Bug with turrets and "turn lock"

First off I did read the “how to report bugs” OP. I don’t have a save file because I didn’t save during the mission and I don’t want to replay the mission just to try to get the ideal save file to demonstrate the bugs. That being said, I don’t think any of these bugs should be particularly hard to reproduce. I can describe the conditions under which they reliably occur or do not. I know this is a somewhat long read, I promise that it is worthwhile. This post concisely pinpoints very specific and glaring problems with the game in non-ranting way.

  1. The game doesn’t know to resolve enemy panic if that panic was generated on the enemy turn, resulting in a pandoran turn that never ends. What happens is that during the pandoran turn, a pandoran will do something that causes a reaction shot of some sort (return fire, overwatch) and the reaction shot kills the pandoran, and this death causes panic in one or more or the remaining pandorans. For whatever reason, if a pondoran starts panic on the pandoran turn, the turn will be unable to proceed, locking the game. The game has a list chararcters that each need to resolve their turn but a panicked character can’t do anything. What should panicked pandoran do if the panic was generated on the same turn? That is for other people to decide, the game needs to force it to do something, even if that something is nothing, and then pass the baton to the other characters. Or alternatively each panic should be flagged, then ignored and then reset upon the start of the PP turn. To put it another way, the pandorans take a normal unpanicked turn and then panic is delayed until the start of the PP turn.

  2. If you have turrets deployed, it becomes a real hassle to end every turn. In order to end your turn you have to either a) force end the turn or b) click on each and every turret that has not taken an action and select standby and then click on a human character then click standby. It becomes necessary to go through this process on each and every turn (or just force end the turn) which can really mess up the flow of the game. It is just very tedious and time consuming. Why not just force end the turn? Well yes but that is generally not how players have been trained by the game to play: you work through a list of all your available characters until you get the “you have used all your AP, do you wish to end your turn” message. This list of characters, who both show in the list on the lower left and whose turn must be resolved before getting the “no AP” message, does not include turrets in two of three ways. Unlike every other PP character, turrets do not show up in the list in the corner, focus does not automatically shift to a turret upon resolution other the character turns (what I guess you might call the “character queue” FLBW). However, like every other PP character, turrets do need to have their turn resolved before PPs turn is resolved (i.e. the “no AP” message). Compare the handling of turrets to civilians under PP control. Civilians have a visible element in the visual list in the lower left corner, focus will eventually shift to a civilian in the character queue as other characters turns are resolved, and their turn needs to resolved in other to end the PP turn. The problem with turrets can be boiled down to this: they sit in a grey intermediate zone between being and not being a PP character and this can be resolved shifting them into one column or another. Or to put it another way, turrets currently have 1 or the 3 characteristics shared by PP characters and civilians (they block the end of the turn), they should be modified to have either 0 or all 3. If turrets are intended to be autonomous then they should automatically, without any player action, take their best available shot or enter standby if they lack any viable shots. In no way should they ever be capable of blocking the end of the PP turn. OR alternatively they should be like any other PP character or civilian, focus will shift to them and they have visible elements in the character list.

  3. Spotting enemies consumes movement. Pretty self explanatory: you have a certain movement range per AP, and your range for your current AP is reduced upon spotting enemies. Say you are trying to move to a particular tile that is at the maximum extent of movement for a your current AP. You try to move to this tile and spot a few enemies and can no longer reach the tile within your current AP and have to use another AP. Or you can’t get there at all because your current AP was your last for the turn.

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There’s perhaps different turrets but turret aren’t controlled if you don’t use a skill to do it. They are shown at bottom left like civilians. I noticed the bug but didn’t make the link with turrets.

I check at bottom left to end the turn, and for me the problem is more that overwatch still show action points despite it’s too late to change, otherwise a quick check allows click end of turn or not, I bother less and less with Standby, and the auto select next soldier is more and more an option I’d prefer disable.

EDIT: Nope in fact I don’t use Standby anymore.

Not true. I’'m using scorchers but I don’t think the model matters. If a turret has neither been deployed nor shot that turn, a turret gets a turn without using the remote control ability of the technician. This can be easy to overlook because if, after the enemy turn but prior to the start of the PP turn, the turret has a shot it will take it automatically. Often the turret will consume its turn automatically if it has an available shot. So they give the impression that they just take their turn automatically in general but this isn’t exactly true, just how things shake out +60% of the time. If a turret hasn’t been deployed or taken a shot that turn,you can click on the turret and fire manually. There isn’t anything to fire at because the turret would have already shot at it, but you can shoot a wall or some object or, if nothing else, the skybox. This isn’t a totally academic point: an explosion during the PP turn might destroy some terrain and clear a shot for the turret.

OK that is also not true. Unless we are talking about 2 different things or playing different versions of the game. There is a list of character mini portraits that show in the lower left corner of the screen. Turrets are not showing up there in my game.

Maybe they could add this to the options to enable/disable.

I use turrets quite often, I never ever play their turn, they have RF and they attack right before player turn.

The only exception is use the tech skill then you have one action, but sometime two, but I think it’s a bug.

And yes they are shown at bottom left, have you checked at least? It’s bellow soldiers quite like civilians. Perhaps you have a bug. Quote also they have no AP until you use the tech skill.

Imgur

Yeah clear bug.