jimbobfury

Ah sorry mate. Just thought I'd double check.

I think this is because when you have the mouse over a territory, it shows the forecast change for that continent only. So, if that's where your base is located and you've been doing well there, then it may be that that continent is upping their funding by £10,000. But when you move to a sea area, it shows the total forecast change for the whole world. So while your homebase's continent may be upping funding by £10,000, all of the other territories where you've not been very active may be reducing their funding by a combined total of £60,000. So when you're over the sea, your forecast will show -£50,000. If you're saying that the figure decreases while moving around purely over the sea, then yeah, that sounds like a bug. I just thought I'd explain that first of all as it confused me originally too.

Okay, I've just had this issue multiple times and there's definitely no shadow beneath the phantom for me. Also, I've set the number of occupants for the UFOs to always spawn the same number of enemies, and each time I can account for that number of aliens and the phantom target appears above and beyond that number, so I don't think this is a case of an alien being present but without the correct sprite. Does the shadow move in your games? If so then yeah, that's definitely missing sprites. The fake target in my experience never moves or does anything. This is a real mystery...

It seems that a machine gun equipped trooper will perform reaction fire even if they don't have any action points reserved. Also, regardless of APs, their reaction fire is only a single shot, with no sound effect.

You may be right then Gorlom, there's no shadow in the example I described, so maybe it's a different issue. I'll keep testing.

Ah, to be fair I never got far enough into the previous build to start encountering fighters too much, I was thinking about Scouts only really but you're right.

The one issue I have at the moment is how your F17s become completely obsolete once you have a MiG. If you send them out as a squadron to protect the MiG, they slow the whole squad down on the geoscape, as I assume the MiG travels at their slower speed, to the point that they often can't catch Scout UFOs. I wonder if rather than a 'high speed' interceptor, the MiG could be a 'long range' interceptor, which has a much greater fuel efficiency and just a slightly higher speed. Then Scout speed could be reduced so that F17s are still able to catch them in some cases, but due to a Scout needing three sidewinders to down, you still have to use them in pairs to get the same result as using one MiG, so you still have the incentive to research and build your MiGs to optimise your hanger capacity.

Yep, I've been having this since about 4 or 5 versions back. I don't think it's as simple as a missing sprite, as it often occurs right next to an actual alien, and it occurs midway through a game. Sorry, it's tough to explain but, imagine this: A Xenonaut trooper closes towards a crashed Scout and in doing so, spots a lone Sebillian. There's no error at this time. The Xenonaut shoots and hits the Sebillian with no issue. End turn. Next time it's the players turn, he selects the same Xenonaut and goes to take a second shot. However, his line of sight to the Sebillian he previously shot, who hasn't moved, is blocked. When the player moves his cursor one tile away from the Sebillian, towards his Xenonaut who's lining up the shot, he sees that the game is registering a second target directly in front of the lone Sebillian. There's clearly nothing visible though. He has a hit % displayed on this phantom target, and so takes the shot... Now; at this point I've had one of two things happen: - The shot is simply absorbed. - The shot disappears into the empty target, and the original actual Sebillian dies. Sorry, that's the only way I can describe this issue. It happens to me a hell of a lot.

It's not really a brand new AI function though, is it? It's just telling the AI that it has a valid LoS through windows now, I'd have thought.

I know this may well be an AI limitation but the aliens don't seem to be aware that they can shoot through glass now. I caught site of a Caesan through a window and fired on him a couple of times over the course of 2 or 3 rounds, missing the window. He didn't react at all. In my next turn, I fired again and shattered the window but missed the Caesan. Now that the glass had been shot out, he reaction fired instantly, which would imply that the intact window was incorrectly registering as a barrier to him.

Title says it all really. Even when I'd moved a Xenonaut within 3 tiles of a Sebillian, his hit chance displayed as 0%. Several other soldiers in the area also had 0% hit chances, despite the alien being stood in the open.

I've had a few issues with LoS tonight. They've probably not been introduced in 12.1 to be fair, it may just be that I've not noticed them before now. On the landed light scout map, where the UFO spawns in the upper right area of the screen, a soldier on the 1st floor of the shop right next to the UFO could see 2 Caesans stood in the entrance to the UFO through the 1st floor walls. One of the Caesans should have, by rights, also been obstructed by the near wall of the UFO entrance area itself, but he was visible. Also, the 2 block high wooden crate to the left of the UFO entrance didn't seem to be blocking the LoS of a soldier who was stood at the north east corner of the same building, with the crate seemingly directly in his line of fire. He had a hit chance of 58% or so to hit one of the Caesans in the UFO entrance.

Here's something I've never encountered before. I'd just completed a landed light scout mission, when the game froze on the debrief screen. Music was still playing but the game would not return to the geoscape. When I alt-tabbed out of the game, there was a popup waiting for me in Desura saying that Xenonauts had had memory dump error of some sort. I didn't think to take a screenshot sorry, but this is the first time I've ever had an error message outside of the game.

Now that you've actually seen it happen I'm sure that's what causes a lot of the hidden movement screen deaths that were in previous versions. Alien death noise, followed by the game hanging. I tried fiddling with the files to remove any sort of damage from smoke and fire, but it didn't seem to work. I wonder if that would be worth trying until the AI is smart enough to avoid killing itself.

Especially against Chrysallids. Up to the top floor, blow the stairs, sit back and take pot shots. It took ages and the civilian population was toast (my 14 year old brain didn't care about this at the time!) but it was fun! I actually like that the bleeding wounds system may mean that I can't just sit in a building and play defensively for as long as I want to, as trying to complete a mission before a valued soldier bleeds out will add a sense of urgency to the missions.

Thanks for the reply, and you're welcome. Once that's done I'm looking forward to testing out whether fortifying a building and holding out, with your soldiers reaction firing out at aliens as the appear is as effective as it used to be in UFO.

This sounds great. Loving the sound of the hypervelocity projectiles, and the fact that windows can now be shot through! That was pretty much my only gripe with the game up until now; no exploring a building when a sudden shot smashes through the window to scare the bejesus out of me and kill my trooper. Chris, does firing from a window tile (not through a window from a distance) still negatively affect your shot accuracy, or has this now been fixed?

Shhhh now, Hiso.

Max - that's spot on in my opinion. I think the main point for me is that, even suppressed, an alien should pose a threat to some joker running straight up to them with a shotgun, and that's why I think an accuracy reduction or a suppressed unit only having a chance to reaction fire would be a good way to go. Or, how about suppression causes a range reduction on the unit? Tweaking the weapons values, it's clear how closely the range stat seems to be linked to accuracy and this would mean that suppressed units have little chance of making a meaningful contribution to a ranged engagement, and they'll be easy prey for a flanking force who keep their distance, but they won't be helpless against a shotgunner who thinks he can run straight up to a suppressed enemy to finish him off. Saying that though, I seem to remember Chris saying that suppression was intended as a way for stun rod equipped units to close the gap with aliens, so maybe that needs to be taken into account?

Skyrim, as an open world game allows for that style of play though, I get that. But Xenonauts is and always has been a game where the ground combat is a core aspect of the experience. There are games out there without combat missions that allow world building and economy management, but that's never been what this game's about, that's all I'm saying. To be fair, my last response was more arsey than I'd usually post because I think Serban's tone towards other posters was uncalled for when they're just trying help out.

On the other side of the argument, why buy a game where the majority of the gameplay doesn't interest you? I think the argument of gamesmakers having to pander to every individual's tastes, as suggested above, just highlights the overblown sense of entitlement people seem to have these days. Serban - Max was trying to get feedback for the purpose of the alpha. If you're not enjoying combat, what could possibly change that for you, and make you want to play the missions rather than skipping them. No need for the attitude at all.

Interesting changes man. I'll give these a go later. I especially like the idea of forcing a few more reloads. I also tweaked the damage of the machine gun, so it was just slightly higher than the assault rifle (25 maybe? I can't remember just now and I'm at work so can't check) This, together with an accuracy reduction meant that it wasn't so reliable in getting kills as it is with the default values, while still being a good support weapon in a capacity other than providing suppression.

Yep, that's the feeling I hope we get with the final game; a sense of fear about exiting the chopper, rounding every corner and entering every building. One thing I've found that helps a little with this, even in the current build that you may want to try, Hicks; increase the site range of all units, but making sure that the aliens always have a small advantage over your troops. This has lead to plasma shots flying in as soon as I disembark the Chinook, just like the good old days!

Ah, thanks Max, I'd not seen that thread sorry! Well, it sounds as if something can be done to make windows less of an annoyance then, which is good. And it's good to know I'm not the only one who found them to be a bit of a problem. Cheers man.

So, I'm curious as to how other people feel about taking cover in buildings and using windows as firing positions in Xenonauts? I remember in UFO:EU, a favourite tactic of mine was to storm a nearby building and fortify it, letting the aliens come to me to an extent. The building seemed to offer a great degree of protection, and setting soldiers up to reaction fire from windows as aliens entered their LOS was pretty exciting. In Xenonauts, I can't put my finger on why, but I feel as if being in a building actually hinders me more than anything else. The LOS through windows seems unclear and a little wonky, having to shoot the glass out before you can make a shot is a pain as your trooper often misses...and firing through a window seems to negatively affect your soldiers accuracy, which is completely unintuitive (firing through it from point blank, not squeezing a shot through it from a few tiles away). Are there any planned changes to their implementation? I'm not sure if these are classed as balance changes, so maybe they'll come later, but I'd personally like to see: - Visible indicators of LOS your soldiers will have through each window - Windows providing a higher cover bonus than most objects for a unit positioned adjacent to it - The current issue of windows you're firing from negatively affecting your shot being removed - A suppression penalty, so units positioned firing out of windows are actually easier to suppress (representing units outside 'buttoning up' the building to allow assault units to close in and giving a disadvantage to balance things out - Sturdier walls, especially with regard to ballistic weapons (a rifle shouldn't really be able to destroy walls at all. Give explosives a niche role) - 1st, 2nd and 3rd floor windows giving some kind of bonus to a shooter (range? accuracy? LOS?) I just think making buildings more appealing to control will open up a range of options for the player. When you land and scout the map, finding a 3 story building with good fields of fire would be a real bonus, and a priority target area to take and hold. Also, if the AI is smart enough to recognise these benefits too, the thought of having to breach and deal with an alien sniper firing on your troops seems pretty cool to me.