Max_Caine

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Are you using the Community Edition?

When X1 was in development, the map wasn't 100% correct - certain small islands were missing which upset people, and the way the map was divided up was perceived by certain people as also not being correct. Those particular individuals were enraged that the map did not match their perceptions, one individual in particular accusing Goldhawk of deliberately blotting out his nation and disrespecting his people. While this is an innovative idea, I can very clearly imagine the fallout from implementing it as people rise to take offense if the implementation doesn't match their perception.

Do what? You've overheard a conversation in the pub, walked over and stuck your oar in, because you're not really interested, you just want to make sure that everyone knows your opinion. Fine, go and share that opinion on topics you actually care about and not on subjects you couldn't give a monkeys for.

Ruggerman, your opinions on how air combat could be better balanced while clearly strong, are somewhat light on details. If you were perhaps to take the time to narrate your experience of air combat, your thoughts and reasons for the air strategies you take, and your opinions on air combat in general a more technical and detailed format, that would better inform Goldhawk Interactive than merely an impassioned plea to fix it.

I think destroyers are the limit of Goldhawk's current designs, which is why there are so many issues post-destroyer. I'm also fairly certain that the stock configuration of each generation of Xenonauts fighter craft is intended to last X UFO types before they become sub-optional and you're encouraged to move to the next generation. However, I have in the files noticed certain utility addons - specifically a fuel pod and an afterburner. I think it would be helpful to open up utility hardpoint slots so the existing fleet can be upgraded some more.

So Trashman, in no particular order. 1) If you're going to have the AI run away into the UFO, then you may as well start the game at the UFO, sans artillery. What's the point in walking across an empty battlefield, People get bored when nothing is happening. 2) If I don't always have the option of having artillery because reasons, I'm going to prepare as if I never have it. If I prepare as if I never have it, then why do I need it in the first place? So that the AI can run to the UFO? Anyway, people are going to point to the aircraft that Xenonauts have, and ask why they can't use those instead of unreliable artillery. In any case, you acknoweldge that artillery is unfair. Unfair when I have it, unfair when the enemy has it. It's an I win button when you apply it to a skirmish-level tactical game. It's why PP at least put the artillery on-map so the other side has half a chance of stopping it.

Here's a good one, Sheepy: Two scary tanks in Jagged alliance being taken down by a mortar from a safe distance Multi mortar kill in Jagged Alliance - I wish I had invested in mortars when I played JA2! There are no bad examples. PP, JA2, Phantom Doctrine, these are all reasonable examples of what on-map and off-map artillery support actually looks like. Trashman, the theory does not stand up in practice. Artillery is unfair, off-map artillery would be especially unfair.

I'm pretty sure some of that data is hidden behind the files in the /assets/ folder. I have no idea how to unpack those files, but if you check the .manifest files you can see there are quite a few .json files bundled together. For unit recruitment stats I think the correct file is in /strategy/masters/actor/combatant/human/xenonauts/. Always bear in mind that files follow an object-oriened approach. Each child file inherits the properties of the parent. To find the weight of something, you may have to follow back up the parent-child string until you get to the data. E.g. in the strategy section, pistols have a generic weight which is established in /masters/items/weapon_secondary.json, the parent of ballistic.pistol.json. If you want to change this weight, you change the weight value in the file you want to change (ballistic.pistol.json), this will override the value they inherit from the parent file. Also remember that common values like weight are duplicated across strategy and ground combat. If you change the value in one, you must change the value in the other.

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. You clearly haven't played PP. The enemy AI can run and hide from my Scarab (the starting vehicle you get that's equipped with a long-range indirect-fire weapon) but it's so easy to crack a building with it. In fact, PP is another example of just how unfair artillery is, and that's artillery that's on the map instead of off it.

You should play Phantom Doctrine then, and see what it's like to give and receive off-map support in a squad-based tactical shooter. It gets very boring, very quickly. The only saving grace is off-map support can't destroy buildings, no matter how ridiculous that would seem (e.g. you can hide in a straw hut and a fully tooled up Hind D can't wreck it).

@ComradeThe latest update 8 days ago on the progression of the project should give you some idea how things are going. I wouldn't know that GH are going to make any announcement on an EA release any time soon. The last time Chris said something definitive on that, he had to apologise because the proposed EA date has long overshot and they're still nailing him to the wall about it on the Steam forums. In GH's case, the less said about release dates, the better. So long as there's a stream of updates, wether new builds to try or posts on the progression on the project, that works better than setting a date then overshooting it.

Phoenix Point is a good example of Comrade's fears made flesh. The Triton enemy type can emit a substance which I will, for the sake of argument, call smoke. This smoke does not go away. Left uncontrolled, Tritons can quite easily cover large swathes of the map in smoke that is hard to see through and is hazardous to the player's units. Alien smoke would have to be quite, quite temporary.

It looks like the research tree changed since I wrote that inital post, as I was once able to get the research prequisites after downing an Observer, but not any longer. In any case, it's possible to take down an Observer with Falcons - you need 3 of them, and you need as many alenium missiles as you can get. Then you can just charge straight at the Observer - no fancy techniques needed, the Observer doesn't have the firepower to down a Falcon so you can dive straight through it and the Falcons turn faster than the Observer can, meaning their cannons can finish the job. However, to take down a Destroyer you need Foxhounds. Foxhounds as they currently are designed do not have the weapons to take down a Destroyer - you need to use the updated Skylance heavy missile that I have posted above. The update Skyance has a range that is slightly longer than a Destroyer's. In autoresolve, a squadron of Foxhounds will win, and in realtime combat a squadron will very likely win, but you have to turn immediately after launching the payload or the Destroyer will down at least one Foxhound.

Having suffered thrugh some of PP's more egregious bugs, I think you'd be pleased that we get the chance to stamp and shout about the bugs in every release candidate that Goldhawk puts out so more, not less, the game is fixed.