Comprehensive FO:T Engine Bug List (1.27)

Discussion in 'Fallout Tactics Modding' started by Melindil, Aug 25, 2018.

  1. Melindil

    Melindil First time out of the vault

    89
    Apr 15, 2018
    This post is intended as a place to collect information on all known and suspected engine bugs in Fallout Tactics 1.27, as well as known fixes or workarounds for each.

    Note that this list does not include map or entity errors, broken quests, etc., as these are fixable with the game editor tools. A separate thread can be created for these (or take a look at the FOT Redux project, as it fixes a large number of these).

    The list is almost certainly incomplete. Submissions are very welcome - include as much detail as you can on the conditions where the bug applies, known effects, and any research done on either extent, workaround, or fix.

    Bugs are categorized as:

    Confirmed: Means that the conditions for the bug are well-defined, and frequent/visible enough to be seen easily. This also includes bugs which have been thoroughly investigated, or those for which the actual game code has bee studied.

    Unconfirmed: Bugs which have been reported at least once, but for which the effects are either not fully known or studied enough to be well-defined.

    Balance Issues: These are cases where game engine behavior is greatly affected by game mode (CTB or turn-based). To make this list, the bug must render a skill, trait, perk, or other game element useless (or nearly so) in one mode but not others, and where that effect can not be assumed from the description of either the skill or the game mode.

    Not Bugs: These are reported bugs for which there is evidence that the effect is actually intended. This includes instruction manual errata, unless substantial enough to mislead a player on selecting a skill, trait, or perk.

    ---
    Confirmed bugs:

    Bug: Sniper perk
    Details: The game loads an incorrect value for the attacker's Luck stat, resulting in only a 9% chance of succeeding the roll regardless of Luck.
    Fix: Hex patch available at:
    http://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/list-of-hex-based-fixes-changes-in-bos-exe-file.202858/
    Also included in FTSE 0.20 or later, and FOT Redux 1.2 or later.


    Bug: Team Player and Loner perks
    Details: The game does not properly set a flag with nearby team members, resulting in behavior that no team member is nearby for all cases. The result is that Loner bonuses are always applied, and Team Player bonuses never are.
    Fix: Hex patch available at:

    http://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/hex-patch-for-team-player-loner.215497/
    Also included in FTSE 0.20 or later.


    Bug: Burst attack secondary hits
    Details: Burst attacks have a very high chance of hitting nearby targets, even with a low chance to hit the intended target.
    Fix: Unconfirmed hex patch at:

    http://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/list-of-hex-based-fixes-changes-in-bos-exe-file.202858/
    Also included in FTSE 0.20 or later, and FOT Redux 1.2 or later.

    Bug: "Tagname" issue
    Details: Certain conditions cause the Tagname for entities to be erased or replaced. This can break some scripting.
    Fix: Hex patch at:

    http://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/list-of-hex-based-fixes-changes-in-bos-exe-file.202858/


    Bug: Goto Mission trigger
    Details: When re-entering a map with a Goto Mission trigger, sometimes that trigger will become stuck on.
    Fix: Included in FT Improver 2.0.0.1.


    Bug: Night Person trait
    Details: The bonus from the perk never turns off once applied.
    Fix: None at this time.


    Bug: Vat Skin trait
    Details: Penalty is incorrectly documented (-2 PE instead of 1). Penalty only applies to allies, not enemies.
    Fix: None at this time.


    Bug: Vehicles with crouch/prone
    Details: Entering a vehicle while crouched or prone makes the stat adjustments from those stances permanent.
    Fix: None at this time.


    Bug: Cover calculation on chance to hit
    Details: The game gives an AC bonus for being near cover (sandbags, walls), but this calculation is biased to certain directions over others.
    Fix: None at this time.


    Bug: Disarm critical effect
    Details: One possible outcome from critical hit is to disarm the target. An incorrect flag check in weapon entity prevents this from working, leading to a critical hit no better than a normal hit.
    Fix: None at this time. Root cause determined, fix coming soon.


    Bug: Critical effects for melee and unarmed
    Details: A lookup table is used to determine effects of critical hits. This lookup is broken for melee and unarmed, leading to oddities like punching left legs being extremely deadly.
    Fix: None at this time. Root cause determined, fix coming soon


    Bug: Bonus H2H Damage perk
    Details: A 15% damage bonus is given to the Bonus H2H Attack perk, but by perk description (and intent) this should be applied to Bonus H2H Damage.
    Fix: None at this time. Root cause determined, fix coming soon


    Bug: Invisible attackers
    Details: In some locations, the player may be attacked by "invisible" entities (commonly seen in the mutant base of St. Louis).
    Fix: None at this time.


    Bug: Changing weapon mode during attack
    Details: Switching between burst and single shot modes on a weapon can, with proper timing, result in burst hit effect, but only a single ammunition unit used.
    Fix: None at this time. Easily worked around by just not exploiting the behavior.


    Bug: Firing with insufficient ammo
    Details: Burst shot attacks are allowed even if a weapon only has a single ammunition unit loaded. The burst attack only uses that one unit, but applies full effect.
    Fix: None at this time. Can be worked around by not exploiting the behavior.


    Bug: Broken exit grids
    Details: Some situations cause exit grids to break, resulting in an inability to leave a map.
    Fix: None at this time. Can be worked around by modifying map and/or trigger conditions in many cases.


    Bug: Random encounter crash
    Details: Game crashes frequently when all random encounters are uncovered.
    Fix: Hex fix in this thread:
    http://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/hex-patch-for-special-encounter-crash.217648/
    Workarounds in FOT Redux 1.2 and other campaigns can limit the ability for the player to uncover all random encounters. Can also be worked around by not uncovering more than one encounter per map square.

    Bug: Electronic Lockpicks
    Details: "Unfortunately Electronic Lockpicks don't work correctly in the game. There is an option to tag doors as "Electronic" as well as the Lockpicks themselves, but it wasn't actually enabled. So it looks like we're stuck w/generic lockpicks."
    Fix: None yet. Can be partially worked around with triggers on doors.

    Bug: Give item from human to NPC
    Details: "The give item from human to npc command doesn't like multiple tagnames.. From NPC to human will work with trading umpteen tagged items but from human to npc will only trade one item and won't move equipped items, even using multiple preserved triggers."
    Fix: None.

    Bug: Chems on machinery
    Details: Using chems on turrets, machines, etc. can kill them via overdose.
    Fix: None. Workaround is to not use the exploit.

    Bug: First Aid, Doctor skill use during combat
    Details: "In turn based play, when using the First Aid or Doctor skill during combat your medic must have fewer AP than he needs to use the first aid kit or doctor's bag. For example, if Stitch has a use cost of 8 AP for a First Aid kit, if he has 8 or more AP he can't use the First Aid kit. He will appear to use it, but will do nothing-- he will repeatedly play a "use item" animation and no healing will occur. If he has 7 AP or less, everything will be fine."
    Fix: None. Partial workaround of using AP prior to using the skill.

    Bug: Items not removed from inventory
    Details: "Quest items don't disappear from inventory if the character holding them is inside a vehicle when leaving the map."
    Fix: None.

    Bug: AP costs of consumable items are not displayed
    Details: "All consumable items (food, drinks, drugs) do not display an AP cost in when placed in a character's active item slot, yet they have a use cost of two."
    Fix: None yet.

    Bug: Vehicles cannot be deactivated
    Details: "something that doesn't work is deactivating vehicles by deactivating their Player Index or moving them to a deactivated PI."
    Fix: None. Unknown if a workaround exists.


    Unconfirmed bugs:

    Bug: Night Person trait and NPCs
    Details: Reports of Night Person not being applied to NPC recruits.
    Fix: Unconfirmed hex patch at:

    http://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/list-of-hex-based-fixes-changes-in-bos-exe-file.202858/


    Bug: Ghost perk
    Details: Reports that Ghost does not apply stealth bonus. Need to check internal functionality to see if it's applied to stealth check rolls directly.
    Fix: None at this time.


    Bug: Drunk status effect
    Details: Reports that Drunk status doesn't have intended effects.
    Fix: None at this time.


    Bug: Bonsai perk
    Details: Reports that the perk does nothing.
    Fix: None at this time.

    Bug: Super Toolkits
    Details: "There is a bug w/vehicles needing an item to Repair them. I seem to recall having simply used a Super Tool Kit on one once and the vehicles was repaired. That's why I only have standard Tool Kits available on the map."
    Fix: None yet. Need to confirm if this is intended behavior (e.g. if critical repair can happen like critical heals).


    Bug: # alive in a zone
    Details: "it appears that the "Quantity Team" and "Quantity Player" triggers don't work for # alive in a zone other than anywhere."
    Fix: None. Still needs to be confirmed.


    Possible balance issues:

    Bug: Sneak in turn-based modes
    Details: Stealth checks appear to still occur on a time interval even in turn-based modes. This makes it much more difficult to stay hidden, as the character must continue to pass stealth rolls during all other characters' turns.
    Fix: None at this time.


    Bug: Bonus Move perk
    Details: Reports that Bonus Move is not useful in CTB mode.
    Fix: None at this time.



    Not bugs:

    Bug: Bend / Break the Rules perks
    Details: The perks do not show up in the game. Considered not a bug, as the removal of the perks appears intentional when looking into the game code. Reports that this may have been done for balance reasons.
     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2019
  2. DDTerr

    DDTerr First time out of the vault

    18
    Feb 2, 2014
    Bug: Sentry mode bug after changing Player Index

    blkaddr: "If you move an entity from a non-human playerId>1 to a playerId=1(human) the player will not be able to adjust the sentry mode for the unit until a save/reload sequence. Kind of a pain. I tried starting the npc on the human team and switching them at startup to a playerId>1 team, the sentry mode problem goes away! BUT now you can't make these units walk waypoints..."

    JJ86: "The quick way is to put a disclaimer at the beginning telling the player to save and reload the game after making the switch. This is the only way to get the newly recruited NPC's to change modes."

    Info by TwoEyedYum about the same bug:
    "No, it intented to be so. By default, all game actors (NPC, enemies) have "non player" sentry settings - they are controlled by AI and their minimum accuracy is 0%. By the way, this hardcoded thing causes Burst Bug to appear. As you know, "player" actors can't have minimum accuracy lower that 1%. You can shoot manually with inaccurate burst weapon, though, and get same bug."
     
  3. DDTerr

    DDTerr First time out of the vault

    18
    Feb 2, 2014
    Unused content: RepairBot?
    There's a nature mode called "RepairBot" and a demeanour named "MiscAssistHeal" see aitable.txt
    Also something is mentioned in the exe file about link to C:\dev\bos\game\entity\ai\base_ai_dem.cpp and the text "AI: Non reapir bot attempting to call assist heal" can be seen there.
    The question for you: Is the routine missing, incomplete, broken or just unused?
    Workaround for auto healing (already present in several new mods): a deathtrap with a negative damage + some triggers

    OnTheBounce: There is a sprite for something called a "Robot Repair Bay" in FoT along w/the option to set an entity's sound to "Robot Repair Bay". Evidently the designers were thinking of allowing the 'Bots to use these in lieu of medics. (Medics themselves were never implemented for either the BoS Bunkers, or the enemy, unfortunately.)

    A complete thread here: www.duckandcover.cx/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3742
     
  4. Reinar

    Reinar First time out of the vault

    84
    Oct 23, 2011
    It does work (at least in FT Improver), but the "alive" mode counts even dead characters.
     
  5. nadeauhugo

    nadeauhugo Author of FOT mod THE SUM Modder

    617
    Mar 9, 2014
  6. Melindil

    Melindil First time out of the vault

    89
    Apr 15, 2018
    Thanks for this! It'll be a lot easier to manage as things are fixed/found.

    I did make one modification - as of FTSE 0.30, assigning perks with triggers should mostly work. For perks that are attribute-boost-only, the skill/attribute must also be added as a permanent attribute bonus along with adding the perk - perks with attribute bonuses only seem to grant them when the perk is selected from the character window, and the window closed with the normal button (this explains why some perks don't 'work' when added in the editor tools). Could maybe include fixing this limitation as a 'bug' for the time being.
     
  7. nadeauhugo

    nadeauhugo Author of FOT mod THE SUM Modder

    617
    Mar 9, 2014
    Ah! Good news. I'll implent this to my mod as soon as your new .3 version is released then, as I am and will be making a lot of quests at this time and in the next versions.
     
  8. TDV

    TDV First time out of the vault

    6
    Mar 6, 2014
    1) BUG: Wrong TB mode activation condition.

    Turn-based (TB) mode should activate after an enemy decides to attack the player (same as in Fallout 1-2), NOT after the enemy attacked the player.


    2) BUG: Real time in TB mode.

    Enemy OVERWATCH (in TB mode) acts in real time - WHILE the player performs some actions. An example: it's the player's turn, he moves the main character 1-2 steps forward, encounters an enemy in overwatch and stops, deciding what to do next. When that enemy spots the player, he cancels overwatch and attacks the player. The problem is that the enemy doesn't attack immediately - the time to spot the player is random: it can take 1-10 seconds until the enemy uses his overwatch and attacks. If the player is quick enough (again, during TB mode), he can order the main character to attack the enemy and kill it, preventing enemy from acting.

    In other words, enemy overwatch should happen immediately after he spots the player - turn-based mode should NOT have any real time in it. Right now overwatch in TB mode acts as if the game was in Continuous Turn-Based (CTB) mode.

    Maybe the real reason the enemy doesn't attack immediately is that it doesn't spot the player immediately, because the process of spotting others isn't deterministic (it's random). However, the spotting should not progress while the player does nothing in TB - only after the player takes some action (spends at least 1 more Action Point).

    Possible solution: remove randomness from the spotting process (make it instant during TB mode).


    3) BUG: Broken barter formula.

    Abbreviations:
    • Sell to NPC (STN) - the money the player gets (+) when selling items TO a trader.
    • Buy from NPC (BFN) - the money the player pays (-) when buying items FROM a trader.
    • Delta - difference between player and trader barter skills.
    • Delta is influenced by Reputation (+-20 rep = +- 1 D; max change is +-50 D) and is capped at [-300;300].
    • Delta = min{max[-300; (Player_Skill_BARTER-Trader_Skill_BARTER) + min(max(-50;roundDown(Reputation/20;0));50)]; 300}

    Problem #1: STN depends on BFN: min(STN; BFN*0.9).
    Consequence #1-1. High Delta lowers STN.
    Consequence #1-2. "Master Trader" perk (BFN*0.75) not only lowers BFN, but also lowers STN.

    Problem #2: "Quarter Master" NPC status not only lowers STN, but also lowers BFN.

    Solution to both problems: implement a new barter formula (and make it much more simple than original). There are 2 propositions.

    Version #1:
    • STN price = 0.25 * Base_item_price * (1+Delta/600) * (if npc_is_QuarterMaster then 0.80 else 1)
    • BFN price = 1.00 * Base_item_price * (1-Delta/600) * (if buyer_has_perk_MasterTrader then 0.75 else 1)

    Version #2:
    • STN price = 0.33 * Base_item_price * (1+Delta/600)
    • BFN price = 1.00 * Base_item_price * (1-Delta/600)
    • MasterTrader is disabled (removed from the list of available perks)
    • QuarterMaster multiplier is set to 1 (for STN and BFN)

    I recommend using v2:
    • Compared to vanilla, both versions lower the player's income from selling items, but v2 does it less.
    • FT is a tactical simulator, non-combat perks shouldn't have been added to the game in the first place.
    • If QM pay less money than non-QM, all it does is force the player to seek non-QM shopkeepers to maximize his income.

    NB! Unlike F2, FT barter prices are also influenced by the NUMBER of items in player/trader inventory. It could be tweaked as well (unfortunately, no ideas how right now).


    4) BUG: Skill books past 12th behave incorrectly.

    Note: max skill book bonus (after consuming 12 books) = skill_value_at_lvl_1 + 98.

    Problems:
    • every skill book after 12th, although not raising the skill, still gets consumed
    • the log window still shows "Char_Name learnt something new"

    5) BUG: Reloading resets Chem counter to 0.

    Maximum amount of chem points before becoming:
    • overdosed = 50 + EN*15
    • dead = 100 + EN*20
    Each consumable has its own chem value (for example, Voodoo has 80 chem points). Using consumable increases the counter by said value.

    This bug makes it possible to consume unlimited amount of drugs without getting overdosed/dead, since the counter is reset after game load.


    6) BUG: Chems and wrong Log window messages.

    If item has
    • "Consumable - Addiction - Chance of Addiction" > 0
    then Log window shows "Char_Name gained addiction to Drug_Name" because it thinks that
    • "Consumable - Addiction - Addiction Enabled" = 1
    • "Addiction Effect - Chems - Addiction" = 1
    even if:
    • they're set to 0
    • the player uses drugs on another object (not on himself)


    7) BUG: Consumable items behave incorrectly.

    Problem #1:
    • Values entered in "Consumable - Random Effects" are multiplied by 1.1 (it's harcoded). To compensate for that, the entered value should be divided by 1.1 by the modder.
    • Example: if we want to have a consumable item (Super stimpak, maybe) with random effect = 180, then we should set random effect to roundUP(180/1.1;0)=164. Otherwise the game'll produce higher value than intended: roundDOWN(180*1.1;0)=198.
    Problem #2:
    • If consumable item has values entered in "Effect[x] - ActorStatus - hitPoints", then healing isn't displayed by the log window (log_) and by the event notification (floating text) above the character (ent_).


    8) BALANCE: "Kamikaze" trait should increase initial damage.

    Bonus Dmg from "Kamikaze" trait (+25%) works AFTER piercing armor DT, increasing final damage. That's pretty useless, because:
    • it doesn't help in piercing DT
    • it's 25% only if the target's DT=0 (usually it's 10-20%)
    BUG (Unconfirmed): The real bonus seems to be 24,5% instead of 25% (only knowing the full damage formula will show if it's a bug or intended rounding down).

    Solution: change "Kamikaze" bonus to 25% and make it behave the same way as "Bonus Ranged Dmg" perk (that increases initial/weapon damage and, thus, works BEFORE piercing armor DT).
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Feb 13, 2021
  9. TDV

    TDV First time out of the vault

    6
    Mar 6, 2014
    1) BUG (Unconfirmed): No loot on death.

    If 2 or more enemies have the same death sprite on the same spot, then it's not possible to loot the bodies at the bottom.


    2) BUG (Unconfirmed): Reloading for 0 AP.

    It's possible to reload a weapon for 0 AP by droping it from one weapon slot to another.


    3) BUG (Unconfirmed): Wrong burst-mode stats.

    Switching the weapon mode in a burst-single-burst manner makes the player shoot burst with single shot stats (higher dmg, longer range).

    Similar to (or even the same) "Bug: Changing weapon mode during attack".


    4) BUG/BALANCE (Unconfirmed): Temporary raising CHARISMA can affect player rank.

    Player's CH affects:
    • rank promotion after completing a mission
    • recruits availability in the recruit master pool
    It's possible to temporarily boost CH with drugs:
    • before reporting to a questgiver - to get better promotion
    • before talking with a recruit master - to get better recruit pool
    I'm uncertain about the info above, since I've also read that rank is calculated retroactively: rank = CH + mission bonuses. Meaning that:
    • temp CH bonus doesn't affect promotion, but temporarily raises rank
    • the rank reverts back to normal when the drug stops working
    Solution - the game should check the base CH value instead of current value when determining player's rank/promotion.


    5) BUG/BALANCE (Unconfirmed): Incorrect Extreme Haymaker stats.

    Extreme Haymaker (7th unarmed punch attack) does electrical type of damage instead of normal. It's possible it was made that way to make unarmed viable vs robots (so maybe shouldn't be changed).