Bug, Disappearing Harvester Escorts (final update)

Support and Bug Reports
1

Platform:
PC

Description:
Runners escorting harvesters and rival harvesters vanish after one of the escorts is killed and cools down. Any player or robot can kill a member of the escort to cause the whole group to vanish.

I have confirmed that this occurs with harvesters class A-C, and with Military and FNIX rivals. I did not have a prototype harvester rival to test with.
The trigger appears to be the death of an escort effectively starting the doom-timer. It doesn’t matter what alert state the harvester or escort are in (unaware, suspicious or combat). The time for them to vanish is not precise, but around 15-30 seconds, and matches the time it takes for the corpse to cool down.
The map location does not matter either.

No Alpine Unrest DLC installed.

It’s the same as Dantec’s bug but I was lucky to get solid evidence of it.

Edit: Occasionally the dead escort survives the snap.
Edit the Second: tracked the timer to corpse cool down thanks to @Voodoo

Steps To Reproduce:
Find a harvester with escort and kill one of the runner escorts. Look away from the killed escort. Wait. The runners will shortly vanish. Alternatively, use an enemy robot to kill an escort. The same effect happens, the escorts vanish after about 20 seconds or so. Don’t keep the corpse in IR or it won’t cool down and won’t trigger the snap. The corpse has to leave the player view to trigger the snap once its reached its cool down.

Images / Videos:
Here’s a short video demonstration. First, shooting one runner and watching the rest vanish. Second, killing one runner, staying in combat and watching the escort vanish. Third, aggroing the harvester, staying in combat with the escort until the harvester kills one of its runners, and watching the escort vanish. (I could hear that they’d stopped even though I was on the other side of the shed. Those guys definitely disappeared.) Fourth, further testing. I aggro the harvester and wait. The dogs remain. I shoot a weapon off a runner, injuring it. I wait, and the runners remain. I kill a runner, and wait. The rest of the escort vanish, leaving only the harvester.
(Apologies for the poor video editing. As much as I wish I had the skill, I do not.)

Crude example of the snap and the cool down. Note the HUD indicator shows the escort vanishes exactly as the corpse leaves the frame. (It’s repeated at quarter speed for your pleasure.)

Host or Client:
Either host or client
Guaranteed to happen as host in SP, I can’t reproduce it in mutliplayer.

Players in your game:
Solo SP. So one.

Specifications:
Win10, RTX 2060, 16 GB RAM, i5 9400

5 Likes
2

Great job collecting this systematic evidence!

I’d like to add that I had experienced the case where I had killed multiple doggos and the first body stayed while later bodes disappeared. Perhaps the timer resets in a certain way upon killing one. But at this point this variant is of minor importance.

2 Likes
3

I’m not sure what to make of the bodies. The general disappearing loot-bodies is a separate issue, but is perhaps related. Good point.

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4

I specifically mean bodies of harvester escort doggos disappearing at the same time as the left alive ones.

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5

Ah, yes. Got it.  

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6

To be specific: In the other thread you wrote that the whole group disappears. I understand that as dead and alive doggos. I witnessed that the first dead doggo sometimes stays while the second dead doggo vanishes.

Not sure that this is relevant for anyting, but I found it noteworthy.

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7

I’ve seen it once I think in the past, but I wasn’t 100% sure if it was a random patrol dog or not. Thanks for the evidence, it does help.

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8

Definitely.

It happens all the time. Maybe the vanishing of dead Runners is linked to their temperature.

I captured a couple of cases before I got occupied by more pressing matters :grimacing:
So, as if @Flick’s evidence is not convincing enough :wink:, here is some more sloppy footage of vanishing Runners:

Number one.

Time from first kill to vanishing: approximately 22 seconds. Dead “cold” runner remains.

Just in case anyone notices: that pack appearing at the end was a new pack of class D Runners as opposed to the Class C Runners that vanished.

Number 2.

Time from first kill to vanishing: approximately 12 seconds. The killed Runner was still there but unfortunately I don’t know if it was warm or cold.

The combat mode actually started some time before this but I got killed and the combat ended. Before I died I killed 2 of them. Time between first kill and dying: approximately 20 seconds. (I should have rendered it all).

Number 3.

Time from first kill to vanishing: approximately 24 seconds. Warm Runner vanishes too.

The dead Harvester at the start was from an earlier fight which I didn’t record.

3 Likes
9

i had this as well outside the hotel

10

@pegnose and @Voodoo are definitely onto something.
I hadn’t noticed that machines cooled down. Details like that are a reason I love the game. However, from watching through binos and scope, I’ve never seen a body cool down. It’s hot, I look away, look back and it’s cool. So, trying to test this with ‘the snap’ problem has been tricky.

The results: I spent about 10 minutes occasionally being shot at while scoped in IR and the escort did not vanish and the corpse did not cool.
Later, while trying to find somewhere safer to observe, I had to break line of sight to the corpse. At the exact moment the corpse left the frame the escort vanished. (Crude video) The dogs were not directly visible at the time, but the hud indicator ceased.

It seems @Voodoo was spot on about the temperature. It seems that the escort disappears once the first corpse has cooled. However, it’s possible to prevent the corpse from cooling by looking at it. in IR (video available if required). I don’t know if other scope modes matter. Turn out looking at it scoped or not prevents the change.

2 Likes
11

I noticed that sometimes loot boxes spawn in very late after entering a building. I had a very impressive instance of this where I was looting one of those locked ammo cubicle huts. Initially, it was empty. Then the boxes would only spawn in when I looked away from a particular shelve.

Might be similar with robot state changes, might explain the variance in time-to-poof.

PS: Is it possible that Daily Motion does not run well in Chrome? I can’t watch your videos, @Flick.

13

I’m not sure. I get the feeling they can reappear, but I’ve not got any proof. It takes a while for it to happen, if it’s the same escort. I’m confident that the dead stay dead, it’s the live one that vanish and then maybe run back from somewhere, or maybe respawn fresh, or mostly don’t come back at all.

If you’re noticing it, @Anon302611 please try to figure out definite triggers or take some video if you can.

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14

I have not had any of them re-appear at the moment

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Yes, they absolutely have!

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