Aaron

Hi Max - I have posted a template for the Blender file I used to render all the tiles in the game in a sticky thread at the top of this forum; hopefully that should make things easier.

Making tiles for Xenonauts (i.e. the walls, props and other objects that fill the ground combat levels) can be difficult as you need to match the precise camera angle and environmental settings to those we originally used. To make things easier I have decided to provide the template that I used with Blender when creating the original games tiles. This blender file has the following properties: - The scale of level is set so that model sizes reported in Blender represent the "real" size objects should be in the game world, which lets you scale object correctly - The Blender grid display is set to match the tile setup in the game i.e. 1 grid tile in blender = 1 tile in the game (which are 1.6m to a side) - The camera is set with the correct orthographic settings to produce the right size and resolution of image to go into the game - The lighting environment is set to produce the correct lighting levels from different angles and to reduce over-dark areas - Both the camera and lights are "animated" where each frame rotates them around the model by 90 degrees, which makes it easy to produce the SE, NE, NW, SW variants for each tile you model with the correct camera/lighting environment by simply flicking through frames (left/right arrow keys) - A shadow plane with associated shadow-casting light from above, to produce a soft transparent shadow beneath objects rendered above it - 2 very basic example objects (a 1 tile wide wall, and a 2 tile wide prop) The Blender file is attached to this post. xenonauts_blender_tile_template.zip xenonauts_blender_tile_template.zip

Hey guys - it didn't occur to me people were trying to do diagonal tiles with these; the ones you are using for that are actually meant to simply be used to blend between the two different hull "styles". So I've made some new tiles specifically for making diagonals, download them here. I have included the updated blender model file too. You should be able to update your existing maps to use them just by doing a find and replace on the map file with a tool like notepad++. Also I really encourage you guys to get stuck in and try making some new tiles with the .blend file. It really isn't as hard as it looks, just do a few tutorials from somewhere like this to get the basics and you could be making all kinds of new stuff like doors that match these tiles, destructible wall sections, outer hull props etc... I'd be happy to answer any questions people have on the process (PM me if I don't respond in this thread promptly, as I don't get time to read the forums as often as I used to).

Cool stuff guys, I am following this with interest. Also if you want to make maps larger that 30x30 you just need to create a 30x30 empty map using the submap editor, save it, exit the editor and then edit that map using notepad (or better notepad++) and change the dimensions listed at the top of the file to whatever you want (I think even some of ours, like the Carrier, are larger than 30 in at least one dimension).

Firstly, if you do not know how to access the experimental branch on Steam, please read the instructions (and warnings!) in this thread. This update may work with saved games from previous V22 experimental versions, but will not recognise saved games from before that. If you experience issues when loading a saved game from previous versions, please mention that if making a bug report! The texture atlases in experimental build 5 turned out to have a problem with loading the tiles for Terror Missions, so Chris reverted it over the weekend. I have been able to work around the issue for the moment, so we are putting a hotfix out so you guys can continue playing with build 5. This build still includes the texture atlases, but now they are only enabled for the standard crash/landing site mission types i.e. arctic, desert, farm, industrial and middleeast There were also a handful of minor fixes over the weekend which we have included too. Here are the hotfix changes (i.e. the new changes since experimental build 5!): - Fixed tile images not loading for Terror Mission tilesets by excluding them from atlas process - Fixed crouching units not re-crouching after throwing a grenade - Medipack changes: when selecting a unit the maximum heal amount is shown that can be healed (including bleeding wounds). - Disabled Xenonaut reaction fire against mind-controlled units. And here are the original changes from experimental build 5, just for reference: Fixes: - Fixed Nissen Hut roof tiles not displaying - Made top of Shrike impassable but not blocking LOS - Fixed issues with some Desert/Farm/Storeroom buildings not correctly displaying their props - Tooltips appear slightly faster - Bug fixed: when throwing a grenade with a crouched unit, the grenade wasn't thrown but the TUs were decreased - Now the alien LOS is reset at the start of both the human and the alien turns (prevents aliens "seeing" areas they were in last turn) - Fixed TU's displaying wrong values when they had an increase in ground combat - Fixed terror missions causing crash if city name was translated in strings.xml - Building frame now is showed over every base tile, rather than just on top-left of existing buildings - Fixed trees being missing on industrial and soviet town maps Additions: - Implemented new "texture atlas" system for tiles -- This takes the individual sprites for tilesets and bakes them into larger image files -- This should lead to dramatically faster loading speeds - Implemented crushable corn fields in several farm maps - "Xenonauts Lost" on debrief screen changed to "Xenonaut Casualties" (because they may still survive) Balance: - Autoresolve strength now is modified by airplane's health, ammo percentage and fuel level (if <15%) - Changed values in AI for smoke; slight aversion instead of attraction - All stats now cap out at 100 instead of 99 - TU gain has been slowed down a bit; you now need to spend 250 TU to get a TU increase on a soldier (up from 150) - Crouched units no longer suffer +25% to the Stopping Chance of all intervening obstacles - Jackal armour weight reduced from 16kg to 10kg If you encounter any bugs please post them in the bugs forum, and make sure you mark them as being from the experimental build! Balance comments can be made in the following threads: Ground Combat: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9793-Ground-Combat-Balance-V22-Experimental-5 Geoscape: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9794-Geoscape-Balance-V22-Experimental-5 EDIT - I've done a stealth patch to remove the immediate spawn of the alien base and immediate final mission unlock. (Chris)

Firstly, if you do not know how to access the experimental branch on Steam, please read the instructions (and warnings!) in this thread. This update may work with saved games from previous V22 experimental versions, but will not recognise saved games from before that. If you experience issues when loading a saved game from previous versions, please mention that if making a bug report! This release has the usual spread of bug fixes, general improvements and balance adjustments; however the main purpose of this experimental build is to test a form of sprite compression we are now using where all individual sprites from each tileset are gathered into large "atlas" images and which should drastically reduce loading times. This is quite a big change, so though we have tested it locally we do expect to see some teething problems. The following tilesets are now using texture atlases: arctic, desert, farm, industrial, middleeast, soviettown, town Here's the changes: Fixes: - Fixed Nissen Hut roof tiles not displaying - Made top of Shrike impassable but not blocking LOS - Fixed issues with some Desert/Farm/Storeroom buildings not correctly displaying their props - Tooltips appear slightly faster - Bug fixed: when throwing a grenade with a crouched unit, the grenade wasn't thrown but the TUs were decreased - Now the alien LOS is reset at the start of both the human and the alien turns (prevents aliens "seeing" areas they were in last turn) - Fixed TU's displaying wrong values when they had an increase in ground combat - Fixed terror missions causing crash if city name was translated in strings.xml - Building frame now is showed over every base tile, rather than just on top-left of existing buildings - Fixed trees being missing on industrial and soviet town maps Additions: - Implemented new "texture atlas" system for tiles -- This takes the individual sprites for tilesets and bakes them into larger image files -- This should lead to dramatically faster loading speeds - Implemented crushable corn fields in several farm maps - "Xenonauts Lost" on debrief screen changed to "Xenonaut Casualties" (because they may still survive) Balance: - Autoresolve strength now is modified by airplane's health, ammo percentage and fuel level (if <15%) - Changed values in AI for smoke; slight aversion instead of attraction - All stats now cap out at 100 instead of 99 - TU gain has been slowed down a bit; you now need to spend 250 TU to get a TU increase on a soldier (up from 150) - Removed the 25% stopping chance penalty for crouched units - Jackal armour weight reduced from 16kg to 10kg If you encounter any bugs please post them in the bugs forum, and make sure you mark them as being from the experimental build! Balance comments can be made in the following threads: Ground Combat: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9548-Ground-Combat-Balance-V22-Experimental-2 Geoscape: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9547-Geoscape-Balance-V22-Experimental-2

Firstly, if you do not know how to access the experimental branch on Steam, please read the instructions (and warnings!) in this thread. This update contains changes that required a new saved game version, and as such are incompatible with saved games from all previous releases, including experimental releases! As the last release had a few annoying crashes in it we decided to put out this new build as soon as we could to address them. There are still a reasonable number of other fixes and additions though, as you can see below. Fixes: - Fixed a crash that could occur when using stun batons/medkits/melee weapons after dropping an item or moving it in your inventory - Fixed an occasional crash when autoresolving airsuperiority missions - Fixed some alien UFO datacore #### strings - Andron Guards no longer "vault" walls (which they had no animation for) - Disabled mouse wheel scrolling on soldierEquipView while dragging an item - Fixing stats increase on rank increase, soldiers no longer wounded sometimes when receiving a resilience progress - Fixed some sprite issues in the Xenonaut command centre - Fixed Xenonaut base doors closing if damaged while open - Terror dialog no longer appearing when loading a game with an active terror site - Fix for geoscape music not playing if a GC was loaded immediately after opening game - Fixed QuantumLaboratory and NanotechWorkshop not showing up after Base Upgrade was researched - Hopefully fixed some issues around buildings with sloped roofs where you could not see to central part of the roof Additions: - Added crushable grass to several Farm submaps - Region relation feedback (e.g. "Poor" / "Average" / "Good") are now relative to their starting value, so that at the beginning of game all continents have Average relations - Iron man mode is now off by default for all game difficulties and no longer forced on for insane difficulty - Autoresolve dialog now offers option to close or return to base depending on battle outcome - Added shot count to the aim cursor when in burst shot mode - Single shot mode now is default for all weapons Balance: - Made Alien Officers and Leaders much more resistant to stun gas - Combat shields and Assault shields are now too large to fit into a backpack If you encounter any bugs please post them in the bugs forum, and make sure you mark them as being from the experimental build! Balance comments can be made in the following threads: Ground Combat http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9548-Ground-Combat-Balance-V22-Experimental-3?p=105316 Geoscape: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9547-Geoscape-Balance-V22-Experimental-3?p=105315

Thanks, I have reproduced this.

Firstly, if you do not know how to access the experimental branch on Steam, please read the instructions (and warnings!) in this thread. This update may work with saved games from previous V22 experimental versions, but will not recognise saved games from before that. If you experience issues when loading a saved game from previous versions, please mention that if making a bug report! This release is mainly bug fixes and additional bits of polish here and there. The most important fix is for the crash when loading into a game that contains a mind controlled unit. Additionally the balance change to psionic troops to prevent them using the more powerful abilities over long distances should go a long way to making these powers less frustrating to fight against. Here's the changes: Fixes: - Crash with save games that contain a mind-controlled unit should now be fixed. - Fixed aliens without the health regeneration ability regenerating health anyway - Fixed flying jetpack units vanishing in certain situations - Terrain objects are now cleared from the Valkyrie dropship spawn area, acceptable spawn areas now marked - Fixed an infinite loop related to teleporting AI units - Fixed corpses becoming invisible if they were picked up and then dropped - Fixed some missing strings for Drone autopsies and shield tooltips - Set white propane tanks to explode correctly - Corrected a "floating tile" issue on one of the large desert maps - Fixed some mis-set door tiles - Fixed some mis-set rifle crouch animations - Fixed misaligned zombie sprites - When a multi-tile object is revealed, all of the ground sprites beneath it become visible too - Fixed manufacturing occasionally draining resources multiple times for one project - Slowed down some Wolf Plasma Caster fire animations - Androns and the Praetor can no longer be forced to crouch by the AI - Visual fixes for main menu / launch interceptors dialog / airplane view - Fix: when capturing a landed ufo, continent relations bonus was not given - Setting time scale to 5 seconds when disengaging a UFO - No longer showing lower level turrets in available buildings list when new ones are unlocked - A few Xenopedia entries have been moved to the correct categories - Fixed a crash when clicking "Go to Base" on the items arrivied dialog - Soldiers nationalities are now translated - Updated a few of the weapon tooltips - Fixed unarmed soldiers using shields not displaying the shield - Aligned the two Corsair cannon slots with one another properly - Fixed a number of missing grenade animations when units had combat shields - Berserk psionic power now takes effect at the start of the next turn, so your soldier will berserk even if he has no TU when the power is used on him in the alien turn. - MAG weapons should now unlock properly. - Ground Combat music should now randomise correctly, as previously it would always play one track. Additions: - Items arriving at a base are now listed - Added new destroyed sprites for all Xenonaut vehicles - Added several new farm maps - Added updated final mission ground tiles - Added more painted over tiles for UFOs and the final mission - Added new sounds: alien doors, unit gibbing, Sentinel jump pack, stun baton, MAGSTORM, air combat weapons, Reaper attacks, heavy weapons - Added the damage values for vehicles displaying above them when they take damage/resist. - Units that fully resist a shots damage, either from armour or shield, will now play a spark effect rather than a blood effect Balance: - Alien psionic powers are no longer all squad-sight. Berserk is LOS-only, Mind Control is squad-sight but now has a limited range, but Fear and Paralyse now have unlimited range - Air combat fuel burn rate halved - Sniper rifles now have 49% Normal shot cost instead of 50% (so even top ranked snipers can shoot twice) - Zombies reduced from 80HP to 60HP - Buffed aircraft cannons to have the same range as the equivalent missiles - Interceptor cannons now have 80 rounds instead of 60 If you encounter any bugs please post them in the bugs forum, and make sure you mark them as being from the experimental build! Balance comments can be made in the following threads: Ground Combat: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9548-Ground-Combat-Balance-V22-Experimental-2 Geoscape: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9547-Geoscape-Balance-V22-Experimental-2

Sorry guys, should have mentioned that saved games from V21 Stable might be Ok to use with this new version - you will at least be able to load them. We cannot guarantee nothing will break though. You can always switch back and forth on the Steam branch so long as you keep your original save, so worth a try. That Caesan regen bug is odd, I've asked the programmer to look into it.

FYI guys there is a new experimental build out and a new balance thread to go with it, but I am going to leave this thread here for a time to allow discussion of the ground combat balance as a whole rather than just focusing on the latest experimental's changes.

There's a new experimental build out (v22.1) but there are no significant balance changes for the Geoscape in it, so just keep using this thread.

Seeing as there are quite a few balances change in this new experimental it's probably worth posting a new thread to discuss them in particular. Here are the changes: - Made Harridans and Praetors immune to Chemical damage due to their sealed suits - Made Caesan and Wraith officers / leaders resistant to Chemical damage due to their helmets - Sebillians can now see through smoke - Sebillians now regenerate 50% of their max HP every turn. Kill them quickly! - Singularity Cannon weight and reload cost reduced somewhat (still cannot be fired without Predator armour) - Demoted the two Caesan psionics on the final mission from Leader to Officer to reduce Mind Control spam - Slowed down soldier rank progression by 30% - Set stats to max out at 99 rather than 101 - Weapon suppression radius reduced by 1 for most weapons, human and alien - Reaper attack TU cost increased from 25% to 35% - Reduced number of mind control Caesans on battleships from max 6 to max 3, replaced numbers with some Officers - Updated Light Drone blaster to have suppression radius 2 rather than 4 - Dread now has a 0.5x psionic strength modifier, so it should not affect entire teams every turn - Hunter MG now fires 10 shots instead of 5 Particularly interested in how people find the Sebillian's new health regeneration level! Have fun with that.

Firstly, if you do not know how to access the experimental branch on Steam, please read the instructions (and warnings!) in this thread. This update may be able to load saved games from V21 Stable, but we cannot guarantee they will work. It will NOT load saved games from any earlier version. If you experience bugs when loading saved games from V21 Stable, please say so when reporting the bug as that might save us a lot of trouble. It's time to get started on the new experimental branch! The V22 branch is mainly going to be a way for us to get the latest fixes and polish updates out to you guys quicker, though we may never get to ta V22 "Stable" because we might just release the game instead! You can see from the changelist below we have made great progress on fixes in general, but in particular we have eliminated a bunch of crashes that resulted from slightly edge-case situations - these can be quite hard to pin down so it's great to have resolved them. Chris has continued to work on balance issues, so there have been a good number of changes on that front too. Here's the changes: Fixes: - Fixed a crash when a unit with a weapon that had only a burst fire mode attempted to reaction fire - Fixed a crash when loading a game containing a mind controlled soldier - Fixed a crash when a unit went bezerk while using a weapon with only single shot mode - Fixed crashes that could occur if you take action during a previous running unit animation - Fixed a bug that could cause unit reaction firing to risk hitting friendlies - Fixed passable destroyed objects rendering on top of units - Opening xenopedia now displays first knowledge available - Selecting a xenopedia category now shows first item in that category - Fix: GC music and sounds were not randomized due to a non-initialized random object - Fixed a small error in Andron Battleship, where crew were not all appearing - MAG weapons should now unlock (added items.xml string for Alien Assault Plasma) - Started re-organising tileset to eliminate cross-tileset sprite use (internal change to support the eventual texture atlases) - "Bezerk" unit now do not take action until the start of their turn (so they have full TUs) - If hit, units now turn to face the direction the shot came from to give them a chance to react - Praetors will no longer disappear occasionally (due to them being missing a crouch animation) - Fixed a large number of minor tile issues, across various tile sets (incorrect alignment etc...) - Fixed a number of missing Harridan death animations - Fixed various instances where players could see inside the first 4 UFOs from the exterior - Fixed a bug where Reapers emerging from Zombies could be insta-killed by the remainder of a burst - Set the % TU costs for weapons to round up instead of round down. - Fixed various Xenopedia typos - Reduced the volume of the psionic power/teleport sound - Fixed alien bases not granting the data core when captured (and thus enabling the base upgrade research) - Fixed all stair tiles in the game to have correct spectre settings, and direct the stair climbing unit properly - Fix: when ufo was lost from radar, only first interceptor got "Target Lost" popup - Fixing possible blank spaces on industrial maps - Fixed some Harridans with Sniper Plasmas appearing unarmed - Made the "Invalid" sound a bit less loud - Fixed interceptors not being highlighted in green when ready to launch in InterceptDialog - Light Scout UFOs now appear as "Very Small" rather than "Small" Additions: - Added a significant number of new maps from the community for the farm and desert tile sets - Alien bases now reward the player with both Alenium and Alloys when they are conquered. Larger bases grant more. - Altered a few loading screen tips - Added names and (placeholder) tooltips for Combat Shield and Assault Shield. - Added strings for research projects (datacores, autopsies) that are auto-completed so they no longer display ##### - When placing first base, region information is displayed instead of base construction cost - We now show "MAXED" as the predicted change when hovering a continent which has reached the maximum relations value Balance: - Made Harridans and Praetors immune to Chemical damage due to their sealed suits - Made Caesan and Wraith officers / leaders resistant to Chemical damage due to their helmets - Sebillians can now see through smoke - Sebillians now regenerate 50% of their max HP every turn. Kill them quickly! - Singularity Cannon weight and reload cost reduced somewhat (still cannot be fired without Predator armour) - Demoted the two Caesan psionics on the final mission from Leader to Officer to reduce Mind Control spam - Slowed down soldier rank progression by 30% - Set stats to max out at 99 rather than 101 - Weapon suppression radius reduced by 1 for most weapons, human and alien - Reaper attack TU cost increased from 25% to 35% - Reduced number of mind control Caesans on battleships from max 6 to max 3, replaced numbers with some Officers - Updated Light Drone blaster to have suppression radius 2 rather than 4 - Dread now has a 0.5x psionic strength modifier, so it should not affect entire teams every turn - Hunter MG now fires 10 shots instead of 5 If you encounter any bugs please post them in the bugs forum, and make sure you mark them as being from the experimental build! Balance comments can be made in the following threads: Ground Combat: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9423-Ground-Combat-Balance-V22-Experimental-Build-1 Geoscape: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9286-Geoscape-Balance-V21-Stable-%28Hotfix%29