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Xenonauts V1.52 Experimental Released!


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Xenonauts V1.52 Experimental has been released. Please read this thread on the Experimental builds before you read the rest of this post: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/5958-Xenonauts-Experimental-Builds-Instructions

This is an update for Xenonauts V1.5 (changelog here) with the following additions over V1.51:

  • Burst fire mode has now been added to the right-click fire mode cycling.
  • Launcher now has a "Community Edition" button instead of a "Report Bugs" button.
  • Launcher RSS reader now reads from both the Development Updates and Release Announcements forums.
  • Mods with empty modinfo.xml files are now read by the launcher.
  • Farmer shotgun now displays a weapon sprite (default shotgun one) when a soldier equips it.

There will be at least one further Experimental build to follow this one. We are still planning to revert the X:CE changes to shot scattering and fix a few more bugs.

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I think with 1.5x you're going to have to up the number of Terror missions, Base Assaults and Base Constructions that occur as there are way too many "where's the Terror mission?" and "where's the base mission?" questions being asked.

EDIT: I mean, if we're activately saying to the bad guys "hurry up and build a base!" there's something wrong there.

Edited by Max_Caine
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I think with 1.5x you're going to have to up the number of Terror missions, Base Assaults and Base Constructions that occur as there are way too many "where's the Terror mission?" and "where's the base mission?" questions being asked.

EDIT: I mean, if we're activately saying to the bad guys "hurry up and build a base!" there's something wrong there.

the problem with terror missions is not only rare terror-ufo spawning, but it's almost always shot down before it decides to finally land. IMO terror sites are very important to create proper alien invasion atmosphere, so something has to be done about it.

I'd say the goal is to make much harder to ground ufos on a terror mission, it has to be an occassion raiding a grounded terror ship. Probably the easiest way to do it is greatly decrease time interval between ufo spawn and terror site appearance. I.e. make this parameter configurable.

PS

I also will be happy to see an upgrade of useless TU reserve feature, something like this

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There will be times when you simply cannot shoot down every UFO, and that's when you will start missing those Terror and Base Building UFOs, and then you will have one terror mission and maybe 2 bases to deal with in the same week, additional to having to defend your own base due to a missed base attack UFO.

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I think with 1.5x you're going to have to up the number of Terror missions, Base Assaults and Base Constructions that occur as there are way too many "where's the Terror mission?" and "where's the base mission?" questions being asked

This has been a problem since day one. I tried to approach it with the (defunct) FTD mod, others have suggested having the UFOs "beeline" for their objective, Kabill partially addressed it with Dynamic UFOs, but there has never been a real solution put together to counter a player's mid-to-late-game air superiority, with the resultant lack of any GC variation beyond crash sites

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I don't have problems shooting (almost) all the UFOs atm. Adding more UFOs might unbalance the game economics and frustrate less experienced players, so I don't see it's an option.

There is also a possibility to limit certain mission type to one per wave, this is enough to avoid being overwhelmed with simultaneous base attacks/terror/construction AM types.

Also, my vision is base defending is not a "normal" situation, so I'm perfectly happy with GC grounded UFOs on a base attack missions.

So again, the only whine from myself is the desire of quicker terror ufos deployment to the city, the goal is to make at least 3-4 terror GC during the playthrough

Edited by podbelski
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Adding more UFOs might unbalance the game economics and frustrate less experienced players, so I don't see it's an option.

That's true. I shouldn't have posted what I did on this particular thread. It should be introduced as an option (i.e. mod) not an integral part of the vanilla game. New players very well might not want to see more terror missions and base defenses. I think that often veteran players overlook that fact. So, maybe not the regular game, but as a mod I can only hope :)

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That's true. I shouldn't have posted what I did on this particular thread. It should be introduced as an option (i.e. mod) not an integral part of the vanilla game. New players very well might not want to see more terror missions and base defenses. I think that often veteran players overlook that fact. So, maybe not the regular game, but as a mod I can only hope :)

thats why I'm advocating a configurable parameter so the modders can use it. Currently they can't.

and probably same thing for base attack missions will be helpful

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This has been a problem since day one. I tried to approach it with the (defunct) FTD mod, others have suggested having the UFOs "beeline" for their objective, Kabill partially addressed it with Dynamic UFOs, but there has never been a real solution put together to counter a player's mid-to-late-game air superiority, with the resultant lack of any GC variation beyond crash sites

I think you hit the nail on the head (and I was disappointed to see that the FTD mod was never completed, by the way!), I'm one of those in favor of the "Bee-lining".

Obviously there's a balance to be struck, but I feel like we need to make it possible to intercept a terror / base attack UFO before they attack without having them spend a whole day just farting around before they actually attack. Currently I can have my interceptors intercept a completely different UFO, go back to base, re-arm and refuel and still shoot down the terror UFO in time before it attacks. That doesn't seem right.

Basically, if there's a variable somewhere in the code that affects how long terror and base ships wait before they attack, it needs to be turned down. Otherwise, this might be a trickier problem; I appreciate that the code changes being made at this stage are going to be fairly minor for the most part.

Edited by Troublechuter
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If u do that, then we will have a terror mission every week.. I don't like terror missions.. even at ufo and tftd I remeber most 4 5 terror mission in whole game..

So if u give terror mission to the bigger ship which u can't shoot it at the time of the game so they will land.. after u get enough fire power u can get rid of them..

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If u do that, then we will have a terror mission every week.. I don't like terror missions.. even at ufo and tftd I remeber most 4 5 terror mission in whole game..

So if u give terror mission to the bigger ship which u can't shoot it at the time of the game so they will land.. after u get enough fire power u can get rid of them..

it can be configured that terror mission chance is small relatively to other AM types, and a single per wave, so you won't see tons of terror sites. The problem is now it's hard to see a single one, and the solution seems easy

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If u do that, then we will have a terror mission every week.. I don't like terror missions.. even at ufo and tftd I remeber most 4 5 terror mission in whole game..

So if u give terror mission to the bigger ship which u can't shoot it at the time of the game so they will land.. after u get enough fire power u can get rid of them..

Like I said, there's definitely a balance to be struck. I'd be happy if this were something only introduced on the harder difficulty settings so as not to bombard new players with terror missions, I only play on Insane at this point anyway!

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I'm not very keen to change the game balance for V1.5, as for better or for worse the game has now been released and we shouldn't really be forcibly changing the experience too much nowadays. There already is a moddable value that makes it more likely you'll get terror sites and base attack missions etc.

It's a wider problem with the structure of the game, anyway - if you create a reactive sandbox then you have to allow the possibility of the player getting ahead of the invasion and shutting down those types of mission. For a while we were planning to auto-spawn terror sites if the player got too good at shooting down all the UFOs, but predictably lots of people complained about dumbing down and so forth.

There's never really been any easy answers to that particular issue; you either want to create a sandbox or you want to create a more linear and controlled experience (we went for the former).

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Chris, thanks for including the status updates on planes.

I have a question - are there any plans to change UFO flight behavior? Currently they just fly around and randomly strafe things.

I suggest a change to UFO behavior: when a UFO detects an X-com interceptor on their radar, they don't strafe targets and would decide - take the fight or flee

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Chris, thanks for including the status updates on planes.

I have a question - are there any plans to change UFO flight behavior? Currently they just fly around and randomly strafe things.

I suggest a change to UFO behavior: when a UFO detects an X-com interceptor on their radar, they don't strafe targets and would decide - take the fight or flee

That seems logical, but I wonder what that would do to game balance? Currently, those strafe missions lower the players nation relations score.
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Strafe earlier? To continue - "terror" and base assault ships should maintain their priority tasks - going for the terror mission or base assault. It's the "wondering" UFos which bugger me.

Also, this little mechanic gives an incentive for the player -while the UFO is tailed with adequate planes, no losses to realtions score. Fleeing UFOs could go orbital to drop out (say, after 10 seconds, so that the player could have a chance to engage) somewhere to continue havoc till their timer runs out. If some more "realism" is also a target - UFOs can enter at poles and go to equator. On the other hand, technical expertise of aliens would trivialise such considerations as pointless min-maxing of fuel "in-setting" terms.

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"terror" and base assault ships should maintain their priority tasks - going for the terror mission or base assault. It's the "wondering" UFos which bugger me.

agree. ufos on mission should just get on with mission, regardless of what it is, much sooner than they actually do as of now. seeing them wander aimlessly for an hour or two of game time seems a bit pointless. Is there any way to set a timer for mission commencement? give a reasonable time for interception of maybe 30 minutes in game time max (could even be shorter)? then they proceed with their mission. Ground attack and research missions could then still be intercepted, but construction and terror missions would already be building/terrorizing.

this would encourage not just prioritizing interceptions (UFOs on terror missions say over ground attack and research), but would encourage more base building in order to be close enough to catch them before they can begin their missions.

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agree. ufos on mission should just get on with mission, regardless of what it is, much sooner than they actually do as of now. seeing them wander aimlessly for an hour or two of game time seems a bit pointless. Is there any way to set a timer for mission commencement? give a reasonable time for interception of maybe 30 minutes in game time max (could even be shorter)? then they proceed with their mission. Ground attack and research missions could then still be intercepted, but construction and terror missions would already be building/terrorizing.

just make related parameter(s) configurable for modders!!!

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