Turrets get "stuck" after long firing times

[William Travis Focker]

On some of the longer levels I've noticed my towers get "stuck" after long periods of firing. Usually these are level 3 cannon or meteor towers. When there are enemies nearby they won't fire or rotate to track the target. Most noticeable on grinder maps.




Here's a screenshot:
http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/4...turretspc2.jpg




The level 3 cannon in the upper right was just frozen in place and wasn't engaging the turtle as it went by.




Selling the turret and building another is the only way to get that slot working again.

[jeff]

and it is true...


Cannon & Meteor towers have a minimum distance required to fire at an alien.* On the Steam forums Echo answered that the min range for Cannon is a radius equal to 1.5 squares away from the center of it and the Meteor minimum range is 2 squares away.





There are multiple game balance reasons for this that I'll let Echo address, but that minimum range helps balance those towers as well.*





We originally had a minimum range indicator in the game, but playtestors found it confusing and so it was removed.





Jeff

[William Travis Focker]

This seems like a different case than the minimum range you mentioned. I'd need to make a video to show you what I mean but the turrets are well and truly stuck. They don't even rotate to track the aliens that are within the acceptable range. They simply don't fire on any aliens whatsoever




For example in that screenshot, the cannon was not targeting the turtle as it came through the alleyway a few seconds prior even though that was clearly well over 2 squares away.




Or in this case you have two sets of aliens clearly within range and the turret is stuck pointing between them and not firing:
http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/309...tstuck2od0.jpg




Maybe it is something off with the min range calculations, though that wouldn't explain the issue only coming up after a long firing time.

[jeff]

The towers should still track during an alien inside*min range, just not fire and properly aim (in the case of cannon), so if they aren't turning, that does mean something else is wrong.* I didn't properly interpret your "stuck" comment.





So, I haven't heard of this happening since we have shipped the game.* But to help diagnose, I have*a new set of questions from the dev team as they try to figure out what has happened.





1. Is this happening only in one particular save game or does this happen anytime you start a new game from the main menu (and choose "restart" if you are asked) - (also, restart from the main menu is actually different than restart from the pause menu - we're asking about restart from the main menu)?





2. Does this happen on any level or only on a specific level.





3. What are your system specifications (and in particular memory available)?





4. Does this repeatably happen to a level 3 cannon tower*if you checkpoint back to a place prior to that tower being upgraded and then upgrade it again?





5. How does the meteor tower act when it is "stuck"?* Does stuck mean no longer firing, no longer animating in any way, both, something else?* Same for Cannon?* Any other towers?





6. Does this only happen to level 3 towers?* If not, does upgrading a tower fix it?





7.*Do the steps to reproduce this require the use of going to a previous checkpoint or using fast forward?* If you don't use those can you still reproduce this?





8. Info about your build and updated version:* Can you give us the created & modified time and dates as well as the size in bytes of the executable file. (right-click on it and choose properties).* Also, can you use the cheat code "=wematanye" typed on the main menu with a return afterwards (you should hear an audio beep if successful).* It will show a long string in the bottom left of the screen.* Send us that string if you would.





Thanks much - you can answer all these questions in an email to info <at> hiddenpath .com and just reference the stuck towers.





Thanks








Jeff

[BlueGeezer]

just to throw my hat into the ring i concur with this.

i have had it happen to me 3 times in playing however they have been scattered and not repeatable that i could notice. they were all level 3 turrets that happened after a significant amount of play (im pretty sure all 3 were on grinder mode). they literally freeze they refuse to act or track anymore and just sit there and do nothing to the point that the only way i could get them to do anything was to sell the turret and rebuild. to me it has the feel of some form of counter reset where a number goes too high on it and refuses to act from that on.

i have played the game a bit now (completed the main game not the challenge mode yet and tried out a good number of the other modes) so its not something that happens all the time just every so often.

[jeff]

Our best assessment is that this is a timing issue that happens when framerate gets very very low.* Try lowering the video resolution or quality of the game to improve performance and we believe then that this won't take place.





Jeff