Detection square not shown

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Zork
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:58 pm

Detection square not shown

Post by Zork »

I have many problems with detection not shown.

The most obvious cases is related to concealment. I see all enemies, there's no possible concealment break along the moving path and destination, or they aren't shown. And the movement breaks the concealment. It seems all or most cases are related to enemies size, those taller generating the problem, but I'm not sure it's the only cases.

Another case is related to enemies sighted out of conceal mode. The movement destination shown an enemy seen from a roof border, but once moved at the position I can't aim the enemy. I think I had it with soldiers, but the cases I very clearly quoted was related to rebels Mech.

A third case is related to enemies seen from a soldier in conceal mode, an a soldier not in conceal mode. The path and destination don't show any enemy sighted, I'm almost sure I see all enemies with the soldier in conceal mode, and the movement of the soldier not in conceal mode alert the pod. I check the dark event and couldn't quote any related to increasing enemy sight range, but it's a long list and I can't be totally sure.

Fourth case is specifically related to missions done with rebels and one soldier leading the Haven. A standard soldier with no special stealth abilities, rebels with no skills shown that are related to stealth. When I select a rebel, the squares shown that break concealment are like the rebels have a better stealth, but when moving the rebel it is detected. When I use the soldier to check what are the detection squares, it works for the rebel to not be detected. As there's many tall faceless, I'm not sure that it's really another case like if rebels show detection squares with a stealth bonus, but the real detection applied is like for a standard soldier. Or it's the first case bug that seem related to enemies size.

Are all those case normals? Or they are already identified but linked to maps (I heavily doubt for those probably related to enemy size)? Currently those aspects are my current heavy tiresome aspect of the game that is exhausting me. When you add the total crap base game system to show enemy sighted and even not show enemy sight, it's a whole aspect I'm totally tired of.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
tracktwo
Long War Dev
Posts: 241
Joined: Sat Jan 07, 2017 7:43 pm

Re: Detection square not shown

Post by tracktwo »

Unfortunately there are a whole bunch of vanilla bugs related to movement detection and line of sight. Specifically:

- units that are more than one tile in size (sectopods, some lw2 chryssalids, other large modded enemies) don't display the detection tiles correctly. There is a thread in the bugs forum about this, and it's not easily fixed in a mod.

- not being able to see certain units from certain tiles where you'd expect is sometimes common

- seeing through some solid objects is also not that unusual. Some pieces of cover don't act like cover at all or have visibility through them. Some vehicles seem to be especially bad.

- sometimes a pod will activate after seeing a gremlin. Gremlins are supposed to be invisible to the aliens, but they can cause activations, even if the specialist is concealed or behind vision blocking cover.

The only one I see here that looks likely to be a real lw2 bug is the rebel one, I'll take a look to see if there is some issue with their stealth settings.
Zork
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Detection square not shown

Post by Zork »

Thanks for the clarification, ok I hadn't realize it was coming from xcom2 core game because I hadn't noticed those problems during my 3 campaigns with no mods. But I saw the gremlin one you mentioned.

For the rebels case as I wrote it's probable more because of the tall enemies bug because there's plenty in this kind of mission.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
Steve-O
Posts: 124
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2017 8:00 pm

Re: Detection square not shown

Post by Steve-O »

Zork wrote: A third case is related to enemies seen from a soldier in conceal mode, an a soldier not in conceal mode. The path and destination don't show any enemy sighted, I'm almost sure I see all enemies with the soldier in conceal mode, and the movement of the soldier not in conceal mode alert the pod. I check the dark event and couldn't quote any related to increasing enemy sight range, but it's a long list and I can't be totally sure.
Are you checking every space the non-concealed soldier will move through to make sure he NEVER has LOS to ANY aliens? As I'm sure you're aware, non-concealed soldiers can be spotted from farther away than concealed soldiers (I think standard LOS without concealment is something like 14 spaces?) and if your non-concealed soldier moves through even one space that the aliens can see, it will activate the pod after he arrives at his destination (even if the destination space itself is hidden from sight.)
Zork
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Detection square not shown

Post by Zork »

Steve-O wrote:
Zork wrote: A third case is related to enemies seen from a soldier in conceal mode, an a soldier not in conceal mode. The path and destination don't show any enemy sighted, I'm almost sure I see all enemies with the soldier in conceal mode, and the movement of the soldier not in conceal mode alert the pod. I check the dark event and couldn't quote any related to increasing enemy sight range, but it's a long list and I can't be totally sure.
Are you checking every space the non-concealed soldier will move through to make sure he NEVER has LOS to ANY aliens? As I'm sure you're aware, non-concealed soldiers can be spotted from farther away than concealed soldiers (I think standard LOS without concealment is something like 14 spaces?) and if your non-concealed soldier moves through even one space that the aliens can see, it will activate the pod after he arrives at his destination (even if the destination space itself is hidden from sight.)
I took care quote it clearly in the post: "The path and destination don't show".

EDIT: Anyway that's one more bug case, because the flag showing conceal break is shown even if final destination is concealed, or at least should. But I know this bug from XCOM2 too and most often try put care check all around the path. As Im' exasperated by all the detections problems now I don't even bother and reload no matter the context. That means that in suspicious cases after reload I could check carefully all the path and around it.

EDIT2: But I wasn't aware there was so many cases in LW2 where enemies have superior sight range than soldiers, and the game doesn't show enemies sights, just soldiers sight, so plenty cases I had was certainly related to this point.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
Steve-O
Posts: 124
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2017 8:00 pm

Re: Detection square not shown

Post by Steve-O »

Zork wrote: EDIT: Anyway that's one more bug case, because the flag showing conceal break is shown even if final destination is concealed, or at least should. But I know this bug from XCOM2 too and most often try put care check all around the path. As Im' exasperated by all the detections problems now I don't even bother and reload no matter the context. That means that in suspicious cases after reload I could check carefully all the path and around it.
The flag showing concealment break won't show at all when moving a soldier who isn't concealed. That's because they aren't concealed, so there's nothing to break. Concealment does more than just highlight the aliens field of vision with red squares on the map, it also restricts their field of vision with regards to concealed soldiers. A concealed soldier can cut across open terrain as long as he stays out of the red and ends in cover; an unconcealed soldier will be spotted in transit. You can't check the red spaces with a concealed soldier and then apply what you saw while moving an unconcealed soldier; the rules for how aliens spot unconcealed soldiers are different. That's not a bug, it's intentional.

If you want to prevent an unconcealed soldier from being spotted, you have to check which aliens he has line of sight to (by looking for the target icon that appears beside each alien's health bar while your cursor is sitting over a given space within movement range.) More specifically, you have to do this for every space he's going to move through (including partials when moving diagonally) and make sure no aliens ever have line of sight. In general, of course, this is much more trouble than it's worth. After the squad as a whole has lost concealment, you're better off just engaging the enemy openly.
Zork wrote: EDIT2: But I wasn't aware there was so many cases in LW2 where enemies have superior sight range than soldiers, and the game doesn't show enemies sights, just soldiers sight, so plenty cases I had was certainly related to this point.
It's not just the aliens. I've seen cases where my soldiers have line of sight to an alien they should not be able to see. The line of sight mechanics are glitchy, but they're fair. The AI just knows how to abuse the glitches better than human players do ;)
Zork
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Detection square not shown

Post by Zork »

Right I mixed the cases but not at all on my original post, yes I was checking aliens spotting and on all path and around including position you can't move on but that you'll jump above or alk on.

So Im' pretty sure I had bugs if I was seeing all enemies, what I'm less sure is that it's possible that in hot of combat I didn't realized afterward that there was one enemy not seen by the soldier concealed. But again it was cases with multiple reloads and careful checks.

About "lines of sights" I suppose it's in core engine of XCoM2 and probably noticed only in LW2 because I tried sometime do stealth missions (not fan of it at all, just to try), so it's totally ridiculous that aliens know perfectly where any single unit is even without any enemy sighting a unit, nor even have ever see the unit. It's a rather awful bug, and totally tedious to get it (was trying attract aliens to another side of the map to clear path for vip, just lost my time because of a crap bug.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
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