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This game confuses me


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Bought the game a couple days ago, have played XCom EU2012 but not the old XComs, have played games similar in vein to Xenonauts before, thought to start on Veteran. 3 people dead by the end of the first alien turn. 6 dead by the end of the mission. That about sets the mark for the rest of the game. Nitpick at things such as soldiers shooting each other in the back despite standing next to each other because shooting over another's shoulder is not a thing (unless crouched, of course). Nitpick at how units cannot move through each other. Research tells me alien weapons get weaker with range. Caesan (is that "Kaisen"? "Seezen"? (like Caesar?) shrug) at maximum range takes a shot at soldier. Hits for 5 damage. Aha! No, wait, he just set his rifle to stun, another hit for 30 from the same spot, soldier dead. Deep frustrated breath. Got a car! Alien doesn't like my car. Hits it for 30. Hits it for 40. Dead car. Hang on, I thought it had 100 HP? Where's the rest of the damage come from? Did it take a hit and not tell me? Also something that gets me a lot is no report of damage. Or the camera is staring at some irrelevant part of the map during the alien turn and I'm staring at some building while hearing soldiers taking hits and dying. Soldiers seem incapable of stepping out so when standing on a corner and looking around it, targets they can see around said corner are targets they can't hit because they shoot the wall instead. That's happened more times than I care to count anymore.

sigh

How does accuracy work? It's like magnets. 15% chance to hit x 3? Hit, hit, hit, alien down. 80% chance to hit? Shot wide. 10% chance to hit? Shot wide. Try again, hit. It's constantly happening and it makes me wonder if I should even be bothering crouching people behind low walls or shrubbery because it seems to make no difference to me or the aliens. If the shot is true, it's gonna hit it's target. If not, well it's gonna hit the dirt, or with my luck, sail over the soldier's shoulder and hit someone else. And the final accuracy rating hasn't yet felt like a true accuracy rating unless it's across open fields with absolutely nothing in the way.

My fourth go at this campaign, having only gotten far enough for wolf armour, is now with the community edition and a delve into the files to give +20 accuracy to starting weapons with +10 aim for each tier after (+50 at MAG), doubled shield HP because those things just melt at the ranges I really need them to stop hits and 360 degree vision because I am not amused by clunky robotic soldiers that can't look over their shoulders at any point in time with doing a full 180. And these edits probably won't even matter, I'll still get completely rekt. :rolleyes: Back to the grinder.

EDIT:

AND HOW DO I REARRANGE THE BLOODY DROPSHIP?! Take everyone out. Assign the snipers first, place them in the dropship where I want them. Okay. Next up, assaults. Aaand, now #1 is Assault and #2 and #4 are Snipers. Okay, so do I just pick them up in the roster and drag them to the slots I want? No.....? Oh it must be from the dropship placement window instead. Nooo........? Shift click?... Nope.. Ctrl? Alt? R-click?... With a full dropship, my snipers move from first and second place to third and 7th. Great, nah, I didn't want organized hotkeys for troops anyway, it's okay game.

DOUBLE EDIT:

I seem to have missed something in doubling shield HP as double clipsize is not double HP.

Edited by Goo Poni
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Your problem stems from comparing to XCOM 2012 - Xenonauts is more like the old games. If you’re not used to the genre, try a lower difficulty setting.

Dead soldiers is to be expected, although you may wish to re-assess the way you go about things, to minimise casualties. It’s definitely supposed to be like that in the early game though as the whole point is to be emphasising just how inferior the humans are to the invading aliens.

If someone’s standing in front of me and I fire a gun forwards, I should expect to hit them, most likely; if they’re crouched in front of me, I should expect to shoot over their head. I don’t see how this is an issue? Also, are you able to move through people in real life, or do you have to move around them? I think that was the logic applied here. If you allow soldiers to move through each other then that seems to open up the possibility of them ending their turn occupying the same space. Don’t know about you, but I can’t occupy the same space as another person.

You may have not seen the explanatory tooltip (and it’s the same in the old games too), but there’s a damage modifier on all shots – they can land for anywhere between 50% and 150% of their stated value. This explains why a shot will hit for 5 and then a consecutive hits for 30. There is an RNG element to the combat and this is intended.

As Chris said, if you’re playing on Veteran or below the damage numbers are shown. They’re not shown if you’re playing on Insane.

How does accuracy work? On percent chance to hit basis, as shown in the game. You landed all three shots when each had 15% chance to hit? You got lucky with your roll, nice one. You missed with 80% chance to hit? Well, you had a 1 in 5 chance to miss, so that shouldn’t be a surprise if it happens. The other day I had one of my soldiers on the tile next to an alien and he missed a 95% chance shot. But that’s ok – it wasn’t 100% chance, so I shouldn’t be expecting a guaranteed hit. The doofus fumbled his gun, or was scared looking at the ugly alien, got a fly in his eye or sneezed right as he pulled the trigger. It happens. I think you should look at other games when they use % chance to hit. You’ll find that if you’re not given 100% chance to hit, there’s a possibility you’ll miss. Pokemon, Ice Beam, 90%/95% hit chance or something. It misses sometimes. Same here.

Of course you should be bothering to crouch and/or hide behind cover – it decreases the chance you’ll be hit. Doesn’t decrease it to zero though. Is a shrubbery supposed to negate the burning hot plasma being launched at you?

You rearrange the bloody dropship thus: in Geoscape, go to your base; click on the Aircraft menu and then on the Dropships sub-menu. It’s a tab on the right, where the default view is listing your various interceptors. You’ll see an image of your dropship with green circles that represent your soldiers. Click and drag these around to put them where you want them.

Try again, try a lower difficulty setting, try reading a beginner’s guide first – there’s one or two good ones on this very forum.

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Bought the game a couple days ago, have played XCom EU2012 but not the old XComs, have played games similar in vein to Xenonauts before, thought to start on Veteran. 3 people dead by the end of the first alien turn. 6 dead by the end of the mission. That about sets the mark for the rest of the game. Nitpick at things such as soldiers shooting each other in the back despite standing next to each other because shooting over another's shoulder is not a thing (unless crouched, of course). Nitpick at how units cannot move through each other. Research tells me alien weapons get weaker with range. Caesan (is that "Kaisen"? "Seezen"? (like Caesar?) shrug) at maximum range takes a shot at soldier. Hits for 5 damage. Aha! No, wait, he just set his rifle to stun, another hit for 30 from the same spot, soldier dead. Deep frustrated breath. Got a car! Alien doesn't like my car. Hits it for 30. Hits it for 40. Dead car. Hang on, I thought it had 100 HP? Where's the rest of the damage come from? Did it take a hit and not tell me? Also something that gets me a lot is no report of damage. Or the camera is staring at some irrelevant part of the map during the alien turn and I'm staring at some building while hearing soldiers taking hits and dying. Soldiers seem incapable of stepping out so when standing on a corner and looking around it, targets they can see around said corner are targets they can't hit because they shoot the wall instead. That's happened more times than I care to count anymore.

sigh

How does accuracy work? It's like magnets. 15% chance to hit x 3? Hit, hit, hit, alien down. 80% chance to hit? Shot wide. 10% chance to hit? Shot wide. Try again, hit. It's constantly happening and it makes me wonder if I should even be bothering crouching people behind low walls or shrubbery because it seems to make no difference to me or the aliens. If the shot is true, it's gonna hit it's target. If not, well it's gonna hit the dirt, or with my luck, sail over the soldier's shoulder and hit someone else. And the final accuracy rating hasn't yet felt like a true accuracy rating unless it's across open fields with absolutely nothing in the way.

My fourth go at this campaign, having only gotten far enough for wolf armour, is now with the community edition and a delve into the files to give +20 accuracy to starting weapons with +10 aim for each tier after (+50 at MAG), doubled shield HP because those things just melt at the ranges I really need them to stop hits and 360 degree vision because I am not amused by clunky robotic soldiers that can't look over their shoulders at any point in time with doing a full 180. And these edits probably won't even matter, I'll still get completely rekt. :rolleyes: Back to the grinder.

EDIT:

AND HOW DO I REARRANGE THE BLOODY DROPSHIP?! Take everyone out. Assign the snipers first, place them in the dropship where I want them. Okay. Next up, assaults. Aaand, now #1 is Assault and #2 and #4 are Snipers. Okay, so do I just pick them up in the roster and drag them to the slots I want? No.....? Oh it must be from the dropship placement window instead. Nooo........? Shift click?... Nope.. Ctrl? Alt? R-click?... With a full dropship, my snipers move from first and second place to third and 7th. Great, nah, I didn't want organized hotkeys for troops anyway, it's okay game.

DOUBLE EDIT:

I seem to have missed something in doubling shield HP as double clipsize is not double HP.

You can rearrange the troops on the drop ship before you leave for a mission but it's a little hidden away.

First go to the base tab at the top of the screen where your fighter ships are stored and then there is a button for 'drop ship' (or similar I don't have the gave at work). Just click on this and it will take you to a top-down map of the drop ship where you can drag and drop your troops as desired. Sniper at front and a couple of people on each of the side doors works well for me.

It sounds like you should start a play through with community mod in 'normal' if you've not played the original x-com or Xenonauts before. It's a lot more forgiving (but still difficult). And don't use Iron Man. Allow yourself a few reloads if something seems unfair maybe?

The latest community edition seems to solve most of my line of sight problems and other little annoyances.

A lot of the other things like the 180 degree sight and not being able to move through other troops are because it is a game. Not a simulator etc. It's effectively a modern remake of a very old game that was based on even older board games. It's always going to have some 'quaint' aspects.

Edited by Mustang Shooting Stars
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Honestly one of the first things I did when I found out damage was 50-150 of listed damage, I modded that range down to a 75-125 of listed damage, 50 to 150 was way to high for me...

I agree soldiers SHOULD of had 360 degree vision, I didn't know it was modifiable, will have to look into that, (the elite of the world hasn't been trained in basic situational awareness? I find that sad.) as for not being able move through another solider, it is annoying, but I got used to it.

For those who think that would be unrealistic, it's called moving out of the way, and moving back quickly, also known as a side step.

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Honestly one of the first things I did when I found out damage was 50-150 of listed damage, I modded that range down to a 75-125 of listed damage, 50 to 150 was way to high for me...

I agree soldiers SHOULD of had 360 degree vision, I didn't know it was modifiable, will have to look into that, (the elite of the world hasn't been trained in basic situational awareness? I find that sad.) as for not being able move through another solider, it is annoying, but I got used to it.

For those who think that would be unrealistic, it's called moving out of the way, and moving back quickly, also known as a side step.

That would mean you have the other unit step to the side, which you can do. It's not a logic problem. A soldier can't walk through a spot something else is occupying. Also, I really like the damage deviation. It's one of the biggest things about this game people like. It just kindof sounds like you need to play on easy. You just don't seem to fully grasp this game yet.

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If you give soldiers 360º vision you're denying the best upgrade on the last armor (Sentinel). 90º seems fine if you think that they have to be alert enough to fire back.

But well, as you said, if you can mod it, you can play any way you want. Just know that you won't be getting the intended gameplay experience.

Something no one seems to have mentioned yet: Armor gets damaged, that's another reason why the second shot is able to get a much higher damage roll.

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Damage is highly variable just like it was in the original game. As in real life a shot may just graze your soldier or it might hit him right between the eyes. The damage from a hit is multiplied by .5 to 1.5 randomly. The damage numbers you see are the base damage. So, a weapon that does 30 damage could do 15 - 45, but the AVERAGE will be 30. You need to play very cautiously to avoid getting your soldiers killed at Veteran level. That mean ending your turn under or behind cover and crouched. Never leave a soldier out in the open. He'll likely be killed if there are any aliens around. At the start of the game especially your troops are extremely vulnerable to any type of hits. Most alien weapons can one shot your troops until you get to Wolf armor. Pretend you're the one getting shot at and try to figure out what you would do to stay alive with a bunch of snipers waiting to shoot you, but still trying to carry out your mission.

Edited by StellarRat
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to modify the vision cone, you should edit the armourgc_xml. there is a vision cone parametre for each armour so you should edit everyone you want to the number you desire, but as gurbo says you won't be getting the intended gameplay experience.

Also about the rng parameter, i said a lot of ppl comenting on how irrealistic it is...well i have to tell that i study medicine and the distance between the lung and a wide "empty spot" where a bullet can go trough "relativity safe" in the chest is only by 3mm (errr i dont the value in inches sorry), or even to pull it more graphic. A headshot is not always a instalkill, the bullet can go throu a cheek to another (destroying theeths of course..but hey...at least you are alive), or the dinstance from the nose (instadeath) to the ear( a one million dolars injury) are just about six inches or something). A shoot in a leg what is considerated "safe" could be deadly if the femoral arterie is hit (you will lost blood quicker than if you cut your wrists) and soooo on...

Edited by blackwolf
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Your guys are going to die. It's gonna happen, unless you save-scum. When soldiers enlist in the Xenonauts Corps, they get coffins comped because it's generally not if you die horribly with a hole seared through your torso, but rather when that happens. XCOM 2012 is very much a new game, by which I mean it adheres to modern tenants of game-making: the player should feel like a match for the enemy; everything is streamlined; it should seem "fair"; don't make the player feel like he or she is losing. Oldskool X-COM did not play by those rules: it was hard, enemies were WAY better than you, and you very often felt like you were fighting a losing battle; all of which gave the original its charm and made it fun. Xenonauts tries to capture that oldskool "why is this so hard why am I losing WHY" feeling from '93.

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