Problems with Summon Beast

[xolotl]

This is on v1.04 on Linux, in case that matters. Was just recently doing a runthrough with a char with high Divination skill (something I hadn't done yet in Book 2) and came across some really bizarre behavior with Summon Beast when you're summoning out in the Thundersun Grazelands. Specifically, when you're out in the plains, where there's a lot of groundcover, the Wolves that I was Summoning would spawn right on top of my character but not actually show up on the screen. Additionally, the summoned wolves could be walked through, and would suddenly be visible as you walk through them. They would attack enemies who walk past or through their squares, and if hit the enemies would engage the wolf, but all the while the wolf remains not actually drawn on the screen, and walk-throughable.

I found it especially interesting that the enemies could even walk through the wolves. I wonder what would happen if you saved a game when the Taurax was in the same square as the wolf - I couldn't actually test this out because this game is in hardcore mode, so I can't save the game when I'm anywhere near the action.

If I summoned close enough to the beachy areas, where there wasn't any overgrowth, my wolves would spawn on the nearest beach tile, and act as you'd expect (they would get drawn on the screen, and would act like "solid" objects).

Additionally, when this happened I noticed something similar to the "ghost" images appearing when I hit Tab, as reported here (and elsewhere, by other folks). It looked like I would get a "ghost" image in my Tab view for each invisible wolf that I spawned.

When I did run away from the action, saved the game, and then reloaded the savegame, the wolves got drawn in properly and were solid, so it's just something to do with the runtime state. I can provide my savegame from at this point in the game, if needed, though as I say, simply loading the game won't show the behavior until you do another Summon Monster.

Now, some screenshots to illustrate what I mean. First up: At night, I've spawned one Wolf which isn't visible at all, but if I hit Tab, I can see a "ghost" of it (though note that the Ghost isn't actually on top of where the Wolf was spawned - it'll stay at the exact same tile relative to my character, as I move around).

01-spawn_1.png (75.4 KiB) Viewed 3567 times

Here I've spawned another one, which shows up as a Ghost (again, not actually on the tile it was spawned on)

02-spawn_2.png (68.92 KiB) Viewed 3567 times

And now I've spawned a third - note that the Ghost is on top of one of the previous wolves. (And again, these aren't showing the actual spawn placements).

03-spawn_3.png (59.51 KiB) Viewed 3567 times

Next three screenshots will be in the next post since the board only allows three at a time.

[xolotl]

Okay, and now in the daytime, there's a spawned wolf at (10, 110) but it's not actually visible (the "ghost" image there could possibly be from that wolf, but could be from others, too):

04-adjacent.png (53.29 KiB) Viewed 3566 times

When I move into the actual tile itself, the Wolf is now visible:

05-on_top.png (53.54 KiB) Viewed 3566 times

... and this is from slightly before the previous two screenshots, when there was still a Taurax in the area - you can't actually tell from this screenshot, since the wolf isn't getting drawn, but there is a wolf in that square, attacking the Taurax:

06-taurax_on_top.png (76.09 KiB) Viewed 3566 times

[xolotl]

And, just to have this in the same thread, I find it really weird that my Summoned beasts don't actually move around at all, even if they're being hit with ranged attacks. Any creature I summon will remain on the one square it was spawned on, until it's killed. I'd expect a summoned creature to be able to move around and engage foes, like friendly NPCs can, or like Charmed enemies, who will move to engage foes that they can see.