Aaron
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Posts posted by Aaron
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@jimmyjazz1975 - I'm surprised you had a repeat map, as we actually have code in the game that should prevent the game from loading the same map twice - it will always try to give you a map from the current tileset which you have played on the least. I will look into it, perhaps that code has become broken somehow.
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Sorry guys, but we made enough changes that saved games from older versions are not compatible - I just accidentally copied that part of the text from a previous post; removed it now.
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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.
This build contains quite a lot of changes, as it has been a couple of weeks since the last build so we have a bit of a backlog. There's no particular theme here, though big changes include new UFO interiors (please report if you see any bugs with them!) and weapon firing costs now being based on a percentage of the users max AP, rather than a flat value as previously. The new mission end screen is also rather cool - again it is new so please report any unexpected behaviour you experience when using it.
Here's the changes:
Fixes:
- Units larger than 1x1 (e.g. drones) no longer have accuracy problems with "phantom" blocking tiles
- Bullets should now appear near the barrel of the firing weapon, rather than at the units chest
- Updated animated alien base wall screens so damaged variants are aligned correctly.
- Fixed inventory bug allowing you to swap used items (mags etc...) for full ones for no AP
- Fixed a crash when carrying an alien corpse in a units inventory between missions
- Fixed inventory items disappearing when dragging items around with insufficient AP to move them
- Fixed crash when dragging an item in the soldier equip screen and changing base
- Fixed aircraft flight lines not displaying if any option had been changed
- Added missing entry in items.xml for plasmabeam ammo
- Fixed: dropping an item to the ground without the required APs duplicated the item
- Fixed hiring soldiers being free
- Fix: items list empty on 1920x1080 screens
- Disabled the playing of footstep sounds for units that are moving under the fog of war.
- Androns will now longer smash through walls in their own bases
- "Dead" soldiers no longer have a chance to survive after an aborted/lost battle
- Bugfix: SupplyRun missions sometimes causing a crash when alien base was destroyed
- Fixed issue that could cause UFO ground tiles to appear as ugly black triangles
Additions:
- UFO interiors have all been reworked, with some new props added
- Items within UFOs now grant the Alien Alloys/Alenium for that UFO, so don't destroy them
(There seems to be some bugs with the displaying of larger UFO hulls, we are investigating)
- New style mission debrief screen
- Manufacturing now drains money gradually as the project progresses
- Rocket launcher now shows currently equipped rocket in inventory / soldier equip screen
- Showing reserved APs in orange in combat UI
- Alien drones now have their own spawn points in maps, to prevent them spawning in buildings
- Added Singularity Cannon weapon (not balanced yet, but should work)
- Save files now use game name instead of save time
- Added the ability for soldiers to heal themselves with a medical pack
- Many alien props have now been painted over
- If a bullet misses a unit but lands in the same tile as the unit the text "MISS" is printed
- If a bullet hits a unit but does zero damage due to armour then the text "RESISTED" is printed
- Fixed the damaged versions of animated sprites being incorrectly positioned
Balance:
- Weapons now cost a percentage value of units max AP to fire (rather than a flat value)
- Due to the above the cost to fire weapons has been updated to keep them the same as before (for starting AP values)
- Machine guns now do reduce damage per shot, but fire 10 rounds
- MG upgrades now all have 20 clip size; enough for two bursts
- Alien weapon suppression dialled back a bit
- Removed stun damage from alien weapons
- Alien accuracy reduced by approximately 15 points across the board
- Rebalanced difficulty settings a bit to make Easy easier
- Valkyrie and Shrike both moved forwards one stage in tech tree, arriving at the same time as the comparable interceptors
- Max / min number of UFO squadrons reduced to 3 / 7 from 4 / 8
- Veteran difficulty alien invasion speed reduced from 1.0 to 0.9
- Aircraft cannons reduced to 3000 range, now the same as a Sidewinder
- Removed Elites from Carriers; they now only spawn on Battleships and Large Bases (so with Praetors)
- UFO minimum landing time is now 8 hours
- Explosive damage no longer falls off with range
- Blast radius for weapons turned down as the damage drop-off has been disabled
- Toned down the AP scaling at higher alien ranks, reduced Sebillian AP in particular at high levels
- Light drones now have a minimum shot threshold of 5%, rather than 35%
- Reduced damage on upgraded human grenades by 10-20%
- Increased Andron health to be in line with Caesans
- Removed shooting ability from final Praetor
If you encounter any bugs please post them in the experimental build sub-forum of the bugs forum.
If you want to discuss any of the balance changes in depth, please use the following threads:
Ground Combat: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/9083-Ground-Combat-Balance-V21-Experimental-5?p=100633#post100633
UPDATE: There was a bug where the Corvette was not correctly granting the Directional Thrusters research, I have issued a small update to the data file to correct this as it blocks you from getting the Shrike.
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Sprites for most objects on the floor do still need to be generated yeah - it's not too hard as we have 3D models for them all, just a question of rendering them out in the correct setup.
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I have posted new mapping guidelines in a sticky!
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Now that I have finished redoing maps for most parts of the game, it's probably worth posting up some new guidelines people can follow if they want to create their own maps which match the style of Goldhawk maps for each mission type.
Here they are.
--- Crash Site Maps ---
Map size:
There are 4 categories of maps for crash site missions, as follows:
Light Scout: around 50x50; used only for Light Scouts (i.e. they only have Light Scout spawn points defined)
Small - around 60x60; used for Scouts and Corvettes
Medium - around 60x80 (so they are taller than wide); used for Corvettes, Landing Ships and Cruisers
Large - around 50x100; used for Cruisers, Carriers and Battleships
It is worth noting that some types of UFO (Corvettes, Cruisers) appear in multiple sizes of map. This is intended to provide a wider array of maps for those common UFO types, and also to provide better variation of mission pacing even when facing the same UFO repeatedly.
All of the above are rough dimensions, and do not need to be rigidly adhered to! Some of my maps are smaller or large than those values, dependent on what I felt was needed for the individual map.
The reason that "large" maps are not much bigger than "medium" ones is more of the action in these maps takes place inside the UFOs, which contain large interior spaces and multiple floors, and these effectively make the map play area larger.
MAP TIP! Always make any new map 100x100 in size, and build the map starting in the top left corner so that it roughly fills the size of area you want it to be (i.e. 50x50 for a Light Scout map). Then when you are finished building it just open the map xml file in a text editor and change the width/height dimensions to chop off the unused space from the bottom and right hand side of the map. This approach is unfortunately required as the resize map functions in the map editor usually do not work reliably.
Dropship/UFO spawn locations:
All crash site maps need to have at least one spawn point for all 3 types of player dropship. The UFO spawn points needed depend on the size of the map as above.
For all my maps I have tried to have at least 2-3 spawn locations for all dropships and each relevant type of UFO, but for some of the larger UFOs (Corvettes on small maps, Cruisers on medium maps etc...) it may only be possible to fit one. That is fine, and you shouldn't ruin the layout of your map just to try and fit multiple large UFOs.
Generally I place dropships on the other side of the map from UFOs, and generally the dropships were towards the bottom of the maps with the UFOs towards the top, but this is a very flexible.
You should also never place a spawn location hard up against a map edge - if you do an alien could spawn in the empty gap between UFO and map edge and be trapped. Always leave at least 1 navigable tile between map edge and spawn submap.
When placing dropship spawns remember that the player might have a 3x3 sized armoured vehicle to get out of the spawn, so keep the ramps clear of obstructions.
MAP TIP! When placing UFO/Dropship spawn submap, remember that the game will automatically remove props and objects that the spawn submap overlaps IF that spawn location is used. This is extremely useful, as it means you can have multiple ship spawn locations in a map without having to have a large empty space at the unused spawn locations; don't do this with entire buildings though, as it doesn't work so well!
Map layout:
When making a map it is a good idea to open a test map in the map editor first and look at the size of the submaps you have to work with in the tile set you are going to use. Keep the sizes of the submaps in mind and then do a very quick sketch on paper/digitally of how you want the map layout to look. Think of a theme for the map and use the layout to emphasise this - is it a desert military base, an industrial rail depot etc...
You should aim to have at least 2 viable paths from each possible dropship spawn to each UFO spawn; more if possible! You should also try and make sure these paths through the level have different levels of cover, lines of sight, lengths etc... so the player has to make meaningful decisions when choosing which to take. Divide the map into sections based on these paths using buildings and walls, but give the player opportunities to cross between them at certain points too (and remember players have explosives to get through walls!).
Again, keep in mind when laying out the map that a player might have a 3x3 vehicle in their force, so make sure at least one path is wide enough to get it through to the UFO spawn locations. Of course you could also offer the player a shorter route through the map if they leave their vehicle behind!
Also keep in mind most tile set have a rough theme: Arctic and Desert maps tend to be quite open, whereas Industrial maps are quite cramped and Farm and Middle East maps are between the two. Arctic, Desert and Middle East maps tend to use the large rocky "mesa" props and tree clusters to break line of sight, whereas the other map types use buildings and walls to do this.
Alien/NPC spawn points
Firstly you should set the number of civilian and friendly AI (these are armed human AI soldiers) to an appropriate setting for your level. Some maps, such as barren Arctic wastes, should have no civilians/soldiers at all; for somewhere moderately populated (such as a farm) I would add 2 civilians and 1 solider; for densely populated maps (industrial) I had 4 civilians and 2 soldiers. This may not seem like many, but having fewer means meeting them is more of a surprising experience, rather than them just being everywhere - it also keeps turn processing time down.
For the actual spawn points themselves, set them as follows:
Aliens (red): There should never be any in direct line of sight to the dropship. Place a sparse number of spawn points in locations of dense cover or in buildings relatively near the dropship, then place them more densely the closer to the general locations of UFO spawn points you get. You can safely place them in buildings, as the game will automatically move units out of objects if they would otherwise spawn in one. Place at least a dozen of these.
Drones (light blue): This sets where the large alien drones spawn. The large footprint of the drones (up to 3x3) means you never want them to spawn in a building. Place a few of these out in very open areas near the UFOs. Place at least four.
Civilians (yellow): Concentrate the civilian spawns on the side of the map nearer to the dropship, with a few scattered in some of the further away buildings on the map to generate alien activity. Place at least six.
Friendly AI/Soldiers (dark blue): Place these roughly between the denser areas of civilian spawn points close to the dropship, and the denser alien spawns on the UFO side of the map. This will generate interesting fights between the soldiers and aliens, but without them being instantly surrounded and killed on turn one. Place at least six.
Tiles are picked for spawning at random, so the units spawned in the map should end up roughly evenly placed no matter how many spawn points you add for any type.
Don't place spawn points in parts of the map you don't want the player to go - for example behind the larger UFOs, or crammed behind a building right at the back of the map.
--- Terror Site Maps ---
Making Terror Site maps are similar to crash sites, except you are using the Town and Soviet Town tile sets and they do not need UFO spawn locations to be defined (but they still need spawn locations for all three dropship types!).
Map size:
There are three rough sizes of terror site, as follows:
Small - around 60x60
Medium - around 60x70
Large - around 60x80
As you can see each type is not hugely different in size, the difference mainly comes from the larger maps containing greater numbers of aliens and thus being a bit more intense to play.
Map layout & spawn points:
Terror site maps tend to be more densely packed with buildings than most crash site maps, given they are in urban areas. Reflect this in map layouts, but use roads to leave long open lines of sight for snipers and heavy weapons to fire along. Generally the player dropship spawn locations are at the bottom of the map.
Alien and Alien Drones spawns should be sparse near the dropships, and at their most dense near the top of the map.
Civilian spawn points should mostly be near the bottom of the map, so that the Xenonaut soldiers have a chance to protect them.
Friendly AI soldier spawn points should mostly be near the Civilian spawn points, but also you should put two or three of the "military" submap (which is a sandbag fortification) deeper in the map and populate them with a few soldier spawn points too.
...Up next: Alien base maps!
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This might just be a problem with some of the compressed tiles. Could you tile us what tiles were affected? Which tile set was the map in? Were the affected on the ground near a UFO, if so what type?
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The Geoscape had fewer changes in this build than ground combat, but it's been a while since we had a new thread for it anyway. Here are the changes:
- Aerial terror sites somewhat less common
- Significantly reduced resource gain from shooting down UFOs that do not generate crash sites
Feel free to just discuss the general state of the Geoscape game, if you have no specific comments on these changes.
EDIT - Additional changes from V21 Ex. 4 Balance Update:
- Geoscape region funding has been rebalanced to improve initial base placement options. Overall funding remains the same, but regions now provide more / less funding depending on their size and proximity to other large nations.
- Corsair now has dual cannons instead of a single cannon and two light missiles, and has received 30% increased HP.
- Cannons have received a buff to ammo capacity and range. Damage has been buffed on all cannons except the autocannon.
-Heavy Fighter and Interceptor UFOs have had their HP reduced by 25-30%.
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Quite a few new balance changes for this build, so I'm making a fresh thread to discuss them. Here's the list of changes:
- Only 25% of aliens are now killed in a UFO crash, or 40% if the power cores explode
- Buffed plasma cannons significantly, but they no longer appear until Warrior rank ("support" troops get Heavy Rifles at Soldier level)
- Increased accuracy on Alien Battle Rifle so it is the same as the normal rifle
- All alien weapons now also do stun damage equal to their normal damage
- Added Alien Assault Plasma weapon (shotgun) to the game, creating a new class of "assault" Androns and Sebillians to use it
- Extended range of the Heavy Plasma Rifle, changed stats so it is a powerful single-shot weapon with no blast radius
- Removed grenades from Sebillian support troops
- Electroshock grenades now explode on contact rather than at end of turn
- Backpack and Belt item movement cost now 4 APs
- Easy mode made easier
- AI troops now have more APs, so should be more aggressive
- Cover modifier increased from 0.75 to 0.9
- Andron armour increased slightly
- Light drone now much better at suppression and has more mitigation, but less base damage
- Alien weapons rebalanced to be more of a threat to end-game armours
- Single shot weapons have smaller suppression radius than before - 2 for rifles and carbines, 1 for pistols and sniper rifles. Burst fire remains at 3.
- Switching items between hands is now free in terms of AP
Balance Update changes:
- Burst fire for rifles now has 60 accuracy, up from 30. This makes it marginally more TU efficient than using snap shots, and significantly more TU efficient when receiving the short-range bonus.
- Burst fire also now correctly does triple the suppression of a single shot, rather than double as previously.
- Alien rifles now use the same TU / accuracy levels as Xenonaut rifles.
- Combat / assault shields now weigh 6kg instead of 3kg.
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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. All saved games from earlier versions (including experimental versions) are incompatible, attempting to load them will cause problems.
We have quite a few changes for you again in this build, as Chris has been busy with balance changes and the programmers have all been busily hammering away at many of the more minor bugs that have existed for some time. I continue to work on maps, which means the Soviet tile set (which is now a more general "cold town" set occurring over much of the northern hemisphere) is finished, and most of the new and improved alien base maps are also done (feedback appreciated!). Here's the changes:
Fixes:
- Units will now not continue reaction fire against already dead targets
- Fixed an instance where two units pathing into the same tile would become stuck
- You will no longer recover equipment from soldiers who are left behind in an aborted mission
- If you put an alien corpse in a units backpack, it will now still correctly be recovered at mission end
- Fixed Ironman mode causing a delay when starting a mission and between turns, showing un-initialised UI elements
- Added a missing animation for Harridan sniper Soldiers
- Also fixed an AI spawn trap in the desert toilet block
- Predator armoured soldiers can no longer throw grenades
- Soldiers will no longer be resurrected if they earned a resilence point at mission end
- Fixed SoldierEquipView showing "no soldiers present" when removing assignment of last soldier of dropship
- Fixed SoldierEquipView sometimes hanging for a few seconds while scrolling soldiers
Additions:
- New Alien base maps
-- These are much more polished than the previous ones they replace
-- Much better use of alien specific rooms, vents, teleporters etc...
-- There are currently 2 variants for each base size, but there will be 3 shortly
- The "Soviet" tile set for terror missions is now a generic "cold town" set, and occurs over a wider area of the globe
- Added additional "cold town" terror mission maps
- Layout of the final mission has been reworked, though is still heavily a work in progress
- Added animations for Praetor commander
- Sebillians now display health regeneration numbers
Balance:
- Only 25% of aliens are now killed in a UFO crash, or 40% if the power cores explode
- Buffed plasma cannons significantly, but they no longer appear until Warrior rank ("support" troops get Heavy Rifles at Soldier level)
- Increased accuracy on Alien Battle Rifle so it is the same as the normal rifle
- All alien weapons now also do stun damage equal to their normal damage
- Added Alien Assault Plasma weapon (shotgun) to the game, creating a new class of "assault" Androns and Sebillians to use it
- Extended range of the Heavy Plasma Rifle, changed stats so it is a powerful single-shot weapon with no blast radius
- Removed grenades from Sebillian support troops
- Electroshock grenades now explode on contact rather than at end of turn
- Backpack and Belt item movement cost now 4 APs
- Easy mode aliens now 10% weaker
- AI troops now have more APs, so should be more aggressive
- Cover modifier increased from 0.75 to 0.9
- Andron armour increased slightly
- Light drone now much better at suppression and has more mitigation, but less base damage
- Aerial terror sites somewhat less common
- Significantly reduced resource gain from shooting down UFOs that do not generate crash sites
- Alien weapons rebalanced to be more of a threat to end-game armour
- Single shot weapons have smaller suppression radius than before - 2 for rifles and carbines, 1 for pistols and sniper rifles. Burst fire remains at 3.
- Switching items between hands is now free in terms of AP
Please post your comments on the build here, or use the balance threads below:
If you encounter any bugs please post them in the experimental build sub-forum of the bugs forum.
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Nice catch on the cause of this, I've noticed the problem before too.
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Thanks for the save, I'm happy to report this bug is already fixed internally - it will be included in the next experimental build.
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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. All saved games from earlier versions (including experimental versions) are incompatible, attempting to load them will cause problems.
A relatively short list of changes this time, but we wanted to get this build out because it has potential fixes for two different crash bugs. These fixes seem to work for us, but these crashes have been hard to reproduce in the past so really the only way for us to tell if they are properly fixed is the let you guys try them.
Fixes:
- Fix for loading screen crash (hopefully!)
- Fixed a crash when a terrain explosive tile exploded (possibly related to C4 and Rocket crashes)
- Reduced loading screen refresh rate to shorten load times
- Wraith soldier stunned/dead images no longer mixed up
- Improved the ground blending of the sprites for several Middle East buildings so they look less floaty
- Fixed bug where items could have their corners overlapping in the inventory
- The base upgrade research now correctly boosts the speed of manufacturing and research
- 4:3 resolutions now display correctly using a letter-boxed mode
- Fixed bullets not being able to fly through windows
- Fixed the AI not understanding it can shoot through windows
- Fixed bug where crouched soldiers would stand if clicked
Additions:
- Added all new maps for the Soviet town terror mission tileset, though a bug means these aren't accesible yet
- Predator armour wearing soldiers now move slower (animation only, no gameplay effect); this is controlled from new variables in armours_gc
- Resilience stat renamed to Health for clarity
- More loading screen tips
- Moving items around in a soldiers inventory in combat now only charges the the TU cost for doing so on closing
-- This means you can freely move objects around and only commit to the new arrangement when closing the soldier inventory
-- It also no longer cost anything to move items around if they stay in the same "container" (belt, backpack etc...)
Balance:
- Reapers can now be suppressed
- Crouching now costs 3 TU
- Close range bonus now +12% per tile
- Stopping chance for incidental targets reduced to 50% from 75% (this is the modified to hit chance for targets you aren't aiming at)
Please post your comments on the build here. If you encounter any bugs please post them in the experimental build sub-forum of the bugs forum.
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Just to let everyone know we are aware of the crash when loading Ground Combat and are trying to pin down the problem, but it is taking some time as we cannot reproduce it reliably. If you are experiencing this bug please could you post in this thread in the bug forums with details of what the exact circumstances were, which may help us pin it down.
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Thanks for the save guys, I tested it an immediately saw the crash (the instant the rocket hit the Seb); however on subsequent tries I have not been able see it again, even with direct hits (or trying the weapon against various other aliens in the map). There must be something extremely specific about that situation that makes it crash.
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Thanks, this one has been kicking around for a while but I have bumped it up the priority list.
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Can you tell us what aircraft/UFOs were involved in the air combat? I don't suppose you have a saved game from before the incident?
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Mordobb, can you provide a bit more information about what was happening when you saw the alien "teleport"? What type of alien was it, and which type of UFO? If you have a saved game it would make it much quicker for us to reproduce.
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Thanks Sandy. When I use the Steam experimental build that saved game loads fine for me, so I am not sure what's going wrong. Perhaps I can help in this specific instance though - I loaded the game, waited a minute, then re-saved it - here's a link to that new save, you might be able to load it and keep playing.
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Hmm, when I try to load that saved game (using the current Steam exp build) I get an instant crash; Giovanni?
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Paralyse is supposed to be working, but I can't say I've tested it for a while so I will look into it again.
The other two were not just removed because they were a pain to implement, but also because they didn't really do a great deal for gameplay; locate enemies tends to be either so weak as to be useless (the AI already predicts where you are likely to be) or so powerful (like letting enemies shoot you out of the FOW from great distances) as to be annoying. Hallucination had lots of consequences that were never very well though out.
Caesans still have Fear, Bezerk, Dread and Mind Control so they are hardly lacking abilities.
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We are aware of this bug and are looking for a fix, though we cannot reproduce it here.
If you could in future please post bugs from the experimental build in the experimental build sub-forum, rather than the standard bugs forum.
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We can't get the crash people are reporting with night missions to happen here - if you are experiencing could you post in this thread so we can track it down more quickly?
@ls35a if you are not seeing the new loading screen then you probably do not have the experimental version installed - what is the version number listed at the top right of the game launcher?
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I am also struggling to reproduce this, I've tried night missions in various tile sets and different resolutions, full screen vs. windowed. A saved game where it happens reliably would be a real help.
V21 Experimental Build 5 Released!
in Xenonauts-2 Releases & Patch Notes
Posted
Someone spotted a small bug where the Corvette UFO did not grant the "Directional Thrusters" research, which prevented players getting the Shrike - I've just issued a little hotfix to correct this. It will not affect saved games in any way - next time you do a Corvette mission you should receive Directional Thrusters.