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

[Raywalker]

Thanks for the reply

I had really bad luck the one game where I lost Central America and I didn't even see a much UFO activity there there even though I had a base in Florida with radar covering it.

I will try veteran, or do what you suggest as I sort of just survive barely on insane, ground combat is fine, it is just I have bad luck mixed with bad habits developed from original game. But I will carry on

The morale mod is a mixed blessing, on one had it makes morale better in the sense that it is more predictable and less frustrating in the early ground combat phase, but on the other hand it makes that badass factor(and getting the medal) of clearing a mission with that last soldier a nightmare as they become headless chickens flipping their commander. Perhaps I will stick with it and see if I can get the better armour to compensate

Another thing that was weird was having a stun baton hit explode an caesan officer, still got the officer but it was a "weird' moment seeing a officer go splat and it was recoverable .

I guess furies are going to be back in style taking out select hard targets and picking off the isolated enemy ships with MiGs to soften and marauders to finish.

I suppose I am used to the premise that ground combat is riskier and thus greater reward, but when I get $1800 from a gc where a airstrike does $2500 it feels better just to shoot them down and do one or two smaller UFOs and airstrike the rest, leaving only medium and above to be captured. I feels like the opposite of what it ends up normally being so there is positives in it.

An idea is to perhaps have a scout datacore a salvageable object or just having some scout-specific item that can be sold for the airstrike amount?

Overall it is an improvement and should only get better

[podbelski]

1. don't rely just on radars. Once you see a wave send planes to scout beyond radar coverage. And note it is expected that you won't always catch all of them. Personally I feel happy when an alien base appears on the map meaning they managed to trick me))

2. morale should not be a big issue until you face 3-4 psipowered aliens in a mission (psions+officer+leader). If you save/load excessively this might be the cause, I even reported a bug about this. Basically psi attacks occur every turn when you save/load, not once per two turns as it is supposed to be. Also note that psi powers have limited range. It is quite big for "fear" though, but anyway temporarily retreating far from the ufo to regain morale is an option

3. stun baton is strange, but not related to my mod or XNT

4. again, it is supposed you won't be able to take down all the battleships. Just have to live with it: some of them will be flying and bombing out your funding. The goal is to catch a Praetor before it is too late.

5. I think the described airstrike/GC misfunding is actual only for the smallest UFOs anyway. Also note that going a GC gives your soldiers experience and a few additional alloys/alenium (I guess).

6. Currently scout DTC is auto-sold after a GC. But note that DTC is _destroyed_ in a shot down UFO, like engines and reactors.

I'm going to put some tips into the 3rd post today. Some of them already in gcloadingtips.xml, you can examine it right now

[Raywalker]

Thanks for the tips,

1.I guess I will buy less radars and build more apollos to scout

2.The moral thing doesn't happen often, maybe the soldiers were low bravery and experienced soldiers got killed, but once that happened in an alien base I had 3 soldiers near to each other in panic, and they would just not get it together, then the aliens came and they were stunlocked . I destroyed the generator so it wasn't a complete fail on my part.

I can just imagine it as a mission going horribly wrong and then the less experienced ones lost hope.

3.Understand

4.Alright. I understand so it changes from air dominance to air selection. For example, If I would need to focus on the ground attack and bomber UFOs with air force and assault alien bases and terrors missions on the ground.

And the rest I acknowledge as a sacrifice for later game balance.

Thanks for the reply

[podbelski]

4. exactly and watch out for their interceptors

also, ufos on a scouting mission do not land as well, and they don't produce "events". Taking them down is also a moderate priority as their persistence affects the game ticker

... and I think Insane difficulty will have even tougher GC in the next updates. You see, some players beleive it's too easy ))

[Raywalker]

I have less issues with gc so much as the random bad luck with Geoscape which has been more giving(landing near base and not so much out of radar events) on veteran. So I will stick with veteran then

[podbelski]

updated hints (3rd post) and re-uploaded XNT6_patched (now modinfo is filled)

[podbelski]

... v1.01 is a tiny update: a conflict with "Armored Assault!" resolved (Hunter Rocket Launcher upgrade to Alenium missiles), and few gcloading_tips updated

[podbelski]

... v1.02 is another minor quickfix, just two things in aircrafts.xml:

- decreased Bomber HP from 3k to 2750, to make it possible to intercept it with two planes at certain point.

- put back Astra missile onto a Foxtrot, but just a single one. Already built Foxtrots stay overpowered by roughly 30% (previous setup was done by a mistake just prior to 1.0 release)

Edited February 24, 2015 by podbelski

[WTYD]

@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

Confirmed. 1.09 works fine, 1.51 not. So far mod looks awesome, thanks!

[podbelski]

wow I finally sorted out how the "recoil" parameter works, not how it's written in tooltips etc. Instead, the difference between recoil and strength is divided by 2 and subtracted from actual %-to-hit (if str < recoil)

have to think about the best way to fit this into the mod, will include into the next update

... will also decrease starting accuracy and reflexes by 10 for rookies

Edited February 25, 2015 by podbelski

[podbelski]

... regarding weapon tooltips text alignment: I tried hard but could not win a battle against the engine. The fixed width font is required for precise alignment, the default one is not fixed width, and setting it to "tahoma.mvec" which comes along with the game does not affect anything

[WTYD]

While this mod seems to be well balanced, it has IMO major flaw. That is, lack of positive rewards. Two examples:

On UFO Enemy Unknown:

Shoot down UFO, get squad on landing site, those who survive get experience and get better, after mission get alien equipment and sell it.

On this mod:

Shoot down UFO, get squad on landing site, soldiers get minimal experience, you get about 15000 credits for selling stuff (that is: nothing).

So why even bother to clear crash sites or landed ufo sites? Because soldiers do not develop, there is no difference using Xenonauts_gc_editor + V. Just getting some alenium from long ground combat is way too low reward.

Another example, base defence:

On UFO Enemy Unknown:

Reward from succesfully defending base assault is not losing base, getting soldier experience AND reasonable amount of alien stuff.

On this mod:

Reward from succesfully defending base assault is not losing base, and that is about it.

While soldier development can be fixed by lowering starting stats, economy is much harder to just simple mod. While I agree that it's good to make "challenging" geoscape, I totally disagree with this kind of "no rewards" system because there is very little you can actually do. Because player have no viable options to develop soldiers and cash balance, this mod seems to go forward on rails. In this mod there is minimal difference when playing perfectly compared to infernal playing. And that is something that should be fixed.

How to fix this? Little more UFO's and even longer rearm times so player have no chance to shoot down every UFO. Give much more money from equipment and if that makes unbalance, then make scientist cost more and so like that to maintain balance. In other words, player actions should have much more effect.

[podbelski]

ok that sounds reasonable, my points:

1) soldier stats do grow, some of them slower than vanilla, Accuracy at the same speed, TUs are faster. The next release I'm lowering some starting stats a bit.

2) regarding rewards: you seem to miss the point as the main reward is monthly funding and you haven't mentioned it at all. Funding bonus is given when you either shoot down the UFO, or win GC against a _landed_ one. Crash sites give _additional_ minor bonus in cash, and a standard exp boost. Also, UFOs that do not land have much weaker crews.

3) base defense: I reported a bug about this, the game does not give a funding bonus and that's wrong. On the other hand, there will be not a ton of such GC, so the main bonus is fun from a battle in non-standard environment.

as to your advice, I'm thinking about giving +1 UFOs per wave, which will result in 10 UFOs/wave in March, totally like +20 UFOs from Sep till April, probably will try it. Note that modders have little options on balancing the UFO spawn formula, some limitations are a consequence of it.

which difficulty level were you playing? How far did you progress?

Edited February 27, 2015 by podbelski

[podbelski]

=== change log 1.03

1. few GC tips updated

2. reduced starting accuracy to 55-70 (was 65-80); reflexes to 40-70 (was 50-80)

3. +5 to all ranks requirements, still think it's not balanced well but it's not easy. Minor thing anyway

4. rocket launcher: top shot set accuracy reduced from 100 to 90

5. redone the recoil for heavy guns (now the effect is noticeable)

6. minor range increase for Marauder and Foxtrot

7. increased difficulty settings, see the 3rd top post updated

8. Sulfur launcher, Korhang, SHThunder and HLDread: changed research requirements

[Raywalker]

A personal opinion,

In XNT 6.0 I remember there was a more ufo variation even into the late game.

I have tried games where I have had bad rolls where corvettes spawn outside zones I try scout and miss out on MiG tech and another playthrough where I get 6 landed corvettes close to base.

It was nice in XNT 6.0 if one missed a ufo type, there would always be a chance to get the tech.

I am not sure if it is the same, but because I have being doing an average/poor job of air superiority to try get the landed ships and it becomes battleship spam in March 1980.

I don't know, personally I have been spoiled with ufo variety.

Just personal opinion, not sure if Kabill's Dynamic Ufos mod could alleviate it towards my preference for personal use?

[podbelski]

I try scout and miss out on MiG tech

hmm... there are lots of corvettes in the game but many of them are on non-landing missions, and while crash sites do not give datacores the situation you describe is possible. I think making a landing ship UFO to give MiG tech as well solves the problem

I am not sure if it is the same, but because I have being doing an average/poor job of air superiority to try get the landed ships and it becomes battleship spam in March 1980.

battleship spam is intended, otherwise it's not the invasion but a shooting range. My vision is 9-10 months of the gametime should be enough for a playthrough. With Fury built, you can likely survive more but there is little point in it

Just personal opinion, not sure if Kabill's Dynamic Ufos mod could alleviate it towards my preference for personal use?

not sure what is the question... I beleive you can take the AM_xxx.xml files from Kabill's mod, and probably they will run well

upd

there should be lots of cruisers and carriers as well, did you also miss these UFO types?

Edited February 27, 2015 by podbelski

[podbelski]

... reuploaded v1.03, now Landingship disassembly gives MiG tech as well

[Raywalker]

Sorry, replying now.

Landing ships are a hit or miss, I got enough landing ships and the cruisers were a bit finicky about landing.

But again it was cutting it tight with v1.02.

The battleships seem to be taking over and I might have missed carriers.

Sorry for not being clear, I was thinking along the lines of late game being 70 % battleships for various roles, 30 % other types for dedicated missions, for example a bomber type doing bombing, a landing ship/carrier for base construction/terror,cruiser for ground attacks and perhaps seeing either a light scout, scout or corvette for scouting.

[Raywalker]

I think I asked about Kabil's mod in the sense that it is not just one type of ufo on the map at a time but a bit more variety on the geoscape.

So instead of just seeing battleships everywhere as an example have smaller UFOs take "advantage" of the chaos battleships provide.

My reasoning is that if the player has the means to, does one choose to potentially pass up on a battleships or a lesser UFO when the battleship is more reward to time efficient.

I can understand that it could turn in a shooting, but because it takes time to reload aircraft taking the easy ufo, leaves one choosing to get rid of a battleship or leave the comparative gnats alone to focus on more pressing issues.

To clear up my first poorly worded question.

[podbelski]

well, corvettes have 60% chance on a scouting mission till March, then 25% and 50% for cruisers, then 50% battleship and 50% corvette+cruiser

lategame bomber/ground attack ufo is a battleship b/c all other dedicated types are no match for your planes at that period.

[Raywalker]

Alright, I will download the new version and see how that pans out.

[podbelski]

another thing is the lack of flexibility in a waves configuration. Ideally I'd made it to always have a mix of small and big ufos, but atm the randomizer always give a big chance for an unbalanced mix.

So if I preserve current numbers but increase the amount of small ufos in the lategame you quickly face the situation when there will be almost no big ships in a particular run :-( If I increase UFO numbers it will result in a complete overkill scenarios

[podbelski]

.. I'm still in doubts about increasing UFO numbers (by 1), if you wish go to gameconfig.xml and set the "minMissionCount" value to "4", and probably it's better to set "maxMissionCount" to "16" at the same time.

this adds one more UFO to every wave in the game

[TacticalDragon]

In XNT V6 there is a mechanism that mix the UFO composition, actually Kabill implement a unique system for XNT.

About experiences and soldiers I agree that slow progress is not rewarding enough.

About Corvettes and Landing, Raywalker is right, in XNT V6 if you miss a dissembling the next UFO tier can unlock the mandatory techs.

Pod, XNT has lot of work on balancing and Out of the sun is a kind of experimentation that teach us a lot about XNT variations.

Beware of adding more UFOs per wave, balancing geoscape invasion is on of the most difficult task.

[podbelski]

In XNT V6 there is a mechanism that mix the UFO composition, actually Kabill implement a unique system for XNT.

my mechanism is very similar if I understand correctly what you mean (AM_xxx.xml files). Same for UFOs loadouts, I guess mine are even more diverse.

About experiences and soldiers I agree that slow progress is not rewarding enough.

well, in the end this is an easy part to fix, just remove a few lines in gameconfig and you return to default XNT settings (can give a patch upon a request if someone wants)

About Corvettes and Landing, Raywalker is right, in XNT V6 if you miss a dissembling the next UFO tier can unlock the mandatory techs.

hmm.. I don't see necessary code in researches. I even added it into the last OOS update. The XNT had about twice as many UFOs spawned in total, and datacores were not destroyed for crashlanded ufos, that's why it was impossible to miss one of the planes tech

Edited February 27, 2015 by podbelski