Explore on geoscape does nothing

Since the miskatonic patch using the Explore action on the geoscape has been failing more and more. By failing i mean it shows the progress of the action on the icon but when it completes nothing happens, just an empty black circle around the item as if it was just beginning the action. Sometimes it shows the ‘?’ still but sometimes it shows the magnifying glass and shows the tooltip of an exploration site, but it cannot be activated.

This happened rarely at first but has happened more and more since. Managed to get round it at first by using a different aircraft to perform the action but since the hotfix deployed today i cannot successfully explore anything, with anything. Completing a mission makes no difference.

Not sure what other details to give.

My game is now unplayable. As this is my first game i’m not exactly keen to start over…

shadybits

I have this bug since long and not linked to last patch. It seems happen more often as campaign progress. I already reported once or twice through in game bug report, it wouldn’t hurt if you do the same.

I can confirm that bug. Please fix.

Had you saved while the ‘Explore’ was in progress? I’ve found that when I’ve done that, I get that ‘no result’ result. If I move away (even just momentarily) and then re-explore, I get the result.

Firstly yes, I always get the result at second attempt.

For save and reload that I do this often at goescape to get the icons, yes I suspect there’s a link but it’s not constant, and I don’t know if it’s a required condition.

I had also the suspicion that trading was increasing the chance it happens, and slow time too but it could be because I do more stuff during slow time. I see a few time the dialog trigger after a little delay, it could be some parallel tasks problem and synch problem.

With nerf patch it seems have changed to appear later in campaign but more often.

Any news on a fix for this? Seems to be getting more frequent and it’s quite frustrating to have to re-do scans when there are plenty of things on the map to do. I can imagine at higher levels that time being very important.

This happens if you save and load while scan in progress. After you load, scan complete and nothing happened. BUT! Aircraft automatically scan site again without animation of scan progress.

unfortunately no there isn’t. I don’t think its a bug. the later into the game the more is happens. I believe that as the game goes on the geo-scape getting more active the IA is starting to struggle doing all the calculations and we noticed it when its calculating what we are uncovering.

one thing to be careful is having too many aircraft exploring as you can get hit all at once.

manticore 1 finds new haven…
manticore 2 finds a random encounter…
manticore 3 finds scavenging site…
manticore 4 gets ambushed…

all started scans at different times but because the AI lag the results all come at the same time.
the result was…

manticore 4 ambush mission.
manticore 1 I lose the introduction to new haven…
manticore 2 lost it completely but now stuck with a magnifying glass that I cant do anything with but scan…
manticore 3 is waiting to deploy…

to cut down on this problem make sure 1 explore is complete before you start the next.

yes that’s if player does the load/save while scan but the game does not need a players input to cause the this problem.

That makes some sense, but surely that is still a bug? If the game allows us to explore multiple sites then they should finish or there isn’t much point having multiple area scans and aircraft.
Whether the issue is the geoscape activity making the scans fail or the scanning itself the end result is the same and not as expected.

I’m pretty sure this has happened to me without loading a save as well, so it makes sense if it’s a geoscape activity issue. Although that may be harder to fix, it should still be fixed.

the thing that worries is that the next DLC Festering Skies might make the problem worse.
I think they need to slow down the AI calculations in geo-scape by making the game length longer so its making the like the ODI hits max in a say a year instead of half that time.

similar to xcom 2’s avatar project. 1 of things that made that great was the player if so chose could make the last longer (was supposed to be completed in just less than a year in game time, but I did campaigns that went as for as 5 years lol)

but the ODI cant be extended beyond the set game time because the planet its terraforming.
so easiest answer I would think is to extend time frame take the stress off the AI.

It does seem like PP has some very conflicting ideas on urgency, timeframes, and who we’re actually fighting. I also like slow playing these games to make sure I research everything and have the team I want for the finale.
Obviously this game is a lot more ‘you get what you’re given, deal with it’, right down to base locations, haven defenses, and inaccessible missions. I feel like ODI should purely link to the mist expansion which can be stopped or reversed to a degree with enough repellers. Maybe they should add an option to share the tech with other havens in everyones best interest. Pandorans will still control the oceans so it’s not a victory, and they could destroy the havens with repellers so it wouldn’t totally stalemate the game but could extend it.
All round PP is just generally not as polished as I would expect though.

I can also confirm that leaving the geoscape for battles messes with the scans, even if you don’t save or load anything.

But those are not linked, and actually separated ways of dominating Earth by Pandorans. So this is not conflicting. Btw ODI will be replaced with something else.

But at some point Synedrion don’t care about interest of their human enemies.

I understand you all talk about “Explore location” thing not the “satellite Area Scan”? Because all my scans ended successuly to this point without any interruptions. Exploration can reset if you leave geoscape.

It’s not so much that they conflict, it’s just having a hidden mechanic ticking up that the player can’t directly stop/fight except under certain conditions is a bit limiting. Tying it to the mist would give a clear visual representation. It’ll be interesting to see what it’s replaced with though.

Well, they care enough to share the mist tech with PP, and since we want to save humanity we should care enough to share with the others, even if there’s a diplomatic penalty with Syn.
If they still want to fight each other they could, perhaps even more frequently if you have a defense system that keeps the pandorans in check as humans would go back to their internal war. That would then risk messing up the defenses and could add an interesting dynamic.
This is another bugbear of mine however. PP is focused on defeating the pandorans, who are clearly the main threat, but the human factions just want to fight each other and sabotage their own future. I know humanity isn’t too bright at times and they wouldn’t stop disliking each other, but it feels off in the circumstances that they still conduct open warfare against lesser threats.

Yes this is only for the “Explore location” that resets whenever you leave the geoscape for any reason. I think the code needs to look for “explores in progress” and record their completion % prior to leaving the geoscape or saving the game, and then load it again when returning.

I can reproduce it.
If you start a scan and go to mission (with another team for example) - the exploration is broken.
Same happens when you save & load.

that is not scan, but exploration