[Bad "Alien Turn" Camera Behaviour - Post Here!]

Awesome. Easiest fix ever, apparently (it already having been done!).

[Grenades - or things I am using in 19.4]

Most of the software based random number generators use a seed. There is usually a function written by the compiler developers to generate randoms. So, you're really at the mercy of the compiler as to how good it is. The only question is whether or not the use the SAME seed when you load a save. Sounds like Xenonauts doesn't based on your comments.

Sorry, seed saving is exactly what I meant to say. Was having a brain-fail moment, apparently.

The testing is interesting. Did the solution you mention actually get implemented? I have found myself surprised by the number of low-% shots hitting, but always figured that was just luck/bias on my part.

[Grenades - or things I am using in 19.4]

Also I think you have serious issues with you to hit probabilities. I don't know how you compute and apply them to the game, but after experimentation, I found that even if the to hit probability is represented as 70%, its more closely to 25% - just save a game, make a shot, record the outcome, and load back the game to repeat the shot, and so on... you might start looking at your subsequent shots not as independent event, but as a series of dependent events.

How many shots have you tested doing this? You'd need a fair few to get something which is vaguely statistically accurate. My own experience of the RNG has been quite fair, so it might have just been a run of bad luck.

Also, I don't think the game uses a seed for number generation (I've seen different results after loading before, without there being any changes made to what was done).

[Should Rotating Soldiers Be Free?]

I'd argue that combat would become *less* streamlined rather than more, since it becomes optimal to move soldiers square by square, doing a full pivot after each step. Moreover, I'd argue that the few TUs that costs to turn are not at all insignificant (indeed, in your initial post you imply that they're not, since it can lead to situations like not being possible to throw a grenade or whatever like you suggested). And, reducing facing to being relevant only for reaction fire would be a shame (for me) because I don't often, if ever, see any use from reaction fire (which, in turn, would make facing for me irrelevant).

Still, I'd be interested to hear about how you get on if you do try it out.

[Bad "Alien Turn" Camera Behaviour - Post Here!]

As mentioned in the other thread, here's a GC save game where the 'hidden movement' screen is always on during the alien turn, even when there is an alien doing something in line of sight.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32960771/2013-07-24_09.55.34.sav

There's an alien spotted towards the top of the map. Pressing end turn will have it do some stuff, but the hidden movement screen stays on all of the time.

This is common of all my play experience so far (which has been only with the v19.x experimental builds). I have never had even part of an alien turn when the hidden movement screen has not displayed. If you think it might be useful, I can post up other save games too.

Hope this is useful.

EDIT: If the save doesn't load up a GC, I accidentally posted the wrong save. Tell me and I'll sort it.

[the new hidden movement is truly weird]

Oh - fair enough. I figured, since I've literally never had a moment when that image *isn't* displayed during the alien's turn and because I'd seen a lot of people post about it, that it was a general issue!

I will post a save game on the other thread. EDIT: Done.

[Hmm - to be clear, I meant 'always-on' during the alien's turn. Just in case it read like I was saying it was always there even when it wasn't the alien's turn]

[Should Rotating Soldiers Be Free?]

I disagree - it does have a function, which is to limit visibility. If you remove it, during your turn all your soldiers functionally have 360 degree vision, making facing only relevant for reaction fire. As such, opportunities for the aliens to ambush you are diminished considerably. Moreover, while actually it's quite a small things, having choosing whether or not to spend a few TUs each turn to make sure you're not walking into a trap for me I think it quite important for how I experience the game. While I really enjoyed XCOM 2012 (and understand why 360 degree vision was necessary) it did diminish for me some of the tension involved in exploration and movement.

This said, TUs for movement actions like turning can be easily modded, so if you wanted to play the same without the turning TU cost you could do. Settings are in the 'config.xml' file in the 'assets' folder.

[[19.4] Unknown CTD on Geoscape]

My game is suffering from a CTD as a result of... something.

I've uploaded the save file in case it is useful:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32960771/2013-07-24_09.30.06.sav

I know there is an alien base somewhere around Greece and there's a UFO doing something with it. I'm not sure, but the crash possibly happens not long after this UFO takes off. This may well be completely irrelevant, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

[the new hidden movement is truly weird]

Aaron - I honestly didn't realise there were supposed to be other camera bugs and, given the always-on hidden movement screen bug, I've not really been able to tell whether the camera is doing the right thing or not in any case.

Can I take from this that you would like people to be disabling that image so that they can help with debugging camera issues?

[Most challenging mission]

Haven't really played enough of the game, but my first (and only) alien base attack has been the most challenging. I literally only won with a few guys left because the AI in the final room sucked and by the end I had no ammunition (stupid lasers) so was using alien plasma weapons as a last resort.

Next time, screw recovering loot - I think I'll just nuke the place with rockets.

[Idea: Being Supressed Improves Soldiers Bravery]

Getting bravery for being suppressed I like. At least until psionics show up, the main function of Bravery appears to be resisting suppression* so it makes sense that suppression would develop it (and, to me, makes more sense than getting braver as a result of being absolutely terrified which seems like it's more likely to cause PTSD than courage!).

* I know it affects morale, too, but I've yet to see soldiers panic other than when I shot to death half my squad one turn testing game mechanics.

[Thoughts on 19.4 late-game ground combat balanace]

Re: Alien TUs - I wonder whether part of the problem isn't the present AI for the aliens. They seem to have a preference for taking multiple low-TU shots rather than fewer high TU shots (whereas the odds of scoring hits seems to have been designed such that taking more accurate shots is almost always better than taking many less accurate ones). If aliens gave priority to taking high accuracy shots more, it would reduce the number of shots they take, thereby speeding up alien turns (and, implicitly, make the AI 'smarter').

[Less top heavy rank structure?]

The most recent information on the xenonauts morale system is on the wiki.

I'm not sure that's true - when I read the morale file for the v19.4 the other day, it had differences to what is specified on the wiki page and it the page says it was last updated in December 2011. It possibly needs updating.

[[19.4] "####" in crew/personell]

This is also the case when using the default air ship. From playing around with modding, I think the '####' is missing string text - I assume this is just not implemented yet(?).

[[19.4 - Ground Combat] - Slight Graphics Bug]

Playing a ground mission, some windows were damaged by enemy fire and subsequently had their graphic offset slightly. The game still treated them as being where they should have been, they just weren't displaying properly. *Only* these windows were affected; all other broken windows worked as expected.

As I'm using the Community Map Pack, it's possible the map was one of those (but I never played without it, so I don't know the difference). There was nothing wrong with the windows before they got shot, though.

Screenshot:

[Ground Combat Balance Discussion v19 Experimental Build 4]

While the game is turn based, it simulates real time combat. Sniper rifle is not an optimal weapon aiming through a scope trying to track a fast alien charging at you few meters away...

I would assume that anyone using a sniper rifle in close-quarters wouldn't be trying to aim through the scope. This isn't to say that such a weapon isn't unwieldy in close-quarters, but I don't think its the scope that's a problem. Albeit from a position of real-world ignorance, I'd expect a long rifle to be no less accurate in close quarters, just requiring more time/effort to aim effectively with any kind of speed (implying lower snap-shot aim or increased TUs per shot).

EDIT: Ah, StellarRat beat me to it, and has the real-life experience to support the argument.

@DNK: I'm not sure comparisons between the commercial viability of a game made 20 years ago and a game made today are in the least bit valid. Completely different contexts. Moreover, you're conceptualising possible markets for the game as being entirely exclusive of one another and I think that's a mistake. This game can easily cater for 'hardcore' and (more) 'casual' players alike - that's precisely what difficult levels are for (and, as it happens, is the mechanism by which your referred-to example CIV works). Aiming the game at only one (and the smaller one at that) seems to me a financial mistake, especially if Goldhawk have intentions to continue in this line of work after they complete Xenonauts.

[Ground Combat Balance Discussion v19 Experimental Build 4]

Regarding sniper rifles. You could make the difference between snap shots and normal shots quite significant in terms of accuracy. At the moment there's a smooth grade of increased accuracy with snap shots for sniper rifles (as with every other weapon), but a sniper rifle isn't at its best when used on the move. Rather than 60 80 100, make it, perhaps... 30 80 120, to reflect that you need to stand still with the thing to work properly

In the mod I am presently running, I did precisely this with sniper rifles; snap shot is lower than a rifle, normal short is either the same or slightly higher (I can't remember) and aimed shot is much higher. TU costs were also adjusted, such that it's quicker to fire an regular rifle over an assault rifle (actualy, I reduced the AR burst fire TU cost too, as suggested in your post). Personally, I've had good experiences from this and would recommend it. (Although, I also removed hypervelocity from snipers; if this is left in I don't know how it would interact).

re: Grenades - what about increasing their TU cost to use? It seems to me odd that a soldier can move, throw and possibly even fire all in the same turn. This would have the same effect of exposure in that you'd be able to move less and therefore would need to be closer to the target the turn before, or not be able to retreat afterwards. It also stops you from being able to spam grenades with a single soldier.

I understand what you are saying, and agree.

But I think playing it the 2nd way would increase the game's difficulty far too much, I would love to play the version you're talking about...but the honest truth is people are complaining about difficulty somewhat now, if you ended up greatly increasing expected death tolls and gave the Aliens more intelligence and Advantage...

Well lets just say the boards would be set on fire by complaints.

Its hard for us that have the game "more" figured out to understand the frustration this would cause newer players...and how somewhat high this game's learning curve is to begin with.

In fairness, *I'm* a new player (if you exclude any experience with similar games... Yes, I take your point).

I do agree, improving AI will make the game harder. I also agree that having a game which is aimed specifically at 'hardcore' players is liable to be a (commercial) disaster. But AI is a single variable which relates to difficulty out of many which might be adjusted to allow room for it. Moreover, most of these can be related to difficulty levels. So I don't think that it's an impossible situation. Probably enough on this, though - lets see what the AI actually ends up being like, since that's more than likely going to be the deciding factor!

[Massive air combat difficulty spike]

Put me down for someone who's confused by devs saying:

1. Air combat is too hard and important

2. Air combat needs to be harder and more involved

We get magic interceptors to nerf air combat, then we get told we need more interceptors to manage a more buffed air combat...

I'd interpret that as meaning: they want the air combat to be interesting and challenging, but they don't want losing a single air battle (or even a single plane) to be game ending. Under the old system, air combat was difficult not necessarily because of the actual battles (once you know what you're doing!), but because the consequences for failing were quite dramatic.

In other words, I think they want it to be like ground battles - these are (in principle) difficult and challenging (if they weren't, there'd be no game!). But losing a single soldier, or even half your squad, or even the entire mission, doesn't have irreversible consequences for the game - you can easily re-recruit, while the resources lost to a failed ground mission aren't (or, shouldn't be - I'm not sure this is entirely true at the moment) essential to your game (not for an individual ground mission, anyway).

That would be my interpretation, anyway.

[Set Missiles and Torpedoes to Standby by Default]

This does explain why the causalities were so high one time I missed a terror site. I was massively confused as to how a handful of aliens slaughtered thousands of people.

[Ground Combat Balance Discussion v19 Experimental Build 4]

Again if you made it so that 4 could do the job of 8, you'd have to rebalance the entire game.

That was exactly my point. In broad, dichotomous terms, you can have a game of relatively passive, individually durable aliens which you seek out and destroy with your whole squad (extant system). Or, you can have aggressive, mobile, cunning aliens which fight against you at a strategic level and with stats/whatever to match (what I would like it to be). How you balance the game is contingent upon the game you want to play.

My objection to what you wrote, then, is only that it (to me) implied that there's only one way to balance the game (i.e. make it so your whole squad is needed to handily defeat an alien) - I agree that this is *one way* of balancing the game, but not the only way (and not necessarily a good way, either, depending on what you want the game to be like).

[Ground Combat Balance Discussion v19 Experimental Build 4]

Well, I think the alien AI is going to be a lot more dynamic and pro-active in future release. At least that's the plan from what I've read. So, this may be a short term premise.

Aye, this was my impression, too (but, at the same time, don't want to make too many assumptions about what the AI will be like in the end).

Also, re: C4: If aliens can reaction-fire on door opening, I can see C4 being useful both as a way of opening the doors without soldiers being in sight and, furthermore, as a way of suppressing the aliens inside so they can't reaction-fire anyway. I think I'd definitely bring some along under those circumstances.

And, damage vs. cover: Yes, I think I agree it's too easy to break cover at the moment. I've had several occasions where I've spent time moving soldiers into a flanking position, only for a machine gun to mow down the cover I've been trying to get around and make the whole exercise pointless. Honestly, I'd be quite happy if cover was pretty much immune to anything other than plasma weapons and better explosives (depending on the cover, mind. Not so sure a wooden fence should work the same!)

[Set Missiles and Torpedoes to Standby by Default]

Who said anything about long range? You can defend all the major population centers with missile and AAA batteries. The North Vietnamese didn't seem to need long range missiles.

For sure, I read this into what you wrote. I was imagining missile-outposts which had a long-range coverage similar to radar coverage in the game at the moment (i.e. many, many hundreds of miles), rather than an intricate silo system (your version, actually, is a lot more interesting).

As regarding the wikipedia stuff - fair enough. I was mostly working off the inaccuracy of long-range air-to-air missiles of the time and envisaging direct-fire rather than indirect-fire weaponry. This was, evidently, a mistake (and one I'm glad to be corrected on!).

[Ground Combat Balance Discussion v19 Experimental Build 4]

Solder Accuracy - Does it need to change? No, its fine. If you make it so 2-3 Soldiers can kill an Alien with a Turn or Two, ground combat becomes trivial. I suppose you could increase accuracy and raise Alien HP tho, but I think the simple rule of DONT SPLIT YOUR SQUAD and expect not to have problems is the best case. (Because if you can, then not splitting your squad = easy mode/trivial, just slower).

Not sure I agree with this.

Accuracy is relative. If its takes your soldiers 1-2 turns to kill a single alien, that doesn't by necessity make the game any more 'trivial' than if it takes them 4-5 turns, since 'triviality' will be determined by the likelihood of the aliens hitting/killing your own soldiers as well. Where I've indicated I'd like higher accuracy in the past, I meant for *all* combatants, not just the player (though maybe I never made this clear). At the very least, it's my belief that the game shouldn't be an RNG grind waiting to get high enough rolls to score hits as (in my opinion) this would be very tedious.

As regards squad splitting, I think you have an interesting point, but (personally) I don't think that not splitting your squad should be the core of the game's design. I would argue that if the game is balanced around the whole squad fighting a single alien, this makes fighting multiple aliens at the same time something to be actively discouraged while, from the position of making the game interesting, I'd argue that fighting more than one alien at the same time would be much, much better since it multiplies the number of things you need to think about.

For me, rather than having the game balanced around swarming individual aliens with your entire squad, I'd much rather have the game force me, by virtue of the number of aliens and their AI, to fight at multiple sites if I want to win/not be defeated. Focusing my squads full attention on single aliens should have a reward (quick victory, relatively speaking) but also a cost (don't know where the other aliens are and they're now moving to surround/kill me) such that (for example) using small teams to locate and pin down aliens to protect the main squad becomes a legitimately useful strategy.

In other words, I think you're right in that if the game largely involves going to find aliens who are largely on the defensive, not very active and generally alone, then it makes sense from a balance perspective to not have half your squad be capable of easily defeating a single alien. However, if you take this as the given position, I think you preclude other ways of balancing the game which would, at the same time, make the game more interesting (read: would make the game more interesting for me).

(Also: In any case, making aliens difficult to kill with only a small number of soldiers should be a result of the alien's superior weapons/armour/stats, not low hit chances. Failing to kill an alien because of low hit chances is, I'd argue, detrimental to immersion since you'd expect elite soldiers/genetically engineered aliens to not suck at fighting. Perhaps more importantly, though, I'd argue that it's detrimental to the fun of the game. Shooting eight times and missing every shot is frustrating (even if it is statistically probable); shooting eight times and having bullets bounce off for hardly any damage or being soaked by colossal alien HP at least allows the player to have achieved *something* and doesn't make them feel cheated by the RNG, as well of reminding the player of the vastly superior foe they are battling with!

[Ground Combat Balance Discussion v19 Experimental Build 4]

Maybe a center screen popup text after killing the last enemy stating that the alien threat in the area is neutralized. And an "Extract xenonauts" or "end mission" button...? At the moment the mission ends too abruptly.

This would actually be really useful for crash recovery missions when you capture the UFO without killing all the aliens. At the moment, after the timer runs down, the mission auto-ends (which is usually a bad thing, since you lose points and loot for any aliens which escape). While I can't imagine it happening often, I can envisage the possibility of capturing the UFO and wanting to keep some soldiers inside without actually wanting to finish the mission and at the moment this is impossible.

[Set Missiles and Torpedoes to Standby by Default]

Well, you know, you'd have to be smart enough to realize that a button needed to be pushed to fire the missiles. Now beginners, they don't know SH$%. "Missile don't fire! <grunt> <grunt> Thag not happy! Thag hate game!" They just want the planes to fly up and auto destroy without any human intervention. Kind of like, if my fighters can get blown up the game will be a lot harder...both very tough concepts for some people even if you tell them in advance what to expect. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

In all seriousness, I did consider this as a counter-argument to the suggestion. But not firing missiles and firing them automatically when in range have exactly the same consequence (i.e. no effect), only if you haven't fired them at least you still have them (for a few seconds before your plane gets blown out of the sky, anyway!).

I'm actually not sure why we have planes at all. Wouldn't a fancy anti-UFO missile defense system work just as well? Then no planes would be needed in the game. No mini-games, nothing. Simple, easy to balance. You just build missile bases all over and let the UFOs fly into your web.

It's 1979. Long-range, accurate guided missiles are a thing of the future (or so some wikipedia research implies to me).