Mr.Xia
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Posts posted by Mr.Xia
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They do grenade your soldier to bits, but on occasion if they could not normally move and shoot at your soldier in a turn. A wraith once lobbed a grenade across a building just to turn my colonel into paste.
I think its for the best that they do not increase in frequency.
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As much as I like them to be more terrifying in outdoor missions, they already serve their purpose when in close quarters (i.e Alien bases)
Balanced has to be considered when buffing reapers, they are a cascading terror unit that can snowball into a frustrating enemy to tackle if things got out of hand, so making them stronger might seriously make the map too difficult.
If there is to be a change, I would suggest they spawn in windowless interior rooms (storeroom in a supermarket for example) and trigger their attack pattern whenever any human unit ventures within their detection range.
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If you suppress the alien, it gives you a reaction free environment so your troops are safe to act, but you have to rush in and kill it before the end of turn, thats the mentality of suppression tactics, they arent to lockdown aliens not to act, but for you to rush in for the kill safely.
And for aliens that could still kill your soldiers effectively even after suppression..... well I would blame turn-based RNG for that.....sometimes.
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On 7/16/2023 at 9:29 PM, Chris said:
I just don't think it's a good idea to have no clear visual distinction between areas in shroud and revealed areas that are not currently in LOS. Those are different things in gameplay terms but in your suggestion they look either identical or close to it. However it's something you'll be able to mod once the mod tools are out.
I'm also not really interested in ways to force the player to do more night missions - I'm interested in ways to encourage the player to want to do more night missions. At the moment night missions are significantly harder than day missions and there's no real reason why you'd ever voluntarily choose to do one.
I feel that night missions should retain their difficulty, but have some situational circumstances that benefits the player.
QOL features
- Nightvision equipment To give more options for night play, nightvision goggles as equipment that remove the darkness penalty but reduces cone vision to simulate night vision goggles and their reduction of awareness. However adding new elements can accumulate micromanagement, so to prevent that, the accuracy module can by default be outfitted with night vision that provides a toggle on/off option with TU spent for soldiers to activate their night vision.
- Choosing day/night battles Now this could be a tricky element, because the player can simply decide to attack at daytime only and nothing else, and the day/night cycle is an element for players to be more tactical due to missions having limited time, but if night missions are incentivised enough to be desired, then this would be a good feature.
incentives for nighttime
- Less civilians at night. Civilians might be more sparse in night missions, which if there is a bigger factor to prevent the loss of civilian life. If I recall in X1, there is an effect to whether you prevent the loss of civilians or local forces? Perhaps a gameplay element that having less civilian casualties result in better increase in goodwill, night missions would be perfect to minimise collateral damage in the field.
- Alien strengths and weaknesses. If sunlight is a factor, aliens might provide some weaknesses at night missions. Regenerative abilities might be weaker or robot sensors have a smaller range for example. Or provide strengths such as more potent mesmerise abilities to strike true darkness in the hearts of the soldiers.
- Subtle landing entries Nightime might provide some kind of shroud for landing crafts to land troops before the aliens could notice. If the starting positions of aliens are further from the landing craft, or are still bunched up around their crashed UFOs, that provides some tactical consideration.
- Map variation Perhaps for an excuse to change map variety, the aliens might prop up mobile bases or scientific equipment depending on the time of day(solar plants in daytime if they actually used solar power, that provide cover and obstacles on the alien side)
- Alien frequency Depends on the time of day, different types of aliens might be more frequent in the battlefield, which players can predict and adapt their tactics accordingly (reapers could be more frequent at night). Of course this will be limited to alien research or terror missions in the field, it would not make sense on crashed UFOs. If a player needs a specific alien to research this could turn their direction towards choosing the time of day to approach.
- Weapons/armour changes I cant think of a realistic way of weapon changes on darkness, but perhaps armour might play a part. The stalker armour for example could be much more effective in areas of darkness.
- Resources Perhaps nighttime would be ideal for clandestine activities to move alien research cargo or alien abduction pods for example. This provides a financial incentive for players to attack at nighttime, knowing that there is more chance of loot to be found, although that has to be balanced out otherwise, nighttime missions would be the meta for getting resources.
- Story required night mission Perhaps a 'forced' incentive is to play a mission at night where a particular alien or technology could only be around at night.
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Shields are a clutch for newer players to provide a get out of jail free card and are a great meta for experienced ones who wants to use unconventional risky tactics.
It's best to retain the old system, I feel. Shields provide a different tactic than who can provide the highest reflexes, and its simplicity prevents it from spiraling out of requiring to balance everything to fit its role in.
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The MARS to me is an early game clutch, designed to be an expansive soldier unit that has some perks(smashing through walls, godly sniper cannon) to make it highly attractive among a sea of privates that you have yet to rank up, but I do agree that the $250k price is just too much(its almost 2 MARS for a mid-tier aircraft). $150k seemed more reasonable as suggested.
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@Chris Not sure if its asked before, but would it be possible to mod multi-tile units in X2? Some of us still liked the mini-tanks from the previous game.
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I happened to noticed that too, whenever I throw grenades in UFOs with a 100% chance, there is a tendancy to turn my thrower into a pink mist, occasionally.
Probably janky part of X2's mechanics(which the system is already jank enough). I should check it again and report the bug, when i have time to go back to updated X2.
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On 8/1/2023 at 2:24 PM, bonerstorm said:
Why are you guys trying to shoot behind cover? If you fire one square in front of the cover, there's no penalty and you delete the cover.
The point is that the grenade launcher is too inefficient to have a good use case in any scenario. If the launcher can arc over a longer range than grenades to provide utility, has more different types of ammo to shoot, or just give it more range & accuracy
seriously chris, bring back the rocket launcher. ,then it makes sense for it to exist.Right now its outclassed by grenades/satchel charges or the MARS robot.
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@doubleskulls I've noticed Alienkiller has been insulting people in the forums claiming his authority as a longtime beta tester for the games to belittle anyone who have any differing opinions than him.
And I think I know where this thread this is going. Xenonauts isn't a conventional mainstream game that will offer paid cosmetic DLCs.... Mods would have already done the job much better and without the need for paid content. If the concern is funding for the next xenonauts game, the lead guy knows what he's doing to already have a sequel. I wouldnt worry too much on the money department.
And paid content that isn't a gameplay expansion tends to piss people off, especially in a core PC game like X2.
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Clandestine Icelandic military operations in a nutshell.
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Never heard about the change, but I assumed that the fun factor with the current shields is that it provide immediate feedback. With a shield, your soldier is a death catcher(of at least 1 direct hit), with the high one-shot death rate of early gameplay, reflects its importance as an reaction shot trigger tool, to allow your other soldiers to move forward to attack without catching a plasma bolt and die just by appearing. And if the shield disintegrates, your soldier serves that role(and for balancing purposes to have that limited hp).
It's goofy, I give it that, but for a turn-based high stakes ground combat, the current system works if you play it that way, instead of a mobile survivor unit, it is an anti-reaction dude coming in to pray that the alien doesn't burst fire his 1/80 hp shield.
I assumed the new shield system(never was there before the change) was a damage reduction absorber and while that might make more sense to me, it is in the heart of an X-Com game, where RNG is the difference between a flesh wound and a one-shot death, which players encountered shield troopers dying to shots similar to unshielded ones, and find the RNG to be more grating than it should.
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Civilians should:
- Not run towards the aliens and back in a marathon
- Not crash into windows and jump back out like professional schizophrenics
- Only have a small amount of TU to move as to simulate panic instead of being headless chickens
- Have a cower animation to simplify everything, static civvies are much more desirable.
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13 hours ago, happystrawberry1 said:
It's not even a grenade launcher, its a lousy rocket launcher disguised as a grenade launcher. What kind of grenade launcher doesn't arc?
If the launcher actually arcs I would have said "Oh yeah, this actually doesn't suck", a utility gun that needs the finesse of being able to hit things while behind cover would be nice.
Then again, grenades do their jobs equally well, I only see the static 24/34 TU as a benefit to the launcher(if the newest updates didn't change it), and I still am an advocate to return the X1's rocket launcher, at least it serves a purpose of clearing obstacles safely from distance.
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Claymores/Proximity bombs would be useful for base defense missions, When aliens like to mow down my troops in death funnels(doors) during UFO crashes, we should give them a taste of their own medicine.
Usually I require explosives to take down obstacles and buildings to give my troops a clear line of sight to snipe the aliens out. In X1, the rocket launcher serves as an imperative to flush out them out whilst my troops have the advantage of range and cover to pick off the aliens one by one. The launcher in X2 is.....underwhelming to say the least. I had hoped it at least would lob over fences and buildings to at least give me some utility in its use.
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I never found a good use of the grenade launcher in X2, considering that I already had the satchel charges for breaching entry and the MARs to smash past walls as a cheaper alternative. I used it to reveal enemies from buildings and break obstacles, but the inaccuracy fails in that area. As a direct fire weapon it deals considerably worse damage than grenades, and its range is terrible, leaving its utility questionable. I would like to know if anyone else finds the grenadier role effective in their game.
Also, its the only weapon that does not scale with the soldier's Turn units(stays at 24/34 TU)? Is that a feature or a bug? I played GOG v1.19 for reference
The rocket launcher in Xenonauts 1 served as a long-range can opener, able to deal explosive destruction from afar with the drawbacks of a single shot. I wonder why its replaced by this?
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I think the game's 50/50(I'm assuming) split between male and females feels rather unrealistic, even in modern day settings and special operations units like Xenonauts.
X1 If I recall had a 90/10 split to reflect the military at its time. I think it would be fine if the ratio for X2 is 80/20 instead.
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Updated and edited my original post to reflect my progress in the game so far.
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I think there is upgraded ammo on the grenade launcher, Last I checked, the ammo did say alenium ammo when I got the required tech. Perhaps the visuals of the ammo is not updated as early access yet.
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I always looked at the real time air combat as a good break from the turn based RNG madness that is the Ground Combat, having witnessing too much reaction fire PTSD.
And besides, modern day jet fighters are all about mach speeds, having it turn based would make it look much weirder.
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2 hours ago, Shadooow said:
Ok so I replayed the game on lowest difficulty settings, because I got into dead end on Soldier difficulty in the cleaner cell mission where I am supposed to capture the leader in 7 rounds.
And I don't really see any differences. Now I am trying to win this same mission which I postponed and get bit better tech, but I already reloaded over 10 times and all my attempts ended up with half of my team dead, rest wounded and the cleaner leader at 95hp. I doubt this mission is doable in any other way than on second attempt once you know where all soldiers are and where the leader is and taking advantage of that knowhow.
- enemies have insane CtH, both aliens and humans, they are hitting way too much given that they should have CtH penalty on lowest difficulty - this is related to cover not working very well, anything but total cover feels useless and kneeling doesn't seem to impact enemy CtH either so is just waste of time units
- enemies are oneshotting my soldiers regularly with rifles. If I get hit by several shots from some burst fire be it alien weapon or heavy MG so be it, but single fire?. Now this can be understandable for aliens as their weapons are superior, but still getting oneshots at recruit feels way too harsh. I can't imagine how this scales with difficulties, will that shot be for 74 instead of 54 damage into warden armor?
- the round threshold is identical between soldier and lowest difficulty. I would expect this to scale. Those 7 rounds in the said mission are hardly enough, I barely broken into the room where leader is in both gameplays (not knowing which building it is and by enemies surrounding me from all sides which had to be dealt with first doesn't make it easy to just bruteforce inside).
- reinforces are spawning endlessly even on lowest difficulty as well immediately once the duo gets eliminated. And they spawn in same numbers despite the recruits should have reduced amount of enemies.
To be clear I managed to complete the mission, but escaping with 3 soldiers from 9 at lowest difficulty seems a bit too low to me. All the strongest soldiers with best equipment got oneshot or two-shot by the leader so I don't want to accept this result and will try to replay it from scratch (maybe with the stun baton this time) once again...
Tl'dr. I know I am probably not good player and I am doing many things wrong, but so far no mission was doable without reloading many times - if I didn't want to leave with 3+ bodybags. I understand that this game isn't Jagged Alliance and the soldiers are expendable, but I would expect the lowest difficulty to be a bit more forgiving. I honestly don't see difference at tactical battles between Recruit and Soldier.
I cant relate to your situation since I'm a hardcore fan of turn based games, and I used to play X1 religiously so these missions tend to be a breeze for me, but I can emphasise with bad RNG whenever I see one, Xenonauts are never known to give an evenly fair game, and even the new cleaner missions from X2 needs alot of work, and I do find the turns before reinforcements to be frustrating too.
So yeah, a general nudge at the general direction of the alien would help at least.
Would you like to share your tactics on tackling the mission? I'm not sure how familiar are you with the mechanics, but I've always tried these tactics on every mission that I had to bumrush.
- Shielders to tank reaction fire
- Chest high wall cover as a rule, is useless if I'm rushing. It's walls and large cover for me always
- Not sure about this, but taking cover from corners doesnt work for me(No indication that I have cover from enemies firing diagonally while I'm on cover corner) hide your troops away from corners.
- Flashbangs to prevent enemy units from reacting fire at your troops
- Throwing Demolition Charges to break obstacles/walls to flank enemies or reach an area faster
- Taking note of enemy abilities: Sectons will have HIGH accuracy when they are bunched up together.
- There is no shame in loadscumming from bad RNG
- MARs robot armed with autocannons and accuracy modules are excellent high mobility snipers, that could help you deal with reaction fire gung-ho aliens from afar.
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X1 has the shield improvement tech later in the game, but it will take some time to get there. Note that X2 is still in early access, perhaps they have not implemented it yet, or the upgrade tech tree is quite far.
And yeah, the blood part is awkward, should be removed from shield impacts.
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Actually there is a difference with different techs researched.
While accelerated weapons are just damage bonuses they are heavier, requiring stronger soldiers to wield them, and are just meant to be ballistics with more 'oompf'.
Laser weapons provide more accuracy for soldiers with low acc. stats. Higher acc. soldiers do not benefit from it, and thermal damage is accounted for better terrain destruction.
While I want to say that we should have more distinction with these weapon techs, I suspect balancing issues might occur.
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59 minutes ago, DaviddesJ said:
I’ve seen a lot of movies where people try to shoot other people from just a few feet away and miss.
One square in this game is, what, 12 feet? People miss a lot at that distance, when their target is not perfectly stationary.
You are absolutely correct, this video will illustrate the most realistic demonstration of a usual combat scenario in X2.
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Civilians seem to love jumping through windows
in Xenonauts-2 General Discussion
Posted
You just got off work recently, not caring at all for the world news, when suddenly, a UFO swoops down crashing and aliens start blasting their plasma rifles at your direction. You have several choices to do so, do you:
A: Run to the nearest building and take cover and be useful?
B: Run towards the downed UFO just to get a closer look at the alien?
C: Run towards the nearest soldier in blue and block his line of fire?
D: Run to the nearest building's window ignoring the door that is closer to you, crash into it, then hop back outside, and THEN running towards the downed UFO?
80% of the time its always D.