Lucky Crash

[ValveJam]

I was playing UFO the other day after finally getting it working on XP. Only a few missions in so I didn't have much in the way of soldiers or equipment, a couple of squaddies and a sarge, and the rest rookies. Anyways, I get a Terror mission in Lima. I land the craft and mostly empty it as I get a couple of targets and I want maximum shots on the aliens. It all goes a bit pear shaped and about 3 or 4 troops end up eating grenade. A couple more get shot. One panics, but thats it. Payback time? not quite, get a few shots off including from the tank but to no effect. The next alien turn, they carry on shooting and even have the brass neck to MC one of my troops and use them to cap another one. The tank even panics and its game over. The upshot? Thanks to XP the game then crashes out and back to the desktop, the last save I made was before the terror mission.

 

Thanks Bill!

 

(Course the same thing will probably happen the next time I play and get another Terror mission, but I guess thats life!)

[Jman4117]

Format and install DOS. Works wonders for X-com problems.

[Bomb Bloke]

I wonder how well DOS runs on newer machines. I think I'll try it. Gimme a day or two...

[NKF]

An X-Com players mantra: Crashes happen. Live with it.

 

Unfortunately, great game as it is, it is simply infested with bugs. The occasional crash is bound to happen.

 

While the OS is to blame for some of the problems, you cannot blame it entirely. Some crashes are completely random and happen only once. Some general bugs only happen in the CE version of UFO. Bugs can even differ based simply on your specific computer build.

 

For example between the CE and dos edition, on a mission with the base disjoint bug (basically a fencepost problem), I had a couple of ethereals separated from the rest of the base. I think this might be causing a pathfinding error (or just messing it up a bit), and UFO CE cannot handle many errors gracefully apart from crashing back to the desktop. The game would crash every time after ending a few turns. But when I copied the savegame into the dos edition, it played on as normal.

 

I wouldn't worry about the occasional crash. Just remember another mantra used in practically every other game that lets you: Save Often..

 

My advice would be to not save in the battlescape, but in the geoscape. So if you're having trouble with the map itself, reload from the geoscape and regenerate the mission. It may just help.

 

As for the game being minimsed: Are you using XComutil to run the f0dder patch? Unfortunately it has to minimise to the desktop temporarly whenver it switches between the Geoscape and the Battlescape by the way XComutil splits the executables so that it behaves slightly like the old dos edition. But if you're only using the f0dder loader on its own, it is a bit unsual for it to do that.

 

- NKF

 

P. S: Regarding using plain old MS-Dos, make sure it's on a 2 gig partition. MS-Dos's 16 bit file allocation table can't handle anything larger than that. I've tried it on a 700mhz computer with a couple of rather new gadgets plugged in and it works fine apart from its inability to make use of really big harddrives and the lack of dos drivers for some hardware. Even with a brand new GEForce or whatever, you should still get standard VGA and some of the simpler SVGA modes, making it adequate for the X-Com games.

[Bomb Bloke]

I'm going to do some serious investigations as to what version of UFO I actually have. The only (-only-) bug I've ever had with it is the green screen crash, and even that is terribly rare.

[Jman4117]

I've got 1.2 or 1.4 and I've only crashed with Windows running a few times and never to my knowlege in DOS.

[NKF]

I can help there. Back when Dos 6.22 was THE OS (win 3.11 didn't count - it was a system hog) and 486's were THE cpu my games crashed all the time. TFTD (I started with this), UFO 1.2 (initially on a 2meg ram 386) and so on.

 

But hey, I get these very same crashes today on top of the hardware and OS related ones. So, eh. Some are just lucky I guess.

 

- NKF

[ValveJam]

I'm just using the f0dder patch on its own. Ah well, like you say, saving every so often is the way to go. Not a problem thats going to stop me playing, especially as its only happened the once to date.

[Pumpkinhead]

What are XComUtil and this Fodder thing?

[Jman4117]

Xcomutil is a program that allows the games to be modified in various ways and I think f0dder has something to do with setting up the CE version for split executables.

[Alan]

If i recall correctly, the f0dder patch fixes a graphics bug in the CE version of UFO & TFTD.

[ValveJam]

Thats right, the f0dder patch fixes the garbled graphics that you get when you try to run UFO or TFTD (From the CE) through XP.

[Zombie]

I usually save twice:

First I save in the Geoscape screen.

Now I send my sqaud out to the target.

When I enter the Battlescape screen, I save again. This time in a different slot.

 

If something goes haywire during the mission, I can do one of 2 things. The first is to reload the Battlescape save. If the game still crashes, I know that the Battlescape save is corrupted somehow. I then reload the Geoscape save and send my troops out again, saving again in the Battlescape. If the problem continues, I exit the game, go into the game folder where the problem occurred, and delete all the files there. Then I reload from the Geoscape... well, you get the idea. This time when I save in the Battlescape, the game folder is fresh and clean, and usually does not crash again!

 

My philosophy is: I don't save the game to cheat, I save the game to play!