lusername

Smoke grenades can cause fires in real life, too, so I don't see the problem.

Given that the XCE writers have source access, I'm not convinced that it's impossible. All it would take is a few added attributes to gate shot passage heights. It also doesn't really explain behavioral oddities of this nature that don't even involve terrain obstacles which have to be defined individually...you get oddly impossible angles with just standard-height floor and ceiling obstacles, too. A simple solution might be that the effectiveness of cover is reduced when the cover is within the point-blank distance of a weapon, because right now, you get kind of silly situations where standing shooters are unable to shoot each other because of a knee-high fence between them, a tile away from each, all of the shots repeatedly going at their feet as they strike the fence. On that note, objects that are standing on or land upon "air" apparently just hang suspended in the air. This is apparent if you toss a flare from off the side of a roof, where, when it lands on an air tile, just hangs in mid-air instead of continuing its trajectory. Also, objects and characters on floor that is destroyed do not fall, and the destroyed floor continues to function as floor forever afterwards despite no longer existing.

That wouldn't seem true to the original X-Com, where it was quite common that a "missed" shot would strike the target anyway, simply because there was nowhere else for the shot to go. Games that don't have an "Eating the Gun Muzzle" effect have misses that go off in wildly impossible angles. On that subject, I've noticed that shot traces get a little weird and impossible, like a shot fired while standing inside of a building, on a second floor, that must exit a small window at roughly shoulder height, and then strike a target on a floor below. Drawing any logical line of fire should mean this shot is impossible, yet it is possible to hit this. Similarly, a crouching character shouldn't really be subject to being hit by a standing shooter two tiles away, because any shot that was angled far enough down to hit him was never aimed anywhere at the target anyway.

Add the missing lines: <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/hover_w" anim="hover_NY"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/hover_e" anim="hover_K"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/hover_n" anim="hover_E"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/hover_s" anim="hover_D"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/hover_nw" anim="hover_ENY"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/hover_ne" anim="hover_EK"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/hover_sw" anim="hover_DNY"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/hover_se" anim="hover_DK"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/prehover_w" anim="prehover_NY"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/prehover_e" anim="prehover_K"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/prehover_n" anim="prehover_E"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/prehover_s" anim="prehover_D"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/prehover_nw" anim="prehover_ENY"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/prehover_ne" anim="prehover_EK"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/prehover_sw" anim="prehover_DNY"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/prehover_se" anim="prehover_DK"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/posthover_w" anim="posthover_NY"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/posthover_e" anim="posthover_K"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/posthover_n" anim="posthover_E"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/posthover_s" anim="posthover_D"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/posthover_nw" anim="posthover_ENY"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/posthover_ne" anim="posthover_EK"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/posthover_sw" anim="posthover_DNY"/> <anim src="units/xenonaut/armour.sentinel/none/posthover_se" anim="posthover_DK"/> Back to all the soldier_spectre.xmls contained within: These lines are there in vanilla, as well as in the others, but are missing here.

Well, my view is that the default starting positions ARE realistic: The escorts DO have the option to turn around while the interceptors are closing to engage, and they do indeed attempt to do this, since the transition to the combat grid already begins with everyone outside of engagement range, and you must then close to engage.The alternative implementations of the system would be to A: Have the escorts actually actively engage tailing craft, causing a battle on the spot with the "intercepted" response. Realistically, there would be two options: Remain in formation with your escortee, and allow the tailing craft to tail, or break formation and engage them, or B: Start the interceptors further back so that the escorts have more time to properly turn around to engage them. Either of these would be preferrable to simply giving them a cheat.

Works fine for me, no other mods installed here. Medal tooltips and medal rewarding functions normally for me.

Flying Sentinel Soldiers with the Assault Shield do not have their hover land/takeoff/fly animations correctly linked in their units/xenonauts/armour.sentinel/weapon.assaultshield.*/* files. As a result they will simply float in the air in their latest seen orientation. A simple text fix, however.

That would be *A* high-ranking officer. Not an entire team thereof.

Well, the save at top did not crash for me on arrival, but I have only installed XE0.30HF+Settings, nothing else, and do not use Steam at all. So either it is an interaction with the unused "balance" module, or it is an interaction with some component of Steam.

But why would you do that? Rank in X-Com was almost entirely disadvantageous, simply increasing the penalty when the guy bites it. It works much the same way here: If half your team is low-ranking, nobody cares too much when some die...if your team is only Colonels, they'll completely lose their shit the moment one bites it.

I am not convinced this is true, because I have actually tried to count the gear dropped before, and noticed that the items looted did not match what I had actually retrieved in game. For instance, in one run, it said I had retrieved only 25 plasma batteries. However, I had actually picked up about 40 of them, and that was just the quantity that I was physically carrying as ballast to replace spent ammo. Wondering if it was not counting what I had physically looted personally, I reloaded back to before executing the final enemy, and dropped all the batteries. No change.Another run I got 115 batteries, although I was not picking up any from the ground...even though a dead enemy has only one battery, and there were definitely not 115 enmies killed. Weaponwise, I love Heavy Weapons. Even the basic Machine Gun has superior stopping power compared to the puny starter Assault Rifle, seeing as I have to use them until I unlock MAG weapons and can actually begin producing things that I won't simply be pissing my money away on, as unlike X-Com, things produced are only sold at massive loss and money is extremely tight. The regular assault rifle is roughly equivalent to firing spitwads. At least the Machine Gun can hurt something. Therefore, early-game, I have three specialties I use: The Scout Grenadier (Pistol+Shields+Grenades), Bazookaman (Rocket Launcher), and Machine Gunner (MG). Everyone will also carry an extra shield, which, at the start of the mission, they will dump in the Skyranger, so that my grenadiers lose a shield, they can go get another one. My tactic is straightforward: I will probe ahead with my shield scouts, and when I detect an enemy, I will flush him from cover with a barrage of rockets and hose him down in lead should he survive the flushing. The shield allows my scout to survive stray shots unscathed, and when it breaks, I go back and get another one. Of course, all previously neglected weapon types suddenly come into their own with MAGs that have the stopping power to actually kill something with them. But the machine gun just has so much raw damage potential early on, that no other non-rocket weapon competes (the MAG-Storm has plenty of damage potential...too much, since nothing can survive it, so most of the shots will be wasted). Rocket is great, too, because not only does it pack sufficient stopping power to bring down an enemy early on, it has excellent accuracy (can hit and kill enemies even at 0% CTH), which no other weapon can manage, and is thus the weapon of choice for both the incompetent rookie who can't shoot for shit, and the 100-Acc Sniper, and on top of that, it is free, all free. No need to waste money on garbage you will throw out at a loss. Reflex bonus merely so-so. If you're relying on reaction shots to drop an enemy, you're playing dangerously, because they never work and can't hit jack. Meanwhile, incurring reaction shots is often how you scout an enemy, and that's what the shield is for. The shot lets you know where the enemy is, and you can then begin bombarding him with rockets, which will set things on fire and light up the night.

I'm not really sure this "turn to face attackers" feature makes much sense, anyway. Your fighters could have been following them for who knows how long, tailing them there the entire time: If they turned to face you at any point prior to the start of the fight, the fight would have started before. Since UFOs cannot fly in reverse, they cannot turn to face you without breaking formation with their escortee. If they turn to face you, they should have to immediately engage you.

Not a dev, but I downloaded the save and tried it, no crash. Not using Steam version. CE 0.30HF + Settings, nothing else. Perhaps is a side effect of "balance", or Steam?

I'm guessing this is the cause of endless alien turns.

The new alien mind control weird out if you bludgeon the afflicted into submission with your stun batons: He will respawn later despite having been stunned, back to normal, while his body is still lying on the ground. This appears to destabilize the game and it crashes shortly later.