Dagar
-
Posts
272 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
17
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Downloads
Posts posted by 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.
-
20 minutes ago, Emily_F said:
You have to be in prone to use a bipod.
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.
-
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.
-
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?
22 hours ago, Chris said:Undersuits: we've added a new type of soldier armour to the game in the form of an "undersuit". This is a vest worn under the normal armour that provides a small bonus to the soldier, which can be anything from a small increase in Armour to improved strength and mobility to a small amount of automatic healing each turn.
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.
-
*Laughs in X-Division*
Hopefully that max number is moddable?
-
Beautiful find @Alphaswolf, thanks!
-
1 hour ago, varangos said:
hmm thanks, i was thinking to build another airport-base loaded with planes (already have one that has only planes and defensive batteries).
another question, are the lancers with gravity torpedoes better than the foxtrots with alenium ones?
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.
-
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.
-
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:
Quoteyou can easily edit that with XVI32 or any other hex editor
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.
-
@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.
-
8 hours ago, Chris said:
I think trying to set up weapons with specific niches that remain relevant even when they're not the optimal choice for all your soldiers is kinda interesting. Having Lasers have increased Accuracy is an interesting idea but by itself it doesn't create a niche because +Accuracy is good for pretty much any soldier ... whereas it might be interesting if Laser weapons provide an Accuracy bonus that decreases as the Accuracy of the soldier gets higher. So they become extremely useful for rookies, but experienced soldiers might be better off using another type of weapon.
I like that idea! Sounds like something I'd want to use, unless the damage output of Lasers is practically zero in the end.
QuoteThe way Accelerated Ballistics use captured alien weapons to upgrade basic Ballistic weapons is also kinda interesting. It might be interesting if captured alien plasma weapons could be used to upgrade Lasers, for example, and captured alien fusion weapons could be used to upgrade Plasmas too. It's nice to have more of a drip-drip of equipment, where each battle gives you what you need to build two or three upgraded weapons rather than you building 10 at once and equipping your whole squad in one go.
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?
-
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?
-
10 hours ago, Chris said:
The counterpoint to that is that then there's going to be either one of two situations at play:
- If the weapon families are not inherently more powerful than one another, just different, you get into a situation where there's never a reason to develop better guns than the Lasers you unlock near the start of the game because even the late-game Plasma weapons aren't actually inherently more powerful than them (so you just learn to use the Lasers properly and use them all game, negating the point of tech tree).
- If the weapon families are parallel lines and all of them have multiple upgrades to keep them relevant as the game goes on, there's not really any reason to develop more than one of those lines. You just pick say Laser weapons at the start of the game and put all your R&D into those, ignoring the other weapon families.
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:
QuoteOne thing I'm pondering is whether it might be worth adding researchable armour penetrating rounds for the Ballistic and Gauss weapons, so if you carry a mix of ammo into battle then you can freely switch between armour-penetrating or anti-personnel rounds depending on how armoured your targets are (although you have to spend the TU to reload your gun each time). But I think that'd potentially be a cool system - and because energy weapons don't fire physical projectiles, Laser and Plasma weapons wouldn't have that option available to them. That feels like the sort of interesting differentiator between weapon tiers that would mix things up without causing meta-issues with the design of the research tree.
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, ...
QuoteThe tech tree is a difficult thing to balance because a clearly optimal strategy usually becomes visible. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this issue and you've got to draw a little from each of the different ideas to keep a progression without falling into the "boring numbers-only upgrade" system that X1 uses.
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.
-
That smoke is apparently so dense that it is literally blocking. Maybe made of nano-machines that yank bullets out of their trajectory?
-
12 hours ago, 8mono said:
I was under the impression the spawner thingies were eggs (and I got nothing but the good ol facehugger after stunning using a Shock Gun on one, which makes a lot of sense if you think about it, its just housing the facehugger until it "hatches") also I thought as much, even using gas would just make them explode. As for the second one I'm very relieved to hear that I won't be missing much so thanks!
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).
-
1
-
-
On 9/13/2020 at 2:21 PM, Yechag said:
Nevermind i was being stupid please ignore. this mod is great!!
Glad you see it our way. Welcome to the Church of the Holy X-Division, young acolyte!
-
1
-
-
18 hours ago, Yechag said:
or mission in Tehran, never idled my lab, but still on normal weapons + Flamethrowers. Went in with Lots of Missiles, could deal with the tanks and androns, but the dogs are ripping me apart. they seem obscenely tough. I launched two rockets at one and it survived even as the andron beside it died on the first one, another took three bursts of point blank machine gun fire and four flamer shots (tho the flame isnt suprising) a third i hit like seven or 8 times with stun batons and it didnt go down. they seem indestructible. ive hit one of them with four sniper rounds and they didnt even take damage
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.
-
On 8/4/2020 at 9:27 AM, falco69 said:
Yes i think the problem is the kinetic weapons maybe. Anyway this time i retry a campaign but in the ng 2 ironman time for activate my brains and play slowly
Ps: i like your youtube series dagar
Many thanks and best of luck to you on your campaign!
-
10 hours ago, falco69 said:
Hello i have a question.
In a other campaign i have a bug or a problem (or is just bad luck). I'm in the middle of november and i'm blocked with the division weapons, i'm still with the mk1. But i have captured and interrogated all the sebillain of the pase 1 (except the assaut and bomber operator), i have research the sebillan data hack 1 and 2, but the research adance divison wepons don't appears...
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.
-
15 hours ago, DreXav said:
Gotcha, was just surprised that fairly simple tech foxtrots required UFO equipment to work
Do we get access to better stun tools than the basic stun baton and stun grenade/rocket? I'm at start of phase 2 and I find enemies to take obscene amount of baton swings to go down.
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.
-
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?
-
1
-
-
14 hours ago, Ruthless Reuban said:
Noticed same myself. Probably intentional because that's how Facehuggers are supposed to work: jump against it's target.
Somewhat funny because I have never even thought clubbing Facehugger
Using gas instead.
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.
-
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?
-
16 hours ago, Ziver said:
I'm currently running with the 1.00.01 patch and there are invisible civilians running around my battles. Or at least mostly invisible, I can still see their shadows. There any easy to fix this?
Nope. Has been an issue forever. Likely will never be fixed.
AI programming in general
in Xenonauts-2 General Discussion
Posted
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.