Wrath_IX

So I was looking through the assets and I saw something that got my attention that I have been meaning to ask about the file terrapin.png located in the assets/vehicles/dropshipicons folder That looks kinda like some kind of powered armor suit. is that file actually used? cause It looks to me like an unfinished asset component. With that in mind where there any other art assets that the dev team toyed with and did not implement? perhaps sprite/spectre files for whatever was supposed to use that Terrapin.png asset? perhaps the long lost "Archangel vehicle assets? If there are additional assets like that would the dev team be willing to make those available so us modders can play with them?

also as far as sizing goes; for best in game fit and no distortion each inventory square represents 103 pixels for x and y so if you size your images and canvas with that in mind then what the item looks like in your file will accurately be reflected in game without stretching or shrinking. so a standard pistol for example is 309-310 pixels on the x axis and 205-206 pixels on the Y axis. so if you wanted to make pistols a 2x2 instead of 3x2 item you could shrink the canvas (not the image) to 205-206 pixels on the x axis and leave the y axis as is. it takes a bit of playing around but you can make it work pretty easy

Ok, So I have completed laser weapons and Mag weapon. however Plasma are a little more tricky since their designs have a less unified design and thus are not nearly as interchangeable. Here are the assets https://www.dropbox.com/sh/c7pp1exwkzixm5x/AADJO2Dv6Zd_7U641jWBOHa_a I have been working off and on on plasma weapon parts but I feel those are not going to be able to do as so modular

So I have been poking around for a while now with the game back since early access and one of the things that bugged me was that it was difficult to make non-ballistic custom weapons that did not look completely out of place with the art style of the existing weapons. So to solve that problem I went all chop shop on the art assets and created a tool box of partial weapon components for many of the weapon types so you can use art programs Paint.net (google it.. it is free) to recombine them into new weapons art assets to look like they fit with the games existing art assets If anyone is interested in this let me know and I will post it up for you to play with here is a quick sample for you to check out That is a custom asset for say a Mag Sub machine gun There are some kinks in the assets such as a gap in some of the overlays but with a little work you can fill it in very easily

on the 70-80's I thin you meant 45 degrees off center (90 degree firing arc) cause 90 degrees off center would be 180 degree firing arc. even a 5-10 degree increase in missile firing arc would be nice, Also I have a complaint about the avalanche missiles they are obviously modeled after the aim 54 Phoenix missile. even if there is a change for higher yield ordinance the Phoenix has a operational range somewhere between 80-100 nautical Miles. so in game terms their range should be 150-200% of what it is in V19

that is true and I personally really enjoy a challenge. my issue is that it leaves little to no margin for error and a certainty that your going to get one or more aircraft knocked out for 72 hours due to the disparity of range issue. What I would like to see is a little more of a potential for a fighting chance The current issue as i see it is that the larger alien ships can literally circle strafe your fighters to death. so you are left with the missile/bombing run then bug out approach which is of limited use. the issue is that aside from the alien fighters the other alien ships have too wide of firing arcs with too great a range. I have had a corvette when faced with 2 foxtrots tag the the first foxtrot with its cannon, then turn and and be able to tag the second before missiles took it out I would like to see those cannon firing arc's narrowed an additional 5 degrees. likewise I would like to see all of the larger alien craft have a slight narrowing of their firing arcs so that with work it would be possible to get ahead to their turn enough for a fighter to potentially get behind them. also would it be too much to ask for the anti missile weapon to have a minimum range? that way if your willing to get within their guns range you can fire missiles without the anti missile system shooting them down? I think the issue might be in the RotationAcc stat. which if I am correct dictates how quickly these ships move while turning. in theory it looks good, big ships move slower while turning. however with their larger size and wider weapon arcs it gives them nearly a zero'ed turning radius which effectively multiplies their effective turning speed im gonna play with the stats and see what i can turn up

yeah I have noticed a sharp increase in the difficulty of air combat just from V18 to V19 in 18 you could easily down light scout and scouts without breaking a sweat with only your condors and the occasional foxtrot now it seems like I struggle in virtually every engagement if I don't throw 2 or 3 planes at each one. and that can be difficult because by October/November I was getting literally 3-5 UFO's at the same time of varying size and arrangement. I also notice that all of the aircraft have been reduced to 2 hard-points only with the exception being interceptors which also have the cannon hard-point. I went back and started comparing the various files and notice a bunch of issues all the cannons and to a lesser extent the alien weapons got a substantial damage nerf and range nerf all of the missiles likewise got massive range nerf but gain a roughly 15% damage boost unfortunately all of the alien craft got massive buffs to their HP ranging from 100% to 200% or more hp increase The most notable example of this is the Scout which went from from 260 HP to a whopping 800 the only exception to this is the alien fighter line of craft which have a roughly 15-30% decrease in HP and slightly less effective weapons. I did some number crunching with all these changes and found that the air combat has been stacked a little too one sided in the aliens favor. the math shows that as soon as corvettes appear you will need a full 3 fighter squadron with at least one of those fighters have heavy weapon mounts of to take them down. and if they have an escort it will be virtually impossible to bring them down since it will require 75-90% of the entire squadrons available ordinance (including cannon ammo if you do not have to highest possible aircraft weapons researched and produced) to bring it down. this gets even more complicated once you add the drop ship and higher vessels which all have the missile shield which ensures 33% of your missile ordinance will be destroyed before impact. and again taking them down is only possible if they do not have an escort. The air combat balance needs to be re-balanced badly

but as i am sure you are aware user misuse terms like bug, virus, hacking, does not make their context of it accurate. and since the game is sort of between alpha and beta phase as evidenced by the current state of the game its clear that not every aspect of the programs intended code is in a functional state. So rather than demanding they remove code which is part of the necessary framework for a feature not yet implemented because it annoys you; you should be focusing on doing the work of a beta tester and looking for actual bugs in which there is a defect with a component that actually has been implemented. When the game gets towards the end of the beta phase and all features are actually implemented then if there is still a problem then by all means lets pick this issue again at that time. so till then I would suggest that we table the issue of AI using some unclarified mechanic to detect troops through walls and unreasonable obstructions till it becomes more relevant

Not only that but the whole finding the edges of the map is one side of a coin that people argue in this area. One side is the "I want the entire map a mystery to be discovered" camp and the other is the "My guys just landed in a helicopter they should at least know were the UFO and buildings are" camp Both have their points. being able to know where the edges of the map is sort of a middle ground for these opposed groups sort of meet. you can't actually see the edges unless you go looking for them, but if you look for them you can get a general sense of orientation such as "we have landed in the bottom corner of the map so the UFO is not going to be in that Direction.

I generally do not advise people to remove any binding from a files existing code because it can cause more problems then it solves for the tag explodeAtTurnEnd= 0 makes it explode on impact 1 at the end of that round (after the aliens turn) 2 at the end of the subsequent round (again after the aliens turn) and so on

There are a couple of leaps of logic here that do not totally fit. First off virtually everyone who plays a game like this has failed the the money aspect of the game in their first few tries. it happens its part of the learning curve so really should not require what amounts to a pop-up. The second part is that for a something like that to actually work in the way you are suggesting It would need a considerable amount of independent logic so it can determine if one action or another is going to break the bank as it were. That is a lot of work for what amounts to a glorified financial tutorial function. Now I do agree that there should be a more noticeable flag or warning when your upkeep exceeds your projected income for the next month. because that is where people dig themselves into a terrible hole

O.k. I get really annoyed when people throw down the "I'm an IT professional" card in these kinds of forums so could you please elaborate as to which part of the IT field you are in? because your statements have me questioning your understanding of SDLC your statement about user expectations would only be relevant with a finished product rather than one that is in the beta stage

Yeah strictly speaking I agree that the grenade should not do stun damage on detonation however it should have a potential suppression effect. The argument for that is simply the effect of any explosive device detonating in close proximity to a person has a potential of disorienting that person. its the same concept that flash bangs were actually built specifically to exploit. but it is an effect that should be present in any kind of explosive device. Now in terms of gas effects. I am going on the description and I am more interested in the duration of the chemical effect. cause the description states that it is a chemical agent which binds with the blood and temporarily prevents it from carrying oxygen. If that description is not a great reason to include status effects in the game I do not know what is. and it would make stun grenades work completely differently. instead of applying stun damage for a round when someone is in the smoke instead it applies the stun gas status which gives say as an example of 20 stun damage a round for 3 round (assuming it is metabolized quickly to prevent brain damage.) now 20 points of stun damage a round for 3 rounds is not likely to actually drop a xenonaut or alien. Aliens or xenonauts who remained in the gas would have that 3 round timer reset each round they started a turn in a gas filled square. The effect would then be true to the description so if you exposed an alien to gas for 2 rounds and then it fled or otherwise got out of range of the gas they would continue to suffer the effects of the gas since it is a chemical reaction in the blood. and thus might receive a total of 4 rounds of 20 stun damage which might very well drop a Xenonaut or weaker alien it conveys both the danger and effectiveness of the stun gas. The danger being that you have to get fairly close to use the grenades which means exposing your troops to potential enemy fire and the effect takes time so that alien is still a threat until the gas effect has time to work. but by that same token an alien exposed to the gas for 2-3 round is assured to go down even if the gas has faded away. I know the mechanic for a status effect is in the game because you see it with the bleed mechanics the gas would simply have a 100% change of applying the damage over time and the damage would instead be stun damage.

well beyond the obvious ability to prevent the complete loss of troops you have taken a great deal of work to level up. if the trauma ability can work on civilians and local forces as well then it becomes a tool for improving you mission scores. If there is a reward to it in terms of improving relations with the local nations that also has a benefit and opens up new play styles plus you should consider additional supportive role options Well I looked into the research tree about the concern of it opening up Buzzard armor too early and found that it is a non-issue. The availability of Buzzard armor is effectively bottle necked by the requirements of wolf armor. The potential of the buzzard armor being unlocked early is negligible. from my experience buzzard armor has almost always become available for research as soon as wolf armor is completed researching. and since wolf armor is a prerequisite it is really a non-issue. I think that it would be better to cultivate a sense of Differentiation when it comes to the mission the aliens are performing instead. Make scouting missions and research missions from the same craft feel very different rather than what flavor of aliens do I get today. I mean to my mind when you down a light scout if that ship was doing a scouting mission it should feel completely different then taking on a light scout that was doing a research mission. Many of the items in the game that get sold/destroyed at the end of a mission could reasonably fill this role. There have actually been a number of Mod's for V18 regarding this. Your techs must dismantle the alien weapons and equipment into usable components for later construction of advanced weapons, armor, and equipment. There are two alternatives that have been put forward in the V18 mods to address the impact this has on money from mission in the game. The first was to assign a money value to the aliens themselves sort of like a bounty or sort of selling the corpses. the second was to have the dismantling/processing produce an item that is intended to be sold. something like Alien material scrap. which fits with the xenonauts basically trying to keep a monopoly on alien technology so having them sell off scrap that has little actual value to help fund their efforts makes sense. I understand how much work it can be so an easy work around would be to create an upgrade research for the chinook which would simply supersede the starting stats of the chinook with new ones (basically a minor upgrade in the number of troops it can carry) that way you can bypass the need for creating new assets for an additional dropship.

I can agree with that they should be unreliable in an open environment. but for example in the confines of a small room or say the interior of a light scout the alien should not be able be all but immune to the gas. here are a couple of idea's for a fix first one might be to change the smoke chance to 100 so on first detonation the grenade fills all spaces in range with the gas. Then up the dissipation chance to say like 70-75 then up the damage of the gas to 30-40. This way while the gas can be potent it dissipates too quickly to be effective in an open area where the aliens can easily avoid the gas. but aliens trapped in an enclosed space where they can not escape would quickly fall victim to the gas. the second idea would be to create some system for gas density. ie three grenades into the same space would have a cumulative damaging effect so that while one grenade may be ineffective multiple grenades will work. The issue is that it should not take the entire squads grenades just to bring down a single alien on that note the AI should likely be configured to try to avoid the gas filled spaces if it isn't already The basic point that I think we disagree on is that I do not feel that any of the weapons should be inherently useless The changes that I recommended are not from my view overpowering especially with the current V19 throw mechanics since with the map layouts require your troops to get into extremely exposed positions to employ the stun grenades against an enemy. The way I see it stun weapons should be scaled between safety and effectiveness. so the stun batons should be the most effective stun weapon since they have the highest risk needed to implement. and the stun rockets should be the least effective since they can easily be fired from long range this makes the grenades the middle ground. With the current build they are the least effective of the stun weapon with no payoff for the level of risk to use.