Synapse and Babbage Possible Problem

[Turric]

After doing the Synapse TF a number of times this week, Babbage either failed to spawn, or was destroyed instantly by the police drones after spawning. I feel like this is a growing trend. I do not know if anything changed recently (like last 6 months?) or not. Is anyone else having this problem?

 

And I can never find him (it) in Boomtown to take down otherwise. In fact, I do not recall seeing the message that it spawns there ever.

 

Btw, this was on Indomitable, then Excelsior and then Everlasting this week. So, not server specific.

[Without_Pause]

Only seen it happen once during the week(Indom). Mildly annoying as I have only a couple characters on said server so I want to invest in them, ie get badges.

[Frozen Burn]

The Babbage ambush is keyed on the first person to exit the mission.  So sometimes, if the first person to leave the mission immediately ports out of the zone to get the temp power too fast, or if they port to Ouro or their base directly from inside the mission - then Babbage will not spawn in Skyway.  I had a friend go immediately from the mission to our base and then to Steel and Babbage spawned in Steel (only then to be immediately droned) - this has happened several times and the issues stopped once he stopped porting directly to Ouro or the base from the mission.   

 

Also, if the first person out - and who Babbage is keyed on - goes to the tram to go to Steel to get the temp power, they could be leading Babbage to the drones there.  

 

To ensure that Babbage spawns and you get to fight him, everyone should stay near the exit door and don't wander near the tram where the drones are. THere are a couple doors for that mish that occur right next to the tram, so be sure when you exit - GO AWAY from the tram.  Once you have him and his attention kept, then whomever can go get the Temp power from Posi in Steel.  

[SuggestorK]

4 hours ago, Frozen Burn said:

The Babbage ambush is keyed on the first person to exit the mission.  So sometimes, if the first person to leave the mission immediately ports out of the zone to get the temp power too fast, or if they port to Ouro or their base directly from inside the mission - then Babbage will not spawn in Skyway.  I had a friend go immediately from the mission to our base and then to Steel and Babbage spawned in Steel (only then to be immediately droned) - this has happened several times and the issues stopped once he stopped porting directly to Ouro or the base from the mission.   

 

Also, if the first person out - and who Babbage is keyed on - goes to the tram to go to Steel to get the temp power, they could be leading Babbage to the drones there.  

 

To ensure that Babbage spawns and you get to fight him, everyone should stay near the exit door and don't wander near the tram where the drones are. THere are a couple doors for that mish that occur right next to the tram, so be sure when you exit - GO AWAY from the tram.  Once you have him and his attention kept, then whomever can go get the Temp power from Posi in Steel.  

We did all of that yesterday.. no one moved away from mish door and he still didnt show up at all and yes its a growing trend lately (Reunion here).

[AboveTheChemist]

Although I can't confirm this, I have heard that if the Superadine raid (i.e. the troll rave) event is in progress in Skyway, that will prevent Babbage from spawning.

 

11 hours ago, Turric said:

And I can never find him (it) in Boomtown to take down otherwise. In fact, I do not recall seeing the message that it spawns there ever.

I've seen the message twice in the last couple of weeks, and I probably only play 6 hours or so a week. If you use vidiotmaps, the spawn locations are marked on the map, and are concentrated near the northern edge of Boomtown (here's the wiki version for reference).

[GM Impervium]

Move thread to Bug Reports.

I've independently verified that this is working, but that was after using GM commands to blitz through the TF, and waiting for Babbage to appear. I noticed that he seems to spawn on the bridge ABOVE where the mission is, and drops down. It could be that he's spawning and just running in a circle above you?

In either case, we have gotten a lot of reports on this lately, so something else could be happening. Devs have been made aware, but without a surefire way to reproduce this occurrence, we'd just be guessing at a fix. If anyone has any further information on this issue, let us know!

[SuggestorK]

2 hours ago, GM Impervium said:

Move thread to Bug Reports.

I've independently verified that this is working, but that was after using GM commands to blitz through the TF, and waiting for Babbage to appear. I noticed that he seems to spawn on the bridge ABOVE where the mission is, and drops down. It could be that he's spawning and just running in a circle above you?

In either case, we have gotten a lot of reports on this lately, so something else could be happening. Devs have been made aware, but without a surefire way to reproduce this occurrence, we'd just be guessing at a fix. If anyone has any further information on this issue, let us know!

After 2-3 Minutes wait we scattered and checked nearby places , the road above was one of the 1st points i checked.. also the water ramps below nearby, if he maybe was stuck under one of those, but nada, just no sign of him.

 

And yes its not always happening.. sometimes it just works fine.. but lately the times he dont show outnumbers the times its working.

 

One thing i should mention, it was strange thats why i remembering it. We called for help cause wasnt sure if we could take him alone.. and one of the helpers said on general he saw him, before we exited mish, maybe a leftover from a previous tf that preventing our spawn? Or our spawn triggered to early while all of us still inside mish?

Edited April 17, 2022 by SuggestorK

[Marine X]

I can confirm that it is having issues. I soloed the task force mission " Defeat the Clockwork Lord ", announced in chat that there would be a Babbage spawn when  I exited Map.

Exited and waited around outside mission door and nothing ever happened. It has been suggested that if a Zone Event, such as Troll Rave is running it prevents the spawn. That is about impossible to plan for, but I noticed Supatrolls in the area after I gave up waiting, so it seems like a possible explanation, even though it stinks.

[Turric]

12 hours ago, GM Impervium said:

Move thread to Bug Reports.

I've independently verified that this is working, but that was after using GM commands to blitz through the TF, and waiting for Babbage to appear. I noticed that he seems to spawn on the bridge ABOVE where the mission is, and drops down. It could be that he's spawning and just running in a circle above you?

In either case, we have gotten a lot of reports on this lately, so something else could be happening. Devs have been made aware, but without a surefire way to reproduce this occurrence, we'd just be guessing at a fix. If anyone has any further information on this issue, let us know!

 

Is it possible to make him spawn in a fixed location away from any threats. And then announce the change in the next patch? Like perhaps that little park in the south end of Skyway? That way he is always in the same location.

 

[Turric]

13 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

Although I can't confirm this, I have heard that if the Superadine raid (i.e. the troll rave) event is in progress in Skyway, that will prevent Babbage from spawning.

 

I've seen the message twice in the last couple of weeks, and I probably only play 6 hours or so a week. If you use vidiotmaps, the spawn locations are marked on the map, and are concentrated near the northern edge of Boomtown (here's the wiki version for reference).

 

Yes I use the Vidiotmaps but in the many, many years that I have played this game, I have only found him in Boomtown ONCE, and that was back on live. I have the notices of GM spawns on all my chat tabs and I have been watching for him because I need Babbage credit on like 3 or 4 toons (because of aforementioned problem). I don't think it is just me (although I could be missing something). I have a spreadsheet for which characters need which GM credit, so as soon as I see a pop message, I look at the spreadsheet, switch characters and advertise for a kill squad (I know, I am a nerd).  Also, as a strange aside, I have NEVER EVER killed the Arachnos Flyer. I have never even seen anyone advertise for it on Indom.

[SuggestorK]

1 hour ago, Turric said:

 

  Also, as a strange aside, I have NEVER EVER killed the Arachnos Flyer. I have never even seen anyone advertise for it on Indom.

Theres Reasons for it.. if u see it u practically have to keep him aggroed until u formed a team.. not easy even for some tanks.... if u dont aggro he just fly away and is gone before u had the chance to form the team (kinda same problem with Caleb in Nerva).

 

2nd Reason its just way easier to do the Flyer on Miss Liberty TF, same Badge/Rewards, thats why no one wasting time on it in the open World anymore.

[Turric]

10 minutes ago, SuggestorK said:

Theres Reasons for it.. if u see it u practically have to keep him aggroed until u formed a team.. not easy even for some tanks.... if u dont aggro he just fly away and is gone before u had the chance to form the team (kinda same problem with Caleb in Nerva).

 

2nd Reason its just way easier to do the Flyer on Miss Liberty TF, same Badge/Rewards, thats why no one wasting time on it in the open World anymore.

 

 

I swear there is no end to the learning in this game. Ive been playing since 2005 (I think) and I am still learning. Thank you, SuggestorK.

[Cutter]

Babbage has some interesting spawn behaviour. In addition to the ideas presented so far, I would also add "look up". One of the Synapse runs I did yesterday found Babs spawned on a fire escape halfway up a building, running in tiny circles and unable to get down.

[TheZag]

On 4/17/2022 at 11:25 AM, GM Impervium said:

Move thread to Bug Reports.

I've independently verified that this is working, but that was after using GM commands to blitz through the TF, and waiting for Babbage to appear. I noticed that he seems to spawn on the bridge ABOVE where the mission is, and drops down. It could be that he's spawning and just running in a circle above you?

In either case, we have gotten a lot of reports on this lately, so something else could be happening. Devs have been made aware, but without a surefire way to reproduce this occurrence, we'd just be guessing at a fix. If anyone has any further information on this issue, let us know!

 

My recollection is that only 1 Babbage ambush can be active in a zone at 1 time.  So if another group is currently engaged in Skyway or Babbage got stuck or otherwise unkilled and left in the zone,  then the next team to finish the mission wont get a spawn.

 

Finishing the mission from 2 seperate task forces at about the same time to see if 1 gets a spawn and the other doesnt might shed some light on missing Babbage ambushes.

[AboveTheChemist]

For those interested in testing spawn scenarios, it is easy on Brainstorm. The Synapse task force can be started solo, and there is a cheat command to complete tasks and missions:

 

/completetask 0

 

This will complete the first task in your list (and there will only be one in the list while on the TF). It is best implemented as a macro or keybind (omit the slash if you go that route), or it is available in the freebies menu under Misc Commands > Complete Task > Complete First Task. It only takes a minute or two to cheat past the missions that lead up to the one that spawns Babbage.

 

I ran one test yesterday and Babbage spawned as normal. I was hoping to test again with the Troll Rave event active but that event didn't start during the time I was testing. I plan to run a test later wherein I spawn one Babbage, leave it up, complete the TF, then start another TF to try and spawn two Babbages at once. I'll report back once I've got several tests under my belt.

 

12 hours ago, Turric said:

Yes I use the Vidiotmaps but in the many, many years that I have played this game, I have only found him in Boomtown ONCE, and that was back on live.

 That sounds like either extremely bad luck, or perhaps not looking in the right spots. I've found him countless times in Boomtown on HC, but I'll make it a point to check Boomtown periodically for him going forward. I play mostly on Everlasting and Torchbearer, but if you would like some help tracking him down, feel free to add me as a global friend (my global name matches my forum handle) and I'll be happy to help track him down.

[AboveTheChemist]

I was able to complete a few more tests this evening. When I logged onto Brainstorm, the Troll Rave event was active, so I was able to test spawning Babbage during the event. He appeared without issue, so the notion that he won't spawn during the Troll Rave may not be correct.

Spoiler

Troll Rave event marker indicated by red arrow.

 

I then completed the TF (via cheats as mentioned previously), started a new TF, and skipped to the mission that spawns Babbage. I found the existing Babbage from the previous TF (who was still actively pursuing me) and attempted to spawn a second Babbage. The second Babbage spawned normally, and both were attacking me, so the notion that he won't spawn while an existing Babbage is on the map may not be correct. I'll note also that the Troll Rave event was still active at this time.

Spoiler

 

The dual Babbages above were spawned from TFs started by the same character, so I tried again with the intent of spawning one Babbage each from two different characters. Character A spawned Babbage A, at which point I logged over to Character B, who then spawned Babbage B. Both Babbages spawned normally. Babbage A ignored Character B (until Character B attacked it), but Babbage B attacked Character B as expected. They quickly defeated Character B, making the screenshot a bit tricky.

Spoiler

 

For the final test, I entered the instance for the mission that spawns Babbage and completed the mission. While still inside the mission instance, I used LRT to teleport to Steel Canyon. Babbage was waiting in Steel Canyon for me when I arrived.

Spoiler

 

A few other observations I made during testing:

• When Babbage defeated me, he returned to his spawn point and did not re-engage me once I rezzed.
• After returning to his spawn point, if he was left alone, he despawned after a few minutes.
• For the times I was able to observe Babbage at his spawn point, the spawn point was on an elevated portion of highway.

In thinking of possible reasons for Babbage not to spawn, I realized that as teams broadcast to the server of an impending Babbage spawn in Skyway, the southern part of Skyway begins to fill with players milling about waiting to assist with Babbage once he spawns. My grasp of spawn mechanics is tenuous at best, but if new spawns are suppressed within a certain radius of a character, then there may be one or more players waiting near Babbage's spawn point, causing his spawn to fail. I have no idea if that is even possible, but I plan to do some more testing to try to nail down the spawn locations a bit more definitively.

 

As a side note, after testing on Brainstorm, I popped over to Everlasting and Torchbearer, and was able to find Babbage in Boomtown on both servers within a few minutes.

Spoiler

Everlasting:

  

 

Torchbearer:

 

Edited April 19, 2022 by AboveTheChemist

[Turric]

That is some top notch testing, @AboveTheChemist ! Truly.

 

I am still stumped by the variation in his showing during Synapse. The last time I completed it, the group exited as normal and just stood still for several minutes with nothing.

 

 

Now, as to Babbage spawning in Boomtown: is the message the same as the other GM messages, something to the effect of, "There is unusual giant monster activity in x" ?

 

And, as a side note, something I have never really tested myself. Do giant monsters "despawn" after a certain amount of time? I never paid attention to this. I know some of them are temporary. But like Lusca stays up in IP for hours, especially on Indom. And the two in Croatoa also. So, if and when Babbage does spawn, does he stay up until someone kills him or the server weekly reset?

 

And, then really lastly, and completely off topic. Last night I joined a group to do the Council Warwalker. It was right before I had log and go to work. This was a group of 7 people (I think 4 of us were 50s) and we got him to 22% before he big healed back to 45%. And from there, the more damage we did, summon lores etc, he just steadily healed back up to 100%. Added more group members and couldn't budge him from 100%. That lasted for a few minutes before I really needed to log and get ready for work. But, my question is, do GMs have a "rage timer" like on certain games (SWTOR or DAOC maybe, I cannot remember exactly). Meaning, if you do not kill him in a certain amount of time, he enrages and then REALLY makes it difficult to kill him.

 

[EmperorSteele]

@Turric The War Walker has 2 generators that make him invincible. They may have respawned?

[AboveTheChemist]

3 hours ago, Turric said:

Now, as to Babbage spawning in Boomtown: is the message the same as the other GM messages

 

The message is:

Babbage has appeared in 'Boomtown'.

 

I think that many GMs in their "native" zone (i.e. Babbage in Boomtown, Lusca in IP, Kraken in Perez Park, etc.) remain until, as you noted, they are defeated or the zone is reset (with some exceptions, see Apparition's post below). A while back I did some extensive testing of the Paladin event in Kings Row, and I noted that Paladin remained alive for hours and even days, and I'd have to drag him to a police drone to get the Paladin event to reset so I could continue testing. When I checked Everlasting and Torchbearer for Babbage last night, I had not seen a spawn message. I just headed to Boomtown and searched. I have no idea how long ago they had spawned.

 

I am not an expert on the War Walker mechanics but it sounds like the Field Generator was not destroyed. Just to the south of the pit where the War Walker spawns is a Field Generator that, if left intact, will heal/buff the War Walker. Destroying the Field Generator weakens the War Walker and makes him easier to defeat. Even with the Field Generator down, he's always seemed to me like one of the tougher GMs.

Edited April 19, 2022 by AboveTheChemist
clarification

[Apparition]

7 minutes ago, AboveTheChemist said:

I think that GMs in their "native" zone (i.e. Babbage in Boomtown, Lusca in IP, Kraken in Perez Park, etc.) remain until, as you noted, they are defeated or the zone is reset.

 

The two exceptions to that are Ghost of Scrapyard in Sharkhead (he'll despawn after a half hour), and the Arachnos Flier in Grandville.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Apparition

[SuggestorK]

33 minutes ago, Apparition said:

 

The two exceptions to that are Ghost of Scrapyard in Sharkhead (he'll despawn after a half hour), and the Arachnos Flier in Grandville.

 

make it 3? id think Caleb will despawn too or run out of zone like the flier to be exact.

[Apparition]

3 minutes ago, SuggestorK said:

 

make it 3? id think Caleb will despawn too or run out of zone like the flier to be exact.

 

 

Nope, he doesn't.  If Caleb is not defeated during the night, he'll just go invisible during the day and come back out at night.  Tested and proven, multiple times.

[kelika2]

The many times I have seen Babbage not spawn was when a large group of people was waiting outside at all possible locations for him to spawn around the $loc'ed door.

 

So in the scenario when the door is swarmed what does happen?

1.) Babbage says nah because enemies dont normally spawn on top of players - spend some time street sweeping and afk after clearing out a parking lot, things generally wont respawn on top of you

2.) Babbage uses the nearest available spawn point and out of range kicks in

3.) Babbage uses the nearest available spawn point that happens to be near a drone

[SuggestorK]

1 hour ago, kelika2 said:

3.) Babbage uses the nearest available spawn point that happens to be near a drone

 

If there would be such a spawn point (and im pretty sure HC team wouldnt have overlooked such a thing) it should be removed altogether asap, zone is big enough to have enough spawn point not close to a drone.

 

But Point 1 could be very valid... thats one thing need to be checked... not calling support next time before we have him in sight 😉 .

Edited April 19, 2022 by SuggestorK

[Turric]

14 hours ago, EmperorSteele said:

@Turric The War Walker has 2 generators that make him invincible. They may have respawned?

 

Yeah, I checked to make sure and they were still down. It was just odd. I do not know if that team was ultimately successful. I doubt it though. I was just a weird thing that I had not seen happen before.