Multiple Dropzones on maps

[Amineri]

So I was testing out some new mods and was running a mission with the developer console enabled.

 

I had disabled the fog of war using \togglefow

I then made all actors visible using \set actor bHidden 0

 

Here is what I saw:

http://wiki.tesnexus.com/images/f/f2/Small_Scout_showing_three_dropzones.jpg

 

There are actually three dropzones baked into this map. On this particular mission the real dropzone was the one in the lower left of the screen.

 

I did test by running over the displayed dropzone in the lower right corner, but it was inactive and so did not give the option to abort the mission when the turn was ended with a soldier in the dropzone.

 

Thought I would toss it out as a "kind of interesting" phenomenon. Eventually if I ever mess around with adding more soldier, it might be possible (or even necessary) to drop off soldiers at one of the other dropzones, depending on how many soldier spawn points there are at each.

 

One thing that would be interesting to find out would be which maps have multiple dropzones, and how many are on each map. I suspect that this may be related to the "disappearing dropzone" bug.

[Hobbes77]

Just saw this post and I tested it out. Indeed in one UFO map I could see that the soldiers started in a different DZ than the one of the Skyranger. I'm going to use this to update the map info on the UFOPaedia. Thanks for sharing! :)

[Amineri]

Glad you found it useful. I know I've found ufopaedia very useful, so I'm glad I return something.

 

Interestingly, today I had a mission on the small landed Small Scout UFO map . Upon save / reload the game showed a different skyranger / dropzone than the one my squad originally deployed from.

[Hobbes77]

I've finished mapping the Drop Zones and Alien Starting Zones on Small/Large Scouts and Overseer maps. Here's an image:

 

http://www.ufopaedia.org/images/thumb/d/dc/Small_Scout_Badlands_3_%28EU2012%29.png/800px-Small_Scout_Badlands_3_%28EU2012%29.png

 

One interesting bit is that there's some sort of a bug on the Large Scout Deep Woods map. Everytime I try the \set actor bHidden 0 on that map the game simply crashes.

[Amineri]

I've noticed the same in my game -- at least one of the UFO maps had a tendency to crash the game when using that command.

 

If we could figure out the specific class of the dropships and dropzone that could be substituted for the general 'actor' class, which is then turning on everything. Offhand I don't know what class that is, though.

 

I have used the \set command to set other things -- in particular item charges can be set on soldiers using \set xgunit_0 m_iSmokeGrenades 20 for example.

 

It's just a question of puzzling out the correct classname.

[Hobbes77]

Yup, just tried the 2 crashed Abductor maps and also got crashes but the landed Abductors are OK. Weird.

[johnnylump]

I can't help but wonder if these maps are the same as those with the disappearing escape zone problem (some of which come back with a save and reload, and some don't).

[Hobbes77]

When I first tested this I had a soldier starting without the DZ or the Skyranger but after typing the set actor command the map revealed the 3 Skyranger locations and didn't crash so apparently it is not related.

[Amineri]

I think JL is saying that maybe it is the maps with multiple dropzones that have the issue with the disappearing dropzones, like somehow the game gets "confused" about which dropzone is supposed to be active.

 

I know I was surprised when I reloaded that time and my dropzone was on the other side of the map. 353 hours so far and that's the first time I remember seeing that.

[Hobbes77]

I think JL is saying that maybe it is the maps with multiple dropzones that have the issue with the disappearing dropzones, like somehow the game gets "confused" about which dropzone is supposed to be active.

 

I know I was surprised when I reloaded that time and my dropzone was on the other side of the map. 353 hours so far and that's the first time I remember seeing that.

 

It doesn't only happen in maps with multiple DZs: one time it happened to me on the Police Station terror map. I was playing CI and had Lasers/Carapace and when the 2nd and 3rd Cyberdiscs appeared I simply got a squad wipe running through the whole map whle trying to find the fracking bail out zone. And did I mention I was trying to get the Ain' No Cavalry Coming achievement by bringing the same soldier to all missions?