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I'd say the AI is now as good as, if not better, than the AI in the original game. Again, if you disagree then let us know why.

I have not played the original a lot and I was young at the time. But from what i remember the AI was better than what i just experienced on my first battle with v18.5.

I got "ambushed" by an alien hidden behind a wall, I thought my soldier was dead but the alien just ran away instead of killing my soldier. And it did not even hide so i got an easy kill.

Then the aliens got completely crazy, they started shooting walls and air. They were probably aiming at civilians but they were too far away, with too many obstacles/walls between them. The civilians had the same behavior, the policeman was just shooting walls and going crazy.

However the update is pretty good overall, the game feels more complete.

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This one? "Xenonauts Premium Alpha BETA Candidate 4, 4,505.87mb, Windows, V18.5.zip (V18.5)"

It works for me without any problems.

Btw. unlike earlier builds this one is so far without crashes. Good job!

Which mirrors do you get? I always get EU11 or 15... and it's the same problem on both. I can't be bothered to set up a proxy to get another mirror... not being able to manually select it is another reason why Desura is terrible. (And before anyone says otherwise: yes, you CAN set your mirror manually using Steam.)

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Hmm, seems like the AI may need more of a look then. I didn't see weird behaviour in my few missions but it sounds like it's still there.

Yeah i also get a lot of aliens running wildly around, staying in the open and firing on Civilians/NPC soldiers on the other side of the map (not only is the distance a problem, they also seem to ignore buildigns and other obstacles in the way (they keep shooting in the same direction untill the obstacle gets destroyed and they can finaly try to hit the civilian))

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I have played around 12 missions I believe and only lost 2 troopers to aliens due to how poor their AI is right now.

original Xcom AI still feels a lot better and a lot more deadly.

They try to shoot through walls and buildings

they were trying to shoot through their own UFO door on one mission

I had one occasion where I had a hunter scout parked 10 tiles away from a alien and he stayed in cover and instead of shooting at the tank, he kept shooting at a random Civ 15 tiles away right past the tank. I guess he saw the unarmed civ a higher threat then the hunter.

Also I have noticed many bullet animations not correct, bullets not coming from the guns but their chests, a police officer on the industrial map I believe.

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There is defiantly still weird ness happening with ai. But it is clearly a step in the right direction, and the stability i'd argue is more important right now.

-Shared sights are still funky. If an alien is outside the ship and spots your guys every alien inside the crashed ufo (I assume most of the time usually I havent uncovered it yet, but this is wat it sounds like during the hidden movement screen) start trying to shoot at my men but since they are inside the ufo they start shooting up the walls, counsels and themselves.

-The weird stand up, spin around and crouch still happens with aliens and civies / npc humans.

-Running at my squadies (instead of running away like they did before)but not shooting and leaving itself in the middle of the open close to my guys to get mowed down. also interesting to note in this scenario the alien is still trying to reserve tu's for reaction but it would feel more right if the alien in this case if he choose to shoote rather than reserve reaction tu's cause he basically charges into close combat then waited to reaction fire, and i was able to mow him down from flanks out of vision cone before he could reaction fire.

-the 'aliens that spawn in ufo' still decide to sit patiently inside the ufo till i get guys within maybe 15 tiles then they all sprint out only to be mowed down by reaction fires or my next turn.

These are what i've noticed in 1.5 months, 1 terror mission and a few scout missions, seen up to androns and light drones so far.

Funding is hugley ramped up, I netted almost 1 mill after first month AFTER upkeeps, which was usually was barely a few hundered k last builds i played. North america changed its funding + 400k (my base was in NA) so the succesfull missions bumped funding quite a bit. cant comment on how failing a mission goes, currently the aliens feel pretty weak and balistics can still mow em down. only lost 1 soldier so far and taken a few wounds.

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...

They try to shoot through walls and buildings

they were trying to shoot through their own UFO door on one mission

...

Aye. What's worse is that they're so persistent in doing so. There was one mission where a cop and a bunch of aliens were exchanging fire with the UFO door closed and in their way. It actually took a bit of time to open the door up because the cop's shots were all over the place. Credit to the cop though, by the looks of it he managed to down 2-3 aliens... or, I suppose, it's more likely that it was friendly fire.

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Can anyone else confirm this? Has anyone successfully downloaded the Premium standalone? If not I'll attempt to re-up it.

Yeap. I downloaded the standalone version twice last night. I could open the zip, but it wouldn't run at all and said it wasn't a valid win app. I posted saying so earlier in this thread.

The Desura version from inside the program Desrua works, but on the "Play" tab in Desura Xenonauts is stuck saying "100%-Updating", even though it's done updating and I can play 18.5 fine. Desura is a crap program. I'm crossing my finger this gets on Steam asap because I'm really tired of Desura.

Edited by RavenX
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Ok, Alien AI is better, but... They REALLY need to stop relying on reaction fire so much. Had and having several cases where an alien will run out in the middle of nowhere exposed to my entire team instead of ducking back into cover or shooting someone. That alien then dies without ever getting a shot off because he is a) wide open and b) none of my team has to move to shoot him.

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Case in point. All my soldiers grouped up to breach a UFO. First alien comes running out, and stops, exposed to 6 soldiers I know he can see, second alien comes running out, stops in almost the same place.

Aliens really shouldn't save TU for a reaction shot unless they are a) in cover or b) cannot currently see any soldiers they can get a good shot at. Otherwise you get this, easy pickings without any kind of risk.

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Edited by Iskandar
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Pardon my newness. Can we only get updates through desura? Are there no patchers?

If you mean "is there a 18.4_to_18.5.zip type download?" then I'm afraid there isn't, as far as I know. I see you're from NZ, so I can see how that's a major bummer for you - sorry to be the bearer of bad news. (You guys still have download caps/month, right?)

If you mean "do I have to start up Desura and d/l it through that?", you can download the full 18.5 install from this thread.

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If you mean "is there a 18.4_to_18.5.zip type download?" then I'm afraid there isn't' date=' as far as I know.[/quote']

The desura client should do that job though. that's why it takes so damn long scanning your existing install.

If you have an SSD and slow or capped internet then the Desura client update method is alright.

If you have an old style HDD and fast internet then its quicker to download the standalone.

If you have a HDD and slow internet then... good luck! :D

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AI is far worse than in 18.4, IMHO. This is unplayable - not because it crashes often - no, for me, it's been stable as a rock, which was nice - but because the AI is absolutely no danger to my troops. They sit in their UFO and shoot the walls... and any armed Civ sits outside shooting at the UFO. Those AI that spawned outside will stand where they are waiting to reaction-fire. Or, stand up when my troops are near and run out of cover. I've just stopped playing 18.5 for good; I have run 20 missions, and have three bases (and am making a fortune). I've lost two troops, both to my own recklessness because I wasn't expecting an alien to actually get a reaction shot in when they did. Missions are now an annoyance; a bughunt. And I have to sit through HIDDEN MOVEMENT while I listen to aliens firing into UFO walls and each other, and a lone Civ firing back. It goes the same: move up to UFO (always in the same places), killing the two static aliens with a death wish outside, move up to the UFO door. Surviving aliens inside who haven't killed each other in their desperation to shoot up their own UFO run outside (which is the OPPOSITE of what anyone sensible would do when trapped in a corner - they should set up an ambush inside when their enemy comes through the perfect bottleneck which is the FRONT DOOR), and are gunned down in short order by my troops. Win - get more cash - repeat. Oh, yeah, and the game crashes if the last alien that dies does so because they run through fire.

On 18.4 I regularly lost troops with better tactics than I employed in 18.5 to pretty perfect effect. If shooting aliens in a barrel (read: their own ship) with zero risk is perfection.

Oh, and a suggestion: when a military aircraft crashes in reality the crew do NOT remain inside. That giant plume of smoke is a pretty big indicator that something interesting is happening (and the craft may very well explode - indeed the crew will generally destroy the downed craft themselves to stop it falling into interested enemy hands), and if they crashed in enemy territory, it's guaranteed that the people that come looking probably won't be very friendly. It should be the first priority of the aliens to leave their downed death-trap ship and set up a command post in a nearby structure to await rescue. When they crash they should not have offensive priorities especially if they aren't idiot reptiles.

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The desura client should do that job though. that's why it takes so damn long scanning your existing install.

If you have an SSD and slow or capped internet then the Desura client update method is alright.

If you have an old style HDD and fast internet then its quicker to download the standalone.

If you have a HDD and slow internet then... good luck! :D

Oh. Yeah, I don't have an SSD. Desura took so long for me that I left it running, so I figured it was downloading the whole darn game. I say "took" because I directly download it now, after one too many times coming back to the PC to find Desura gave up at some point.

As for the A.I., I have to agree. I don't think I've seen it actively fire at one of my soldiers, even when I had a guy drop his weapon and give the giant lizardman a hug and a kiss. Initially, I figured it was bugged in prioritising allied NPCs over soldiers. So I went through the map files and turned off friendly A.I. in every map. No joy.

At the moment, I feel like I'm invading their home world.

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V18.51 will be arriving in the next couple of days, we're just trying to fix the reaction shot end-of-mission crash.

There's a few AI updates too. Very surprised that some of you are finding it LESS aggressive than 18.4 though...

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Zimdictive, would you not, as a player, find it super annoying that every single UFO you get to is a wrecked shell with very little left recover? If you want to experience that first-hand, let's ask Chris to crank the chance of a UFO suffering major damage back up to its previous levels, and see how you like it when you get squat diddly mission after mission after mission after mission. How about it, Chris?

On the other hand, I wholeheartedly agree with Zimdictive that the aliens are worse in this update. They do exactly as Zim says they do. It's pretty much a fusion of the worst parts of agressive and defensive. Just aggressive enough to run towards our guns, but not defensive enough to seek cover, not aggressive enough to shoot and too defensive by saving APs for reaction fire.

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