Lt_Parsons

Not in my power, sadly - projectile trajectory is not linear, so it gains offset in flight, but do not rotate sprite along with bullet drop. If i try to correct this offset by animation, it works only in one direction and in others it shifts even more, cause sprite is simply rotated by engine according with shot direction.

It is because of how i got it working - it starts draw with small part of beam sprite and gradually draw it longer and longer as projectile move forward, while simultaneously shifting sprite backwards, so it don't appear in front of impact point. Animation timing is hard-defined and getting projectile speed so it synchronize properly is the key. This have drawbacks, that i described earlier - mainly, on powerful system it animates fairly smooth, on not so powerful - animation lags and glitches appear (so i can't record proper slow-mo capture right now to set things right). @GoodGuyEddy We'll wait and see, i have posted screenshot and video of it, as he asked. Now can only hope it is good enough to be included =) Most important is that not only me likes the result, so work on mod is not wasted time, really.

Try this ones - 5 and 7 px high beams. You know when speed it too low, when beam starts to extend backwards, onto and through soldier sprite. Edit: And, just in case, do not forget to rename to "laser_beam.png" which one you try, or change "<img name="laser_long"/>" in "laser_long.xml" accordingly, so it use new sprite. Edit2: I'll also check myself, how it look a little later (need to get to my working rig to test properly) and update archive maybe.

Xenonauts is a very extendable game - only thing you can't add is new mechanics or functioning rules. Everything else is possible - new levels, new submaps for them, new tiles, new weapons with whatever stats you want, new airplanes, even new animation sprites (if you have dedication and drawing/modelling skills), new research and manufacturing projects, some parts of interface can be redrawn, even new globe graphics and regions can be defined (not so sure about new tilesets though). There are tools in launcher for creating maps and submaps, which can also edit tile properties. About packaging - just copy resources from game, with corresponding folders including "assets" folder itself, mod them (or create new things and place alongside existing things in case of maps/tiles) and then pack it in zip. Including readme file in mod archive is also universally good practice. This way archive can be just extracted in game folder and ready to go after replacing some existing files. To be able to uninstall it though you will need to backup files, that mod replace, manually. Or create a self-extracting archive with command script that will do install-backup-uninstall things for you, if you know how to. There is mod install tool in launcher, it take your zip and unpack it automatically in "Xenonauts/mods" folder and can easily uninstall it from there. Thing is, whatever i tried, game just does not see your changes this way. It hasn't been working for a long time, so maybe we should recheck it and re-report as bug again. Giovanni can comment on this further, i may got some details wrong.

Well played, i say =) One opportunity they did not used, sadly - simulate the situation good enough and see what methods to win appears on walktroughs.

Glad you like it =) To make it thicker you just need to resize sprite a bit (it is 3px high now) and replace a ton of numbers in xmls (h="3" and pivotY="2" to what you need) that define thickness, odd number of pixels is better i suppose. My main concern however is projectile speed - i still do not think i got it right and it is too fast. It is matter of taste and your system speed mainly. Should be somewhere between 8000 and 11000.

As a bonus to that suggestion - posting checksums for standalone downloads will also insure that archives are non-broken so you do not need to redownload whole thing just to check if it works.

Also, video. It is not really good enough - trajectory and beam draw angle are a bit off and on less powerful system projectile can be rendered much less smoothly, so beam may not appear at all because of speed, or appear only for half of trajectory. Timing of shot animation can be very wonky on less powerful rigs. Also, on diagonal shots beam move too much, so it looks as a ladder of sorts. It is not in above video however - i was not been lucky in capturing those bugs on video (if there not much power for game, even less is available for capture so it lags and skips most of animation, and if game is smooth - less bugs).

There can also be another variable - tu cost of shots. Laser, for example, may require to focus on target for some time to damage it, plasma require time to readjust to specifics of plasma trajectory, when t1 and t4 just have familiar for soldiers point and shoot ballistics.

Any chance to have this function back? It looked like a fine feature.

Thank for reply, Matthew. Updated Nvidia drivers from 310.90, which i used, to 314.22 (last certified non-beta atm), nothing. Updated my, slightly dated, K-Lite Codec pack to new version (9.8.8 atm), still nothing. Tried various settings and combinations of Microsoft/LAV/Haali splitters and LAV/decoders - no result. Total uninstall of all codecs, bare system - same. Windows 7 Codec Pack from linked thread on cleaned of codecs again system - no difference. CCCP, Combined Community Codec Pack, also with different settings - well, i tried. Clean K-Lite reinstall, also with various settings iterations - you can guess. And, when i was already hovering the submit button for this post, i remembered one more thing - i do not have Windows Media Player on my system - do not use it, switched to Media Player Classic long ago, so have it uninstalled. Installed WMP again - everything works, animation in launcher plays, case closed. So yeah, Windows Media Player and any DivX codec are needed for launcher animation to work.

It seems, that only thing that we lose this way is recoil on weapons, because linking it to new Fitness, so if you have tu's less than required by recoil it decrease accuracy, seems really redundant. Better variant here will be the thing that Gauddlike suggested about having accuracy levels even on burst - by that we have intact link accuracy/fitness/weight (less weight = more tu's = more accuracy, more weight = less tu's = less accuracy) for regular shot and burst too. And recoil difference will go to weapon weight instead. This reminded me description of one sergeant from Discworld books by Terry Pratchett =)

Yes, its just visual change, no effect on combat beyond that.

Have you ever felt, that your laser guns do just "pew" instead of "BLAST"? All laser weapons in game shoot bullet-like projectiles, so using them wasn't much fun. Some people already tried to change that by making projectile faster and/or longer. But why go only half way? So, after some tinkering, i finally made laser beam to look almost like a proper one. Change is only visual, but adds to immersion a bit. Videos: laser rifle, 3px beam, scatterlaser, 5px beam Here is mod archive: - for game v1.06 - for game v1.05 - for game v1.04 - for game v1.03 - for game v1.0-1.02 To install, just unpack archive in game folder and replace files where needed. Backup of existing 'weapons_gc.xml' file also would be good to do before that, if you want to remove this mod later. To manually set any weapon to use the new beams, open 'weapons_gc.xml' in notepad and in corresponding weapon description change string beginning with '<Projectile' to '<Projectile spectre="projectiles/laserbeam/laserbeam5_10" speed="10000" showAfterDistance="0"/>' There are some options to tweak the beams appearance: - beam thickness, 3, 5 and 7 px, default is 5 (first number in spectre name) - beam draw speed, 10, 9 ,8, 7 and 5, default is 10 (second number in spectre name) - beam projectile speed, default is 10000 Have fun! =)

View range - 16 Blue - soldier Black - 120 arc, according to photoshop Orange - 120 global arc, as in screens above Green - 90 global arc, as in screens above There was minor differences in photoshop rendering if you rotate line left or right, plus some minor half-transparent rescale artifacts, i didn't draw them here for clarity sake. Also, while taking those screens, on far edge of vision was some asymmetric differences on some view ranges, i took 16 as range, that had least of such artifacts. Do i need to test or clarify something more here? Point is, nor armor angle, nor global angle do not work properly.

@erutan You are right on everything here =) And, it just dawned on me that strength actually has no meaning in itself - it is basically just limit on speed/equipment tradeoff for tu's and limit on precision/equipment tradeoff for recoil. Where does this lead, actually then..?

I checked how it works right now: 1 str = 0.5kg = 1tu - for every strength point you can carry 0.5kg more and every 0.5kg over limit impose 1tu penalty. Recoil, according to wiki, works this way - for every 1 str under weapon recoil number = -1% accuracy. Also, even basic armor weight 5kg, so you cannot carry less than that. I fear only 2 thing about this weight reform - that it compress soldier strength differences too much and that too much balancing would just evolve into simple class designations (armor/light weapon or no armor/heavy etc.), which also would limit possible soldier specialization options.

Updated for game v18.3hf2. Also, some new changes, see top post. Fix for ammo for laser, plasma, t4 an some other things not appearing on research included. Some feedback on mod, changes, bugs (if present) and possible balancing would be appreciated =)

This. This is very important. Thing is, there actually no backpack at all on any soldier sprites or game art, that i saw, so having load-bearing harness with set of pockets for various equipment instead can actually improve suspension of disbelief a bit, i think.

Rechecked, to be sure. After 5-10 minutes still no video. Even checked with Sysinternals Process Monitor - not even any request for "movie.avi" there, only for "static.bmp", directories and "play_button.png".

As a variant, trophies arrival to base can be handled as regular items transfer, lasting few hours. So it'll be popup "Items from Crashsite-XX arrived" followed by popup that new research now available (we already have such double popup for "research completed" / "new manufacture available"). I agree that such small change would add much to immersion.

As ammo for plasma and T4 weapons was changed to unlimited too, this fix is needed for them as well, i think. Has not actually checked in game, but corresponding changes in "researches.xml" is identical, so.

Minor thing, really, so noticed it only now, ignoring the fact that feature was here for several builds already. For me, launcher display only static logo image and does not seem to attempt to replace it with video. Never had any problem with new launcher beside this. System - Win 7 x64 SP1, fully updated. Codecs installed - K-Lite codec pack (ffdshow used for DivX, default Microsoft AVI splitter for .avi). Video from game assets itself playing properly and without problem in Media Player Classic HC.

As discovered in this thread, armor setting for line of sight angle in "armours_gc.xml" is completely ignored. Also, global setting in "config.xml" do not work properly too. I checked originally in v18hf2, and now in 18.3hf2 bug persisted. Screenshots (huge png everywhere, sorry): 1) sight range = 16, global sight angle = 90 - armor angle 140 - armor angle 120 - armor angle 90 - armor angle 60 2) sight range = 16, global sight angle = 120 - armor angle 140 - armor angle 120 - armor angle 90 - armor angle 60 As seen on screens, sight field is identical for any armor setting. Global setting seem to affect only 1-2 tiles on front of soldier, most of field still uses what seems to be 90 degree.

@badgerdrool: We already have system, where overburdened soldiers have less tu, which work quite nicely - more you carry, less you can move AND shoot (dependency is linear, as far as i know). Do you really need more restriction than that? Tiring over several turns, so soldier need to drop his weapons and rest a bit to regain possibility to even move is a bit over the top. Not that it is inherently bad idea, but it is too much simulation for this game, imo. P.S If only this system was in Skyrim, there it would add to fun while exploring =) P.P.S After thinking a bit more, i feel that simulated tiredness between missions, so not to send only one single group on every mission is quite tempting really.