure it has a proper death animation. Either it should have some huge gore explosion or just be lying there for some time when dead. Isn't it supposed to be able to damage vehicles and buildings? Also its sounds do not work.

I remember it falling over when dead.

- In "Fanning The Fire" when the Cthonian temple.. thing rises from the ground, the terrain's color looks wrong. Also when you approach the crashed carrier, the game lags serverely.

Will have to check that out. Screen shots would help.

1. It does this in many other missions as well, mainly at Navs and Highlighted Enemies

2. It will move over at the spot where the other 2 scouts "meet", and once it deploys they will start firing at it, it won't have a chance.

3. Huh? I meant the birds on mire, the flying creatures.

4. It doesn't. It just makes the walking animation and then disappears leaving a little stream of blood (xprsxpl.odf)

5.

[APCs r Evil]

- At the "We Have Hostiles" mission, the Hauler will appear on top of the Hangar. And the Artifacts are destroyable but it will not make you fail the mission.

If I remember correctly, the mission briefing tells you to prevent those artifacts from falling into Scion hands by any means necessary. Meaning, the destruction of those artifacts is acceptable if there's no other way to prevent their theft.

Of course, it could just be a script bug.

[Nielk1]

Color issue, there are ODF flags to correct but sometimes it isn't perfect. Have to tell the game to try to light the object as if it was terrain.

The other issue looks like a Localization failure.

[Zax]

Specific examples would help in fixing it.

That is abnormal behavior, they didn't do that in the original. A lone guardian at the beginning of a game at full spec could demolish the player very quickly and easily. If that guardian had its assaults and targeted the player first, assuming a player is new to the genre (which is any player new to bz2 really) they would be dismantled.

- If you shoot the "birds" with MDM Mortar or something, they will make a blood explosion and crash with debris as if they were a vehicle.

Because they are. That won't likely change, although it WAS a bug when torpedo was doing that, so I'm not sure.

- The Ice Rhino is not working properly, it's death animation just shows its walking animation and then it disappears with a tiny bit of blood, I'm pretty sure it has a proper death animation. Either it should have some huge gore explosion or just be lying there for some time when dead. Isn't it supposed to be able to damage vehicles and buildings? Also its sounds do not work.

I remember it falling over when dead.

- In "Fanning The Fire" when the Cthonian temple.. thing rises from the ground, the terrain's color looks wrong. Also when you approach the crashed carrier, the game lags serverely.

Will have to check that out. Screen shots would help.

1. It does this in many other missions as well, mainly at Navs and Highlighted Enemies

2. It will move over at the spot where the other 2 scouts "meet", and once it deploys they will start firing at it, it won't have a chance.

3. Huh? I meant the birds on mire, the flying creatures.

4. It doesn't. It just makes the walking animation and then disappears leaving a little stream of blood (xprsxpl.odf)

5.

Tinypic sucks. My 20mbit download gets stuck on "waiting for i53.tinypic.com" Pretty much any time someone uses it. I suggest imageshack.

1. GSH does not like various situations. He likes "This exact spot in this exact mission, here is a savegame file ready for you to dive in and check.
2. It ain't broke, don't fix it. I agree though that they are supposed to wait to shoot at it. Do they open fire immediately, or do they wait for you to fire first?
3. Flying birds are vehicles. Pretty much every object that is not a prop is a vehicle or building. Check 1.2 and see if birds die the same way. Again, torpedo was messed up in pb6 because of a certain change, so it is possible that birds shouldn't behave this way.
4. I said what I think it's SUPPOSED to do.
5. Can't see your image, tinypic is broken or is getting DDoSed.

Remember- saved games!

C:\users\you\my docs\my games\battlezone2\saved\ mission1test.sav mission4test.sav birdsdyingwrong.sav etc

Those are the absolute BEST ways to get your issue looked at. It'll probably be on the backburner for a while since single player isn't the hottest play method right now, but would be nice to buff up nonetheless.

[GreenGuy]

2. It ain't broke, don't fix it. I agree though that they are supposed to wait to shoot at it. Do they open fire immediately, or do they wait for you to fire first?

Yes they open fire as soon as they see the Guardian. And I still think it should have it's standard weapon instead of "Guard Cannon". It doesn't even make sense for the Guardian to have a cannon type of weapon.

[Ded10c]

Scion designs change over the course of the singleplayer campaigns, and difficulty is increased slowly by giving them more advanced weapons/vehicles, as stated above. Weapons like the neutron gun and guard cannon are artifacts of this change.

[Dataanti]

Last time I played SP, I couldn't get past the 3rd level or something due to bugs, have you guys started fixing SP? I thought you had no plans to do anything with SP after 1.3...

[Zax]

Last time I played SP, I couldn't get past the 3rd level or something due to bugs, have you guys started fixing SP? I thought you had no plans to do anything with SP after 1.3...

Vague responses like these are the reason.

Here is a sample report:

REDACTED for now

WTH is ai.winmission not working? I am NOT going to wade!

[General BlackDragon]

WTH is ai.winmission not working? I am NOT going to wade!

game.cheat bzwinmission

Or maybe it's bzwinner...can't remember...


IIRC it changed between 1.0 and 1.2

[Zax]

While game.cheat bzwinmission is not barking at me, it also does nothing. Anyone got the quick and dirty on how to directly launch the mission I want? iamadirtycheater was BZ1.