Lt_Parsons

We have two physical stats right now - strength and tu's. Both of them rising too fast imo. Also we have system, where strength affect accuracy of soldier - recoil stat on weapons, which for now used only on machineguns, so disposing of strength stat is not a good option. I support variant with slow stat gain, maybe with added diminishing returns on strength gain speed. As a variant, maybe in addition limit backpack size? Only things that it needed for right now is more rockets for rocket launcher and possibility of carrying corpse of an alien (or downed comrade) to dropship when trying to return and abort mission. Actually, i think i have another idea. Most weapons in game is 2handed. Only thing we really need slot for secondary weapon is combat shield. I say, make this slot universal slot for everything, that player want to carry in addition to his main weapon. Be it backup pistol, grenade in fast-reach pocket, shotgun or rifle hanging on sling behind back, or even rocket launcher or machinegun, if soldier can carry such weight. Corpse of an alien can be carried this way too. Add to that slight penalty to accuracy if thing in backup slot is 2handed or have too much weight to balance this out. This way we can have combat shield mechanic intact, usefulness of secondary weapon slot increased greatly, and backpack can be made smaller or even dismantled in favor of set of pockets. Tied to limited strength gain, i think that would provide more options to choose what to carry with you. P.S. I was thinking about posting this in separate suggestion thread, so if this idea is better discussed there, just say it. Posted here because it ties in the same question - how make decision what to load soldiers with more interesting.

As a variant, use one huge psi-transmitter stored in backpack, which define power type, and pistol-sized one handed tool to use those powers.

Not quite. Seems to me, sight angle is always 90, armor setting ignored. But with global set to 120 instead of 90, in 1-2 first tiles from soldier it is using 120, but then for most of fov field still uses 90.

I tested, how it actually works in 18hf2. Results (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 It does not work right. I should check if it persists in 18.3, to be sure, and write bugreport on that.

I support the idea to use peripheral vision cone to differentiate between armors. Only maybe just not rid completely of vision range differences, since advanced armors suppose to have built-in night-vision filters, or something like that. Actually, there is settings for this in "armours_gc.xml", they just ignored atm, i think, but worked in some earlier builds. Global vision cone defined in "config.xml".

In case that what i said earlier come out as sarcasm, it wasn't. I'm using this tactic fairly often myself - as i said, i like that possibility and dynamic light feature. The picture of this situation just was graphic enough in my imagination, and so i tried to describe it. Rocket that fire skyward, would light everything in large radius, allowing us to see surroundings (and aliens to see us), and dimming into darkness again right afterwards, as it burns out? Sounds really interesting. Especially if it would be somehow possible to zoom-out screen while it lasts.

Shooting blindly in the darkness in hope, that whatever alien horror that hides there would just go away and die in some corner from bleeding, fire and smoke? I don't see anything wrong with that =)

Hard to argue with such good written thoughts =) That part i find especially interesting. Why? Because this way psionic powers would have serious tradeoffs. Powered by morale - very lovecraftian thing, inhuman power = insanity. Together with cold war parallels and atmosphere this would work well. Personally, i'd still prefer to manage without special powers, beating aliens with cold hard bullets, determination and fire.

As already been said, night missions already work in very similar way - if you move out one who spotted enemy, you no longer can target that enemy, cursor just don't highlight that spot anymore. It doesn't mean that you as a player do not know about where he was and cannot spam bullets/grenades/rockets his way trying to catch him in a blast and/or suppress radius =) I liked this sight dynamic, so support having it in day missions too. On suppression, hmm. I'm with suggestion for limiting sight, but not disabling it completely. If you got your scout suppressed, especially on sudden reaction fire, disabling sight for him basically would mean death most of time. As a variant, maybe limit it even for next turn, where poor man already have half tu's - would keep pressure on trying to save soldier, instead of possible retaliating, which is purpose of suppressing someone in the first place.

"My Documents/Xenonauts" usually, if you did not changed it in launcher.

Even if we do not have accuracy levels for burst fire, number of shots for regular fire will provide possibility to make short burst for LMG and carbines/SMG, that can also be variable (2 shots - 3 - 4). That way actual Burst fire will just work like long full auto without needing any changes. I ask mostly because these parameters already exist. Yes, i saw it there. My point here is, i tried to mod in flare gun, as Sathra instantly deducted, and only way to do it, that i found, is to use weapon "bulletType="flare" parameter, which changes animation type, so soldiers literally throw bullets. It's looking funny, but not actually useful.

Chris, two questions. First - would that be possible to implement multishot, as defined in burst mode ( "burstdelay" and "shotCount" parameters ) for singlefire sets - second part of Gauddlike proposal? And second - can be flare light effect and its radius be moved to ammo properties (to where "fireChance" and "smokeChance" is now)? Right now it is implemented in weapon animation type for some reason.

What is problem with zip? I thought i checked everything, before posting links, so should work fine. Also, main download button for it and not for assorted files from inside should be in menu on top, in File -> Download. Note: only these files need to be replaced on install, all in "Xenonauts/assets" folder: - items.xml - manufactures.xml - researches.xml - strings.xml - weapons.xml - weapons_gc.xml Note 2: buit-in mod install works, but do not load any changes at all, whatever i tried.

More Shotguns! Don't you love to blast aliens with powerful high-caliber weapon up-close? Sadly, later on, with research of new tech, shotguns get replaced with carbines. Which are also good, but not the same - they look and feel more like SMG. So i made 3 new shotguns, one for each researchable weapons tier, to fix that: - Laser Shotgun - Plasma Shotgun - MAG Shotgun And here is zip with everything you need to have them in game: - (links for old versions are removed; i'm working on updating it for final right now) - (if someone still needs old archives or want to use these images in their own mods, please contact me via pm here on forum) - (also there is an alternative up-to-date mod with these weapon sprites - Khall's Carbines/Shotguns + Extras) As if now, i done just minimal changes to get them operational. They are using rifles animations and most of carbines stats (no auto, damage slightly higher; carbines itself changed to have less damage but 5-shot auto). You should be able to manufacture them together with other weapons of same tier. Now also adds ballistic carbine (shortened M16) and change laser weapons projectile to real beam. Pistols, carbines, ballistic shotgun and stunbaton changed to occupy less space in backpack. To install it just unpack archive in game folder and replace files where needed. Backups of existing xml files also would be good to do before that, if you want to remove this mod later. Have fun! =) Changelog:

We already have some arctic maps that feature parts, filled with trees. I liked those places - they change combat and spotting dynamic, it feel fresh. More places to hide, maneuver and flank. Less spotting and sniping, more searching, reaction and coordination. Harder to mass shoot something, more use of close combat weapons. We already have most, if not all, tiles needed for that. So, a few new maps mostly filled with trees, rocks, wilderness and less clear open space would be good to have.

Max_Caine, thanks for this compilation on weapons preferences. It is good to have this on one place, then scattered around in different threads. My two cents on balance issue are this. We have very limited set of defensive mechanics - there is only cover, that you use if it is there, but cannot control other than destroy; smoke which is limited and don't reliable enough to use it most of time; and combat shield which is not implemented yet. That and reliance on squad vision will always skew balance to weapons with high stats on those metrics you listed - range, accuracy, DPS. If most of what you can do is "more dakka" and to do it successfully you need to stay away from enemy fire, you do not have much choice. A few men to spot aliens and everyone else to dispatch them while spotters try to stay alive. Some would prefer specialized units, some would choose more universal setup, but that is all. Good thing that we have suppression and splash damage, it diversify things a little. I think, more specialized tools of trade will certainly help in devising more interesting tactics, don't you agree?

With % system you are replacing mechanic that have very forward logic that better understandable by the player with more complex mechanic that better for balancing, but harder to use and predict. You do not remember stats of all your soldiers, which are all different, but you can remember tu stat of weapons they using. When you move someone, you see number of remaining tu's and can predict will you be able to shoot or not without looking at numbers for every soldier. Everything is clear, predictable and visible. If you have mechanic with %s, for every move for every soldier (and you usually have to mix them, rotate loadout sometimes, or replace with new ones) you will need to look for numbers, calculate, then move, calculate, then maybe fire. Margin for player error is higher, usability lower. If you mix systems (one for fire, one move and crouch), it is even worse for understanding and remembering, and if you try to fix this by putting more info in relevant places, produces more clutter. % system is not better, i think.

Don't know about everyone, but i cannot stop imagining what things can be added to make this game even greater, bigger, better. Good that i'm not a gamedev or i'll be drowning in feature creep =) I liked TFTD - it was dark, murky, dangerous. More then original UFO:EU, imho. So count me +1 on underwater expansion possibility. Count me +2 if it can be somehow combined into one whole land and sea game.

For those who interested, there was old thread about night vision equipment (just 4 pages long), many good points there - http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/31-Night-Vision-Equipment My initial suggestion for a way to distinguish fov lighting from actual light, be it toggle, color tint or something else, still stands, however.

Good idea, i like it. I suggest to just replace field under soldier name and portrait where is currently said what weapon he's carry with role selection field with dropdown menu (with some way to indicate if soldier has customized loadout, that doesn't match designated role, by background color of field maybe). Also maybe make it two fields, role and armor. If you need to fit some more info there is place left of portraits under dropship info that can be filled with small memo about soldier stats.

Auto-equip has one downside - you can not have them if your backpack is full, so it is automatically means -2 equipment squares for everything else, even for day missions (you can try to calculate arrival time, but i always seem to mistake on slow speed of Chinook).

"Laboratory tests suggest an armour penetration of at least 15 inches of normal steel (precise measurements not possible; we ran out of steel before the projectile ran out of power), enough to destroy virtually any conventional vehicle in the world in a single shot." - Xenopedia, Alien Plasma Cannon article

Isn't it too costly to rehire wounded soldier though, 10k$ per person? But yes, he should not return in hiring pool before he is healthy again.

I don't think it would be possible and/or useable enough to combine equip and barracks screens in one, too much information. But some useability improvements would be good. There was new UI announcement thread with some pictures, better to have them handy in this discussion as well: - Equipment screen - Barracks - Barracks recruitment - Dropship equipment Upd: And ninjaed twice by Gauddlike and Max_Caine=) 1) Yes, having health level on equipment screen can be useful. I usually check who is still wounded and need to be replaced for the mission before loadout changes anyway. 3) Button to go directly to dropship would also be useful - this screen is few clicks too far away when it is needed which is every time you change who will fly on two other screens. Personally, i found lacking one more thing - barrack screen, armor column. Making it interactive and adding (or replacing it by) role column (also interactive, with indication, if loadout doesnt match role default) beside it will make soldier assignment much easier.

I agree. Also, night-vision or uv/ir would hard to do properly, i think. Light sources should affect such vision modes differently - blinding/suppressing soldiers or reducing their view range for night-vision. For uv/ir light sources should be redone, because that is the point of those modes that they make us see in different spectrum. This is whole new mechanic to develop. Yes, different flare light color is a good idea. I came up with fov switch idea playing on some night terror mission, there was some props with environmental light, lamps or somesuch. So not only flares should have identifiable light, but props and fire, if it casts light (and it should; i do not remember if it does however). Main problem is that nighttime fov looks like light and is very hard to distinguish from real ones.