Disappearing mines

[Bootie]

Hi guys,

Mines. I’m going to report this as a bug, unless someone tells me it’s deliberate, in which case we’ll move it to Feedback. I don’t do traps much, but when I do, I like auto-explode, so drop mines beside a lure. But machines sometimes take a while to attract into the killing ground. So yesterday I put down three mines and a lure and went off to find the Rival I was targetting. By the time I’d got the rival to the mines, they had disappeared - just gone. Not only did they not explode, and clearly could not be picked up again, but had just vanished. All gone for nothing. Eh?

Mines should stay in place until the end of the session, never mind five minutes! I assume it’s a bug. Can we fix it, please?

Oh, I’m PC, exactly minimum spec…

[Voodoo]

So, mines have joined the vanishing objects club too, or so it seems (I haven’t tested this myself, yet).

I initially joined this forum to post this bug report about vanishing objects. That report was primarily about Fuel Cells (and Gas Tanks) spontaneously disappearing when walking a short distance away. (Mines were actually the last to remain, back then).

But, as you can see it didn’t get much response or attention. Which was actually “slightly” disappointing after putting in so many hours of effort. So, I guess not many people use this stuff, have this problem or consider it a problem.

Since then, I generally stopped using all these things as elaborate traps because it feels like a pretty big insult to have your stuff taken away, just like that. Especially in the beginning of the game when these things are really rare to find.

Actually, I tried single Large Fuel Cell’s a couple of times again a few days ago and one time it disappeared when I was only about 30-40 meters away (not just because of rendering distance; it was actually gone after I immediately walked back to the spot).

Mines, I don’t find particularly useful anyway. Considering the small amount of damage they do to the big guys, they just don’t justify the inventory space they occupy (they might if they would at least blast the weapons off a Tank). I only occasionally use them (when I happen to have some) when being chased by a pack of Hunters (quickly dump one behind you and hope they don’t run around them). Or for easily clearing out Bergrum “Myskoxen”:

Spoiler alert!

Let the Bunker door open itself, quickly dump a Mine through the gap just inside the entrance and run away fast!

But I agree. In my opinion this is definitely a bug. These objects should be persistent during, at least, the session. Of course, I can understand there being a certain limit to the amount of manually placed objects. But as it seems now, they are part of the “dynamic world objects list” and are susceptible to “random” removal. Which basically makes them useless.

[Bootie]

Yeah, I’ve had gas bottles disappear too, but then I almost never use them. I normally use mines just like you do - to slow down packs of Hunters, but they should be a good lure trap, so we need to get that fixed. I’ll start agitating until we can get an acknowledgement, because this affects gameplay negatively, and also the original concept to laying traps. @Zesiir, can you get a handle on this, and see whether we can get an acknowledgement, since that will push it a tad up the list of things to do…? If I wander around Normyra (which has lots of mines lying around), I might be able to catch it on video. Mines and bottles should endure the whole session…

Voodoo, what platform are you on?

[Voodoo]

I agree. Although I suspect that really agitating the devs is not going to be appreciated.

Nevertheless, I’d really like to see this addressed too.

I’m on PC. Full specs are in my bug report, if you’re interested.

[Bootie]

By “agitiating”, I just means saying it consistently and politely to the right people at the right time. Hopefully we will get to the point in a few weeks where they can stop fire-fighting and address things like this. We just need someone on the Team to let us know the vision for how they should work, and then make them do it as soon as they can get round to it.

Stupidly, I was at home for the last broadcast, and thought it was the following day so missed it, but i was going to raise it then…

[Zesiir]

I can sort of understand the point of it, if you drop mines then travel far away from the area the game removes them to save resources. But I agree it’s not really ideal. Not much point of a persistent game world if the items you place in it aren’t persistent.

I could poke someone about it, though it’s not exactly a critical matter and I suspect the devs already have a lot on their plate right now. So for now, I think this bug report will have to do. Feel free to add more details about the mines disappearing, etc.

What I can do though, is add it to The List

[Bootie]

No, no, Xezr, you don’t understand! You drop a mine and go 150 metres looking for an enemy to lure towards your trap. You find him, retreat to your ambush point and the mines have gone. Two minutes and 150 yards. If it were twenty minutes, or fast-travelling somewhere else, I get it. But you can put a mine down 10 yards away to protect your flank, engage six Hunters. At the end of the engagment you go to pick up the mine 10 yards away and it’s gone. When did it go? Was you flank unguarded? Why?

I put three mines down and a heavy horn lure to get a rival into the killing ground who was only 130 yards away according to the map tracker. No rival. What? A heavy lure? So I went to find him, which I did after thirty seconds. Withdrawal-in-contact towards the killing ground, arrived there, no mines.

Lures, traps and ambushes are supposed to be a fun part of the game. That is expressly stated by the DEV team, and yet I almost never use them because both bottles and mines vanish too quickly to be relied upon. It takes out that entire strategy system. Okay, you can run up behind a Tank, drop a bottle and fire on it ten seconds later, but that’s it??? That’s the lot?

No, you need to be able to set a trap, go and find your enemy and then lure him towards it. If a heavy lure won’t bring an enemy from 130 yards away, and lasts only ten seconds, then you need to do the contact/withdrawal-in-contact tactic to make it work. If you can’t, then that whole side of the game (and the fabulous satisfaction it brings) is dead in the water.

Now, if this is to “save resources”, then there is a timer and a distance marker for which the code is already written. To change that code for more time and distance is (relatively speaking) the work of a moment. Three or four mines don’t take up much resources! Bottles likewise.

I’m a regular and have played, whhat is it, 6 or 700 hours? I’ve used a bottle three times, because I learnt that I can’t rely on it. I carry mines and adore them - they should be a real source of satisfaction - playing the game as it was intended, but I only use them now to run away with. And yet, thinking about it, I use them at Torberga Fort to protect the entry gate while I loot, and some of them have gone off rwenty minutes later, so it isn’t consistent.

We need to look at it again.

[Zesiir]

I do understand where you’re coming from, sorry if it was unclear. Just not sure what to do about it now, other than providing more details in your bug report. Which you just did

[Bootie]

I think it’s just to make sure that it’s been seen and acknowledged. They could even discuss with us what we think about it. It should be such a large (and satisfying) part of the game, and one which was specifically trailed, in a way, for instance, that “Boss Machines” wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I think rivals is cool. I just think luring an enemy into a killing ground is just as cool, and mostly even more satisfying.

Remember too, that a Tank, or a Harvester, generally moves very slowly and to run around getting it into your killing ground would be a game in itself. But it takes time. Gas Tanks, boxes full of bottles, cars etc. all explode and are there all the time, so it’s not a big resource thing. It should be a big and particularly satisfying part of the game, and it just not sufficiently reliable at the moment - I’m trying to make the gme better for everyone (including the DEVs!)

[Flick]

I’ve had a large fuel cell vanish for sure after I moved 10m away. I thought it reappeared after I went into the church and returned, but being in the thick of it I’m not sure if it was just wreckage from a dog.

With respect to the resources argument, I’ve assembled a pile of 53 or 54 red and white canisters (with a buddy standing around to manage a radio). After fast traveling and returning, they looked more spread out. They were also all standing upright, which was strange because I’d been herding them together in a heap. My buddy swore that they hadn’t moved at all. Now I suspect some vanished and were lost. Could it be out of sync between host and client?
Anyway, marshaling all these canisters and detonating them behaved properly, even on my potato pc. I could believe in a questionable approach to garbage collection, but I’m not convinced there’s a low cap for world objects.
Could it be anything to do with scene complexity in the settings? Fwiw, mine’s medium.

[Zesiir]

I assume that they moved about a bit because they’re physics objects. I’ve seen it in other games that use Havok as well, you move away abit and come back and the game re-renders them for you but the physics engine tends to shift them a tiny bit.

[pegnose]

I guess the “physical” game objects despawn and respawn depending on proximity. The respawn all puts them in proper places based roughly on the stored position.

Happens with killed enemies, too. I travelled back to a place where I had killed a tank. Upon me spawning in, the tank ragdoll wiggled and rattled a bit until it lay still. I suspect it respawns and has to “sort its bones” physics-wise.

EDIT: And the respawning of gas tanks might have issues like small objects falling through the map or spawning in the ground and whatnot.

[Balla_Jazzuz]

I don’t use fuel/compressed air/mines much but yesterday I kind of cleaned out plundra for such and put everything around Klinte church, then went down to the gas station and back and the only items left was actually the mines. Everything else was gone. This is not the first time it happens and it seem to be pretty consistant to me on ps4, the mines remains…everything else are gone.

[Bootie]

Yeah, hunting trade for your trap - of course you are - we need a rethink on this. If you drop a knapsack full of kit, you can fast-travel, go for a walk, quit to main menu, change characters, pop down the pub and it’s still there when you come back. We need mines and gas bottles the same. I understand that the backpack is done differently, but it’s do-able…

[Balla_Jazzuz]

I agree @bootie everything you put out there should be there when you come back. But if I went to the pub I would’nt remember what I put out in the first place…

[Voodoo]

Don’t worry about me. I’m not easily “offended” by choice of words and I don’t mind jokes.

It’s just that humour is by far not so universal as you’d think (or like). Especially “on paper”. And “agitate” generally has a quite negative connotation. It easily sounds like: I’m going to annoy the crap out of them. Just saying

Anyways … It would be nice if you can catch it on video (a little tip just in case you’re unaware of the option: you can probably start a buffered recording. Quite handy )

To bad you missed the stream (I missed all of them). But hopefully we get some clarity soon now that this has a bit more attention.

I completely agree with you. It was (and still is) one of the core principles of the game: don’t run into a fight Rambo-style and expect to survive. In stead, plan your actions, use the environment, set traps, etc.

I also tend to agree that the argument of saving resources is questionable for a couple of user placed objects. However, in defense of the devs: we don’t know the architecture of the game engine and the way it handles game objects. I’m actually extremely curious and virtually “dying” to have a look at the code. Not that that’s ever going to happen … obviously … sigh

Nevertheless, user placed objects should not disappear whatsoever (except when reaching a dedicated limit). Not even on fast traveling (which also happens when you re-spawn at a safehouse after you die).

@Zesiir

I see you already added it to The List. Good stuff!

I know my own quoted bug report is very long but did you watch the (entire) 55 second video there? It shows the problem very clearly (albeit with the Fuel Cells).

It is still reliably reproduce-able that way (at least, here on my system). They simply get deleted after walking away for barely 100 meters.

However, when there is more activity (or whatever the criteria are), these kind of place-able objects disappear “randomly”. Even from right under your nose like Flick said. There is no “visible” logic.

As a side step. I wonder if this mechanism could somehow be related to the “teleporting”/vanishing machines, the floating seeker jets or the ghost machine sounds.

@Flick

In the tests for my own bug report I tried all the graphics settings from low to ultra and it did not appear to affect anything related to this problem. Not even the render distance of the placed Fuel Cells. (Even thrown grenades disappear before hitting the ground at the same distance regardless of settings).

[Zesiir]

Heyo, I haven’t watched the video but I know of the issue. It’s been popping up since release, though it’s been improved upon since then. It used to be, you couldn’t turn your head without mines, cells, gas cans etc disappearing. So the system could still use some adjustment.

[Bootie]

@Voodoo seems to be a coder so probably knows much more about what he’s talking about than I do (which is almost nothing computerate - although I do know what a stack is) and if he says that mines, bottles etc should be able to stay for the whole session, I trust he’s right. That is what we need to play the game is it was intended, rather than a bit more “adjustment”… I wonder what’s making it go wrong? And how easy it is to fix? I’ll leave it with you now, having flagged it, unless I get into a conversation with one of the Team.

@Voodoo - where’s your video? (i.e. name of Bug Report). EDIT: Okay, found it - my word you do things carefully! I could at no point before the Plundra bear to lose so many looted items! Well done, but appalled that that was in August. Oh well.

[Alinde]

The object cleanup algoritm can be a bit annoying. Mines, gas canisters and EMP-charges all suffer from it.

Sometime I have killed machines go up in smoke when the host fast travels to another location.

I don’t know how intelligent the clean up process is. I see several possible factors affecting how cleanup can be performed:

• Range based cleanup - when host or player is far away cleanup is done faster.
• Object count based - First in first out based probably?
• Resource based - When the host starts to get resource constrained cleanup is performed faster?
• Object type based - player based objects remain longer than killed machines?

And of course a few combinations of above.

I think the cleanup (garbage collection) should be adjusted so that player placed objects remain longer, especially simple objects like mines and gas canisters. (Back packs are a little bit more complicated as they contain objects with objects in them)

[Voodoo]

@Zesiir

I wasn’t aware of that. I haven’t been around since the beginning and I couldn’t find anything related on the forum before I posted my report.

@Bootie

Noooooooooo, don’t leave me!

Ex-coder actually. I had been typing my bud off for about 15 years but I was brute-forced to stop, unfortunately.
Never mind the details but let me just say that I really understand (and praise) the no-crunching-allowed-mentality at Avalanche Studios.

However, CodingVoodoo.exe shall only terminate when the whole system goes down. It’s like a rootkit, so, it keeps itching quite badly when it comes to these things.

Anyways … it’s not particularly relevant to this issue since objects should simply not arbitrarily disappear, imho. You don’t have to be a banker in order to be annoyed when your money gets snagged.

The bug report (with the video) was linked in my first reaction. Thanks for the compliment but it’s not nearly as “carefully” as I would like it to be. It’s long but actually also quite “sloppy”.

And I didn’t lose any stuff because I backed up my game save beforehand. Remember that cute little batch file? It can work the other way around too.

@Alinde

Machines can go up in smoke in single player too. I have exclusively played single player and I’ve “seen” more corpses vanish than I care to remember (and a couple of live ones too, by the way).

What I would expect is a dedicated array of user placed objects which is only “touched” if its own element count reaches its own dedicated maximum. As it “feels” now, all dynamically created objects are just dumped into the same big object pool from which they are picked “seemingly” randomly for removal.

But since we (or at least I) know absolutely nothing about the game engine, all is just pure speculation. It could be a really stupid idea (performance-wise) and it could be as far from reality as it possibly can be.

Like I said somewhere above. I wonder if this mechanism could somehow be related to the “teleporting”/vanishing machines, the floating seeker jets or the ghost machine sounds. It seems like a generic problem of (sub) objects being removed when they shouldn’t be, or not being removed when they should be.

So Avalanche, just post your source code already so we can put ourselves out off our curious misery!