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V21 Experimental Build 6 Released!


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Firstly, if you do not know how to access the experimental branch on Steam, please read the instructions (and warnings!) in this thread. This update is not compatible with saved games from all previous versions.

The main changes in this version are further ground combat balance tweaks Chris has been doing, and re-organising the weapons into more defined roles - these are many of the same changes included in the experimental balance patch we posted a few days ago, but with new refinements too. GJ has also done quite a lot of work on the AI to fix bugs and implement their use of the Psionic powers in a more organised way.

Here's the changes:

Fixes:

- Cleaned up a large number of unecesary transparent floor tiles from UFO submaps

- Ground floor tiles in UFOs can now receive damaged decals

- Changed the timings on the Xenonaut crouch / uncrouch animations to slow them down a bit

- Fixed Reapers in final mission spawning immediately if the game is loaded from a save

- Fixed missing reference to directional thruster array for Corvette

- Props that remain impassable in their destroyed state are no longer drawn beneath other tiles

- Fixed a bug that allowed the player to see inside UFOs through walls in some cases

- Explosive props now work correctly when multi-tile (display their explosion, and position it in the correct place)

- Tweaked Corvette submap to reduce instances of shots being blocked near the UFO unexpectedly

- Pathfinding improved to limit itself to range of available TUs when calculating a path (internal fix)

- Fixed the AI being unwilling to use weapons with only a burst fire mode (e.g. light drones)

- Fixed some UFO data cores bieng missing alenium/alloy values

- UFO power core generated smoke will now dissipate gradually over 10 turns

Additions:

- Further refinements to the final mission (still work in progress)

- Implemented basic Psionic behavior for the AI

- The ground combat camera now displays both target and shooter at once for shots under 20 tiles in range

- Added animated blood sprites when a unit takes damage from weapons fire

- More painted over tiles/damage states for various alien base props

- Added a loading screen tip about reaction fire / remaining TU %

- All cars and vehicles now have appropriate damaged/destroyed states

- Added missile impact explosion in air combat

- Updated image for the Alien Assault Plasma

- Right-clicking on a weapon in GC inventory unloads the current loaded clip

Balance:

- Weapon TU costs rebalanced extensively to reflect experimental balance patch (in line with the weapon roles defined in this thread)

- TUs now capped at 99 instead of 79, and you can gain 2 TU per battle instead of 1 TU

- Starting attributes returned to a 30-70 spread for everything, including TU.

- Reduced pistol range to 10 tiles, from 16 tiles.

- Heavy weapon move penalty removed

- Reduced reload costs to reflect the fact that they use flat TUs rather than a TU %

- C4 / Plasma Charge damage halved, as the blast radius changes had made it extremely powerful

- Increased the number of defensive aliens in the larger UFOs

If you encounter any bugs please post them in the experimental build sub-forum of the bugs forum.

Balance comments can be made in the following threads:

Ground Combat: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9083-Ground-Combat-Balance-V21-Experimental-5

Geoscape: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9082-Geoscape-Balance-V21-Experimental-5-6

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Why add dissipating power core smoke? Ufo has crashed hours before landing team arrives yet smoke dissipates every time just few minutes after Xenonauts arrive. Just leave it smoking I say. And add more fire and smoke to every crashed ufos' surroundings. :)

I might be a bit dense, but in what scenario should I use removing clips from weapons?

Edited by Skitso
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My assault role troops carry both a shottie and a rifle. When you get universal power cells, bein able to transfer a cell from one weapon a solider carries to another is quite useful, given the relatively smal number of shots you get out of a cell.

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I might be a bit dense, but in what scenario should I use removing clips from weapons?

Rockets would benefit since you can have different types. I guess it also allows you to save a partially used clip rather than losing any excess, which could be useful for a long mission. I never really noticed an absence of this function, though!

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Starting attributes returned to a 30-70 spread for everything, including TU.

I don't know if this topic has been discussed, but i have something to share.

It looks like attributes are random within those boundaries with uniform distribution, am I right? Right now I can see a lot of grunts with extreme attribute values close to either 30 or 70.

In my opinion it would look better and feel more natural if those values would correspond to Gaussian distribution with mean equal to 50 and standard deviation equal to 10 or 6,6(6) (95% or 99,7% of drawn numbers would be between 30 and 70).

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In my opinion it would look better and feel more natural if those values would correspond to Gaussian distribution with mean equal to 50 and standard deviation equal to 10 or 6,6(6) (95% or 99,7% of drawn numbers would be between 30 and 70).

I second this and would like to add that when you start the game or get new recruits reroll anyone with a mean lower than 50 over all the attributes. This is supposed to be an elite troop so completely unfit recruits would not be deemed worthy while it still leaves room for spikes in either direction.

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I was playing experimental v21 build 5 then updated to experimental v21 build 6.

Now it will not recognize my save files.

I started a new game and the new save goes to the same folder as the old saves, but when I click load game it shows none of my older saves.

Is this normal?

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Nice new Patch: (playtime >1hour)

1) I can save and Load now

2) The AI ​​to make too many reflex shots, three or even four were there for each of my soldiers attack in the same round. Is that intentional? Costs reflex shots no TU? If yes, the AI ​​has probably infinite TUs for reflex shots.

3) The accuracy of the AI is balanced.

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I really haven't played in months. Loving this update. Each weapon feels a little more useful for a role. Although I find myself shotgun style weapon heavy with a pistol/shield unit and a rifle or two. First time using the pulse laser on the vehicle.... baaaahahahaha! That thing is a monster.

The hunter seems to shoot for free or gain TUs for shooting. This sometimes goes really crazy (default machine gun) and grants the hunter over 100,000 TUs. Also, whenever a unit goes berserk the game just hangs and I have to close it.

Edited by irongamer
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I really haven't played in months. Loving this update. Each weapon feels a little more useful for a role. Although I find myself shotgun style weapon heavy with a pistol/shield unit and a rifle or two. First time using the pulse laser on the vehicle.... baaaahahahaha! That thing is a monster.

The hunter seems to shoot for free or gain TUs for shooting. This sometimes goes really crazy (default machine gun) and grants the hunter over 100,000 TUs. Also, whenever a unit goes berserk the game just hangs and I have to close it.

The same problem here with the berserkering

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So will there be a V22 Experimental Build after this?

Um it might be but it's more likely that v21 experimental will be last one,before they officially release game.And post-release they will patch leftovers if there are any,If they feel that way.But i might be probably wrong because i didn't follow developing stage closely since January,so it could be possible that i missed some treads devoted to your question and what are current attention of developers (but they are bit behind schedule because if recall correctly Chris mention that they can endure for at least 3 more months financial and they want to make sure that everything will be smooth on launching day).

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I think that the first machine gun need a little bit more ammo. maybe about 30-40?

Personally I love the new machine gun system. With 10 shots now I have good incentive to use it, while at the same quick ammo drain does not make the weapon overpowered. It has its own distinctive niche rather then being yet another flavour in the arsenal.

Generally the last balancing changes made the game even better. Much appreciated!

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Personally I love the new machine gun system. With 10 shots now I have good incentive to use it, while at the same quick ammo drain does not make the weapon overpowered. It has its own distinctive niche rather then being yet another flavour in the arsenal.

Generally the last balancing changes made the game even better. Much appreciated!

I agree with this post. ^^^

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Talking about ammo got me thinking; the tooltips for my weapons does not match up with the actual stats reflected in the weapons (e.g. The MG tooltip says it has an ammo capacity of 50, but in-game only shows it with 20).

Is this because I still have some old files from a balance patch I need to manually delete or is this intended? Also, what other stats are not accurately reflected if this is indeed the case?

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The tooltips are set in a different file so the values need to be changed twice every time something is updated.

I would assume that rather than doing that for every single balance change the non-essential tooltip information will be updated when they are not being changed as often.

The weapon information should be in weapons.xml while the ground combat stats are set in weapons_gc.xml.

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