[XCE 0.31 + XNT 6.0] Out of the Sun: geoscape overhaul for XNT

[podbelski]

Installation

0. Prepare a clean game build, should be v1.09+XCE0.31 or above. I haven't tried it with Xenonauts v1.5, at least one player reported XNT compatibility problems.

1. Download the XNT 6.0 here

It is already patched to work with the latest XCE and bundled with FitH "No smoke no Fire Edition". Install into the mods folder

-OR- 1a. get the original unpatched XNT

...and patch it yourself

2. Download the OOS mod pack, extract into the mods folder: Out of the Sun v1.13.zip

In case of reinstallation just overwrite everything.

3. The mod pack comes in 4 pieces, order them as follows and activate:

4. Play! And please read the following two posts for some hints.

PS I also recommend the "Armored Assault!" mod from Kabill. It should have lesser priority in the modloader otherwise vehicle prices will be inconsistent with my mod. Atm lategame prices might be still out of line, maybe I'll fix these eventually.

Edited February 28, 2021 by podbelski

[podbelski]

The OOS mod pack extends the XNT 6.0 which IMO is the best mod that happened to Xenonauts. Alas, the XNT project was left unfinished and I guess noone can bring it to where was planned.

Not being an official successor, I've pushed things further trying to achieve these goals:

1. Overhaul the Geoscape part so the game stays challenging and involves the player the whole way to the victory.

It's no longer possible to take down every UFO and airstrike excessive crash sites. You will face all the available GC types, including terror sites, base defense, night action. I'll stress it again - this was the main goal.

2. Change other things but as little as it seems reasonable: fix some bugs, rebalance weak parts of the gameplay and preserve strong aspects of the XNT. It was not intended to make a hardcore game, but a more balanced&finished one.

A couple of experimental things were tried, with partial success: different soldier stats approach and full utilization of the "monthly funding" feature (instead of putting the emphasis on a GC cash).

To my taste, the result is pretty good. I understand some players always like it the different way but alas, it's unlikely I'm going to make significant changes.

3. I almost didn't touch graphics&texts. Many good things can be done here but that's just not in scope. The exceptions are weapon tooltips and GC loading tips: everything is revised and up-to-date. Also fixed a couple of missing Xenopedia screens.

Special thanks:

All who brought Xenonauts to life and supports the XCE project

XNT team

Kabill for his ideas, advice and help

a comunity member who made XNT weapon tooltips and shared them somewhere in XNT discussion threads. I updated them and included into my mod pack.

Other mods I recommend along with my modpack:

Skitso maps (all), tileart and "sounds of pain"

Khall tundra maps and portraits

Potawan Original Style Role Mod-v1.1

Plans for next version(s):

- further improve balance, fix bugs, maybe revisit air combat autoresolve parameters

- fully adopt the "Armoured Assault!" mod from Kabill (atm there might be some incosistencies in the lategame)

- maybe update some texts&graphics&sounds, maybe update some laser weapons, maybe implement mass manufacture projects for grenades rockets etc... but unlikely w/o positive feedback from players

Edited April 8, 2015 by podbelski

[podbelski]

Choosing the difficulty level:

- Easy: slower alien ticker, decreased UFO health, fundingDamageModifier is set to 50%, few GC bonuses, planes range/speed +20%

- Normal: fundingDamageModifier is 100%, minor GC bonus

- Veteran: fundingDamageModifier is 125%, minor GC penalty

- Insane: fundingDamageModifier is 150%, stronger GC penalties, +10% ticker speed

if it still feels easy, go to gameconfig.xml, change fundingDamageModifier, alienWeaponAccuracy, alienAttribute and others in the same section to match your taste.

the only trick here might be the "alienAttribute": raising it also affects psionic powers which can become too nasty. In such a case just rearrange the mods so "Morale and Psionics" goes _after_ the OOS.

Some details about the game:

1. the main idea is to make it much harder to take down the UFO, their health was roughly doubled for this purpose. From the other side, planes cost and maintenance was made relatively high. So normally you can barely shoot some of the UFOs and have to catch others while they land. Choose carefully.

2. dropships have lesser ranges so you have to maintain like 3-4 bases, each with it's own strike team.

3. seriously decreased GC profit from alien weapons and stuff. On the other hand, monthly funding importance has been increased: it's the main income, protect it and raise higher.

Some players report this approach is inferior to GC cash, well maybe. The mod was an attempt to test this out, sorry if you are disappointed.

4. UFO waves are about 2x less frequent, with (roughly) +1 UFO per wave every month. Human bases do not affect the number of UFOs in a wave, while alien base do.

5. I've made some serious changes to squad costs and stats. Also, advanced weapons manufacture requires quite a lot of alenium: this way you "prepay" the infinite ammo. Armors stats were changed as well. Some weapons stats were adjusted (eg removed "unaimed" shot type from sniper rifles - no more annoying waste of ammo b/c of inaccurate reaction fire). Finally, I've excluded a few weapons that IMO do not have proper place in the gameplay and disbalance it (warhawk2, PKeeper, Rage and basic MAGs)

6. most prices were revised for balance purposes

7. alien missions chances, UFO types and their loadouts were (mostly) redone from scratch

Hints, some of these are shown on a GC loading screen:

1. don't hurry to upgrade radars. First spend money on additional bases, interceptors, crews and research. Don't rely just on radars, send your planes to scout.

2. learn to distinguish alien missions by geoscape events: "strafing" and "bombing" are ground attacks and bombing runs, these should be intercepted ASAP. Adbuctions, UFO sightings are signs of a research mission, these ufos stick around for much longer time and should be catched while they land. They also fly w/o escort. Other missions do not produce events (except for air superiority which is an obvious one), but ufos on a "scouting" mission and "supply" mission are always w/o an escort. Construction and terror will eventually land. Base attack will be circling around your base and then attack.

3. save/loading during a GC results in psionic attacks every turn! It's a bug in the game

4. UFO spawn randomizer can make it easier or harder the first months, but I think in any case it won't result in a loss by itself. Treat it as a luck or challenge that is fun.

5. it's intended you won't be able to take down most of lategame battleships. Breaking off alien invasion is not an easy task.

6. If you want an effective research build a few Research Labs as fast as your funding levels allow.

7. Every base needs a strong Xenonaut crew. This is important as dropship range is limited and alien attacks against bases are frequent.

8. Alien base will be detected automatically withing a certain delay after construction. Scout-detecting an alien base with a plane is a cheesy tactic and should not be used.

9. Planes rearm slow but refuelling is fast. Use planes for scouting actively, choose targets carefully.

10. The punishment for a Terror site failure is moderate so it's acceptable to occassionally fail.

11. Crash sites provide little extraterrestrial tech: no Datacores, no Reactors, no Engines. A better tactic is to catch landing ufos on the ground.

12. Try hard to catch UFOs that hurt funding ASAP. If you keep being seriously outfunded try lower difficulty level.

13. Base defenses always hit but the damage has a random modifier. Two missile batteries take down a small UFO. Two laser turrets is enough for a medium one. Guess it for stronger upgrades.

14. Lategame armors protect xenonauts from advanced psionic powers. Predator and Sentinel are the best but even they are almost not an obstacle for a Praetor.

15. In addition to defense, armors provide other bonuses. This can be examined on the Equipment screen.

Edited April 8, 2015 by podbelski

[podbelski]

... I also extracted and use animations of Xenomorphs from AND_GREAT's mod, seems they are somehow less prone to "invisible aliens" bug, not 100% though.

I guess he is no longer around the forums and won't be angry if I share those files (upon a request)

[drages]

It's nice to see XNT fully alive again. Thank u for ur efforts.

And it seems very hard as I read the spoilers a real hardcore challenge awaits. .

[podbelski]

thanks!

well I'm not a fan of extremely hardcore challenges... but I like my mod, so the conclusion is it might be just moderately hardcore

[TacticalDragon]

Nice work I will send you the packs that you need.

It could be nice if we post a repack version V6.1 of XNT.

[TacticalDragon]

I make some test over "Out of the Sun" and IMHO I feel that this version is very player inclined, very easy and unbalanced.

Why did you cut the building upkeep to half? Why starting soldiers dint have bonus and all the soldiers have a monstrosity amount of starting points?.

I love you XNT tweaks and Fixes but in terms of balance the Mod could be called "On the beach" because is like a hoydays

Sorry if I was direct but I feel that you can make it way way better!

[podbelski]

well I had similar feeling about default XNT 6 - the amount of money was so big I could afford everything by Jan

seriously, what difficulty level have you tried? Try the top one, but as I said above don't expect extreme challenge. Or if you want just raise fundingDamageModifier to maybe 2.0 then tell me about the beach)) If it's still too easy raise up parameters that boost alien GC stats. I'm actually going to write about this in the top posts.

next, I've cut the cost just for a few selected buildings, it seems right to me, anyway it's a minor thing.

regarding soldier stats, this thing was discussed in the XNT thread, it's not my own idea. Original approach makes veterans too valueable, lategame this almost forces to reload b/c of a killed xenonaut. The point is higher stats that grow slowly give more character to soldiers, and eases the loss of a man.

again, it should not be the main problem to criticize, this choice has both advantages and drawbacks. GC feels easy? Boost alien stats in gameconfig and enjoy)

... also, the starting period should be easy, I'd say biggest challenge is to catch enough of UFOs in case of a bad randomizer (if they all spawn far from your base)

Edited February 23, 2015 by podbelski

[podbelski]

... I will stress it again: the goal was not to make the game very hard. What is hard to one person is easy for another, and I put myself somewhere in the middle if it matters.

the goal was to make all the major parts balanced relative to each other, and to disallow shortcuts making the player enormously rich and strong at a certain point of time.

instead, the gameplay is planned to be smooth, the difficulty is cotrolled by few critical parameters: fundingDamageModifier and GC bonuses/penalties. Balancing those between the four difficulty levels is a relatively easy task, I just need concrete feedback, and not only for the initial game period.

Edited February 23, 2015 by podbelski

[TacticalDragon]

well I had similar feeling about default XNT 6 - the amount of money was so big I could afford everything by Jan

Seriusly? XNT has a delicate balance in economy, if you play veteran or higher you may need more than lucky. I know that I put things a bit easy compared V5.3.

seriously, what difficulty level have you tried? Try the top one, but as I said above don't expect extreme challenge. Or if you want just raise fundingDamageModifier to maybe 2.0 then tell me about the beach)) If it's still too easy raise up parameters that boost alien GC stats. I'm actually going to write about this in the top posts.

The beach thing is only a dull joke, dont get it seriously. I play Insane difficultie and the game feels easy in economy, funding damage and ground combat is bit inclined in favor of the player.

next, I've cut the cost just for a few selected buildings, it seems right to me, anyway it's a minor thing.

At the contrary is Building upkeep is one of the most important variable in Economy System, if you half this variables in theory the player can build about 6 interception bases without any problem in manufacture and economy.

regarding soldier stats, this thing was discussed in the XNT thread, it's not my own idea. Original approach makes veterans too valueable, lategame this almost forces to reload b/c of a killed xenonaut. The point is higher stats that grow slowly give more character to soldiers, and eases the loss of a man.

There are other ways to balance this issue instead of making all soldiers capable to deal with anything. I feel more rewarding the idea to reduce the starting values and critical increase the amount of stats gained in GC. When your soldier reach about 4 GC missions their stats are high enough to be considered good element. At the same way increase the range of the starting Stats could be other way to balance it. For example if the stats has a range of 30 - 75 is possible that your new recruits has at least 2 remarkable stats.

again, it should not be the main problem to criticize, this choice has both advantages and drawbacks. GC feels easy? Boost alien stats in gameconfig and enjoy)

... also, the starting period should be easy, I'd say biggest challenge is to catch enough of UFOs in case of a bad randomizer (if they all spawn far from your base)

Let me work a bit and together can polish a bit this small details of XNT.

This discussion is important and valuable.

Thank you soo much Pod.

[drages]

Every overhaul mod got its own taste and testing period..

Many ppl will try this mod and give feedbacks i believe. Just dont steal my testers

[podbelski]

@drages

I'm open to criticizm, my main hope is this attempt will give some insight to still unsolved game problems. And maaaybe something implemented in OOS will find the way to further game overhauls, which I hope will happen.

as I said much earlier, about two months ago, this is mainly a try out of different concept inspired by Kabill's thread (about lowering the air combat value forcing the player to have all the kinds of available GC).

Edited February 23, 2015 by podbelski

[drages]

@drages

I'm open to criticizm, my main hope is this attempt will give some insight to still unsolved game problems. And maaaybe something implemented in OOS will find the way to further game overhauls, which I hope will happen.

as I said much earlier, about two months ago, this is mainly a try out of different concept inspired by Kabill's thread (about lowering the air combat value forcing the player to have all the kinds of available GC).

Modding is like a sickness.. you start to change little things and when you done, it became an overhaul.. and there is no end of it..

[podbelski]

... regarding soldier stats, I definitely agree current setup "is bit inclined in favor of the player". I even think to reduce the accuracy a little bit.

yet there will be players who still find it hard. After 2-3 months into a game you start facing tougher foe and personally I can't play w/o losses even on veteran.

I'm sure it's worth trying other approaches to stats balance, yet they also have drawbacks... For instance, I think too much focus on "training" the rookies, like forcing them to run a lot or carry heavy weights, are kind of artificial and erode the gameplay. Or, if they start as useless pups but _very_ quickly grow to reasonable stats then what's the point? And probably they will grow to the top values too fast and it's not good.

if we had more flexibility in stats growth formula it might change my opinion, but that's another story. For now, I can say for myself: OOS values play better for me. Suggest other parameter combination, I will be glad to see it and try out

Edited February 23, 2015 by podbelski

[podbelski]

... what I haven't tried is going with completely different strategy: quickly set up 4 or even 5 "interception" bases doing just a minimum research and see for how long can you survive.

if it's possible to break off the majority of attacks, then capture the Praetor and win the game probably it "breaks" the mod as again the big part of the game is thrown away, like in vanilla. But I expect sooner or later you will be forced to fight on the ground and catch up with the research, ok maybe some values in gameconfig have to be tweaked further for this. The latter case is actually a good one as it's good when there are more than just one winning strategy

Edited February 23, 2015 by podbelski

[TacticalDragon]

... what I haven't tried is going with completely different strategy: quickly set up 4 or even 5 "interception" bases doing just a minimum research and see for how long can you survive.

if it's possible to break off the majority of attacks, then capture the Praetor and win the game probably it "breaks" the mod as again the big part of the game is thrown away, like in vanilla. But I expect sooner or later you will be forced to fight on the ground and catch up with the research, ok maybe some values in gameconfig have to be tweaked further for this. The latter case is actually a good one as it's good when there are more than just one winning strategy

I found and elegant and beutiful way to balance some of this issues.

let me search a space of time to make you a propousal.

[podbelski]

... meanwhile I've found a "bug" in my mod that hurts the "armored assault", have to update research.xml... also, vehicle weapons prices probably has to be tweaked

I also played till December on Insane difficulty and admit it should be harder, it's "insane" after all...

[Raywalker]

Hi,

Warning

*Fortress wall of text ahead*

I have been trying you mod and if I can probably some it up in a few words : Paints humanity's fate in a depressing light.

If I can add my noobish impressions and perhaps ask advice on how to get going to enjoy your mod better

Good:

- One of the positives of your mod is that I am doing more terror missions and alien base attacks which I am surprised at and allows me

to see things that I haven't experienced for example the soviet town terror maps.

- The stat alignment I enjoy, but could use some refinement to make the stat growth feel more part of the game (feels like I'm draft

special forces ).

- The wraith egg adjustment is appreciated

- Making reapers more a dangerous

- Tool tips, a real big blessing to see what a weapon does and to compare its stats to another(some are a bit off alignment, but the

wealth of information more than makes up for it )

- The mixed crews are more enjoyable to fight against

- Teleport sounds

Mixed

- Geoscape forces one to make more strike teams which it does add a different dimension to what I am used too, although the aliens

troll me all the time by hovering outside range or makes me waste fuel following them only to have another ship construct a base or

terror mission.

So I will complement your adjustments as the aliens seems more "invasion-minded" and I have sort of tried to watch them but it is

hard to not want to shoot them down if I can, so the adjusting I can leave to me having to improve .

- Early missions are very draining, for me personally, early ufo crashes one gets more from airstrikes than gc, which feels wrong

(personal opinion). I understand that the bigger ufos will counter-act that with the disassemble workshop function which balances it

out but a little more money from the smaller crashsites would feel more worthwhile to go after (perhaps a gc making batteries $20/$25

dollars?).

- The capture of landed ufos has benefits and shortcomings, as in my games I have more terror and alien base missions than ufo

landings, I understand that is a lot my fault for not scouting and intercepting better, but when I send a team to capture a full strength

"medium" ship, ends up being a landing ship - in the dark - on a farm map(which I dislike the most for the "blind" corners)

to try and get the tech I need to be able to get alenium research, the game slaps that personal victory by a

terror mission moments later. Added with the stunted early ships that land very rarely in my zones and needing to be shot down

adds to a frustration.

- I like the moral system, but it is frustrating when I want to retreat from a FUBAR situation (especially bases) and the xenonuats

are on near permanent freak out in worse case scenario. It does make fighting ceasans a less messy affair though.

- *not sure if bug of original game, but had someone survive after mission after becoming a reaper zombie

- tried mod with a late-game save , becomes madness , 3 fully-teched marauders unload everything at a lone battleship -

battleship health 75% (--_). Would be nice to be able to take them down with escorts with 3 fully-teched marauders, perhaps even

taking it out alone. And the map is painted with ufos everywhere, at least about 12 to 14 ufo signatures to about 20+ indivual ufos

easily a wave and if I go at the fastest speed it crashes the game on a veteran save Aug 1981.

Overall, I believe most of my shortcomings is because of my ability or lack thereof, but I enjoy the tension of Insane but clearly I am not up to standard, I will drop it down to veteran and see how I fair.

Sorry if anything came off as a rant, I generally enjoy you mod and the improvements are good .

[Raywalker]

Hi,

Warning

*Fortress wall of text ahead*

I have been trying you mod and if I can probably some it up in a few words : Paints humanity's fate in a depressing light.

If I can add my noobish impressions and perhaps ask advice on how to get going to enjoy your mod better

Good:

- One of the positives of your mod is that I am doing more terror missions and alien base attacks which I am surprised at and allows me

to see things that I haven't experienced for example the soviet town terror maps.

- The stat alignment I enjoy, but could use some refinement to make the stat growth feel more part of the game (feels like I'm draft

special forces ).

- The wraith egg adjustment is appreciated

- Making reapers more a dangerous

- Tool tips, a real big blessing to see what a weapon does and to compare its stats to another(some are a bit off alignment, but the

wealth of information more than makes up for it )

- The mixed crews are more enjoyable to fight against

- Teleport sounds

Mixed

- Geoscape forces one to make more strike teams which it does add a different dimension to what I am used too, although the aliens

troll me all the time by hovering outside range or makes me waste fuel following them only to have another ship construct a base or

terror mission.

So I will complement your adjustments as the aliens seems more "invasion-minded" and I have sort of tried to watch them but it is

hard to not want to shoot them down if I can, so the adjusting I can leave to me having to improve .

- Early missions are very draining, for me personally, early ufo crashes one gets more from airstrikes than gc, which feels wrong

(personal opinion). I understand that the bigger ufos will counter-act that with the disassemble workshop function which balances it

out but a little more money from the smaller crashsites would feel more worthwhile to go after (perhaps a gc making batteries $20/$25

dollars?).

- The capture of landed ufos has benefits and shortcomings, as in my games I have more terror and alien base missions than ufo

landings, I understand that is a lot my fault for not scouting and intercepting better, but when I send a team to capture a full strength

"medium" ship, ends up being a landing ship - in the dark - on a farm map(which I dislike the most for the "blind" corners)

to try and get the tech I need to be able to get alenium research, the game slaps that personal victory by a

terror mission moments later. Added with the stunted early ships that land very rarely in my zones and needing to be shot down

adds to a frustration.

- I like the moral system, but it is frustrating when I want to retreat from a FUBAR situation (especially bases) and the xenonuats

are on near permanent freak out in worse case scenario. It does make fighting ceasans a less messy affair though.

- *not sure if bug of original game, but had someone survive after mission after becoming a reaper zombie

- tried mod with a late-game save , becomes madness , 3 fully-teched marauders unload everything at a lone battleship -

battleship health 75% (--_). Would be nice to be able to take them down with escorts with 3 fully-teched marauders, perhaps even

taking it out alone. And the map is painted with ufos everywhere, at least about 12 to 14 ufo signatures to about 20+ indivual ufos

easily a wave and if I go at the fastest speed it crashes the game on a veteran save Aug 1981.

Overall, I believe most of my shortcomings is because of my ability or lack thereof, but I enjoy the tension of Insane but clearly I am not up to standard, I will drop it down to veteran and see how I fair.

Sorry if anything came off as a rant, I generally enjoy you mod and the improvements are good .

Forgot to add, any tips or tricks would be appreciated

[InsanePlumber]

Which version of the game is required for this modification?

It would be nice to mention it.

[WTYD]

Using file from first post instructions https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxhu08AelGluQ1JmS0d3VnNpZDg/view?usp=sharing

For some reasons Xenonauts mod launcher did not recognize that XNT 6.0 mod. After modding empty Modinfo.xml file like that

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<ModInfo>

<Name>XNT</Name>

<Version>6.0</Version>

<Author>XXX</Author>

<Description>XNT 6</Description>

</ModInfo>

Launcher recognized it.

Also, game crashes when going Equipment-Other on soldier loadout screen. Game version 1.51 and everything looks correct on mod launcher. I'll retry tomorrow with another installation.

Edit: XNT 6 seems to be problem. I'll try later with XNT 6 regular and patch it.

Edited February 24, 2015 by WTYD

[podbelski]

@WTYD

I think the problem is b/c of v1.51, personally haven't tried it yet... just have tested again with a clean v1.09+XCE+XNT_patched and don't see any problems

I'll update the top post with game version required and reupload XNT6_patched with a filled modinfo. For now I'm not sure what can be done about v1.5 glitches, have no time to mess with all of it

[Raywalker]

Looking at the mod "building and salaries overhaul", not sure if that will break balance, but it should make the early game more forgiving with lower initial costs and then the rising upkeep later can be balanced from capturing the disassembled ufos?

[podbelski]

@Raywalker

good feedback TY! I read it full but have to sort this out a bit to give good answers.

very quick points:

- game randomizer can make it easier or harder the first months, but I think in any case it won't result in a loss by itself. Try playing the veteran (or reduce the fundingDamageModifier in gameconfig) to somewhat counter the effect of bad randomizer.

- fat battleships is an intended feature. The whole goal of this mod is to disallow air supremacy situation. So you need two attacks to take down a battleship, and 3xFoxtrots won't be enough. Normally you can win by April. After that more and bigger UFOs will be coming, it's an alien invasion after all))

- you can perfectly play w/o a morale mod, just turn it off in game launcher. That's all I can do. Note that Wolf+ armors provide psionic defense

- I will be balancing things further, but the money from airstrikes/GC are not on the top of my list. They seem fine now, but I made them very quickly, they were the first thing I altered when I started this mod )) just have cut weapons costs by 10, and later had to reduce batteries value to miserable b/c some ships give you hundreds of them and that was very unbalanced. Again, maybe will get to it later

Edited February 24, 2015 by podbelski