[StoBo]

I've been flying around this featureless asteroid field for half an hour now. I haven't encountered a single enemy ship. Where are they? How do I find them without a functioning radar?

Last time I played this, years ago, I got quivering red dots on the radar to vaguely indicate where they were, but I haven't seen that on this playthrough. Is there anything I can do to make this work reliably?

Or, better yet, how do I skip this mission? It isn't fun at all.

[Su-tehp]

Yeah, I had problems with this one when I replayed it recently too. I managed to finish it by looking for the Vasudan ships visually. I can't exactly describe it, but if you set your speed to zero and look visually around for a group of three dots that look "smoother" than asteroids, that's a wing of Vasudan fighters. Fly towards them, kill them, set speed to zero again and repeat three more times. If you're also looking for the Vasudan Ace, repeat the process one more time but look for a single "smooth" dot instead.

And yeah, I know, this isn't exactly a straightforward or easy solution, but it did get me past this mission.

And if you think this is bad, just wait until you get to "As Lighntning Fall" in FS2. Hoy, that was a bastard and a half to finish! At least there, the flashes of the nav buoys are easier to visually find if you take them one at a time.

[starlord]

Try to change radar range to infinite. You’ll have the red dots appear again. Once you do, position those in the middle of the radar.

[Su-tehp]

Try to change radar range to infinite. You’ll have the red dots appear again. Once you do, position those in the middle of the radar.

That didn't work when I tried it in either Fields of Battle or As Lightning Fall. Those flickering red dots didn't appear at all even after setting the radar range to infinite multiple times.

[Goober5000]

I just tried it myself.  The infinity symbol is currently shown as an asterisk, but the range still works:
https://github.com/scp-fs2open/fs2open.github.com/issues/2721

[Su-tehp]

Isn't this a known bug? StoBo and I can't be the only ones this has happened to without being able to get the flickering dots to appear.

[Goober5000]

If you set the radar to infinity, the dots should appear.  Make sure the radar range control is actually bound to a key.

[Su-tehp]

If you set the radar to infinity, the dots should appear.  Make sure the radar range control is actually bound to a key.

I posted above that I tried that and it didn't work.

EDIT: I think I understand the "how" of those flickering red dots not showing up, if not the "why." You see, I belong to the Old School where when we originally played Freespace back in 1999, we didn't have those new-fangled 3D radar displays. So as much as we of the Old School enjoy the new graphics and new features that HLP has come up with, we traditionalists sometimes prefer to play with the old 2D radar screen. And, for some reason I cannot fathom, the flickering red dots don't show up on the 2D radar in either Field of Battle nor As Lightning Fall.

So I decided on a lark to try the 3D radar for once, and lo and behold, the flickering red radar dots showed up. 

I have no idea why the flickering dots don't show up in the 2D radar but do in the 3D radar.

But yeah, StoBo, there's the solution: go to FSO Settings, then HUD and select 3D radar, press Save and that should fix the problem.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm gonna go replay Field of Battle and blow up some Vasudans just for sh!ts and giggles.

[Goober5000]

Wut?

If you look at the link I posted, you'll see that I was indeed playing with the 2D radar.

Can you post your debug log?

[Su-tehp]

Just tried it again on the 2D radar and no red dots showed up.

Here's the log: https://fsnebula.org/log/5f582a3ca802a827dc5a5623

[Goober5000]

FreeSpace 2 Open version: 19.0.0.RC3

Why are you using RC3?  Try 19.0 Final, or a nightly build.

[Su-tehp]

FreeSpace 2 Open version: 19.0.0.RC3

Why are you using RC3?  Try 19.0 Final, or a nightly build.

I don't have the option to use 19.0 Final, it's not on the list of builds I can use. I only have 19.0.0-RC3, 19.0.0-RC2, and 3.8.0-3.

As for the nightlies, all (and I mean all) of them are useless because whenever I try to use any FSO 20 build, I get nothing but a black screen as soon as I enter the game. Audio works fine as I can hear the beeps when I apparently scroll over buttons, but I can't see anything at all because the entire screen is blacked out. Dunno why.

And I didn't know 19.0 Final was even a thing until I just read your post. Like I said, it's not an option in my menu when I go to the FSO builds menu. Knossos updates itself every time I open it, but that build never appeared.

[StoBo]

I had no luck with changing the radar range or 2D/3D settings. Eventually I found the vasudans visually like Su-Tehp suggested. They look just like asteroids at a distance except that they are in formation and don't tumble. It took me forever but I got them eventually. Had to give up on the ace though, but that's just a minor annoyance.

[caine440]

As for the nightlies, all (and I mean all) of them are useless because whenever I try to use any FSO 20 build, I get nothing but a black screen as soon as I enter the game. Audio works fine as I can hear the beeps when I apparently scroll over buttons, but I can't see anything at all because the entire screen is blacked out. Dunno why.

I have the same issue.