Ol' Stinky

Yeah, there's random damage. Have you seen the wiki for Xenonauts? It's not gospel, as some of it's outdated, but I think it's still mostly accurate. You should also take a peek at config.xml. You'd expect it to be various graphic options such as resolution etc., but it's actually got a LOT of gameplay variables, such as the range of random damage. If you want to eliminate random damage while you do testing, you can. In fact, if you were so inclined, you could probably remove any random chance from shooting.

If I'm reading your post right, I guess my reply to "so, why not yet?" would be that I already tried it for farm and arctic in Stinky Maps 2, and town and industrial will require a LOT more time before I can get a decent amount of randomisation in due to the relative complexity of the maps/submaps, as well as the predominance of set features such as roads. I haven't tried making town/ind random yet, but hopefully I will at some point in the future. Warning! A long and boring walkthrough of my farm and arctic maps follows! A large part of the reason why I chose farm as my first tileset with the submap editor was to try this method out. My farm maps use: - a submap called RandomPropField. This chooses one of 25 different submaps. They're simple to create, especially the haybale ones, and take up a 20x20 area. Feel free to make your own and add them, as long as you don't use the middle 2x2 square block and outlying squares, as those are reserved for spawning aliens. - farmhouse submaps, currently around 5 different submaps. - general building submaps: barns, sheds, storage, stables and the like. There's 12 of these. There's also another version that has a 50% chance to not generate any of these buildings, just an empty space. The set features are roads and walls. I did trial a randomWall submap, but it was a flop. I could make a randomRoad, but I'm not going to until I've done more stuff for other tilesets. FarmStink 2 lightscout and corvette maps also have Grassy4Props, a submap which has 8 different patterns. Arctic maps use randomDenseProps and randomSparseProps. These are the same deal as farm's random prop fields, except split into "7+ props" and "fewer than 7 props" categories. There's no doubt that it's easier and quicker to completely handcraft maps. It'll be less of an issue later when more people get into mapmaking (hopefully), but right now, it's a question of: do you want more maps, or fewer maps that have a bit of variation?

Lookin' good! I have to say, I really dig that revolver. I'll probably replace the default one with that. The idea of "hard mode" guns is cool. Maybe make them do stun damage instead of actual damage? The reason I suggest that is a stunned alien is worth +3 points, as opposed to the regular +2 for a kill. Given that these guns are not meant to be very effective, they're not going to render the later stun grenades/stun rockets useless. I like being able to go for style points at the moment by knocking out aliens with flashbangs, but I imagine that will get taken out as beta goes on; I'll miss it when it's gone. Incidently, the suppression weirdness is a bug with the aliens, where they can use burst fire even after being suppressed. That's not meant to be the case, as suppression works by draining TUs; a suppressed unit loses all of their TUs, and then half of their max TUs when their turn comes about. That means a suppressed unit should only be able to snap shot or hobble away.

Well, you do get more points for capturing them than killing them. I guess I could go for making it more than +3 points per capture depending on how much each point ends up being worth once the balancing's done, but it shouldn't be a huge factor in making money, just an option to get style points on a mission.

Two more industrial maps for you: SmogStink 2's lightscout and scout/corvette. These have two new buildings in, StinkOfficeA and StinkWarehouseA. There's also a spectre fix for the double-headed LR lamppost in there. Stinky Maps 2, or CMP Rev. Pack.

I couldn't tell you for sure, but I imagine it'll be as it is now and modders will have to merge their work to have more than one mod at a time (like WalrusJones says). I'm a complete coding amateur so I could be mistaken, but I don't think all of the files are excel-as-XML; have a look at weapons_gc.xml, for example.

Realism takes a firm back seat to gameplay. Plumbers who crawl down pipes generally don't find a wonderful alternate world, and they certainly don't win the heart of a princess, but that never stopped me enjoying Super Mario.

A strength 60 guy - the highest you're going to get from a newbie - can carry a shield, a pistol and two grenades without taking a TU hit. If you're unlucky and get a bunch of sub-strength 55 guys to start with then your shield guys are gonna struggle. Still, two grenades and a pistol is hardly a killing machine. I think it's fairly well balanced as it is, and even if shields do need a nerf of some kind, a vision penalty isn't it.

I find that's only the case when my soldiers have had their strength pumped up after several missons. I suspect we'll either see XP gains reined in or the number of missions per tier of UFO trimmed down (I haven't played a lot of v19 HF2 yet, so the new geoscape changes might have already had this effect for all I know). Recruits and other newbloods will have to exhange offense for defense, meaning that powerful shield users aren't expendable. I lost a high-ranking shield to a lucky harridan sniper shot, and man, it really hurt having to downgrade to a newbie shield. He could carry something like a shield, a pistol and one grenade without lowering his already naff TU pool.

I believe the mod launcher simply isn't working at the moment. This means that to install a mod, you have to unzip the files to the correct place in your Xenonauts install directory. Usually mods will have an "assets" folder; install the contents into [Xenonauts install dir]\assets\ and you should be good to go. Mods that share files won't be compatable. If you're trying to run Mod A which contains a weapons_gc.xml alongside Mod B which also contains a weapons_gc.xml file, things will be screwy. If you're on Steam and you somehow manage to muck things up to such an extent that Xenonauts won't load or something, don't panic. You can validate local files and Steam will sort things out by re-installing the original game files.

They're so heavy that a shield user can't really carry much. If shields are only for breaching the UFO, then they'll be not be much use for most of the map. Indoor fighting doesn't happen a whole lot. I admit that I'm biased in favour of shields, though, since I enjoy using them and they look cool (yes, I'm shallow). I don't take a full squad of shield guys, but I always bring one or two.

Okay. Just point it towards your xeno install dir.

Browse to Xenonauts\assets\gui\GroundCombat\hiddenmovement and replace the hiddenmovement_small.png with a transparent image. Some people also say that deleting the file works as well, but I can't testify to that. A big thanks to Gaud for pointing that out; it's amazing how something so simple as no hidden movement screen can improve the game a ton.

A couple of industrial props. First, a StinkFactory. This is where the magic happens! It's 24x16 in size. And secondly, a storage unit. 22x17. They're both in Stinky MP 2/CMP Review, if anyone wants a gander. And if you want to see them in-game, they're also used in my SmogStink 1 set of maps.

I've made a start on the SmogStink 1 set, meaning that there's two new industrial maps in Stink Map Pack 2 and the CMP review pack. I've played about with map sizes this time around. The lightscout version of SmogStink 1 is 40x50, while the scout/corv version is 85x40. Be aware that the sct/corv's size is misleading, as it takes place at the docks, and there's a chunk of the map taken up by sea. I don't know what this means when it comes to the guidelines. The guidelines set out sizes, but some of the official maps have non-standard sizes as well; if my map sizes rock the boat too much, tell me and I'll remove 'em from the CMP rev. pack. Why am I using odd map sizes? Well, I'm trying to make some industrial maps that are a bit more about close combat. The trouble is that CQC maps take longer to explore than, say, an open desert. As a result, I've made the maps a bit smaller so that you don't spend days exploring every potential monster closet in the map. There are still exposed sniper lanes for people who like to take down targets at a distance, so if I'm lucky, I'll please everyone.

You'll need to download the community review pack to play the non-approved ones. They also contain these submaps, if that's what you're after, so you can have fun making your own maps with the extra stuff. If I've botched the link or something, have a look for the review pack in Flash's CMP thread. If you're after my stuff in particular, may God have mercy on your immortal soul. Also, you can get it all from Stinky Map Pack 2, which I add to from time to time.

assets\tiles\town\outdoor props\news_paper_stand_sw.png assets\tiles\town\outdoor props\burger_stand_sw.png You can't get away with just flipping the se versions, I'm afraid, as it causes the writing to become mirrored. Currently they sell "Srepapswen" and "Sregrub".

...As a case in point, here's one I forgot. assets\maps\industrial\walls\pillarwall_U5 assets\maps\industrial\walls\pillarwall_U5_endL assets\maps\industrial\walls\pillarwall_U5_endR These submaps have pillarwall_U5.xml and similar in them (that's good) and they all have pillarwall_D5.xml in them (that's bad). Fix: delete pillarwall_D5.xml from the folders.

I think I extracted the latest tiles info from the archive properly, so I'm going to put an ongoing list of issues with assets I find in this thread. They're probably the same in v18, but I can't be sure. --- \assets\tiles\town\house\props\BookshelfMidA_SW_spectre.xml Incorrect sortPoint of 0.700 in the default state, causing the bookcase to blend with walls. Fix: give it a value lower than 0.700 (probably 0.500). --- assets\tiles\industrial\Warehouse\MetalDoorSWLeft_spectre.xml The "open" state was incorrectly set - no door opening sound, blocked sight, image set to the closed door - and I was going to only edit the open state when I noticed the HP discrepancy between the left and right metal doors. Rather than risk missing any other problems, I took the spectre out back and shot it. Below is a modified version of MetalDoorSWRight, instead. <?xml version="1.0" ?><spectre id="Industrial/SWMetalDoorLeft" width="1" height="1" version="1"> <state id="damaged" name="" pivotX="71" pivotY="91" pathScore="1" objectTypePreset="2" visibilityScore="0.000" bulletScore="0.000" orientation="2" sortPoint="0.400" hp="50" wallType="tall" destructionSound="Metal Prop"> <image src="tiles/industrial/Warehouse/MetalDoorSWLeft_damaged.png" /> </state> <state id="default" name="" pivotX="71" pivotY="91" pathScore="1" objectTypePreset="0" visibilityScore="0.000" bulletScore="0.000" orientation="2" sortPoint="0.400" hp="50" wallType="crushing" destructionSound="Metal Prop"> <image src="tiles/industrial/Warehouse/MetalDoorSWLeft.png" /> </state> <state id="destroyed" name="" pivotX="71" pivotY="91" pathScore="1" objectTypePreset="0" visibilityScore="1.000" bulletScore="1.000" orientation="0" sortPoint="0.500" hp="0" wallType="none"> <image src="tiles/industrial/Warehouse/MetalDoorSWLeft_destroyed.png" /> </state> <state id="open" name="" pivotX="71" pivotY="91" pathScore="1" objectTypePreset="0" visibilityScore="1.000" bulletScore="1.000" orientation="0" sortPoint="0.400" hp="50" wallType="none" destructionSound="Metal Prop" doorSound="Door Large"> <image src="tiles/Copy of empty.png" /> </state></spectre> --- assets\tiles\town\wall\redwall (the fenced redwall spectres) assets\maps\town\walls\redwall_fences_cornerTR A couple of things here about the fenced short redwalls. Fenced redwalls probably shouldn't be vaultable, it looks dead odd having a soldier go through the wire mesh, T-1000 style. Secondly, the submap for redwall_fences_cornerTR is set wrong. At the moment, it has two nw walls on top of each other. Instead, it should be something like: <?xml version="1.0" ?><tilemap name="redwall_fences_cornerTR" width="1" height="1" version="1"> <level> <row> <cell layer1_1="town/wall/redwall/redwall_fence_[b]ne[/b]" layer1="town/wall/redwall/redwall_fence_nw_corner_n" /> </row> </level></tilemap> --- assets\tiles\industrial\Factory\SideDoorClosedNE_spectre.xml The pivot's wrong and causes a tear. Try an xpivot of 25 and a ypivot of 115. If I find/remember any others, I'll add them to this thread until we get a new experimental version to play with. Edit: weird, it's putting a space in "assets\tiles\industrial\Warehouse\MetalDoorSWLeft_spectre.xml" at the top, even though I haven't put one in there. I can't edit it out and, to quote the drunk pirate captain, "it's drivin' me nuts!" /:

The only way I can get aliens to appear is by setting them to the defensive script, and then they spawn in the UFO. I realise it's not a high-priority matter, but it is useful to have aliens spawn in the rest of the map. Edit: huh, it only seems to happen in the case of UFO maps. I couldn't get any offensive aliens to spawn in a farm test map or my new industrail map, but in town quickbattles they all turn up.

Yeah. There's a short range check already which improves accuracy, it'd be cool if it could ignore cover as well. It's only something like 5 tiles away from a unit, so it wouldn't be that gamebreaking. And I don't think any cover you're behind will ever be bigger, it's usually 2 or 3 tiles at most. Another thing I'm not keen on is the difference in ease of suppression at the beginning and the end of a mission. At the start, flashbangs are only useful to stun, and then when you breach the ufo, pretty much everything will suppress an alien. We already have a system around that can simulate teams freaking out when a number of them die, and that's morale. Make suppression hinge a lot less on taking losses (or unaffected by losses) and tune morale accordingly. This would also make the xenonauts not be so suppression-resistant. The aliens really can't pin down my guys at the moment. Suppression is a really interesting mechanic, and I'd like it to always be important in combat. It's a big factor in making ground combat so much cooler than OG X-Com for me. Morale is also a great mechanic, but it's such a game-changer that I'm fine with it being phased out as the game goes on.

I think it's when you've just used a weapon on burst fire mode, like the LMG, and then switch to another soldier. It's annoying, I agree.

When I was doing the map, I had that room pegged as "the room with the table tennis in". It wasn't until I was placing props that I realised that the table tennis is up/down, not left/right. D'oh! By the way, has anyone else pointed out that the default newspaper and burger X stands have mirrored writing? I guess I should call them "repapswen" and "X regrub".

It takes a few stun grenades for me, but that might be because I'm a lot less lucky with the throws than you are, and they don't hit the stupid lizards in the face. I'm guessing splash stun is half as effective or so than a direct hit stun, the same way splash damage is less effective than direct damage...? I'm 100% in agreement with you that grenades are awesome at the moment, though. Hopefully that'll be sorted when stray fire is fixed/accuracy on guns is tuned better, and we don't have to see huge nerfs to grenades. I really like having grenadiers as an option.

Okay, the CMP should be up to date: the accepted map pack arctic stuff's the latest version, and the review pack contains the stuff that's not been greenlit but is in Stinky 2.