Comassion

Confirmed, if you suppress an alien that you can't see yet (by firing near them) you see the suppression marker, revealing their position.

Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks. If we get better confirmation of the formula we should update the wiki.

Here's the situation - I've seen two isolated reports of a very similar bug, and it's so rare and difficult to replicate that I'd like to enlist people's help in replicating it. Thus, I'm calling for a bug hunt, where we can all collaborate in finding it. Here's the issue: Engaging two UFOs at the same time seems to be trying to execute BOTH engagements simultaneously, leading to some truly weird errors. The first report had an air combat and a ground combat occurring at the same time, and the second report had two air combats happening at the same time. Now, since we can't quite precisely time an intercept of a UFO due to their movements, this is very hard to do intentionally, but it shouldn't be impossible. Here's the ultimate goal: We want to obtain a saved game where everything's set up for this to happen. Ideally you can load that game, let it run, and the bug will occur. This will be problematic in the current build, as saves with a crashed UFO will cause a CTD. We may only be able to replicate the simultaneous air combats for now, but perhaps someone can catch a landed UFO on the ground (I don't know if landed UFOs cause a CTD in saves or not). I have some ideas to increase your chances of causing the bug. They are merely suggestions, take them or leave them as you like. 1. Try turning the game speed to maximum once you have your interceptors set. It's possible that if the interception takes place in the same 'chunk' of time that the bug occurs, so it makes sense to try to make those chunks of time as big as possible. 2. Try having your interceptors tail ufos instead of intercepting them, slow game speed to the slowest, have both interceptors return to base, wait 20 seconds, then have them re-intercept and turn game speed to maximum. 3. If you have a reliable method to get this to happen, try to cause it with different combinations of ground combats and air combats. I'd be curious to see if two ground combats can happen simultaneously. 4. Try seeing if you can get two separate interceptors to cause separate combats against the same UFO. 5. Spend the early game building additional bases with 1-2 radar and 1 hangar all over the world, which will increase the number of UFOs you can see and attempt to intercept at the same time. Good hunting!

I was looking through the Wiki on game mechanics, and I found something odd in the damage formula. Damage Dealt = Weapon Damage * (1.0 + Damage Coefficient * 0.01) * (Weapon Range / Range To Target) * Diffculty Level Multiplier; If correct, that Weapon Range / Range to Target part of the equation will give you a massive damage boost at close ranges. Can anyone verify that this is the correct damage formula? If so, has anyone noticed even the lowly pistol becoming exceptionally deadly at range 1? Various weapons should be getting an 8-20x damage boost at range 1 vs. their standard range if this formula is accurate (because the range is 1, and the weapon range for most weapons is at least 8 - and it's 30 for the machinegun). Whether that's overpowered or not is certainly up for debate, but before having that debate I'd like to know if this is accurate or not.

I actually see less need to cherry-pick in Xenonauts because their stat scores don't vary as wildly as X-Com scores (at least that I've seen). The major issue which led me into the firing / hiring cherry picking cycles in X-Com were extremely low bravery scores (and later on the low mind control scores). Those had a huge range from 10-60, and guys at 10 and 20 were really bad in combat and prone to going berserk and killing your other, better troops. Those losses hurt bad, and often sent the whole squad into a downward spiral, so you couldn't afford to have them on the team. I don't see soldiers much in this game that have extremely low bravery (like 10), so that's not as much of an issue. Furthermore, soldiers don't appear to go berserk, so when the lower-bravery guys do panic, they aren't actively endangering my own troops, and thus I don't regard them as a huge liability. Plus, as I recall X-Com soldiers could hardly ever increase their bravery, whereas I know Xenonaut troops do, so if I just stick with a soldier he'll get better over time, which I love. As such, I think cherry picking can certainly be done, but the game mechanics are already set up to alleviate some of the reasons why it happened in X-Com.

I don't recall. I haven't personally done a lot of testing on this particular issue - I just recall shooting a door at one point and not having an issue walking through the doorway (that may even have happened in an earlier build), so I haven't seen this one myself yet. Regardless, you don't need ME to figure out the replication steps for every bug - go forth and have a door-destroying session and see if you can make it happen reliably.

You're welcome! It's more work than I anticipated it would be (it cuts into my own Xenonauts play time!), but I'm keeping up with it, and it's good to know that people appreciate it. Ah, I understand. I'm changing it to 'confirmed' for now - bugs don't get a 'repeatable' status until I see actual replication steps posted for them, and in most cases I go through those steps myself to verify that they work before I mark them repeatable. In the case of the door bug, I've been able to walk through destroyed doors, so it doesn't happen all the time - I need to know how exactly I should destroy a door to trigger this effect (maybe it's tied to a specific map or weapon). If someone posts replication steps to the door bug thread, I'll try 'em out (or if I get to the bug during my own testing maybe I'll find them myself, but there's a lot of bugs out there at the moment.) The importance of getting bugs to a 'repeatable' status with replication steps is because it makes it much, much easier for the dev team to track down the cause of the bug. If they try to address the door bug without knowing exactly how it's caused, they'll spend potentially hours figuring out how to get it to happen. Since we have a build of the game, we usually have enough tools at our disposal to figure that part out for them (or at least get closer to it), so if we do so, we save them time. Thus, replication steps are required before a bug gets marked 'repeatable', even for 'known issues'.

Latest bugs have been updated, a few confirmed. Spinal - 'known issues' go here as well as new bugs. One of the main purposes of this thread is so that we're cataloging all known issues to cut down on the number of repeat bug reports, and to help direct people to expand on an existing bug thread rather than constantly submit new ones (that way all the aggregate information on a bug is in the same place).

When you do fire this beast, it spits out so many shots that you almost always hit from medium range and closer, despite the abysmal accuracy values - and if you fire at a group of aliens you're likely to hit all of them. If people feel the accuracy / range is still a bit low you can raise it, but at range 30 I killed every single alien I fired at, which I felt was too powerful. Range 10 was too low, so there's a balance somewhere in there that makes it very effective without being overpowered. Plus if you ever get in at close range you are pretty much guaranteed to kill something, so if you increased reaction fire percentages (rather than the current decrease) they'd be exceptional for covering areas. At 25 shots per burst you can fire twice without reloading, and if you bring extra ammo you can fire all you need to. What you absolutely cannot do with it is give every trooper one. Some troopers just won't be able to handle it until they get stronger, and the move + shoot capability of other weapons makes them important to take with you as well. This configuration gives them a more specific role as an effective support weapon, and when suppression works again we can turn that back up as well. Jimbob: You may want to re-up the damage if you take this configuration, since fewer shots per burst will hit, we want them to count when they do (plus MGs often fire higher-caliber bullets than other weapons, and thus ought to do more damage). One minor downside is the sound effect expects a short burst - it won't play long enough for the long burst, so it gets quiet mid-way through the shot.

Exactly, and that will give the soldier the exact same set. Later on, if you modify the assault kit (you made the laser rifle, so you want to give your soldiers that), then all soldiers still set to Assault Kit will be given the new equipment. That introduces a problem whereby you might not have enough laser rifles to actually give everyone that equipment, hence the need for a default fallback kit if any soldier can't be equipped due to lack of items.

Alternately, demolishing a newly placed building could cost you negative money, thus refunding the purchase price.

To intentionally wound one of your soldiers you could just shoot them with the pistol.

Yep, I confirm. I just spent all my cash and fast-forwarded to the end of the month and I got the message as well. Looks like the issue still exists.

Results: I lowered the accuracy all the way to 1. With this many shots, you just plain can't miss - even at 0% to hit I always had at least one shot connect with the target (and since these are the early aliens, it killed them outright). I suspect that when you 'miss' the bullet acquires a random alteration to its trajectory, but in some cases that alteration still ends up on the path directly to the target resulting in a hit. In short, even with accuracy 1 producing a 0% chance to hit, I never missed an alien in the open despite the minimal accuracy settings (I did miss aliens behind cover). So it's still super-deadly, perhaps too much so. I might consider dropping shots to 15. That said, overall I like the changes vs. the regular machinegun - you really can't assault a UFO with it, and for effective use outside you need to use a spotter, then open up with the machinegun from a distance. Plus, with the sheer volume of fire any other Xenonauts or Civilians within the cone of fire are at serious risk, limiting its use in a tight tactical situation. Finally, 50 AP does limit its use to strong Xenonauts, and the fact that you now really should be carrying ammo can limit that group even more. Edit: Update! I found that messing with the Range parameter (I turned it down to 20 instead of 30) really helped mitigate some of its effectiveness, and I turned suppression way down (mainly due to the current suppression-related bugs that were making this weapon cause a CTD often, and now it doesn't crash the game). Now the MG is a solid medium-range support weapon, and I don't feel like it's as overpowered as I've now seen it miss some during distance shots - and when you spend your whole turn missing, it hurts. Go ahead and give it a shot if you like, see what you think. <Weapon name="weapon.machinegun" bulletType="normal" emptySound="Empty Click 1"> <props range="20" hands="2" recoil="65" weight="12.5" isHeavy="1" clipSize="50" reloadAPCost="25" reloadSound="Weapon Machinegun Reload" reactionModifier="0.6"/> <SingleShot /> <BurstFire ap="50" accuracy="1" sound="Weapon Machinegun Burst" shotCount="25" suppressionValue="1" suppressionRadius="1" /> <GUIImage name="gui/weapons/machinegun.png"/> <GroundImage name="grounditemimages/machinegun.png"/> <Ammos> <Ammo name="ammo.ballistic.machinegun" type="kinetic" damage="40" mitigation="15"> <Projectile spectre="projectiles/bullet/bullet" speed="1200"/> <Impact spectre="particles/bulletplume/bulletplume"/> </Ammo> </Ammos> </Weapon>

I'm actually going to try giving it MORE shots, but lower the accuracy. I'm modding the line to this, and gonna try it out. <BurstFire ap="50" accuracy="5" sound="Weapon Machinegun Burst" shotCount="25" suppressionValue="30" suppressionRadius="2" /> Here's my rationale: 50 AP - prevents just any soldier from using it with Jackal armor (also stops it from being a 'move and shoot' weapon like it is now). Most soldiers won't be able to fire it if they're also wearing Jackal armor, unless they're really strong. 5 accuracy - a huge reduction to try to keep it balanced with the massive increase in shots fired. 25 shots! I want machineguns to eat ammo. This effectively lets you fire two massive bursts before you have to reload, meaning you'll actually have to carry ammo (in the current game, I've never had to reload - so much so that I don't carry extra ammo for machineguns as-is). Suppression values - at the moment I find I don't like the magical auto-suppress in such a wide area, so I'm reducing the effect and range a bit.

Basically near their armor setting you could have a drop-down 'kit' menu. You could list all existing kits there, as well as a 'save new kit' and 'modify existing kit' option if you want to create a new kit from the soldier's current equipment set.

Soldier kits are just standard equipment sets that players can customize to fit their needs, and will make equipping your soldiers a snap. Set up the kit, then just apply it to all soldiers set to use that kit, and voila - you only need to do the equipment management for one sniper to have it take effect for all of your snipers. I think these are planned in some form, but I have some ideas for their implementation. 1. Have a customizable default soldier kit that soldiers can revert to if there aren't currently enough stores to re-equip their standard equipment (this kit should be restricted to infinite items only). 2. Let players create / name their own kits as needed rather than providing a default set. Players will already want to customize the default set, so you might as well go all the way.

I find suppression to be a bit too reliable - for instance, right now I can stand in the door of a small UFO, fire one burst into it, and all aliens inside get suppressed for sure. That lets me safely walk in with someone else and finish off the enemies with no reaction fire possible. Also, I noticed that suppression markers are visible even when the alien isn't, so as-is you can use it for scouting too. I think that once I fire a burst or two into a UFO it should *help* me, but not make it a walk in the park. If I don't know if an alien is suppressed or not, then I'll be more cautious with my assault. I think I'd rather see it work under a chance system - so when I fire an MG burst at something, there's perhaps a straight 30% chance it gets suppressed, rather than an automatic suppression effect. Also, I don't know if MGs are currently suffering from the accuracy penalty while moving or not (I think they are), but regardless they're still such good all-round weapons that they're all my squad needs to take, and the suppression just makes them better. The low accuracy doesn't hurt them all that much when you're in real close quarters. I think MG's may need a serious TU increase or something, as you can burst fire twice with them (but not with an assault rifle), and each burst is deadlier than anything else the soldiers have. The main reason its so powerful is because of the aggregate effect of many bullets firing. Even at very low accuracy values, being able to squeeze off five shots in a burst means your overall chance to hit at least one (and each shot hurts like hell) is very high. Here's something to consider - double the cost for a burst (to 50! No more assaulting with these things!), double the shots fired (to 10), and possibly drop the accuracy a bit. I think I'll play around with the values and see what makes me still want to take MGs, but not take nothing but MGs.

Yeah, I would really recommend that you don't try to keep your saves from previous builds. While you might happen to get lucky and everything will be fine, most of the time the import code will have changed (because it'll expect data from newer saves that isn't there), so you could be introducing additional bugs into your game if it loads successfully. Just start anew with each new build.

Yeah, it doesn't fix every bug. Mainly people are saying it fixes the issues they're seeing with CTDs when shooting aliens, but we're still in the process of figuring out exactly what it does and doesn't do.

I've added the link to the workaround post in the master bug thread, so there's that.

Yeah, seems to be happening anytime someone falls unconscious. To replicate: One easy way to make your soldiers unconscious is to fire off a couple missiles and have them wander around in the smoke until they drop. Then you'll see the additional corpse.

That seems to be the case, so all androns will just die with the default ceserean sprites for now.

Over in the bug reporting forum Quartermaster discovered an important and easy fix that appears to correct a lot of the stability issues in the current V12 build. I've added the instructions to the top of the master bug thread. Find the instructions for the fix here. Let us know if it works for you - at the moment it seems to be working, but we have a small sample size.

Great find Quartermaster. For everyone who hasn't made the change yet, here are the full steps for doing so. 1. Make these changes with Xenonauts closed. Quitting Desura couldn't hurt either, just in case. 2. The file you want to change is weapons_gc.xml. In the Desura install on my box, it's located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Desura\Common\xenonauts\assets 3. The line you want to change is line number 585 (you can also search for 'lightdroneblaster'). This is the line to change: <BurstFire sound="Weapon Alien Plasma" delay="0.8" shotCount="5" suppressionValue="50" suppressionRadius="4"> 4. Change the line to this instead: <BurstFire ap="32" accuracy="55" sound="Weapon Alien Plasma" delay="0.8" shotCount="5" suppressionValue="50" suppressionRadius="4"/> 5. Save the file. 6. Start up Xenonauts. Your saves from your older games are still corrupt - do not load them (you can probably overwrite them). 7. Start a new game and enjoy. You should encounter fewer Crash to Desktop bugs.