Waladil

What started as a whim, now becomes a chore Writing these couplets is becoming a bore. Rap's not my forte, truth be told: I joined in as a joke, I felt quite bold. I much prefer prose, it flows more completely Without these imbecilic rhymes... indiscreetly. How about haiku? Count your morae, five-seven-five The classic combo! To be totally honest, that seems quite dumb I'll break from haiku and couplet too: AB-AB can be quite to people's taste. Try to keep up: don't feel all blue Although your very existence is naught but waste. Poetry is so vast and astounding And yet -- so very boring. If I've broken rhyme I can't quite tell If I'm falling behind or forgotten to spell. Shakespeare did it -- his rhymes are atrocious He's the OG -- Of breaking convention. If your ego demands it, you may claim a victory, Yet my attention is elsewhere -- future history. I've got a lot on my mind, a great decision, In ten years there'll be no revision. I've returned to couplets, go figure I guess they do have a certain allure But my concession is sincere, you can win Since I might well leave this planet of sin My mind's not made up, there's such debate Of whether to stay, but I can't be late They're looking for applicants, this is true And there would be a new world, but not blue A red planet, untouched, pristine, but kinda far Waiting and spinning around our same star.

Oh I'm sorry, did you think you're a threat? I'm less scared of you than I am of getting wet. It's worthy to note that swimming to me Comes as easily as talking sh*t to you seems to be. You like to talk about your intellect But as I can so easily recollect, That there's exactly two 'p's in happy -- In case you need reminding, two's before three. Now Gomez don't get me wrong you're a brother, But I don't typically take men as my lovers, So I'll be declining TrashMan's pleasant request, I wont make some gay love at his behest.

Trash, if you're the judge then of course you can't lose, even if you're less skilled than a teenager with booze. You're arrogant, condescending, a class-A prick: Dealing with you makes this whole forum sick! They call you TrashMan? Well that's just great. But Waste Management seems to be running late. Since they've not yet hauled your a** off the curb, I guess I'll have to show you out of this burb. I'd take some more time to give you schooling, But the Russians are calling, some aliens need screwing.

Final battle spoilers ahead! You know the deal, if anything is spoiled for you don't blame me. Not much to spoil though. After ~50 missions, we were an elite squad of Xenonauts. Three people had nearly maxed out stats -- 122 TUs, over 100 acc, 100 strength, upper 90s resiliency... Skilled bunch. We were equipped with the best gear Earth could make for us (which, since the current version lacks Armor Hardening, is not actually the best): Wolf battle armor, mighty MAG weapons, and backed by a Scimitar tank. We were greeted first by a gigantic drone, easily the largest seen: It destroyed the Scimitar with just one shot. Focused fire wore down the beast, though, and we were greeted by three paths. Not wanting to split up in hostile ground, the entire team moved south. Androns greeted us, firing from the darkness. Cnl. Campbell took a cannon round to the chest and became the first human casualty of this push, but five Androns fell in exchange. One of the great alien reactors rested at the far side of this room, the same kind that powered alien bases. As we pondered whether to destroy the reactor, we turned our attention back towards where we came. At that moment, Reapers attacked from the landing pad! Our LZ was overrun! The five of us formed a firing line, dropping Reapers as quickly as we could. Took the snapshots when we could, and pushed them back during the luls in the charge. Two rounds from a MAG rifle, or one from a precision was enough to stop the beasts: We only had so many shots and needed to make each one count. After a score of Reapers were cut down, they started to push closer, clambering over the corpses of their broodmates. Desperately, a plan was hatched to send one man back to destroy the reactor, hopefully taking down the aliens even if it meant our lives. It was then that my vision was suffused by tendrils, and my muscles started to move against my will. Some level of my consciousness remained, but my body was a slave to the aliens. We had dealt with psionic attacks before, causing troops to go beserk and attack friend or foe, but this was far more refined, it was complete control. I saw the looks of horror on my friends' faces as my body turned and ran to the rear of the chamber, guarding the alien reactor. For the briefest of moments, I thought we would have some final revenge on the aliens as Cmdr. Robinson raised his rifle and threw rounds into the reactor... one, two, three shots. No effect. On the last shot of his clip, the reactor was destroyed... I made peace with God, expecting it to explode, hopefully killing me and releasing me from this control. Cmdr. Robinson lowered his rifle, a look of final failure on his face, as the reactor safely deactivated, and Reaper claws burst through his chest, soon followed by Cnl. Gagne's and Cmdr. Thomas'. Cnl. Sokolova was killed more painlessly, by a bolt of plasma from an alien sniper that utterly destroyed his neck. As the Reapers closed in, I hoped I would at least be granted death, even if it was agonizingly painful... but death did not come. I blacked out, darkness enveloped me, and I awoke chained to a hospital bed. Doctors tended to my wounds from the battle, plasma holes and a few tears from Reaper claws, and I learned the fate of the Earth. After we failed, country after country folded to the aliens. No-one was left to handle the escalation of the alien threat, and humanity, bit by bit, surrendered to their new overlords. Humans were taken, tested to the point of breaking and beyond... and our new role in the hegemony was determined. Since we had no great value in combat, nothing that Harridans, Sebilians, or Caesans could do better, we were found to be of great use... as menial labor. The process would begin for me as soon as I was well, and I could see the machines down the hall, processing the new slaves for the Praetors. This is the last will and testament of Cnl. Pavel Kaleshnikov, last of the Xenonauts, last of those who failed. до свидания. Breaking character, I have no idea how to proceed with the mission. I literally killed over 30 Reapers and more were coming. Are we supposed to blow the reactors up or just clear? I can't push against 5 reapers per turn every turn, so is that horde supposed to ever stop? Also Kaleshnikov was marked as "wounded" as opposed to KIA for some reason, probably because he was "just" mind controlled.

Just an image swap sometimes where the MAG rifle gets the MAG carbine's picture. Speaking of pictures, one speaks a thousand words. He's really holding a rifle: http://i.imgur.com/WlpIx7X.jpg I don't know if it happens with other MAGs, I've only got some rifles and precisions so far -- does not happen with the precision MAG. P.S. This is my first mission with MAG weapons -- and I love them so far. Both in terms of game power and flavor. They do feel like gauss rifles, quiet and powerful.

Happening here, too. An improvement over earlier versions where the person's stuff was first stripped off then lost, though!

I've tried to replicated it whenever I can, and it's hard to make it reliably show up. I've only seen it when the dropship is being refueled (not in the air), and sometimes it happens, sometimes not. My troops recently upgraded to plasma tech, and it's happened with those weapons as well. I'll have it occur on one soldier, and it persists until I switch to a different soldier. (So any time I issue that soldier a laser/plasma weapon, they'll receive it with an empty clip but the inventory count will not decrement.) If I switch to another soldier, the bug may or may not show up there. Additionally, if I switch back to the first soldier they may no longer have the bug apply. And this is all without leaving the equip screen.

Sometimes my people will jump, sometimes they wont. I was able to get up on top of a cruiser using Buzzard, but that's about it. Also, you guys know those hedges in farm missions? I had my Scimitar crush a bunch of them (which might be a bug all on it's own), leaving a pitch-black area. Everyone could shoot across it, but only those with Buzzard could move across it, everyone else went around. But yeah it ought to be automatic, it just doesn't happen like it ought to.

After managing to make me some laser guns and being very impressed with their performance, I found that by issuing them to soldiers in the base screen then taking them back ended up generating new weapons entirely: I found this with the scatter laser and the laser rifle. They were issued with empty clips, and when I gave a weapon to a troop the count did not decrement, but it incremented when I took it back. I returned to the geoscape screen, let some time pass, then return to the equip screen: They were then issued with full clips, and no longer created new ones, so bug temporarily resolved. Hypothesis: Something to do with the dropship being refueled after the mission? The bug did not occur when I first issued weapons or when I had a fully fueled dropship, but it did happen shortly after a mission when the dropship may not have been fully fueled. I'll try to replicate it. P.S. Now that laser/plasma weapons have infinite ammo, they should probably auto-refill like other weapons now. EDIT: I just tested again, and it looks like it is because of the dropship still being refueled. It's definitely something that's immediately post-mission. (Note: I tested this after the dropship returned. I'll check what happens if I fiddle pre-return next time.)

I've seen this happen a lot with precision rifles. It usually seems to resolve itself after a few missions. Side note: I wouldn't advise you to have everyone cart a precision rifle. Your game though.

That guy must have taken a leaf out of Bohemia's book. ARMA II has some really good piracy protection that does whacked out things to the players, like making the screen all grainy, or insta-killing you then having your camera follow an eagle for a while.

Started a new game with a fresh install of 18.3HF2, ordered 5 new scientists, managed inventories, then 2 light scouts appeared at similar times, shot both down, did consecutive missions at them (no return to base straight from one to the other). One soldier wounded in the first mission, killed in second, another soldier wounded in second. 10 day recovery time. Shortly after, Alien Invasion was researched and I re-assigned the scientists to Hunter. A few days later, the game crashed to desktop, at around the time the new scientists ought to have arrived. Although it could have been some alien activity that caused it. Save was corrupted, can't be loaded, and it dates from around the second ground combat mission, presumably immediately after. (Sept. 1, 13:36)

Okay, simple and minor change, just requesting a changelog to be included with the actual downloads, whether it be Desura, Dropbox, or Steam. Or wherever else may be added. Why? Two reasons: Manual validation of version, by checking the offline changelog you get confirmation on the version you have for certain. I just did a full download, and Desura told me I was downloading 1.8.3.1: Does that mean 1.8.3 hotfix 1 or is that just an odd bit of nomenclature? (It doesn't matter in this case because there's hotfix 2 out which includes hotfix 1, but that's specific to this scenario.) Also, it helps get the patch notes to those who have unstable internet connections, or even those who just download off of Desura (+future Steam) but don't hang around the forums. Also also the forums have been known to be unstable, I've gotten quite a few error 500s trying to open threads. Probably also include a "changelog" button in the launcher that'd open the log. EDIT: I just noticed the version info in the launcher, so you don't need it for manual version checking. But still for getting change data without heading to the forums it'd be nice.

I've seen alien ships fly around and randomly land for no apparent reason: Perhaps its "cause terror" even though they weren't doing terror sites, but the mini-attack events. I was once able to attack a landed landing ship without having to fight it in the sky. What'd be really nice on the "overkill" option Erutan referenced would be if it was rigged so a smart player could game the system by overkilling it by the right amount: A craft just barely shot down will mostly/always be "lightly damaged," and so will have a near-full complement of troops (and good loot). Overkill a good bit and you've got severe damage, less crew and less loot. Overkill a lot (hit a light scout with a plasma torpedo, maybe), and the ship is destroyed outright -- netting just a few alien alloys from scavenging the debris, maybe a weapon that managed to survive the crash. Also add those minor drops for fighting fighters, not a lot but a couple alien alloys representing the scavenged debris. Frugal alien hunters are smart alien hunters! Side note on general air balance: To be honest, I think the human missile detonation range needs to be looked at. A lot of times we take out fighters even though by rights the enemy fighter ought to have rolled away: Fixing that would mean battles become a lot less "auto-win" when there's actually a notable chance for your instakill attack to miss. It would also add the skill element of manually judging when it's right to launch. Also give the light scouts rolls as people have mentioned.

And I bet that cop's gonna take all the credit, too. Completely neglecting to mention the 7.62x51mm-caused hole in the Caesan's gut, that little peashooter is totally what killed him.

What if, and I'm just throwing this out there, you tuned almost ALL stat growth via missions (except probably Bravery) down nearly to zero, but added a "free time" choice for each soldier that defines what they do between combat ops. So stats would be a function of how long they've worked for you more than how much you've had them do in missions, which addresses your point about "it's a logical fail that a soldier can spend 20 minutes jogging around a combat zone and come back looking like Muscles Manmountain, but is incapable of gaining strength in any other way, it's not good for the game." So you could choose between say, Range Time (accuracy), Weight Training (strength), Obstacle Course (TUs), Speed-Shooting (reflexes), and Being Savagely Beaten By Base Personnel (resiliency). Then tune the rate of stat growth to how you want it to look, perhaps a point every 24 hours. Since this would probably dramatically slow stat growth, I'd also recommend putting a +2 gain to all stats attached to promotions, representing the effects of added combat expertise.

During a terror mission I had one of my soldiers pick up an alien grenade, mostly for laughs. I wanted to see if it worked. As soon as I right-clicked on the grenade icon to select it, the game crashed. My ironman save is now corrupted so I guess I gotta start over, sadface. When I try to load it the game crashes more. Someone else reported a similar crash with an AK-47 (didn't make a full thread, its in one of the multi-bug threads), so it's probably a same or similar problem. No tile for using that item perhaps, or incomplete weapon numbers? EDIT: This is 18.3 hotfix 1. Meant to mention. I'm fiddling with the .xml files, since it might just be an easy fix. If I were to fix it in my bumbling about, would my save be revived? Because that's the litmus test I've been using.

Was the defrosted alien a Reaper zombie? Because they'll spawn into regular Reapers even if they're stunned, and the Reaper will be fully active. Scared the heck outta me once.

BTW, the final battle works, too. I started a new game and immediately embarked on the final battle with nothing but my starting troops. We got one hit on a large drone before the TPW.

If you don't want to use an .xml mod that is for an older version, you could also manually lower each reactionModifier in the weapons_gc.xml file. I lowered them in an earlier game to very low settings, with pistols/shotguns having their values reduced by 1 (to 0.8 and 0.4 respectively), and rifles/precision rifles to 0.1, possibly 0.5 on the rifles. Doing that pretty much removed reaction shots from the game, although they still happened on occasion. So probably don't drop them THAT low.

All Xenonaut soldier sight ranges stay the same, and there are no (known) changes to aliens stat/sight ranges, I checked that just now. So its just the tank LOS nerf.

Hopefully I'm not gonna get in super-huge trouble for this, but I've gotten 18.3 from a guessed dropbox URL (don't want to share it, but you can try guessing it yourself!), and I've been going through the XML files and wanted to note some changes I've noticed. ***POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD, READ AT PERIL!!!*** I'm writing this as I write the first spoiler-y, hidden game mechanic-y part. So if you don't like that stuff, wait for official notes. Probably will be here soon anyway. The bug when items disappear when you get the upgraded version seems to have been fixed. The code uses a replace function now rather than a function that adds a new item type and disables the old item type, so frag grenades should be replaced by alenium and such. You don't have to manually re-issue the new tech, in short. The ticker STARTS at a higher point (5000 rather than 4000), but has a lower base advance speed. Also, UFO missions generate more ticker points now. They're also more likely to generate events such as abductions and minor attacks. In short the aliens are more aggressive, but a skilled player can better keep them slowed down. The marauder's price was fixed (now 750k, down from the original 7.5m. Not a balance change, just a typo). Armor rebalancing: Jackal got +10 incendiary Wolf got +15 incendiary Buzzard got +15 kinetic, +17 energy, + 10 chemical, and + 25 incendiary. Buzzard armor is now more protective than Jackal across all cases, but less protective than Wolf. Before it was marginally better than basic armor, and was actually worse than basic v. chemical and incendiary. Predator got +25 energy. It is now better protected than the Hunter or the Scimitar v. energy damage. Sentinel got +15 energy. All tanks had their vision range REDUCED to 18, from 20 (22 in the Hyperion's case) Minor typo fixed in the Xenopedia (I'm embarrassed to note that fixing this typo probably took less time than it took me to find the change. I'm only noting it here so I don't feel bad about wasting that time.) Jump pack AP cost reduced: Moving vertically now only costs 2 AP, down from 6. And that's all I got before, quite frankly, I got bored. There's a whole lotta files and my method for finding changes was really inefficient. Need some automation up in this place.

Hmm... What about this for a way to make both sides happy, just an idea I'd like to throw out there. 1.) Dramatically increase the costs of all ammo manufacturing, by like a factor of 10. 2.) Also make it so you have to manufacture upgraded explosives, both on the ground and in the air. Also medikits. 3.) Items are not "spent" after missions (even if they're used in-mission). Ditto air weapons. So all thrown grenades, fired bullets, launched missiles, etc, are replaced free. So you'd still have to spend time and resources manufacturing ammunition, but it wouldn't become a constant drain. Pros: Easy to understand, essentially infinite ammo, although you'd have to manufacture each clip for increased ammo carry capacity Cons: Lore explanation shaky (The best explanation is that manufacturing each one comes with a "sufficient" number of replacements manufactured at the same time.)

I'm going to guess that means "no." But now I've provided the hint that it CAN be done. I'll even give you guys a hint! The URL is NOT <EDIT>. (Ha. I bet you clicked it, possibly expecting a rickroll. Man, rickrolling people so went out of style.)

I managed to brute-force guess the Dropbox URL. Would I get in trouble for posting it?