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Dagar

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Everything posted by Dagar

  1. Dagar
    I agree to the general points here: AI in games should be fun (as in an engaging, interesting opponent) and good (as in challenging, making good decisions within the decision space given). To this I would maybe add that in games, fun is always more important than good. If there is a strategy that makes the AI very good but that is "uncounterable" by the player, that would not be very fun. One thing that in my opinion is missing from the discussion here is that ideally, it should react to the player, as in adapting to counter the player's play style. This is more on the focus of the overall campaign rather than a single mission and could take multiple facets. For one, the AI tactics could change, e.g. in the form of the balance of different behaviour archetypes being adapted. If the player likes to blow up cover and snipe everything from a distance, the prowling, sneaking archetype might become more pronounced. The other way to adapt is what Phoenix Point tried with their evolution of enemies according to what happens in missions. That does not have to be genetic adaptation, but can also be in the form of new equipment. If the player likes to rush in with shields and shotguns, it would feel great if the aliens could try to cover their approach ways with incendiary grenades and the use of a better suppression weapon. The most important thing I feel there is to consider here as a developer is that the change in behaviour should be gradual, so that the player has the chance to observe the new strategy and counter it herself. And if the system regresses to the same optimum regardless of the player, that would most likely be the fault of constraints or the overall game system being flawed. As for the waypoint system, it is pretty easy, from a programming perspective, to make it unpredictable even with the same map blocks, you can distribute many possibly traversable waypoints over each element, choose for a particular patrolling enemy or group a rough patrol path over the map (most likely roughly circular or elliptic) and randomly select waypoints in the vicinity to that rough path, with the closer waypoints being more likely to be chosen. Finally, for what the AI should know and whether it should be more than the player can know, I'd say keep to what is most fun but communicate the AI's capabilities to the player. An enemy that can look through walls can still be fun, if the player knows that and can act accordingly.
  2. Dagar
    I think I recall discussions about this from the past. The gist is that explosive damage is not that effective. If I remember correctly, at some point it was changed for kinetic and energy weaponry that they do 5x the damage against props (like walls, fences, doors etc.), so that most likely is what happened there. In my last mission I shot an alenium missile from a tank against a UFO main door and it still was functional. So yeah, use your normal weapons with high damage output.
  3. Dagar
    Or on a window or low wall. Or you can hold the bipod in the other hand possibly as a forward grip. I think the mechanism still holds well, as a prepared shooter can hit targets better even if her firing position is suboptimal. @Chris how expandable will the recoil mechanism for modders be? can you e.g. delay the recoil effect, meaning e.g. the first three shots hit with full accuracy and then it takes effect, or with a "stopping" accuracy where it does not deteriorate further? Does this influence the projectile spread pattern? Apart from that, I find the inclusion of sight blocks in the air game an interesting way to widen the decision space. I am curious though; why should you not be able to shoot through clouds? Are you considering utility items on planes that can create clouds? Strong wind currents that influence your movement could also be interesting to explore.
  4. Dagar
    Batons do normal as well as stun damage. Most likely you just killed her with the normal damage? Maybe wait a turn; Xenos recover HP on their turn, but nothing recovers stun threshold.
  5. Dagar
    All that sounds great! Can't wait to check it out finally mid December. Is there still a ban on showing the state of the game in a public video? Could you consider making that principle more general in terms of game logic for modders (of course I have no idea how it is currently implemented)? Would love to see the possibility of adding helmets, backpacks, boots etc. as armour components.
  6. Dagar
    *Laughs in X-Division* Hopefully that max number is moddable?
  7. Dagar
    Beautiful find @Alphaswolf, thanks!
  8. Dagar
    Almost certainly they are. Lancers and grav torps are both Phase 2 stuff while Foxtrots and Alenium torps are Phase 1. Just look at the Xenopedia. There is no argument against Lancers as they are a straight up upgrade over Foxtrots. Grav torpedoes might be worse for shooting the big boats if they have shorter range, longer lock on time or less overall damage. Depends. Dunno their stats off the top of my hat.
  9. Dagar
    Have more planes, presumably. Downing Terror boats seems to be a thing you mostly can only do with a huge amount of planes or, at best, late in the according phase.
  10. Dagar
    So, I personally never altered a save file. People mostly use Notepad++ and Excel for the .xml files. However, after crawling the forums with the search function for a bit, I found this about save files: So a hex editor should work fine for the save files. Can't check that right now since I am not on a PC with Xenonauts installed.
  11. Dagar
    @helstads_dog Can't really help you, but I'd look at my save game file with an according editor and see if I can alter the location/mission of the squadron/fighters back to in their base. Make a backup save first though! You should be looking at both Fighters as well as at the Squadron, which you should delete. Just look how other active and grounded planes look first.
  12. Dagar
    I like that idea! Sounds like something I'd want to use, unless the damage output of Lasers is practically zero in the end. Another potentially cool thing to try, if you have such upgrade paths would be something like this: You are soundly in the Laser tier, with enough weapons for all of your soldiers, when you research Plasma Now you can start manufacturing these clearly better weapons, but they are expensive as hell, and you need special material for them that you only get few of, if any, in a mission. But you also unlock an upgrade to the Laser tech which costs you time and maybe some material to manufacture, but then automatically all your Laser weaponry becomes slightly better. Not as good as the Plasmas, but still a nice little upgrade. Then you can choose to save the research time and material to do that upgrade and go straight for as many Plasmas as you can, or you can take the sidegrade, smoothing out the effectiveness increase bump a bit for the cost of mostly time. What do you think?
  13. Dagar
    There seem to be instances where something in the tech tree does not register. In my (slightly older) version it was the Wolf, Direwolf and Predator armours, but that was fixed since. Maybe an according bug is in the high tier stuff and nobody noticed until now?
  14. Dagar
    I usually agree with you on most stuff, but not here. There are tons of ways in which you can keep different paths relevant. One example outlined by you below: That would generalize to different game mechanisms for the weapon families. For the Laser family, you could add a researchable power control that gives you more damage per beam in exchange for more battery drainage or more heat (if you implement an overheat mechanism). Another path would be that the final weapon tiers are similar in overall power but balanced for different use cases. In Long War and X-Division, Laser weapons have an accuracy bonus, which makes them perfect for inaccurate rookies or long range snipers. Other families could have more damage, more armour mitigation, more projectiles per shot/burst, more damage to props, spawn fire or smoke or light on their path or target, aoe damage or dot, ... It is good that you want to attempt that. But also, you could link these improvements to your laser weapons to some research that comes out of plasma tech, which means you cannot "stay" on your divergent laser path if you want to improve your weaponry, but have to tech the other ones too, and then decide if you want to upgrade, build the new tech from scratch or some mix of both. Apart from that, do not underestimate that researching new tech and getting unexpected new toys and more cool research from it is very satisfying. I'd research pretty much everything just to see what comes of it and to get that small dose of dopamine when another tech is finished. With a mix of different damage types, resistances and tiers within the families, there is huge potential for viable side-grading of your weapons and equipment in general. Just make sure the player can explore as well as make informed, strategic and tactical decisions with what you come up with, and all will be fine.
  15. Dagar
    That smoke is apparently so dense that it is literally blocking. Maybe made of nano-machines that yank bullets out of their trajectory?
  16. Dagar
    As for missing tech from specialists, that is easy to determine. Specialists unlock some predetermined tech, like engineers and medics, and the Mk3 weapons of that Phase in a randomized fashion. That means some combination of specialists unlock some Mk3 stuff. If you have every Laser Mk3 weapon available, you did not miss out on anything regarding the Light Scout Op (since Caesans unlock Laser Mk3, while Sebs unlock Div Mk3).
  17. Dagar
    Glad you see it our way. Welcome to the Church of the Holy X-Division, young acolyte!
  18. Dagar
    Focus them down one by one and turn their energy based weapons against them, if you have none. Even the dogs themselves sometimes drop weapons. The kinetic weapon of your vehicle also does decent damage, so try to preserve it and get in close before shooting for better hit chance.
  19. Dagar
    Many thanks and best of luck to you on your campaign!
  20. Dagar
    Do you use explosives much? You also need many of the kinetic weapons of the aliens to advance to Mk2 afaik. Maybe you blow most of the dropped stuff up... Plus, some of the heavier weapons can be hard to find, e.g. cannons.
  21. Dagar
    Yes you do. You are right, the stun equipment is very problematic at that point. If you have Caesan enemies, use their lightning guns against them and the Xenomorphs. Apart from that, research the shock weaponry tree and the advanced stun gas stuff.
  22. Dagar
    Thank you for the update, @Chris. Can you take the time at some point to talk about the mod support? What is possible currently, what extent of mod-ability is planned?
  23. Dagar
    I had tried it in the same mission with another Hugger before, but ultimately I had to kill it. There stepping next to it was no problem. Most likely no TUs left.
  24. Dagar
    On other news, I knew stepping ON a Facehugger would zombify your trooper. Now I had it stepping NEXT TO one (I wanted to club it for capture). Is that a bug or is the Facehugger the only entity with reaction on a melee attack?
  25. Dagar
    Nope. Has been an issue forever. Likely will never be fixed.
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