kabill

That's because there's no information in the modinfo file. I have a fix for that, but it would involve uploading the whole mod again from scratch which 1) will take a long time and 2) isn't something I can remember how to do as I needed to coordinate it with the person who hosts the forums and I've not been in contact with them for a while. However, if you want to fix this yourself: 1) Open another mod's folder. 2) Copy the modinfo.xml file. 3) Paste that file in the armour resource pack mod folder. 4) Open the copied modinfo file in a text editor. 5) Edit the fields to something appropriate (the key thing is the mod name and description). That should then give it a proper entry and resolve the problem.

Don't know if you've played Invisible Inc. at all, but that has a system that allows you to rewind a turn even though otherwise it's played Ironman. You only get a limited number of uses, though (depending on the difficulty level). It's a really good system; I'd really like to see something like that implemented in future games.

No idea. Are you trying to install the armour resource pack from the Xenonauts mod launcher? If so, try unzipping it manually instead. Can't promise that will sort the issue out but I've no other suggestions; I've never had a problem with the pack myself.

I can't remember. It might. Don't know what it does exactly in any case.

I think it already has been, or else is something that llunak has plans for adding.

While it wouldn't be overpowered per se, I think MAG would always make the better choice in terms of investment compared with laser. MAG is more versatile and in the mid-game onwards is equal to or better than laser in almost all circumstances due to armour penetration, so I suspect the optimum strategy would be to invest only in MAG and ignore laser entirely. I've done that for consistency's sake: that flag is exclusively used on MAG weapons to represent their high velocity. However, I'm open to maybe buffing precision rifles in some way; perhaps a little extra base damage or some natural armour penetration (AP might be nice, actually, to provide an early-game solution to Light Drones and Androns). Cool, glad you felt that worked. I think I might need to play around with manufacturing times a little as in my own games I really struggle to do all the building that I want. But then, maybe that's a feature - I could always build another workshop after all. I couldn't tell you why, exactly, but a cap of 80 just feels right to me. Truthfully, I never get soldiers up to the cap (that would require a soldier to live for at least ten if not more missions; apparently I'm incapable of securing that!). I might consider changing it, but I'd rather have a lower cap with faster progression than the reverse as otherwise it might just feel grindy getting soldier's stats up. Regarding the point about Cybernetic Armour: yes, the stat buffs from the armour can push a soldier beyond their cap. It's possible I had this in mind when designing this mod, actually, but I don't remember. Something must be wrong with me when the full X-Com %0-%200 variation seems to much to me. (Actually, there's a good technical reason not to do that: there's an issue where if you roll a '0' for damage the game can't cope and it hands you a super big damage number instead.) No trouble. Thanks for taking the time to give me your thoughts; it's really helpful.

Echoing this, I'd say that if you want to copy X-Com's UFOs you should add some more interior props. Part of that is for aesthetic reasons - the large scout looks really strange with most of it empty - but also for gameplay reasons, since no props means no cover. Also, keep in mind that in the vanilla game certain resources are 'stored' in certain props like torpedo tubes and power cores, so you might need to think about where those resources are going if you're not including props. All that said, it's really cool to see some stuff happening with this. The tileset could do with an exterior door tile but I wonder whether you could take one of the wall tiles and recolour it or add some features, basically like the exterior doors in X-Com.

I'm persuaded by this. The prices went up a bit purely because of Armoured Assault where I'd increased the price slightly to balance the better stats. But I was always a bit unsure whether it was needed. And now with the soldier price reduction and manufacture of weapons, yes, I think the chassis itself could definitely afford to come down. I might also reduce the manufacture time too, since you have to also make the weapons.

The aliens only use plasma weapons. And you need to do some research into alien plasma weapons before you unlock the ability to research laser weapons (being able to make your own plasma weapons only comes after researching several alien weapons).

No, I think it's all hardcoded.

I've just looked at their files and I can see that I've dropped their minimum shot accuracy considerably. So I might try raising that value to encourage them to move into close range before shooting and see how that works. This is good to hear. In vanilla Caesans always felt the lesser partner to Sebillians and while I still think Sebillians are currently more challenging, it's nice to see that Caesans are presenting their own challenges now. Yeah, you're right. I thought maybe I reduced the suppression value on flashbangs but that's the same as vanilla; a single flashbang should therefore definitely be enough to suppress a Sebillian guard so long as it lands close, on paper anyway.

I've had a look and got nothing. Researches.xml entry seems fine, as does the xenopedia one (no idea why that would have mattered but I checked anyway just in case). I thought it might be because there's an unused vanilla andron vivsection entry with time 0 but there isn't, so it can't be that. So the only things I can think of are: 1) You're accidentally using another version of the mod/another version with a different value; or 2) there's a strange bug whereby unlocking an instant project and a project which requires time to complete with the same item at the same time causes them all to auto-complete (e.g. if the andron officer corpse is also unlocking andron disassembly the game might get confused and unlock them both automatically). That's a long-shot but I can't think of any other instance in vanilla or in a mod where a single item unlocks both an instant project and a researchable project at the same time so it's plausible. If it is the case, you could maybe work around it by making the andron vivsection require an officer coprse *and* andron disassembly, which will make no difference in game terms but might resolve the bug.

I think there might be UI support for three vehicles but there's a hardcoded cap of 1 during base defenses. Something like that anyway.

You can have up to sixteen soldiers on a base defense mission, so I would recommend having that number of soldiers available so you always have maximum firepower. Unless I'm misremembering, you can see the entire base layout from the start. There will be some small tunnel-like rooms off of some of your facilities - these are the spawn points for the attacking alien units so you should know roughly where they are coming from and should be able to plan accordingly. During the mission itself, don't just wait for the aliens to come to you as this will allow them to surround and flank you. So I'd recommend moving forces towards the alien spawn points from multiple directions and try and pin them down in rooms where you can surround them instead. (By necessity, this requires plenty of soldiers, thereby emphasizing the importance of the first point). Note, however, that you should keep some units around the command room entrance or even in the command room itself as Wraiths can teleport into the command room from anywhere on the map. Finally, while it's expensive to keep your soldiers equipped with the latest gear, you can pass on your obsolete equipment to garrisons in bases that aren't otherwise used for ground missions so at least you will have some advanced equipment to help. Relatedly, grenades and rockets upgrade for free so they're useful on base defences where your equipment might otherwise be outdated. EDIT: Or what Dranak said!

In principle the durability of aliens should be roughly the same, it's just that with this mod its reflected by higher armour ratings rather than higher HP totals. So, from my perspective, that's actually a good thing as it means I've got the armour balance right.

Difficult to tell without seeing the files. If it is present in ground combat but has no image that's almost certainly a spectre issue - perhaps you've not set up spectres for the weapon types it can be equipped with or some such?

Xenonauts 2? I don't know. Would I buy it? Yes, certainly. Goldhawk has my money more or less regardless. But is it the game I want? I'm not so sure. I think there's two main risks, which pull in opposite directions: 1) Xenonauts, to me, has its own core identity which distinguishes itself from other similar games. As a spiritual successor to the original XCom it is stylistically distinct, while as an alien invasion game it is mechanically very distinct from Firaxis's reboot. Accordingly, for me a Xenonauts sequel or re-imagining needs to maintain its stylistic and mechanical distinction since these are what makes it 'Xenonauts'. 2) I've played Xenonauts and can continue to play it. I don't therefore especially need to play Xenonauts-but-with-some-tweaks-and-improvements because I'm not sure that makes it enough of a new game to be worthwhile. As a point of comparison, while I'm excited to see what happens with XCom 2 I'm concerned that it will end up being just a more polished version of XCom and that I would tire with it quickly because it's basically the same game I already played hundreds of hours of. In other words, for me the key issue of a sequel/re-imagination is maintaining the distinctive identity of Xenonauts - stylistically and mechanically - while also making sufficiently distinct from Xenonauts that it's not basically just the same game. I don't in any way want to suggest that this is impossible to do but for me it's the core tension and its resolution key to whether I would be especially interested in the game. It's been mentioned a lot above, but I do think the cold-war setting might be a good place to look to add this distinctive element. It is, incidentally, one of the innovations made by X-Com Apocalypse whereby the player was rendered one of a number of relevant actors in the game rather than as the only meaningful actor. As such, having to negotiate the demands of competing powers or having to compete with other agencies in some fashion would, I think, make for an interesting addition to the strategic layer of the game. (There's a lot that I don't like about Apocalypse but for me this is the stand-out feature that makes it worth playing at all.)

That's one thing I have noticed: Sebillians seem to be more accurate at range than they should be. Might just be that I've fought a lot of Sebillians recently so don't have a point of comparison (seriously, in my current game I've had ~12 ground missions and all bar one have been Sebillians!). But I might look at reducing their accuracy or changing their AI a little. I don't think I made them any more difficult to suppress (though honestly I can't remember exactly). However, it's worth noting that weapons cause only half suppression damage when more than half their suppression radius away from the target (this is a completely invisible mechanic; I only know about it because I found it in the code a while back) which, with grenades now having the possibility of scattering, might be more likely to occur. It might also be an armour related thing, since armour interacts with suppression, but I don't think any of the aliens you will have fought yet will have had armour and in any case the flashbang should override it. Ironically, from a tactical perspective, anything which can regenerate quickly is much better suited to long-range engagements since it's much harder to wear down. So engaging at long range actually makes best use of their ability. However, I'm open to the argument that this isn't necessarily very fun and I'm more than happy to look at the Sebillian AI to try and resolve that. Sight range definitely isn't a good solution, as the AI won't be able to deal very well with attacks outside of it's sight range. However, I might be able to encourage them to move closer to attack by increasing their minimum % hit chance for shooting or altering their engagement range. I think I possibly increased the weight to hidden/covered tiles so I'm glad to see this is working. As indicated above, I've only had one mission with Caesans on my current playthrough so haven't had much of a chance to see them in action. In terms of the weapons' damage stats, the carbine and assault rifle use different caliber rounds (the carbine uses smaller pistol-caliber rounds while the rifle, obviously, uses rifle-caliber). The images are only like that because I was making use of existing graphical assets. It'll be less of an issue when I put a new version out as the assault rifle will be modeled by the AK47 instead.

Yeah, it's as small as I know how to make it. It's plausible that there's another compression format I could use which would be better than .zip but doing anything like that starts to cut down accessibility and means you'd have to install it manually rather than using the mod tools as that only deals with .zip. Something I have thought about doing is breaking it down into individual armour types. Increases the number of downloads but would make each one more manageable. Sadly, however, it would still make them too large to upload to Steam Workshop (which would be ideal). Unless it's possible to persuade Steam to increase the file size limit somehow.

If it helps to have a benchmark - playing on Veteran I usually take 1-2 casualties on average per mission. There's some wide variation in that, though: sometimes I'll take none and sometimes can lose over half the squad. And yes, sometimes there'll be a fully wipe. What's strange is that I don't know why. I never set out to make this mod harder than vanilla, even though it apparently is. I suspect they key thing is actually the sight range. As AndreiN said above, you tend to get into bigger firefights because of the longer sight range so engaging two, three or even four aliens at once isn't uncommon even with smaller UFOs. I think the extended short-range area also makes a difference in so far as I think the AI can benefit from it more than the short range bonus in vanilla (the player is likely to plan a close-assault better than the AI in general and won't just stop moving as soon as they have an 'acceptable' hit chance; with short range bonuses out longer the AI therefore tends to benefit from them more than would normally be the case). But other than that, I don't know. Personally, mind, I'm not sure it's a bad thing. Being able to clear mission after mission with barely if any losses doesn't feel appropriate to the game. But it possibly makes the mod less accessible as well, which is a shame.

Have you started an Ironman game by accident?

That should be possible. Although maybe you're using one of Fire in the Hole or Enhanced Crash Sites? If so, the UFO doors are significantly more durable than in vanilla which is probably why you're not having any success.

Thanks for comments. Regarding the carbine, it's basically a smaller rifle: reduced damage and range but increased reaction modifier, so useful for scouts and during UFO assaults. Since I've not written this elsewhere, note as well that shotguns DO NOT have an increased reaction modifier (i.e. have x1.0 rather than x1.5) so in terms of reaction fire carbines are your best bet. Regarding explosive weapons: they're not less powerful but their damage type has, on the most part, been changed from incendiary. This is to reflect the fact that things like fragmentation grenades are rockets are not at all suitable for destroying hard targets, therefore it doesn't make sense for them to have large damage bonuses vs. terrain features. One of the later explosive types does do incendiary damage, however, and I might extend that to another as well (currently its plasma explosives but I might give it back to alenium as well). So later weapons will be better suited for doing what it is you want to do with them. Regarding C4, however, that shouldn't be any less powerful than it was (indeed, I think it should be more powerful). I'm not sure what UFO walls you're trying to use it on but if you're using it on external walls that won't work as their invulnerable. In terms of blast radius, this is by design and the difficulty in using explosive weapons safely is intentional. I never liked how AoE weapons in vanilla have such small blast radii, since it renders them fairly indistinct from direct-fire weapons. The case in point here are grenades which in vanilla have a minute blast radius and therefore require a direct or practically direct hit, but rockets suffer from it too. So rather than them being powerful precision weapons I wanted them to be proper AoE weapons that can be used for indirect fire and attacking groups of clustered enemies. However, again, later rocket/grenade types have reduced AoE so are safer to use. (Basically, the mod draws a distinction between anti-personnel and high-explosive ordinance. The former has large AoE but less armour penetrating capability; the latter has smaller AoE but is better against terrain/armour. You start with access to the former only but unlock the other through research.)

Thanks for that. Regarding damage numbers, I don't think it was intentional that they display on Insane. It's possible I changed it in case I wanted to test at that difficulty level (I like the numbers to display when testing mods in case of issues that would otherwise) but otherwise I'd have thought I'd have left it alone. So if you'd prefer to play with them off it won't be breaking anything I've done by design. I'd argue that greater stopping power of a sniper rifle is reflected in its high damage which therefore makes it more likely to score high-damage hit; nevertheless it's not impossible that a powerful weapon will hit a non-vital area or otherwise cause less-than-disabling damage. As written above, I would prefer a tends-to-centre system rather than the full range being equally likely. A hit/crit system would work as well. But in the absence of these a high damage range feels more 'realistic' to me than a low damage range system. In terms of tactics, it's worth noting that high damage randomisation doesn't mean more random outcomes at the expense of less tactical planning; it just means that you need to factor in the chance of low-damage hits into your tactics. In other words, it means you need to plan for overkill in situations where a target must die, so that if you get bad damage rolls you've got a back-up solution. (I'll be honest, though: the main reason why I like higher damage randomisation is threat. If I know, for certain, that a soldier is sufficiently armoured that it is impossible for them to be killed in a single shot, the game loses a lot of its tension since I know I'm in little immediate danger. In contrast, if one-shot kills are always a possibility (even if it is fairly unlikely), it's always necessary to be cautious and alert to danger, since there's never a moment when my soldier's are perfectly safe from harm. It's one of the things that still stands out for me from the original X-Com, hence why I'm likely to be stubborn on this point.)

I've recently been reminded of this mod and while I never played it I always liked the idea of it and since there was so much work put into it I feel its a shame for it to go to waste. So I've just had a quick look through the files and reckon it would be fairly easy to convert to the modular system. Is there anyone out there would be interested in this at all? No sense in doing the work if there's no takers but I could probably spare the few hours needed if anyone cared enough.