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Ground Combat Balance Discussion V19 Stable


Aaron

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Anyway, when I say "variable odds for accuracy", I don't mean making it any more of a crapshoot than it already is, but just making the difference between 6 tiles and 10 actually matter for accuracy in some way.

Oh! Fair enough. One of the ways I think Xeno is better than the OG X-Com is that the RNG isn't as extreme. Some RNG's needed to stop combat being entirely predictable, but the +/- 100% damage of the first game was irritating to me. Sorry 'bout that.

I agree that the accuracy model could use some attention. The close-range accuracy rule that was introduced seems to be an admission of that, since a more elegant accuracy model would account for higher accuracy at close range without the need for a kludge.

Someone else did come up with another formula, and I think the devs' response was that they weren't likely to tweak it at this time. Hopefully this means that they will at some point; I think this was near the time of v18 stable?

Edit: I missed the 4th Oct. dev update, so yeah, they're changing stuff around with accuracy. Fingers crossed.

Edited by Ol' Stinky
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Oh! Fair enough. One of the ways I think Xeno is better than the OG X-Com is that the RNG isn't as extreme. Some RNG's needed to stop combat being entirely predictable' date=' but the +/- 100% damage of the first game was irritating to me. Sorry 'bout that.

I agree that the accuracy model could use some attention. The close-range accuracy rule that was introduced seems to be an admission of that, since a more elegant accuracy model would account for higher accuracy at close range without the need for a kludge.

Someone else did come up with another formula, and I think the devs' response was that they weren't likely to tweak it at this time. Hopefully this means that they will at some point; I think this was near the time of v18 stable?

Edit: I missed the 4th Oct. dev update, so yeah, they're changing stuff around with accuracy. Fingers crossed.[/quote']

So, I was one of the people that came up with an alternate formula with help from Gauddlike: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4275-Shot-Miss-Scattering?p=56673&viewfull=1#post56673

What some of you may not know is that the posted formula in the Wiki is totally wrong. The Wiki formula is mathematically incorrect and does not reflect the current formula used in Xenonauts. The current formula has a close range bonus that adds an extra 5% to accuracy for every tile closer than 9 range ( 8 tile +5%, 7 tiles +10%, etc...) there is also a NEGATIVE adjustment for every tile that you attempt to fire past the effective range of a weapon. I believe it works the same as the close range bonus, but subtracts a %. So, weapon accuracy falls off very quickly past the effective range. I tried to find the post where Chris talks about this, but couldn't come up with good search words. Anyway, it's in there. My formula was probably mathematically more elegant, but the current in game formula accomplishes a lot of the same things. Given the characteristics for the current formula I don't see much reason to change it.

Edited by StellarRat
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So, I was the one that came up with an alternate formula with help from Gauddlike: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4275-Shot-Miss-Scattering?p=56673&viewfull=1#post56673

What some of you may not know is that the posted formula in the Wiki is totally wrong. The Wiki formula is mathematically incorrect and does not reflect the current formula used in Xenonauts. The current formula has a close range bonus that adds an extra 5% to accuracy for every tile closer than 9 range ( 8 tile +5%, 7 tiles +10%, etc...) there is also a NEGATIVE adjustment for every tile that you attempt to fire past the effective range of a weapon. I believe it works the same as the close range bonus, but subtracts a %. So, weapon accuracy falls off very quickly past the effective range. I tried to find the post where Chris talks about this, but couldn't come up with good search words. Anyway, it's in there. My formula was probably mathematically more elegant, but the current in game formula accomplishes a lot of the same things. Given the characteristics for the current formula I don't see much reason to change it.

Well, the cube on range is OK for kludging a curve on range, although I'm not sure it makes too much logical sense. It at least does something that makes range matter before the end of effective range.

However, if you look at the last post I made, according, at least, to the tooltip accuracy numbers, close range bonuses do not apply until you are within 5 tiles, and they are a flat +15% per tile (up to +75%). Range only appears to matter beyond effective range:

Accuracy Modified For Range = Base Accuracy - (Base Accuracy (Range - Effective Range) / Effective range)

(Base Accuracy being the character's accuracy rating / 2.5, then multiplied by the shot type accuracy modifier - there is no such thing as weapon accuracy for the purposes of accuracy, with the exception of the precision rifle, which gets a multiplier to accuracy of 2.)

Hence, guns have functionally no accuracy at all past twice their effective range.

All this assumes, however, the tooltip accuracy numbers aren't lying to us, which they sometimes do, especially since some cover counts as cover, even when it doesn't appear to count as cover to the tooltip accuracy.

Also, the in-game stats describing weapon accuracy and ranges are all inaccurate, as well. It's 24 for precision, 20 for rifles/MGs, 10 for the rest. (Using only ballistics, although I tested the alien plasma rifle, and it has the same stats.)

=====

My own solution to this problem would be to just envision it like a target bullseye.

You start off with a Divergence score of 0 (unless you have forced failures, but I'll get to that later), with the gun getting a perfect bullseye, with every point of score that you gain above that deviating the shot by a fraction of a degree. (Hence, rolling lower is better. The higher the divergence score, the more wild the shot.)

The character then rolls "dice" (runs multiple uses of some sort of rand()-like), with a percentage chance of getting either a 0 or a 1. The percentage chance of a deviation is based upon the weapon in question.

Holy walls of text, Batman - spoilered for length and being dangerously math-ey

We might have a 50% chance for a deviation for a pistol, but only a 25% chance for the sniper rifle, to keep its current double accuracy. (Very inaccurate weapons, like when burst-firing, might have a chance to get 2 or more deviations per roll.) The number of rolls you have to make is determined by the accuracy stat of the character. A simple method might be 150 - Accuracy, so that you have between 50 and 100 rolls, depending on accuracy. A more complex, but parabolic-curvy method would be something like 5,000 / Accuracy rolls. (It needs to be much higher so that individual increments in Acc are noticed.)

Also, worry not, rand() functions and basic math like this is trivially easy for a computer to calculate. I've had games that calculated 255d260 damage dice and such before, and you don't notice the difference. You wouldn't notice any real game lag for this, unless you were literally doing hundreds of thousands of rolls.

Against this, you just need to calculate the relative size of the target, the "target profile". (Relative size because even the broad side of a barn makes a smaller target from half a mile away than a mouse two inches away.) Basically, every target has an absolute size that gets divided out by distance squared. (View of a target is in two dimensions.) Hence:

Target Profile = Size / Distance^2

Against this, we might apply additional penalties or bonuses. Precision rifles, for example, would actually need close-range combat penalties for being too unwieldy to use in close combat. Assault rifles, as well, but to a lesser extent.

Forced failures would be automatic divergences, probably caused by something like burst fire, especially if the character doesn't have the strength to handle the recoil. These are just added to the divergence score. Forced failures also occur for shotguns, with each bullet being forced away from the others.

Additionally, forced extra rolls might take place for firing beyond the effective range of a weapon - something like 2 additional rolls per tile beyond the effective range, as the weapon is more subjected to forces beyond the shooter's control if you are firing at a target beyond effective range. (Hence, you could take a shot at something 100 tiles away with a pistol, but you're rolling 240 dice to do so, even with 100 Acc, and probably have to get a perfect roll to hit... good luck.)

Another advantage of this method is that you would be able to link its shot divergence to its accuracy roll in the first place. You merely need to randomly determine in which direction the divergence will take place. Every set number of divergences pushes the angle of the shot out into some other tiles. It has a chance, based on size, to hit a target that occupies a tile that accidentally has a bullet go into it.

For a bonus, you can make divergences go up or down, instead of just left or right - upwards divergences might go up an elevation, downwards divergences might go into the dirt or be more prone to cover giving a bonus. (And, of course, it's easy to make a "one part up to two parts to the left" divergence pattern.) (Also, burst fire's recoil, and recoil for low strength with other high-recoil weapons should force divergences, with a much greater chance of having those divergences go upwards. For clarity, only one roll is necessary for which direction divergences go, and each divergence just pushes it further off-course in that direction, but the roll would be unevenly distributed towards missing high for high-recoil weapons. Shotguns should reroll any divergence angle that another bullet in the blast is already traveling through - they need to spread.)

Likewise, the damage roll could be part of the accuracy roll. For example:

Base Damage * 1.5 - Base Damage * (Target Profile - Divergence Score)

(The failure-based-on-size random roll would determine damage on a random accidental divergence into some other target.)

Now, making the actual tooltip accuracy numbers pop up for players would require a different formula. (It requires Probability-level math, so I'll spare you the headache of explaining why these numbers work, and just say that it's completely possible to do so, and the player wouldn't need to actually know how the numbers are calculated to just be able to see and compare the numbers.)

(Hahaha! Would you believe that's actually a simplified version of what's going on in my head? I'm not even yet covering how I'd redo cover, or how different types of aimed shot would work. It's pretty simple once you visualize the math problem in your head, but all the edge cases just wind up adding pages and pages of extra math.)

It may be complicated to the outside observer, but it would provide a natural-feeling progression of accuracy rolls.

Edited by Wraith_Magus
Putting a little more text out of the spoiler so it's possible to understand without the spoiler
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Well, the cube on range is OK for kludging a curve on range, although I'm not sure it makes too much logical sense. It at least does something that makes range matter before the end of effective range.

However, if you look at the last post I made, according, at least, to the tooltip accuracy numbers, close range bonuses do not apply until you are within 5 tiles, and they are a flat +15% per tile (up to +75%). Range only appears to matter beyond effective range:

Accuracy Modified For Range = Base Accuracy - (Base Accuracy (Range - Effective Range) / Effective range)

(Base Accuracy being the character's accuracy rating / 2.5, then multiplied by the shot type accuracy modifier - there is no such thing as weapon accuracy for the purposes of accuracy, with the exception of the precision rifle, which gets a multiplier to accuracy of 2.)

Hence, guns have functionally no accuracy at all past twice their effective range.

All this assumes, however, the tooltip accuracy numbers aren't lying to us, which they sometimes do, especially since some cover counts as cover, even when it doesn't appear to count as cover to the tooltip accuracy.

Also, the in-game stats describing weapon accuracy and ranges are all inaccurate, as well. It's 24 for precision, 20 for rifles/MGs, 10 for the rest. (Using only ballistics, although I tested the alien plasma rifle, and it has the same stats.)

=====

My own solution to this problem would be to just envision it like a target bullseye.

You start off with a Divergence score of 0 (unless you have forced failures, but I'll get to that later), with the gun getting a perfect bullseye, with every point of score that you gain above that deviating the shot by a fraction of a degree. (Hence, rolling lower is better. The higher the divergence score, the more wild the shot.)

The character then rolls "dice" (runs multiple uses of some sort of rand()-like), with a percentage chance of getting either a 0 or a 1. The percentage chance of a deviation is based upon the weapon in question.

Holy walls of text, Batman - spoilered for length and being dangerously math-ey

We might have a 50% chance for a deviation for a pistol, but only a 25% chance for the sniper rifle, to keep its current double accuracy. (Very inaccurate weapons, like when burst-firing, might have a chance to get 2 or more deviations per roll.) The number of rolls you have to make is determined by the accuracy stat of the character. A simple method might be 150 - Accuracy, so that you have between 50 and 100 rolls, depending on accuracy. A more complex, but parabolic-curvy method would be something like 5,000 / Accuracy rolls. (It needs to be much higher so that individual increments in Acc are noticed.)

Also, worry not, rand() functions and basic math like this is trivially easy for a computer to calculate. I've had games that calculated 255d260 damage dice and such before, and you don't notice the difference. You wouldn't notice any real game lag for this, unless you were literally doing hundreds of thousands of rolls.

Against this, you just need to calculate the relative size of the target, the "target profile". (Relative size because even the broad side of a barn makes a smaller target from half a mile away than a mouse two inches away.) Basically, every target has an absolute size that gets divided out by distance squared. (View of a target is in two dimensions.) Hence:

Target Profile = Size / Distance^2

Against this, we might apply additional penalties or bonuses. Precision rifles, for example, would actually need close-range combat penalties for being too unwieldy to use in close combat. Assault rifles, as well, but to a lesser extent.

Forced failures would be automatic divergences, probably caused by something like burst fire, especially if the character doesn't have the strength to handle the recoil. These are just added to the divergence score. Forced failures also occur for shotguns, with each bullet being forced away from the others.

Additionally, forced extra rolls might take place for firing beyond the effective range of a weapon - something like 2 additional rolls per tile beyond the effective range, as the weapon is more subjected to forces beyond the shooter's control if you are firing at a target beyond effective range. (Hence, you could take a shot at something 100 tiles away with a pistol, but you're rolling 240 dice to do so, even with 100 Acc, and probably have to get a perfect roll to hit... good luck.)

Another advantage of this method is that you would be able to link its shot divergence to its accuracy roll in the first place. You merely need to randomly determine in which direction the divergence will take place. Every set number of divergences pushes the angle of the shot out into some other tiles. It has a chance, based on size, to hit a target that occupies a tile that accidentally has a bullet go into it.

For a bonus, you can make divergences go up or down, instead of just left or right - upwards divergences might go up an elevation, downwards divergences might go into the dirt or be more prone to cover giving a bonus. (And, of course, it's easy to make a "one part up to two parts to the left" divergence pattern.) (Also, burst fire's recoil, and recoil for low strength with other high-recoil weapons should force divergences, with a much greater chance of having those divergences go upwards. For clarity, only one roll is necessary for which direction divergences go, and each divergence just pushes it further off-course in that direction, but the roll would be unevenly distributed towards missing high for high-recoil weapons. Shotguns should reroll any divergence angle that another bullet in the blast is already traveling through - they need to spread.)

Likewise, the damage roll could be part of the accuracy roll. For example:

Base Damage * 1.5 - Base Damage * (Target Profile - Divergence Score)

(The failure-based-on-size random roll would determine damage on a random accidental divergence into some other target.)

Now, making the actual tooltip accuracy numbers pop up for players would require a different formula. (It requires Probability-level math, so I'll spare you the headache of explaining why these numbers work, and just say that it's completely possible to do so, and the player wouldn't need to actually know how the numbers are calculated to just be able to see and compare the numbers.)

(Hahaha! Would you believe that's actually a simplified version of what's going on in my head? I'm not even yet covering how I'd redo cover, or how different types of aimed shot would work. It's pretty simple once you visualize the math problem in your head, but all the edge cases just wind up adding pages and pages of extra math.)

It may be complicated to the outside observer, but it would provide a natural-feeling progression of accuracy rolls.

The close range bonus in the somewhere in the XML as well as what range it starts to take effect. I might be remembering wrong. I don't believe the beyond effective range stuff is in the XML though, so that isn't moddable right now. I wish I could find that thread where Chris talked about this.

Your deviation formula isn't correct though from real world perspective (at least as I understand it.) It will tend to favor a certain amount of "miss" at any give range. Thus creating a circle of hits around any give point. I think what you're after is a CEP calculation.

http://home.earthlink.net/~loganscott53/Circular_Error_Probable.htm

Which strangely enough looks somewhat cubic. ;)

Edited by StellarRat
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The Deviation isn't the hit % roll, it merely has to be a number less than the Target Profile. Hence, the actual hit % is a more complicated calculation requiring probability-level math.

The actual amount of divergence would be a bell-curve, where the peak would be in the middle on a 50/50 chance roll. (Hence, a character rolling 50 times for divergence would average 25 points of divergence, while a character rolling 100 times for divergence would average 50 points of divergence.) (You actually probably wouldn't want 50/50 odds of divergence in most guns, as, to keep the targets hittable, you'd be seriously restraining the bullet spread.)

The fact that you have a certain average amount of deviation is, in fact, part of the benefits - what makes accuracy-over-range curves work in this case is the fact that the Target Profile (that the deviation has to be less than to ensure a hit) decreases over range. Hence, for a 50% chance to hit a target at a certain range where you expect an average of 25 divergence points, you'd want the Target Profile to be 25 at that range. At twice that range, the accuracy would then drop to 12.5%.

It's a big pain to explain because Probability was easily one of the hardest courses I've ever taken, but I could show you a spreadsheet that would graph the whole thing for you, if you are interested.

Edited by Wraith_Magus
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The Deviation isn't the hit % roll, it merely has to be a number less than the Target Profile. Hence, the actual hit % is a more complicated calculation requiring probability-level math.

The actual amount of divergence would be a bell-curve, where the peak would be in the middle on a 50/50 chance roll. (Hence, a character rolling 50 times for divergence would average 25 points of divergence, while a character rolling 100 times for divergence would average 50 points of divergence.) (You actually probably wouldn't want 50/50 odds of divergence in most guns, as, to keep the targets hittable, you'd be seriously restraining the bullet spread.)

The fact that you have a certain average amount of deviation is, in fact, part of the benefits - what makes accuracy-over-range curves work in this case is the fact that the Target Profile (that the deviation has to be less than to ensure a hit) decreases over range. Hence, for a 50% chance to hit a target at a certain range where you expect an average of 25 divergence points, you'd want the Target Profile to be 25 at that range. At twice that range, the accuracy would then drop to 12.5%.

It's a big pain to explain because Probability was easily one of the hardest courses I've ever taken, but I could show you a spreadsheet that would graph the whole thing for you, if you are interested.

No, that's quite alright. :D Changing the size of the target profile is an interesting idea. I thought you were trying to come up with a calculation that would assume an set sized target point and then as the range increased would merely increase the maximum deviation on two or three axis. That would tend to give a donut or spherical shaped appearance around/on the target if you graphed it which is wrong. Gun shots are pretty much randomly spread across a circle IRL once bullet drop starts to take hold it get much more complicated. I guess that wouldn't really be a problem with energy weapons (the drop.) Edited by StellarRat
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Well, the model I am thinking of would be to make two random decisions with each shot - one determines the direction in which the shot will deviate, and the second determines the amount by which the shot will deviate.

The large number of rolls would involve the "distance from the center". Hence, it would be a circular pattern.

As you say, if there's a more regular bell-curve appearance because the odds of the deviation are 50/50 per roll, it would create a "donut" shot grouping, but that just means that you have to adjust the bell-curve by adjusting the odds until you have something roughly equivalent to a shot grouping pattern. (Making a probability bell-curve that favors shot groupings closer to the center of the target, although absolute bullseyes would still be very rare.)

With a probability of only 10% to deviate, (or 90% accuracy, to look at it from the other end,) then you'd look at a bell-curve where the average number of deviations would be only 5 deviation points on a master marksman, or 10 deviation points on a rank rookie. However, the possible number of deviations is as high as the number of rolls being made, so a master marksman would potentially miss the bullseye by up to 50 deviations, and the rank rookie would potentially miss by 100. However, in that 50% chance, 50% of the veteran's shots would be within that 0 to 5 deviations of the target range, and the other 50% of the shots would wind up in that wild 5 to 50 range, with it becoming geometrically less likely with each passing deviation. (Technically, because we are using integer math, it's not exactly 50%, see next paragraph.) Hence, twice the Accuracy would correlate to a shot grouping half the size, with most of the shots being relatively densely packed around the target, while still allowing for an outside chance of really wild deviation. (And you wouldn't need to be constrained to the current system of "a maxxed-out character has exactly twice as much accuracy as a rank rookie, either - you could adjust the way rolls work to make them have a shot grouping 1/4th the density or 1/10th if you so choose.)

Just for clarity, the "most likely roll" to get when rolling 100 times with only 10% deviation probability, 10 deviations, is only 13.2% likely. 50% of the shots are between 8 and 11 deviations. (Well, technically, 49.7%, but that's details.) 68.5% of the shots are between 7 and 12 deviations. Rather than the 50/50% I said earlier, only 45% of shots are 9 deviations or less, while only 42% of shots are 11 deviations or more, with the remaining 13% being exactly 10 deviations. Hence, you still get a little bit of the donut, but it's manageable. The donut goes away more the more you force probability over towards almost never getting a deviation.

(Only having 5% deviation chance makes a very tight grouping, with almost no "donut" at all. With 50 rolls, you are most likely to roll only 2 deviations, with 26.1% odds, and 1 deviation has 20.2% odds, with a 0-deviation-perfect-bullseye still having a 7.7% chance. Meanwhile, the rank rookie with 100 rolls to deviate drops to only having a 0.6% chance to hit a perfect bullseye.)

Once you have that little vision of a guy at a gun range shooting at a target, then the idea of how range affects accuracy is fairly simple - the further away, the less apparent size that target has, so the number of deviations that are allowable while still getting a hit drops quadratically over distance. (And the actual distance between a shot grouping would spread out.)

Making a realistic(ish) shot pattern and relative effect of distance simulation is then possible, so long as you just find the numbers to plug into the formula that give you the results you want to simulate. It's also fairly mutable, since once you make these charts, you just change a few numbers to make everything else fall into place. (A 5% chance for a deviation, rather than 10% makes an even tighter shot grouping, with far less likely extreme miss shots, for example, while the closer you get to 50%, the more you get to that donut of shots.)

You can also, as I said earlier, fudge the probabilities even more by including more than two possible outcomes. (That is, an uneven distribution of chances for 0, 1, or 2 deviations per roll, with it being extensible infinitely.) You can even "consolidate" the odds of getting any given roll, if you want to reduce the number of rolls you have to make the game simulate (if you were worried about making too many rolls, and slowing down the computer) by simply predicting the probabilities of each outcome if you rolled dice for those events individually, and weighting the "dice" accordingly.

Edited by Wraith_Magus
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  • 3 weeks later...

Testing new jetpacks; you will now be able to hover in mid-air, meaning you will be able to stop (or be interrupted) while flying. However you will not be able to use any weapons or items until you land. Also if you die while flying your corpse and carried items (i.e. those that would normally drop after you die) are destroyed.

jetpack_test.png

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Testing new jetpacks; you will now be able to hover in mid-air, meaning you will be able to stop (or be interrupted) while flying. However you will not be able to use any weapons or items until you land. Also if you die while flying your corpse and carried items (i.e. those that would normally drop after you die) are destroyed.

jetpack_test.png

That looks really cool. Any idea how far away we are from another experimental release?
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We were hoping to do an experimental release tomorrow, however there's a major crash bug we are having trouble nailing down that might well scupper that plan.

Also, here's a preview of the changes that will probably be in that build (we might have to yank some if it turns out they are causing the crash):

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%

Edited by Aaron
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Testing new jetpacks; you will now be able to hover in mid-air, meaning you will be able to stop (or be interrupted) while flying. However you will not be able to use any weapons or items until you land. Also if you die while flying your corpse and carried items (i.e. those that would normally drop after you die) are destroyed.

Could you explain why all your equipment suffers from a critical lack of existential inertia if it was dropped from more than a few feet into the air? I mean, from anything but a coding standpoint? Is that something that's permanent, or just a work-around that might be fixed later?

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

This seems severely low.

As in, why bother having a strength stat at all if it's going to mean basically nothing at all? The differences in strength between newly-hired rookies will mean nothing for all but the highest possible strength. Even that means only 1 extra grenade.

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This seems severely low.

As in, why bother having a strength stat at all if it's going to mean basically nothing at all? The differences in strength between newly-hired rookies will mean nothing for all but the highest possible strength. Even that means only 1 extra grenade.

I'm fine with not much of a difference between rookies, but your vets will reasonably gain around 3 kg of carrying capacity compared to a rookie, which is pretty much making carrying capacity a static amount (which is probably better for balance in the long run, even if it loses some of the flavor of the game). Maybe buffing it to 20% might work so there's at least some feeling of progression with strength increases? We'll see in a few days I guess.

For comparison purposes, can someone post the current carrying capacity forumula?

Edited by Dranak
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gonna play devils advocate here and say that carrying things in a combat situation is a BIG deal.

the men you are recruiting have all been serving soldiers elsewhere in the world; they are already fit and able. Even with a continuous training and experience, adding even ONE bag of sugar (fairly global approximation of 1kg) to your capable combat load is a BIG physical achievement.

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warning, nitpicking incoming with no real relation to gameplay, only reality:

i have a habit of keeping too many tools in my vest at work, at best out of curiosity i measured it to weigh around 6kg. thing is, that is a weight you are used to since you wear it instead of truely carry it. it does not slow me down in any shape or form. firemen generally work with 50kg weight and again that is doable since its something worn instead of being carried. adrenaline ofc plays a part in that too (a friend of mine is one, says it weighs next to nothing while goin in but is kinda heavy when you pack it)

as for soldiers not sure how the combat armor works but a flak vest only really slows you down due to movement resistance and heat. same goes to weapons, a rifle isnt all that heavy, ammo is bound to your vest. any rookie will run just fine with the standard combat gear of an assault rifle, 3 clips, 1disposable bazooka. 2 greandes (small med kit, water canteen, rations, aluminum box to eat from)i forget the rest. dont recall weight ever being an issue, just the disposable bazooka being clunky in your back and bruising your hands with the rifle while crawling.

point beign the weight distribution of your vest is generally really good, it does not feel like you are carrying all that much, just that more gear makes movement clunky. weight works fine in that sense, altho the xcom troopers are a bit wussies in that sense. could think of it like the veterans know some small tricks like how to wrap your spork in some cloth to make it rattle less inside the aluminum box ^^ instead of weight you could just as well use some equipment point arbitery value which would sortof be more accurate but that weight system does seem to work just fine (with the exception of armor "weighing" too much, when in reality its the least of the issues in your load)

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Ok so I just switched over from v18 to v19 a couple of days ago and wanted to share my thoughts.

Enemy crew loadouts; That was a real shocker, on my first 3 missions I encountered all of them had max or near max random crew. Nothing makes you freak out when a vessel you are used to only have 3 enemies from tosses 8 or even 9 aliens at you its can be pretty chilling. Perhaps something to cap that might be nice cause 9 aliens for a first mission can be a little overwhelming.

Air Combat. I have a few gripes in this area. First and foremost being the dodge recharge rate on the light scout and the light fighters.

it makes challenging engagements terrifyingly more difficult especially since difficulty settings do not change the difficulty of the air engagements. I have thought of a work around for this is to make 3 variations of each of the alien ships early, mid, and standard. The basic idea being that the first few times you encounter an alien craft like the first few light scouts they are a first run by the aliens at adapting them for flight in the atmosphere so perhaps no roll, then after the first few missions it switched to the mid (they have worked out some of the kinks) so now it can roll but the recharge rate is really bad(say double length) then you give them a standard version how it is now in v19. you apply this basic idea to all of the alien craft with the early versions have reduced speed, turning, and if roll capable debuffed roll.

On a side note I like the recovery feature for when one of your planes is shot down that makes recovering from a loss in air combat not a catastrophic event but something that sets you back in terms of being able to respond to threats.

On to ground combat;

Ok there are good things and bad things here

Grenades: I think that it is good that you limited the range at which players can throw grenades. I know in V18 nearly all of my troops seemed to throw grenades like they were outfielders for a MLB team before being recruited and now that is not an issue. However the range that you limited grenades to is far too short. It needs to be somewhere between 1.5x to 2x what it currently is because with the way it is set up right now soldiers can barely throw a flashbang far enough to be outside of its area of effect. in truth the range you have it set for right now is how far I would expect someone to throw when prone not standing up.

Stun grenade got nerfed in too many ways. the v18 stun grenades were very OP since you could basically stun down anything with one or two grenades but as they are in stock v19 the aliens stroll through the gas like marine drill instructors during tear gas training. It should not take a dozen stun grenades to down a single alien in a confined space. (I think I worked out a fix for stun grenades http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/7368-Stun-Grenades/page6 this is my post on the subject)

Missing roles: Where is the room for the battlefield medic? I have noticed that you have multiple death settings because in some cases when a lose a they are reduced to nothing but a puddle of goo while others hit by the same weapon just fall down. why not a game mechanic that allows a way to save those soldiers not reduce to blood fur and eyeballs to be saved. say a 3-5 round timer where they are down and out of the fight but if a medic with say a trauma kit (as apposed to a regular medkit) can reach them he can save their life. at the end of the battle that soldier is listed as Critical 0% and is out for 14 days at which point they begin regaining health (ie after 14 days they go to 1% and start healing as normal for the game) you could even make the trauma Kit only be available at bases which have a med bay installed. or you could make it a researched item unlockable when you get the sebillian autopsy.

NPC AI: I am tired of Civilians and Local forces either standing around with their thumb up their tail pipe or running to their deaths.

can we program the civilian AI to try and get to the landing zone? if you you had aliens in your neighborhood and a military helicopter landed down the block wouldn't you make a be line for those soldiers or at least the chopper? also they should not be running up to the aliens and standing right next to them. I mean its the 70-80's in the game so its not like they are trying to get pictures with early smart phones or something.

And can we teach local forces how to use cover, maybe make them aggressive towards the aliens instead of running back and forth in a small area like a county fair turkey shoot.

Drones: I know there has been a lot of discussion regarding the drones where some people feel they are too weak and others disagree. for my part I just think the light drones show up later in the game then they should. They are a scouting tool right? why not have them start showing up occasionally with the actual scout UFO's that are engaging in scouting missions maybe on a setting of 0-1 or 0-2 for light scouts and scouts respectively.

Also I would strongly push for greater alien crew diversity. The subtext for the aliens in all the Xenopedia for autopsy's and examinations of captured ones comes back with this picture of each sub-race being engineered for specific roles and tasks yet the alien crafts are like flying billboards for segregation. They should have a mix to exemplify this caste/roll relationship. So virtually every light scout should have at least one Caesan which would be the command officer. the rest of the crew might be a mix of sebillian and Caesan depending on the mission so like on light scouts you would see a higher concentration of Caesan in the crew for research missions and perhaps no Sebillian at all while scouting you would have one maybe two Caesan with more Sebillian in the crew. perhaps a light drone or two.

More Manufacturing work:

One of the major things that is lacking currently is manufacturing. you only bust out the techs occasionally when an equipment upgrade comes up and the rest of the time they remain idle. Largely makes them a Waste of resources early in the game where they just chew up living quarters capacity. There should be something useful they can do as a low or no cost option. many people have already put together mods specifically for this purpose back in version 18 where they dismantled recovered weapons and processed alien alloys into usable parts.

I have not yet tested the shock grenades in my current V19 playthrough but I am hoping they will actually work at capturing drones and the androids. cause they were worthless in v18.

Loadout Weights: I know someone else already mentioned it but I will say my part, it seems that my troops can not carry nearly as much this time around as they used to. Anyone who has served in military service will tell you, if you as a soldier can not handle carrying 30-40kg's of gear you would not even make it through basic training. But in V19 all of your troops start getting carry weight issues at 30kg's roughly. this means that your strongest starting soldier does not meet the basic requirements for military service let alone any kind of elite combat organization. I looked into the math that was used to calculate carry weight and it is good since strength only has a minor effect on how much gear you can reasonably carry. I think it was 20kg + 10% of str. my only argument is that the initial value of 20kg should be changed to 30kg so it should be a calculation of 30kg + 10% of Str to equal carry weight since that would fit with an actual combat soldier and not skew things terribly.

Research: some researches need to be moved up in the research tree or new options added most specifically is the dropship issue

There should be a dropship between the Chinook and the Shrike something to bridge the gap early on. say like an Osprey with 10 capacity that can be researched and perhaps a little faster thank the chinook.

That is all I have right now but I will likely add to this list later

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Thanks for the nicely organised feedback!

Enemy crew loadouts; That was a real shocker, on my first 3 missions I encountered all of them had max or near max random crew. Nothing makes you freak out when a vessel you are used to only have 3 enemies from tosses 8 or even 9 aliens at you its can be pretty chilling. Perhaps something to cap that might be nice cause 9 aliens for a first mission can be a little overwhelming.

That's partially luck of draw, but it is possible I may tweak the number of alien crew down a little in general (I played a late game base attack mission the other day and finished it with 27 aliens killed, which is perhaps a little extreme).

Air Combat. I have a few gripes in this area. First and foremost being the dodge recharge rate on the light scout and the light fighters.

it makes challenging engagements terrifyingly more difficult especially since difficulty settings do not change the difficulty of the air engagements. I have thought of a work around for this is to make 3 variations of each of the alien ships early, mid, and standard. The basic idea being that the first few times you encounter an alien craft like the first few light scouts they are a first run by the aliens at adapting them for flight in the atmosphere so perhaps no roll, then after the first few missions it switched to the mid (they have worked out some of the kinks) so now it can roll but the recharge rate is really bad(say double length) then you give them a standard version how it is now in v19. you apply this basic idea to all of the alien craft with the early versions have reduced speed, turning, and if roll capable debuffed roll.

The "aliens gradually adapting to our atmosphere" is actually supposed to be the reason they bring larger and tougher UFOs. Honestly the Light Scouts mainly have the roll ability to make them a bit scary, and also show the player it's possible so it doesn't totally blind-side them when fighter UFOs show up. I adding additional tiers of UFO beyond our current ones would just be lost in the noise of the random nature of the UFO spawning/detection.

Grenades: I think that it is good that you limited the range at which players can throw grenades. I know in V18 nearly all of my troops seemed to throw grenades like they were outfielders for a MLB team before being recruited and now that is not an issue. However the range that you limited grenades to is far too short. It needs to be somewhere between 1.5x to 2x what it currently is because with the way it is set up right now soldiers can barely throw a flashbang far enough to be outside of its area of effect. in truth the range you have it set for right now is how far I would expect someone to throw when prone not standing up.

I am tempted to increase grenade range a little, but will have to do a little more testing on it.

Stun grenade got nerfed in too many ways. the v18 stun grenades were very OP since you could basically stun down anything with one or two grenades but as they are in stock v19 the aliens stroll through the gas like marine drill instructors during tear gas training. It should not take a dozen stun grenades to down a single alien in a confined space. (I think I worked out a fix for stun grenades http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/7368-Stun-Grenades/page6 this is my post on the subject)

I replied to this in the other thread about stun grenades; essentially, they are meant to be a bit rubbish, but they are perhaps hamstrung right now by the way they apply damage, which can probably be fixed.

Missing roles: Where is the room for the battlefield medic? I have noticed that you have multiple death settings because in some cases when a lose a they are reduced to nothing but a puddle of goo while others hit by the same weapon just fall down. why not a game mechanic that allows a way to save those soldiers not reduce to blood fur and eyeballs to be saved. say a 3-5 round timer where they are down and out of the fight but if a medic with say a trauma kit (as apposed to a regular medkit) can reach them he can save their life. at the end of the battle that soldier is listed as Critical 0% and is out for 14 days at which point they begin regaining health (ie after 14 days they go to 1% and start healing as normal for the game) you could even make the trauma Kit only be available at bases which have a med bay installed. or you could make it a researched item unlockable when you get the sebillian autopsy.

This is a neat idea, but I'm not sure what it necessarily adds to to justify the amount of time and effort it would take to implement.

NPC AI: I am tired of Civilians and Local forces either standing around with their thumb up their tail pipe or running to their deaths.

can we program the civilian AI to try and get to the landing zone? if you you had aliens in your neighborhood and a military helicopter landed down the block wouldn't you make a be line for those soldiers or at least the chopper? also they should not be running up to the aliens and standing right next to them. I mean its the 70-80's in the game so its not like they are trying to get pictures with early smart phones or something.

And can we teach local forces how to use cover, maybe make them aggressive towards the aliens instead of running back and forth in a small area like a county fair turkey shoot.

This should be improved a great deal once I overhaul the maps with better spawn locations for Xenos/civilians (i.e. not completely mixed together at random).

Drones: I know there has been a lot of discussion regarding the drones where some people feel they are too weak and others disagree. for my part I just think the light drones show up later in the game then they should. They are a scouting tool right? why not have them start showing up occasionally with the actual scout UFO's that are engaging in scouting missions maybe on a setting of 0-1 or 0-2 for light scouts and scouts respectively.

We have to be careful how early we put the light drone, as it is one part of the research gateway that unlocks Buzzard armour, which is meant to be a mid-game bit of gear. They spawn with Corvettes as it is, which is relatively early.

Also I would strongly push for greater alien crew diversity. The subtext for the aliens in all the Xenopedia for autopsy's and examinations of captured ones comes back with this picture of each sub-race being engineered for specific roles and tasks yet the alien crafts are like flying billboards for segregation. They should have a mix to exemplify this caste/roll relationship. So virtually every light scout should have at least one Caesan which would be the command officer. the rest of the crew might be a mix of sebillian and Caesan depending on the mission so like on light scouts you would see a higher concentration of Caesan in the crew for research missions and perhaps no Sebillian at all while scouting you would have one maybe two Caesan with more Sebillian in the crew. perhaps a light drone or two.

We wanted to keep the alien crews homogeneous because that way the different styles of the different alien types can give each mission a better sense of differentiation.

More Manufacturing work:

One of the major things that is lacking currently is manufacturing. you only bust out the techs occasionally when an equipment upgrade comes up and the rest of the time they remain idle. Largely makes them a Waste of resources early in the game where they just chew up living quarters capacity. There should be something useful they can do as a low or no cost option. many people have already put together mods specifically for this purpose back in version 18 where they dismantled recovered weapons and processed alien alloys into usable parts.

That could just mean you hired too many workshop staff initially. I kind of agree that there should be something ongoing for your workshops to do, but I'm not really sure what it could be without full on introducing ammo manufacturing and that sort of thing - not something we are likely to do. The thing is a careful player can actually get themselves quite a lot of everything right now, so giving them another route to get stuff might make things too easy.

Loadout Weights: I know someone else already mentioned it but I will say my part, it seems that my troops can not carry nearly as much this time around as they used to. Anyone who has served in military service will tell you, if you as a soldier can not handle carrying 30-40kg's of gear you would not even make it through basic training. But in V19 all of your troops start getting carry weight issues at 30kg's roughly. this means that your strongest starting soldier does not meet the basic requirements for military service let alone any kind of elite combat organization. I looked into the math that was used to calculate carry weight and it is good since strength only has a minor effect on how much gear you can reasonably carry. I think it was 20kg + 10% of str. my only argument is that the initial value of 20kg should be changed to 30kg so it should be a calculation of 30kg + 10% of Str to equal carry weight since that would fit with an actual combat soldier and not skew things terribly.

This is probably a bit low, we just changed the formula so will probably tweak it a bit.

Research: some researches need to be moved up in the research tree or new options added most specifically is the dropship issue

There should be a dropship between the Chinook and the Shrike something to bridge the gap early on. say like an Osprey with 10 capacity that can be researched and perhaps a little faster thank the chinook.

Adding dropships is an absolutely massive undertaking, as we need to produce the very detailed sprites for it to appear in ground combat; it's just not going to happen at this stage. Besides, if we added an Osprey dropship we'd also have to implement "HangarQueen" code to properly simulate it, and implement a chance it would just crash randomly on the way to missions ;)

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NPC AI: I am tired of Civilians and Local forces either standing around with their thumb up their tail pipe or running to their deaths.

can we program the civilian AI to try and get to the landing zone? if you you had aliens in your neighborhood and a military helicopter landed down the block wouldn't you make a be line for those soldiers or at least the chopper? also they should not be running up to the aliens and standing right next to them. I mean its the 70-80's in the game so its not like they are trying to get pictures with early smart phones or something.

And can we teach local forces how to use cover, maybe make them aggressive towards the aliens instead of running back and forth in a small area like a county fair turkey shoot.

This should be improved a great deal once I overhaul the maps with better spawn locations for Xenos/civilians (i.e. not completely mixed together at random).

Hi Aaron regarding Wrath_IX comments about unarmed civilians: The AI needs to be tweaked so that their overriding priority should be to seek the best possible cover (preferrably complete cover like behind a full height wall) then get down and stay put unless they have LOS to an alien. If they do have LOS to alien they ought to have some type of dice roll as to whether they should run again or stay put, probably related to range and whether or not there is another piece of cover within a short distance. Their current behavior is just too illogical IMO.

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This is a neat idea, but I'm not sure what it necessarily adds to to justify the amount of time and effort it would take to implement.

well beyond the obvious ability to prevent the complete loss of troops you have taken a great deal of work to level up. if the trauma ability can work on civilians and local forces as well then it becomes a tool for improving you mission scores. If there is a reward to it in terms of improving relations with the local nations that also has a benefit and opens up new play styles plus you should consider additional supportive role options

We have to be careful how early we put the light drone, as it is one part of the research gateway that unlocks Buzzard armour, which is meant to be a mid-game bit of gear. They spawn with Corvettes as it is, which is relatively early.

Well I looked into the research tree about the concern of it opening up Buzzard armor too early and found that it is a non-issue. The availability of Buzzard armor is effectively bottle necked by the requirements of wolf armor. The potential of the buzzard armor being unlocked early is negligible. from my experience buzzard armor has almost always become available for research as soon as wolf armor is completed researching. and since wolf armor is a prerequisite it is really a non-issue.

We wanted to keep the alien crews homogeneous because that way the different styles of the different alien types can give each mission a better sense of differentiation.

I think that it would be better to cultivate a sense of Differentiation when it comes to the mission the aliens are performing instead. Make scouting missions and research missions from the same craft feel very different rather than what flavor of aliens do I get today.

I mean to my mind when you down a light scout if that ship was doing a scouting mission it should feel completely different then taking on a light scout that was doing a research mission.

That could just mean you hired too many workshop staff initially. I kind of agree that there should be something ongoing for your workshops to do, but I'm not really sure what it could be without full on introducing ammo manufacturing and that sort of thing - not something we are likely to do. The thing is a careful player can actually get themselves quite a lot of everything right now, so giving them another route to get stuff might make things too easy.

Many of the items in the game that get sold/destroyed at the end of a mission could reasonably fill this role. There have actually been a number of Mod's for V18 regarding this. Your techs must dismantle the alien weapons and equipment into usable components for later construction of advanced weapons, armor, and equipment. There are two alternatives that have been put forward in the V18 mods to address the impact this has on money from mission in the game. The first was to assign a money value to the aliens themselves sort of like a bounty or sort of selling the corpses. the second was to have the dismantling/processing produce an item that is intended to be sold. something like Alien material scrap. which fits with the xenonauts basically trying to keep a monopoly on alien technology so having them sell off scrap that has little actual value to help fund their efforts makes sense.

Adding dropships is an absolutely massive undertaking, as we need to produce the very detailed sprites for it to appear in ground combat; it's just not going to happen at this stage. Besides, if we added an Osprey dropship we'd also have to implement "HangarQueen" code to properly simulate it, and implement a chance it would just crash randomly on the way to missions ;)

I understand how much work it can be so an easy work around would be to create an upgrade research for the chinook which would simply supersede the starting stats of the chinook with new ones (basically a minor upgrade in the number of troops it can carry) that way you can bypass the need for creating new assets for an additional dropship.

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