lightgemini

Many times people complained about the enemy having superior guns or planes, and something needed to be done quickly. Later to be found that they actually had the superior guns/planes not the enemy.

Im a bit late to make a proposal for an accuracy revision since it has made into the beta, but Im posting the settings I have been developing this days as its a bit different from what theres is in last beta. First I will explain what means the diferent aim levels for this settings. Know that I have been thinking in this to be "balanced" for both noob and veteran soldiers. S1 --- This represents a quick reaction shot, were theres little to no care in aiming. Typical of going around a corner and finding a reaper or a plasma rifle pointing at you colse quarters with no time to aim properly and retreat. S2 -- This is an average shot, were care for aiming is taken but not too much time is spent in it. This is the kind of aiming a soldier does when trying to fire more than 1 shot in the same turn to the same or multiple targets. This is also the main aim level for veterans who have high accu. skill and can get reliable hits with this level and fire 2 or 3 shots in the same turn. S3 -- This is the most accurate aim level, were the soldier is using all the time he needs to adjust the sight, lead aim and wait for the perfect moment to fire with the highest accuracy possible. Its easily the main aim level for noobs who will score reliable but are too inexperienced to shoot effectively in the S2 level. Its very time consuming and is meant to be used by a crouched soldier already in fire position. Burst -- this is not taken as just a spray&pray mode, but a serious attempt to be accurate while shooting in auto mode, compensating the guns recoil and leading aim as best as possible. Its not as accurate as a single controled shot but its not a fire "blind" mode. This is to be taken as a serious alternative to normal aim levels. Although in ballistics its not very effective in energy weapons that have little to no recoil this mode is king. Laser weps are the best example of this as are a point and shoot guns with nothing deviating the shot such as gravity or wind, and have no recoil that needs compensating in burst fire mode. The TUs usage in the aim levels is not always lineal. This hopefully encourages using the right aim for the right job rather using the best aim your TUs can buy at a given moment. While firing an S3 to a target in the open to ensure a "fail proof" shot can be a good decision, using that S3 shot in a target behind cover or behind smoke could not be worth the cost in TUs for the hit % you get. Now the wep stats. Ballistic. [table=width: 500, class: grid, align: center] [tr] [td]Rifle[/td] [td]Aim levels[/td] [td]Hit % 60skill[/td] [td]Hit % 60skill,crouch[/td] [td]Hit % 80skill[/td] [td]Hit % 80skill,crouched[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]S1[/td] [td] Ap=20 Accu=40[/td] [td]24[/td] [td]28[/td] [td]32[/td] [td]36[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]S2[/td] [td] Ap=30 Accu=80[/td] [td]48[/td] [td]57[/td] [td]64[/td] [td]72[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]S3[/td] [td] Ap=50 Accu=110[/td] [td]66[/td] [td]79[/td] [td]88[/td] [td]95[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Burst[/td] [td] Ap=40 Accu=30[/td] [td]18[/td] [td]21[/td] [td]24[/td] [td]27[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [/table] [table=width: 500, class: grid, align: center] [tr] [td]Sniper[/td] [td]Aim levels[/td] [td]Hit % 60skill[/td] [td]Hit % 60skill,crouch[/td] [td]Hit % 80skill[/td] [td]Hit % 80skill,crouched[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]S1[/td] [td] Ap=20 Accu=40[/td] [td]24[/td] [td]28[/td] [td]32[/td] [td]36[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]S2[/td] [td] Ap=40 Accu=90[/td] [td]54[/td] [td]64[/td] [td]72[/td] [td]81[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]S3[/td] [td] Ap=60 Accu=150[/td] [td]90[/td] [td]95[/td] [td]95[/td] [td]95[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [/table] Note: S2 is not great at all for a sniper to discourage it replacing rifles. It either is used to snipe or like a rifle, but its not going to perform much better at it. [table=width: 500, class: grid, align: center] [tr] [td]Rockets[/td] [td]Aim levels[/td] [td]Hit % 60skill[/td] [td]Hit % 60skill,crouch[/td] [td]Hit % 80skill[/td] [td]Hit % 80skill,crouched[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]S1[/td] [td] Ap=30 Accu=70[/td] [td]42[/td] [td]49[/td] [td]56[/td] [td]63[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]S2[/td] [td] Ap=40 Accu=110[/td] [td]66[/td] [td]77[/td] [td]88[/td] [td]95[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [/table] Note: Range=15. At shorter range it has decent accu, but at rifle range accu drops like a stone. This somewhat replicates real hit % of a RPG-7 of the cold war were hit % droped greatly beyond 150m wich is more than half the range a rifle firefight could usually take place when not using scopes. Its taking ages to post this so im taking a break before posting Laser and Plasma tables. Anyone thinks all this makes sense?

Great news!! 2 big fixes in one update = pure win! Air combat loop and low accuracy were some main sources of frustation that are now gone! Good job

The AI is suposed to be moddable, but its still WIP and you cant change nothing about it yet. When its more finished we may see if that engagement range and many other things can be changed to fit long range or whatever setting modders can come up with. Note: If I remeber correctly, on a quick coment when talking about a bug, the AI dev. stated that 25 was an arbitrary range set to engage that he was using for his testings. It would be logical for this value to be moddable, hopefully in a "per unit" basis since different weapons could use diferent engagement ranges. A caesan with a pistol may not want to shoot at 20 tiles away, but a sniper or plasma cannon alien would be more than happy to do so.

You get +15 for each tile closer than 5. If target is: 5 tiles away = +15 4 tiles away = +30 3 tiles away = +45 2 tiles away = +60 1 tile away = +75 Beware breaching an UFO and ending turn close to an alien!

Got the same problem and found the problem. I exit the game and use xenonauts_GC_editor to start it again, then load the save and open the debug prgram.The debug shows a little map showing 1 alien is Inside a wall at their spawn, stuck there and invisible to my xenonauts. Using the debug I move the alien to a place infront of a xenonaut, then empty its TUs to 0. I kill the bugger and mission ends

My update got updated because I left some autofire unbuffed. Redownload again and get the fixed file. Then start to eat some fiery plasma death lol.

Well I will put some reports after playing some important fights with high accu. Got first terror mission against androns+drones, and a base defense against caesans. High accu made this fights awesome, I won both fights but I had to work my &&& to achieve it, not just use standar cheesy tactics, and losses were high as bad tactical decisions were punished with fiery plasma death. Same can be said for the aliens. Here is a quick log of the evolution of the terror mission: Battle of Karthoum. Team of 8 with 2 LMGs, 1 shield+pistol and the rest rifles with medpacks and some nades. Vs Team of 17 Andron guards and lightdrones. -Due to laziness and wanting to skip past UFO scouts, I entered battle with no rockets or snipers.Even the Squad leader with the C4 was in the hospital. No laser weps either, only ballistics. -Turn1 2 androns+1 drone guard the chinook exit. With no rockets at hand team fails to clear the ramp and duck inside covered by the shield guy. Side guys rush out to cover. -Aliens shoot the crap out of chinook interior. Half team supressed and shield guy killed. -Team clears the ramp area and deploy around chinook. Androns march towards them shooting. -In the shooting the cover around the chinook gets destroyed.Many wounded. Guys at front retreat inside the chinook.Androns keep marching forward and start to cross the street. -Since it takes too many hits to kill the androns and theres no solid defense in place, I fear this will end in full team wipe out "Drang Valley" style. The team evacuates the chinook and run for their lives to the building at their left. 2 guys trail behind the main group. -Androns are at the chinook. Team in cover in the left building covers the last 2 guys rush trough the street. The team then retreats to the left border behind the building and ducks in there. -Androns marches towards left building. Some xenonauts cross the street towards the bus station/bank and get in cover. -Androns engage and kill the guys at the bus station/bank. Firefight continues and Androns get killed together with more xenonauts. -Team get to the bus station/bank. Some guys need to take ammo from the fallen.More androns appear. Following firefight ends with more guys killed. Kseniya Kirova has a "hero of the day" moment, killing 2 androns at close quarters with the last one getting killed with a snapshot of 21% that hits. -The last guys left clear the last Andron that seems to be panicked and doesnt move from were it is. Final Victory---- 3 guys remaining with wounds that will take time to heal. 17 Aliens killed.

Im up to lowering aliens health if it is balanced with armour, so higher alien tiers make lower weapons tier quite less effective/useful. So you could have a Caesan soldier with 50-60hp but 40-50 armour.If armour degradation does work lesser weapons would still kill him but need a lot more effort than a more powerful weapon. Also it opens the door to "super units" that have too much armour to be hurt and needs lots of hits to degrade armour or the use of a weapon specialised in AP. Now that I remember it, when stats were flatened to begin balancing, the armour value was aded to the hp of the unit so it was lower health on previous builds.

The idea of "losing few soldiers" is just a balance that can be easily adjusted to fit high accuracy, massive loses or both. What really matters INMHO right now is if high % to hit makes the game too hard/painful. Not talking you firing at aliens, more like aliens firing at you. Theres also the point of what will happen when noobs get to veteran status with over 80 accu skill. Will a 95% to hit party unbalance things too much? How you balance that while letting noobs have a decent (around 70%) accuracy? Since in Original XCOM there was no cover system, accuracy needed to be rather low or face impossible odds early game because almost all time the units were in the open.The high lethaly came from the fact that aliens did 1 hit you like crazy even with the first armour you got. Had they also used high accu then your team would get wiped out in 2 turns. Xenonauts has a cover system that works really well even with 73% to hit, so it can naturally adapt better to high accu. What seems to happen is that people expect cover to work , wich does, and being out of cover be lethal wich doesnt happen with vanilla accuracy. Im thinking a setting to balance high accu, but I need more time to test and post a 20m high text wall lol.

I always rename all my Foxtrots to Firefox. It reminds me of that movie with Clint Eastwood.

This was tried/tested many times before, I myself made a mod for it. Many find this cool, some dont care much. Using a range of 60 you will encounter some problems though. - For start the aliens seem to have a range of engagement around 24-25 tiles. They will not fire at something beyond that, wich gives advantage to the player who may still try, so thats half the sight range being "wasted" for the aliens ( If you are incresing aliens sight too) -Weapons range get quickly too short for so much terrain being spoted, and simply increasing its range makes the long sight more redundant. Its like playing vanilla but "big". More control of fine tuning accuracy/damage decrease past weps range is needed to better use the long sight and balance it, so actual distance to target really does matter for hitting % and 60 tiles of sight gives plenty of room to play with it. -Theres a limit in map size of 128x128. Thats ok for a range of 60 but many maps under it (scouts,corvettes,cruisers...) will get a bit small. Being able to see the entire map seems good, but having some FOW to explore is also good and helps the aliens a bit (who still need all the help they can get). So you need to resize all the maps to be that big. I tried many ranges and finally settled for 30 as a good/balanced range. Thats for vanilla maps and settings. For a range of 60 you really need new maps made with long range in mind to unlock all the potential. Imagine a big 128x128 map that have the player start in a farmfield, and he has to advance towards a small town were the ufo crashed. With garrisoned aliens shooting the xenonauts as they move in and assault house by house. Wouldnt it be awesome?. Vanilla maps are too small for that.

Posted new link to a new updated file that fixes some burst fire missing its accuracy buff. Use the link in the post above to download it again. Guess you cant avoid leaving something behind when going fast.

I have seen this problem before. Im sure its not caused by this files, and its the UI failing due to some bug. It goes away and fixes itself but not sure how exactly you do it.

Not to be redundant but just in case any one that complains about accuracy may have missed this thread: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/6554-Higher-weapon-accuracy-test The ball for accuracy rebalance is on the field, give some help with feedback so real changes can happen. Thank you. Note: Update for beta 19.5 is on last page.

Please can all the people complaining about accuracy (me too) move to the accuracy test thread, download my update for 19.5 and play? If we could nail down the perfect amount of accuracy for each weapon we may make the devs reconsider the whole thing.

I dont know if Aaron will have an update for 19.5, but just in case im posting a 19.5 update for this test. https://www.dropbox.com/s/e7stb1hl77gjtp3/weapons_gc.xml Only weapons_gc.xml needed editing. All accuracy settigns remain the same, but I took the liberty of adding a bit more to it. Changelog or "what is not the same": -All Laser and plasma weapons have the new accuracy too. Its the same as balistics. -Carabine uses the accuracy of the shotgun. -Alien drones use the new accuracy too.(they were left behind before) Light and Medium had the stats of a Machinegun, so they get the same buff as that weapon. Heavy drone had S1=30 / S2=60 , now have 40 / 90. - The speed of the shots are faster as this is how I was using it. Couldnt get to set it to vanilla speeds for now, but will post a new edit with vanilla speeds if it bothers people. The speed has no effect at all in anything, its only visual. So you can continue testing new accuracys with last beta, and keep testing till plasma weapons. So you should be getting in pretty big battles with the new settings wre it will better show if its overkill or good, since testing it on puny NC with pistols against MGs and Snipers doesnt show the big picture. Note: This update is only a placeholder untill a new official update shows up. ***New update that fixes missing burst fire buffs to accuracy.****

Hi. THough having a dedicated place to discuss autoresolve feature would be helpfull. My first early impressions on autoresolve are the following: -It works nice so far. Got just to the first scouts (not the small ones). -Planes seem to take a bit too much damage. Engaging light scouts with 2 condors consistently gives a victory with 19-26% health on both condors. I like autoresolve giving worse results than the ones a player can have doing it manually, to encourage playing on manual, but this is too much worse. A player can win the combat with around 80% health in 1 or 2 condors, or no damage at all if good. 26% health on autoresolve is too much punishment, having around 50% health remaining will be better as it doesnt make you lose so many intercept chances because of repairs. As I almost skipped 19.4 entirely Im finding UFOs to be tougher than usual so I need to play more on manual to be able to give better feedback about autoresolve.

Nice list of updates. This is looking better and better. Thank you

You can have the 2 xml files here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/62mgl4m5n6wmw0k/No%20more%20Pew%20Pew%20-Xenonauts-.zip Config.xml has the close range bonus and maybe some other changes I didnt notice.

GREAT NEWS!! Kerbal Space Program 0.21 IS OUT NOW! Go get the update fast cause its freaking awsome!!!

Thinking of it better it makes sense, as an uncontroled reaper infestation can be a nightmare to control even for their masters. So its not a zombie like apocalipsis but having several hundred of them roaming randomly the country is still something you cant let it happen though. The level of terror and chaos it can make on the population is quite high, wich means absolute success in the aliens terror mission.

mmmmh, I dont think you really want to do that. It could be Hadleys Hope all over again, and unless you have a xenonaut called Ripley you will be screwed. You can try yourself. Open "ufo contents" folder, and edit the ships you want changing the reapers entry into "defense". They should hulk inside the ufo then.

Few points for the OP. -They made no effort to make contact. -They fired first. -They didnt try to say sorry after firing first. -They got nuked out of the sky as response, wich certainly didnt make them happy. -They were defeated in the battle for the downed UFO, were they didnt show any sign of thinking about surrendering. -They come back with a fleet of 3000 ships. WHat you think they will do? At that point doesnt matter if they fired first or though they were using self-defence. Getting inveaded and possibly exterminated is what clearly is going to happen. And since they continue to avoid comunicating with anyone theres no other option to be considered. Only hope to force withdraw of the alien fleet is to give them the idea that war with earth is going to be costly, hopely too costly to care. That means absolute determination to make the maximun damage possible to anything alien. As for the nukes, theres no real choice other to nuke the area. Really. If the army fails, xenonauts fail, then the city is lost and left to the aliens will. Theres nothing to stop them from landing further ships and increase the terror activity. And the Reapers. They work like a virus infection or a zombie outbreak. Once you lose control of the city, nothuing stops them from growing exponentially with only the availability of victims limting them. If the siege arond the city gets broken by a wave of hundreds of reapers, then they scatter around the countryside infecting more people and being impossible to hunt them all. After that you can be certain your whole country will fall in a matter of months, wih no army or xenonauts avoiding it. In fact sveral succesful reaper outbreaks on diferent citys around the world could grow to the point of losing the entire planet in a year or two. They are by far the BIGGEST threat to humanity. The aliens could need no more effort other than sitting down and watching the entire planet be engulfed in reaper fury. With that picture in mind, no amount of civilian casualties matters, as they can be classified as lost to the aliens if those reapers are left alone. Nuking the place in time is the only way to be sure when all else fails.

After they fixed AI GOD mode everything turned quite more easy. Except medium to large alien bases. Theres serious madness going on in there, to the point I still dont have a clear tactic/solution that doesnt end with half team dead. I do miss the all seeing aliens with unlimited reaction fire, really, it made for some epic challenging missions. Now im just not very motivated to play the game in its current AI status.