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Geoscape Balance Discussion V19 Stable


Aaron

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  • 4 weeks later...

Here's a preview of the changes in the next experimental build (available either tomorrow or early next week hopefully). Lots of big changes for the Geoscape:

V20 Experimental 1

(PRELIMINARY CHANGELIST)

Fixes

- Fixed positions of Moscow and Warsaw

- Fixed various problems with soldier names

- Fixed hopefully the last oversized sprites (Sentinel and Wolf armour with various weapons)

- Fixed soldiers killed on base attacks not being removed from dropship

- Fixed crash when sending out a partially repaired aircraft with 0% fuel

- Fixed EMP damage not being applied to robotic units

- Fixed problems with various tiles in the Industrial tileset

- Fixed Reaper Analysis project name displaying incorrectly

- Fixed certain Xenopedia project not displaying stats

- Fixed combat shields being hidden when used with the alien plasma pistol or various types of grenade

- Fixed various incorrectly set tiles in the barn tileset

- Fixed the "Rapid Fire Lasers" Xenopedia info not displaying

- Fixed incorrect alenium transfer cost

- Fixed a variety of problems with the way the Cruiser UFO submap was put together

- Fixed inconsistent "crushable" property on various farm props

- Reduced footprint of Valkyrie drop pod area to prevent issues with spawning in buildings (and to fit it in certain maps!)

- A crouched target is now harder to hit both when shooting at it directly or hitting it via scatter (previously crouching only affected scattered shots)

- Fixed AI being unable to target vehicles

- Fixed a variety of minor bugs with tiles in the Arctic tileset

- Geoscape music randomisation should now be more random

- Can no longer create a saved game with no name

- UFOs attack a random target in air combat (instead of always the first aircraft in a squadron)

- Interceptors no longer burn their fuel extremely fast when loitering over a landed UFO

- Fixed injured soldiers recovering using their maximum HP, instead of their adjusted max HP

- "Killed" soldiers that were revived at mission end are no longer listed as KIA

- Terror mission UFOs no longer appear on the map once they reach their target city

- "UFO secured" no longer displayed at the end of a successful base defence mission

- Melee attacks can no longer be made through walls

Additions

- Implemented new Geoscape UI style!

-- This is a huge change and a work in progress, so expect lots of bugs and presentation problems!

-- Every screen in the Geoscape portion of the game replaced

-- Base screen updated with new art for all structures, and blueprint style art for buildings under construction

-- Background artwork for various screens wil automatically change as advanced technologies are researched

-- The soldier equipment screen is still using the old background for the moment, new one coming later

- Fairly major changes to accuracy and shooting system:

-- Accuracy percentage displayed on crosshair should now be unequivocally the real chance to hit the target

-- The game performs a single test on this percentage, if it comes out as a hit then the bullet will now always hit and never be intercepted by props etc...

-- If the game rolls a miss, then the bullet is completely prevented from hitting the original target

-- The missed shot then scatters at random around the original target (including hitting the ground tile the target is in, without hitting the target itself)

-- The scattered shot also has a chance to hit other units, however there is a negative penalty applied to hitting them meaning it is now less likely to hit units by accident

- Improved the way accuracy information is communicated to the player

-- If a prop is in the line of fire it is highlighted in red and shows the percentage penalty it will apply to the shot

-- If there are multiple props in the line of fire then only the one with the highest blocking chance (the one used in the accuracy calculation) is highlighted

-- The stopping chances of other props are shown in grey for informational puposes

-- Multi-tile objects will now only display their accuracy penalty once

-- All tiles from a multi-tile props are now correctly ignored when shooting over them while standing adjacent to them

- All the maps for both the Industrial and Arctic tilesets have been overhauled, with multiple new maps added to each

-- There are now 3 maps each for small (light scout, scout and corvette) medium (corvette, landing ship and cruiser) and large (cruiser, carrier and battleship) map types for each tileset

-- Each map has more variety in randomised UFO and dropship placement

-- A large number of new building submaps have also been added for additional level variety

-- Please give feedback on how you find them!

- Jetpacks have received a major update in functionality

-- Jetpack units can now hover in the air, they do not always have to land as previously

-- Flying units cannot attack, react or perform any other combat action until they land again

-- If a flying unit is killed it is immediately destroyed along with carried items

- Overhaul of UFO AI for the Geoscape

-- UFOs now pick a target nation at random, then spawn over that nation, which should help reduce the prevalence of attacks on poor old Australia

-- UFOs that pick a specific target (terror attacks, base supplies etc) should now fly a slightly more circuitous route so they are harder to pick out from normal UFOs

-- Scout UFOs should now explore a bit more randomly

-- Implemented a randomised variation of the interval between UFO waves, so they are much less predictable now

- Aerial terror attacks

-- Bombing missions now have a chance to spawn "aerial terror sites"

-- These must be dealt with quickly, or the alien bomber will lay waste to the area causing a heavy national relations penalty

- Added ability to hand off crashed UFOs to local forces for airstrike

-- This allows the player to essentially skip very repetitive missions (or ones they are not able to tackle)

-- However, the Xenonauts will then obviously not recover any technology in this case

-- A cash bounty is provided by the nation the UFO crashed in equal to about 50% of the value of UFO + crew if cleared in ground combat

- Implemented Radar stacking so that building additional radars at a base increased the range of radar coverage, instead of the detection chance (range increases offer diminishing returns for each new radar, and caps at 3)

- Used a PNG optimise tool to compress sprite size for unit animations; saved around 3GB of disk space (!!!)

- All grenades and explosives should now have correct animated images for when they are thrown and on the ground

- Painted over tiles for remaining alien base rooms (Red Andron, Green Sebillian rooms and vents)

- UFO crash sites can now be destroyed by ordering an airstike on them; this prevents the player recovering any technology from them, but grants a funding bonus from the nation the crash site was in

- A popup has been added to list the items retrieved from shot down UFOs that do not spawn crash sites (i.e. fighters and bombers)

- Implemented new soldier carrying capacity formula; BaseCarryingCapacity (20kg) + 10% of soldiers strength stat

- New Assault Shield image

- Added new tiles and submap for the Quantum Cryptology Center

- Heavy Plasma Rifle renamed to simple "Heavy Plasma"

- All research descriptions for the Xenopedia are now complete (please report any missing ones if you find them)

- New tiles and submaps for the Advanced Laboratory and Advanced Workshop, these replace the Lab/Workshop when you research the "Base Upgrade" tech

- Various visual improvements to the style of popup windows on the Geoscape

- New art for Plasma and MAG base defence turrets

- Huge improvement to rendering speed on night maps (and alien bases), hopefully this should resolve any issues people on lower end machines have (please report them if not)

- Xenonaut interceptor cannon based weapons now automatically upgrade, as with missiles

- Implemented the Plasma Charge, which replaces the C4 Charge when plasma explosives are researched

- Stun grenade/rocket blasts now have the correct colour of gas

- New Xenopedia images for Alien Electronics, Directional Thruster Array, Alien Alloy Hardening

- The combat shield now also has a chance to block shots coming in at 45 degree angles from the direction it is facing (but the chance to block is lower)

- Implemented the ability to give different Xenonaut armour types different vision cones (none of these are set yet however)

- Added "Berzerk" psionic power to Caesan Officers (causes targeted unit to go bezerk)

Balance

- Tuned MG/Heavy weapon recoil to make them more worthwhile for lower stat soldiers

- Dropships have slightly extended range, and more advanced dropships are faster

- Assault Shields now auto-replace Combat Shields

- Increased civilian line of sight from 14 to 18 (in line with other units) to improve their behaviour

- Increased pistol magazines from 6 to 9

- Increased hitpoints of combat shields and advanced shields from 200 to 400

- Increased radius and coverage of stun smoke to 4 tiles

- Introduced rearm delay for aircraft, which is a flat delay they must wait before re-launching after any mission in which they use weapons

- Alien weapons now have a significant accuracy penalty when used by Xenonauts

- Incendiary damage multiplier increased (this causes props to take more damage from explosives) to 400% (not as crazy as it sounds [maybe])

- Increased damage of C4 and the new plasma charge

- Decreased armour mitigation of Heavy Plasma from 50 to 25

- Decreased armour of vehicles by about 30%

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