Skitso

I tried making a completely random map and gave up after seeing the first result in game.. Hope you have better luck!

I have made few maps now and it's actually possible to make almost completely random maps. The whole map needs to be sliced in sub maps and each sub map needs a dozen or so variations that are each chosen randomly. The tricky part is that all those variations need to match with all the possible adjacent variations, and making sure it all works flawlessly is really time consuming. So it's possible to make fully random maps but making the whole game like that would need something like 5000-6000 man hours (a lot!) You can try my middle east map pack. They have some heavy randomization in them, but I wouldn't call the random maps as the basic layout is pretty much the same every time.

Hey, thanks for kind words!

Hmm, yeah. Oh well. I'll try to come up with something. How about other things? How do you find the layout of the levels in general? Any improvement ideas?

Hmm... but the official map making guidelines state that the ufo's should be at the top of the map so that the entrance is easy to access, and I'm trying to make these as close to GH standard as possible. I'll try something else. Thanks for the input though. EDIT: There's multiple official maps with alien spawn points with direct LOS to dropship, so I'm not sure how big of a problem this is...?

Good point. I'll try to solve it somehow...

Ok so THAT'S why Chris didn't take my moaning in his mail so well... Yeah, I've had over 1 minute loading times since the new loading screen was added... but only in fullscreen. Windowed is like 20-30secs. Damn, I could swear I said the fullscreen/windowed stuff in the mail conversation we had few months ago.

-Sniper TU cost balance. -The slow loading screen bug (fullscreen/windowed)

Wow, great bug hunting! Hope this gets sorted out quickly!

It happens at least with default armor in all directions. When a grenade is thrown, no throwing animation is played at all.

Nice! Good work Chris & co.

@Chris: Have you found any reasons why the GC loading times are two or even three times longer if played in fullscreen mode vs. windowed mode? I'm aware the loading times will get shorter after the final compression, but I'd be glad if the loading times were as quick in fullscreen as they are in windowed mode...

This visual quirk has been bugging me for months or even years: All big, visibility blocking tiles like mesas, large shrubberies, gas tanks, stairs etc. block all visibility in ground tiles under them and wall tiles behind them. This causes ugly graphical glitches like black squares under mesas and forests even when xenonauts have direct LOS in there and walls not to be displayed in places where they clearly should be visible like behind stairs or other larger props. The end result being not so visually pleasing as pieces of scenery is missing in places where it clearly should be seen. The game should always display all ground and wall tiles under or adjacent with such big props. I feel this is one of the most important graphics related thing that should be polished before launch. Of course cleaning the edges of LOS is one too, but probably too hard to make.

Yes, the game definitely needs some kind of transparency around the cursor.

This is so obvious that it could be reported earlier but I couldn't fine a thread about it. Shield guys grenade throw animation is missing. If the sprites for it aren't rendered, maybe he could put the shield away while throwing?

The long loading times seem to be somehow connected to playing in a full screen mode. Try to play in a window to cut loading times in half. Also Chris has said that the final assets compression will shorten the loading times considerably. You are absolutely right and this is something GH is working on if I remember correctly. It's a known bug and will be fixed in the next version. I once proposed something similar and Chris shoot the idea down. I felt there should be a system that forces the player to play each ufo type at least once...

I'm pretty sure it spawned there as I found it on turn 2 but can't be sure. Also the map had an alien spawn point exactly there... It was my desert petrol station map with corvette. Petrol station submap was the one without outside stairs on the SE wall. Sebillian spawned inside a barrel here: I've already fixed the spawn position but if you haven't downloaded the map pack again, you should have the bugged version still. You could remove all other spawn points and try it? Also, civilian or friendly AI spawns set at -1 will cause the game to spawn one. And if spawn points are not set, it will be random.

Nope, I just wrongfully lost a soldier today. He was inside a building, next to wall with 1HP left and bleeding. I rushed my medic there and managed to heal 5HP (green numbers shown) but he didn't receive any health so he died at the beginning of the next turn in blood loss. *rage quit*

The new %TU shot cost is probably just taken from the suppressed unit's /50 TU value me guesses?

I second this behavior. I've reported this also in GJ's AI Bugs, Improvements & Suggestions -thread. There's something strange going on: aliens just rush close to xenonaut units' field of view and reserve all TU's for reaction when they obviously should shoot to kill.

Always on here. Makes the editor a bit unstable for me atleast.

AI handles them well and you can do small towns in theory, but the problem is that the tileset doesn't support houses that well as there's almost no furnitures available so all buildings feel pretty much the same.

A bit of creativity and asset copying from other tilesets and we already have a desert petrol station and a fuel refinery. Imo the bigger problem is middle east that is simply farm/ wilderness and different sized general houses without any purpose.

Yeah, I've seen the same outside too. Hope this gets sorted asap!

Tech. Info v21 Experimental Build 6 Observed Behavior This is a new AI problem in the most recent version: Passive aliens defending an ufo move towards entering xenonauts into a good firing position but reserve all their TU's for reaction fire, thus beign easy targets for the player next turn. I've tested this now many times: At least both caesans and sebillians often move very close to, or adjacent to my units but don't shoot. Next turn if I don't kill them but move back and forth in front of them instead, they will reaction fire me 3-4 times, so they have indeed reserved their TU's from a clear shoot to kill situation. Desired Behavior Even passive aliens should choose to fire instead of reserving TU's when close and visible to xenonauts and not end turn with TU's reserved.