thixotrop

Now that is a cliffhanger here, Chris. Damn you.

Two years of waiting... And "reading the forums on a regular basis"... Wow, I admire your strength. As I was so dissappointed by the "arcade-style" Firaxis version, next to the two-month-game-stopping bugs , and the lack of strategic depth, I was desperately looking for a real UFO:Enemy unknown game. Honestly it (Firaxis version) should not have been named XCOM. Found it, read the Devs intentions and viewed some gameplay videos, and I was hooked. Instantly purchsed it. And in general I am more a "late follower" than an "early bird" customer. And even not finalized up to now I have drowned up to 4-5 times hours into Xenonauts than into the other.

Really? It was on V20, I think. The first guy in my picture that entered the room is killed nearly instantly by reaction fire of one Andron. The second guy too, the dead soldier sprites are over each other on the teleporter platform, so it isn't visible. Soldier 3, 4 and 5 went up, got reaction fired and two got hurt, but managed to kill one Andron (the one dead next to the low wall and behind the crouched soldier). They turned and had no TU left to go down or fire further. In alien turn they were gunned down. As there were "only" three Androns at the left side of the ufo, some of the soldiers could survive until the aliens turn. But no further. Even with more soldiers up in my round they die, because then the other Androns turn and fire. With this tactic I could kill the Androns, but would lose 2-3 soldiers per round, so no! Abandoning the ground combat was the only possible thing. With my current game still on V21 I haven't seen this "conundrum" again. And as I am shortly before operation endgame I doubt to see it again. However I haven't played for some time now, due to no time. And I will finish my V21 game before I update to final release.

Landed or crashed UFOs: 2 sniper, 1-2 heavy (depend on UFO size), 1 rocketeer (the only weapon that survived from the beginning), 1 shield/pistol and rest filled with rifles and carbine. More carbine with large UFO. Everybody has grenades. Early game: more smoke, flashbang and stun. Androns appear: most stun replaced by electroshock. All rifles and sniper have also medikit. All carbines have also stun batton. All rifles have also C4 (unless they are fresh and have less TU). Alien base: Only 1 sniper and more carbine than rifles. Rest the same. Early game: Other soldiers carry additional rockets for rocketeer. Terror mission: As for landed UFOs, but maybe a third sniper. Less carbines, more rifles. In V19 and V20 I have build some hunters for terror missions but they were made out of wet cardboard and were destroyed nearly instantly. Exploded on shots that a soldier in Jackal or Wolf armor would survive unwounded. Now with V21 I have build a hover tank with mag gun...exploded on first terror mission from a single hit of an Andron fired battle rifle. Yeah, nothing has changed. Cardboard in a different colour. Will never build them again. Waste of money, alloys, production time and room in transport. Never use two shields due to lack of firepower, although the shield guy gets very accurate with the pistol.

I will try that with a new game that I will bring to laser at least, as I don't know any cheat mods. An idea that spawned while I was reading your answer: Is it possible to implement something like a smoke trace effect that lingers along the beam length and vanishes slowly after it, so you know that something happend? That or an after-glow effect, that lingers and vanishes slowly. I know that moves away from "real laser" but you know, SFX. However it is your mod, I don't want to press you to anything.

I also agree with Dirk Ralthar. Although when coming to medals that give +1 Bravery and +1 Something, that something has to be programmed/calculated in someway. Example: Unconscious at the end of ground combat or revived in the field by a comrade ==> Top tier "Surviving-a-nearly-lethal-wound"-Medal...whatever it will be. Giving +1 Bravery and +2 HP. Having a bleeding during combat and surviving ground combat ==> Second tier of that medal. Giving +1 Bravery and/or +1 HP. The first time wounded (not bleeding) during ground combat ==> Lower tier of that medal. Giving +1 Bravery only. This medal will be given only once. I guess such things can be done for different ground combat events; fighting with carbine/pistol, sniper, using battons, grenades, shields (hm dunno?), rescueing civillians of imminent danger and so on

I have now played some time with this mod and I am so loving it. All the other weapons seems so sloooow now. But actually in some directions you can barely see the laser beams. Maybe this is because the beams are too fast? Or ist it my system? I am no programmer myself so I don't know how to change and test any modifications and furthermore I don't have a savegame with ground combat and laser anymore. So I can't test that and I don't know how to do that otherwise.

In regular case when your dropship and an UFO cross pathes nothing will happen. Unless it is a fighter UFO and this will definitely fight you. If you have targetted a non-fighter UFO with your dropship and they meet in the air your dropship will be shot downand your soldiers lost or injured as the dropship can't fight. My guess is that the UFO landed again a fraction of a second before they meet in air.

Happened to me more than one time. But I think it is no epic moment, rather an oh-shit moment. Mine was just recently. Group of soliders try to enter a battle ship or so, the one with the two transporter platforms right and left of main entrance. No alien anywhere. Alien turn. One of my soldiers becomes mind controlled and empties carbine into another. My round, all soldiers move through transporter. The bleeding one has to heal and moves away before that, weapon back in hand. Next alien turn. The just healed soldier becomes mind controlled and fires to the formerly MCed. Damn. Now this one is bleeding. Moves away, heal, carbibne back in hand. Next alien turn. Guess what? The just healed soldier is MCed again and kills the other guy with ...sigh. Now this teached me to move further away and/or don't leave a weapon in the hand of soldiers who seem the preferred target for MC.

1) Soldier sprite vanishes with Buzzard and (new to me) Sentinel armor when landing. I don't know what is triggering it. With Buzzard it is very repetitive, roughly 2 out of 3. With Sentinel only 1/10. 2) Sentinel armor can go through roofs of desert house. The selected soldier (green air-tile above roof) entered the house from there. 3) Is it intended that Predator armor can't use stairs? Or is this some special of this custom map (Skitso or Stinky)? Sentinel armor can use these stairs. If Predator armor is used in such a ground combat and there is no passage somewhere (north in here), these soldiers would be useless. Unless you destroy the pipeline, which I did, despite the fear of explosion/fire/black stuff coming out.

1) Agree 2) Haven't seen, but something that might be connected to it: My sniper on a roof with small walls around the edges. Other soldiers see some targets. Sniper cant target them because the alien is too close to the building and walls block line line LOS. Next turn, that alien moved one tile closer to the building and shot my sniper on the roof. This happend some more turns, despite my sniper could not target them. Lost the sniper due to that. So either LOS-issue or alien-can-see-thru-walls-issue. 3) Agree, had also much more tile removed due to some explosion form below. 4) Agree, some objects seem to be quite problematic from elevated places. Had the same with a mailbox and a trashcan. 5) Agree. And drones get stuck in them and if container is destroyed the rubble is displayed above the soldier (see here).

Although playing only [V21 steam] where the values sometimes be at 99 or 101 and I haven't seen this, did you see that the green slider changes its left startpoint when TUs are spent? To be more clear: In that image the left end of the green is "more left" than red and blue. When the soldier walks and the green is decrasing from the right side, this left end position makes slight right-left motions. I don't know if this is related to the value calculation in some way and might help finding the error. If not, forget it. And then there is nothing to fix, cause it is only a tiny tiny bug.

1. LoS / corner shooting (AND throwing) and visibility problems 2. Anti-psi power measurements (training or device to shrink effect/occasion but not total avoidance) 3. A real control/planing feature of finances (as mentioned here) Note: All based on V21 experience.

This looks awesome! Really really great!! I hope this will be possible to use in the final version. If it would be a proper laser, you would not see it without particles in the air...but hey: "This is SciFi!!!" Seeing all you modders and mappers here, thank you. Although your input to the game may be small - not that it is small work, no no - but I think you add a lot of spice to the game immersion. Just recently used the mod "blood", only a small add-on but a huge impact.

I guess this is the same issue I have posted here in the mapping. Others said that these kind of errors happen a lot. Hope the devs know about it too. Although not a programmer myself, I think the unit (friendly or alien) that moves partly into an object can not go out again due to collision calculation that went wrong. The drone in my post was mobile at first and then stuck in a container. And furthermore on a terror mission a heavy drone stuck inside a building and could move/fire again as a rocket missed it and destroyed the walls of the building.

After finally having a mission with a Praetor that was alive after a crash, two Praetor research topics appeared. Is this a bug, are two topics intended or is one topic gone as soon as I have finished one of them? And then have to look for a new Praetor?

Mine (here) ended eventually with a shameful retreat. Don't want to talk about it anymore.

With a portrait? So they dud actually take a portrait photo and turned it into a drawn image. Wow. I know, but I have never seen that guy so far. If it is that way, I am ok with it. Kinda nice I guess.

Independent of the post... ...but just out of curiosity: Who is Brett Cronin? I have had this guy (top of the list here) already three times, the very name with exactly the same portrait. I thought names and faces are random, maybe this one is a "famous" person that I lack to know which is programmed into the game?

Please note that the invasion can start only after reception and agreement of your completely filled forms. We will answer your request within the next six weeks. Please don't call us, we will certainly call you. Thank you for your patience. Very frightfull to imagine that there would be some prepared forms for invasion. Reminds me so on "Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy"

The game would be very differnt if it was such realistic bureaucracy. Imagine the sequel will be after the alien invasion is successful: "Bureaucrazynauts" You have to drag down the aliens by doing paper work in such a manner that your alien supervisor becomes more and more unnerved: Get threefold subsciptions, missing folders, search for cross references, over-hours discussion, stretched coffee breaks and the constant demand for more trainees to help you and in general nothing gets done properly... That is revenge human psi powers here! Not strong and fit soldiers, not fancy technology or powerful weapons will drive the aliens away. No at all; tedious boring paper work will do the job. *cough-hope-that-wil-not-be-the-next-game-cough*

None of my soldiers died because of explosion, they were shot, the body clearly visible on the ground. When another soldier stepped onto the tile of the dead soldier, the corpse and all of the dropped equipment were there. So even if the armor was smashed the equipment is available. This reminds me of something: How do you know when a dropped solider is able to revive/bring to consciousness again? I mean, sometimes you can go next to the soldier and use the medikit. The body is displayed green when the cursor is over it and green healing numbers appear. Sometimes the soldier will stand next turn, sometimes not and he will be in hospital later. If the healing cursor does not turn green the soldier is dead. The tile will show the soldier corpse.

I don't know if this was discussed for an experimental build or for [V21 stable steam], because that is my concern now. When soldiers die during ground combat, the armor and the weapons are lost. Actually happened with Wolf armor, Buzzard armor, Precision Laser and Laser Rifle. In a succesfull terror mission 4 soldiers died and their equipment gone. Even if they die that should be salvaged from battlefield. Sorry if this is fixed already or mentioned somewhere else.

I have seen that in V19 only, and they did not pick up their weapons again. Since then, no.

I have to admit that my last posting sounds a bit...grumpy. Sorry for that. I also think it is quite valid to meet a game situation that is not possible to win with established tactics or even with changed tactics. So then you have to retreat, which I did in that case eventually, and come back another day with changed armor, weapons and better soldiers. Accepted. My only thought was on the balancing, the triggering of alien action and the drastically changed behaviour of the Androns (hope no one tells them). Maybe I should "hope" to find another situation similar to this when my side is stronger. Let's see what are the odds then. And thanks for not flaming me down due to my bit of overreacting.