kabill

Best bet would be to modify the difficulty-level modifiers in gameconfig.xml as this will require adjusting only one value rather than several. I can't remember exactly what the variables are now but if you have a scan though you should find it pretty easily, it will be something like <[DIFFICULTYLEVEL]_tickerspeedmultiplier>. Note that it's a multiplier, so the higher it is the faster the ticker will increase (so you want a lower value). Make sure to change the one that applies to the difficulty level you are playing at.

Interesting to see thoughts. Overall, I'd argue it's definitely a much better designed game than XCOM 1 and there's very little I would consider a step backwards compared with its predecessor. Even the technical issues, while a little frustrating, are not nearly as annoying as the various gameplay bugs in XCOM 1 (teleporting pods, flanking bugs, etc.). Specific points: - I like the concealment mechanic. I agree, Chris, that it's not very important as a combat mechanic. But it gives you the freedom to rush into the mission, rather than having to creep around from the start. It's more of a quality of life thing for me, plus it reinforces the sense a sense of urgency and that you (rather than the AI) are the aggressor. So it does a lot of work, even if it isn't important in a tactical sense, and the game would be much worse without it. - Maps are so much better. I think Chris is right to say that they're larger and the aliens are less crowded. But the missions aren't any longer for it. I think this is because in spite of the larger maps, the missions themselves tend to use only a portion of the map (I don't think I've ever swept the whole of a map more than once in ~30 missions). And there's no obvious sign of map fatigue yet, which set in very early with XCOM 1. - The alien designs are (mostly) fantastic. I would argue that this is one of the main things Xenonauts 2 could learn from XCOM 2 - each of the main alien types is clearly distinct both aesthetically but also in terms of their combat role and abilities. Notwithstanding the basic grunts (i.e. ADVENT units) and early aliens I'd accidentally spoilered (Sectoids and Vipers), every enemy type has given me at least one moment of shock or surprise and the words "enemy unknown" have never been more appropriate. There is one exception, however: Faceless are the most frustrating thing ever and should all melt away into horrific piles of goo. - And melee units can join them. I actually don't mind melee units in general and they worked nicely in XCOM 1. But it feels like they've gone overboard with XCOM 2. Coupled with the ability to dash an attack for most melee units, the consequence is that a reasonable proportion of the aliens basically just suicide-charge you, rendering key aspects of the game (cover and positioning) more or less pointless. Further, since they don't seem to have any obvious counters, the only option is to make them priority targets and kill them before they can attack. Less of that would have been nice. - Geoscape is massively better. The base building I've found fairly interesting and the deployment of specific engineers is something I've enjoyed. It still feels like there's an optimal strategy or building facilities but since facility building itself is less critical it doesn't dissolve into a mad rush to build as many satellites as you possibly can. Turning time into a resource is an excellent idea (and this bodes well for Xenonauts 2 which has implicitly done a similar thing). And the tonal shift from reactive-defence-force to proactive-guerilla-terrorists provides a much greater sense of agency even though, at its core, missions generate in a manner not dissimilar to XCOM 1. They also did the best thing that they could do with the interception game and got rid of it. Definitely no loss. - Timed missions are probably the most important innovation of the entire game. Playing non-timed missions feels like playing XCOM 1. Playing timed missions feels like playing XCOM 2. While I suspect there would be resistance to this, I'd strongly encourage making timed missions a feature of Xenonauts 2. - Classes are better balanced and overall have more interesting abilities (less stat modifiers, more Things You Can Do). Specialists (new Support class) admittedly feel weaker than the others but I think this is an issue with hacking balance more than the class itself (the hacking system could have been interesting but the odds are always sufficiently low that it's not worth the risk. A 50/50 coin toss between a minor reward and spawning a new pod of enemies is just not worth it). EDIT: My own experience is that the game is remarkably stable and bug-free. There are definitely optimisation issues and the game runs less smoothly than it should do but I have not found this especially disruptive and don't have a massively powerful machine. There's no major bugs like teleporting aliens or flanking bugs like the original. Indeed, the worst bugs I've seen have been minor map bugs (e.g. a tile which does provide cover doesn't) but so long as you're paying attention you can identify these things in advance (i.e. if a tile is not going to provide cover then it won't have a cover icon). May just be that I've been lucky, of course, but XCOM 1 had more serious gameplay issues than this by far. There's not an explicit timeline but it is implied in various ways that many of the innovations from the original game were either lost or simply not developed in the first place. E.g. in the description of the new version of skeleton armour it's stated that it is based on an old XCOM prototype from the First War. Similarly, it seems to be the case that the XCOM base was entirely destroyed - canonically I get the feeling that the game ended after the 'player' lost the base defence mission from XCOM: EW, with the implication that any technology developed by XCOM during the First War was lost and most anyone who knew how to build it killed (certainly Dr. Vahlen seems to have been killed in action and indeed she seems more or less forgotten about by the time of the new game - there's a research entry which implies the new head scientist literally does not know who she is or where scraps of old XCOM research files come from). So while it's not all articulated on screen and explicitly, there appears to me sufficient grounds for the current situation.

There's no problems - it just overwrites additions in a recent version of XCE which adds procedurally generated crash damage (with real fire and smoke rather than my workaround equivalents). As such, it would probably be better now to remove all the added crash damage and just retain the destructible hulls. The variable you've highlighted does precisely what you think it should do (% chance of fire dissipating per turn). It's just the fire that is placed with FitH isn't real fire - it's a map prop that looks like fire but in code is nothing of the sort - so that variable has no effect on it.

The UFO interiors all use the same base layout but there are a number of iterations with different levels of crash damage. It's technically redundant with current version of XCE but I made this a long time before. In terms of the fire - some of the burning tiles are placed on the map as props. These are not actually fire - there's no way to place real fire on maps - and so cannot be set to dissipate. (Part of me wonders whether I should update this mod to work with the current version of XCE. Probably wouldn't even take that long. But I also have All the Work and accidentally bought XCOM2, so I can't promise it will happen.)

I'm wasn't questioning the plausibility of it. I was questioning it as a game mechanic. In the very original X-Com, one of the major threats to your units is reaction fire. With careful movement, it is mostly possible to negate alien reaction fire by taking advantage of the so-called 'mutual surprise rule' (if both units spot each other at the same time there is no reaction fire until after the next action). However, this isn't enough to avoid reaction fire entirely as shooting provokes reaction fire. This is made worse by the fact that even if the alien is not facing you, if it is hit it is able to turn and take a shot anyway. However, shots taken from outside an aliens LoS do not provoke reaction fire. Therefore the only way to safely attack is to spot with forward-units and shoot with units further back. As such, sniper-spotting is - very literally - an exploit of the game mechanics and easily the strongest way to play the game. (And however restricted it is, Squad Sight is very powerful in nu-XCOM, like Dranak says!)

Snipers get a perk at level 2 which allows them to shoot at targets outside of their sight range. Otherwise, yes. (And it's not exactly a terrible thing - this was easily the single most powerful exploit in the original X-Com). No change in X-Com 2 but, to answer your other question, it is now possible to check LoS on targets without having to move.

Off-topic but: are you still looking to develop the small aircraft game you were prototyping a while back? I presume not - it's not been discussed in a long time - but thought I'd ask as it looked like it might turn into something interesting.

Is this berserking because of panic, or berserking because of the psionic attack Hallucinate? If it is the latter, the variables you are changing do not matter - the effective of Hallucinate is that the soldier affected will shoot at friendly units on its next turn.

The range variable does not stop powers being used above that range; it just applies a penalty to the check. I.e. for every tile beyond the power's range it is used, a -1 modifier is applied to the psionic roll.

Two basic things: 1) Too few aircraft - I'd say you want enough aircraft for three at each base and more if you can. 2) Inadequate aircraft - Foxtrots are the workhorse aircraft for most of the game. They are sufficiently fast that they can catch most UFOs and with appropriately-tiered weapons have enough fire-power to destroy UFOs you are facing without retaliation due to the range of their torpedos. So the bulk of your aircraft for the early-mid game should be Foxtrots, with Condors kept for dealing with alien fighter patrols and for support when attacking an escorted UFO. In terms of your current game, my advice would be to replace your Condors ASAP with anything better. You may be a bit far through the game for it to be worth replacing them with Foxtrots now - may be better to build Corsairs or hold out for Marauders. But if you're having financial problems, Foxtrots may be necessary to pull you through until you can afford more advanced aircraft. For a new game, I would advise having a single Condor and two Foxtrots in each base you build. That's sufficient to deal with just about anything - you'll need to be reasonably good at the air mini-game to defeat fighter patrols/escorted UFOs with a single Condor but the two Foxtrots will allow you to destroy everything else with ease. Once you research Corsairs, I would recommend replacing your Condors with Corsairs as these are vastly superior fighter-killers and you can use them right up to the end of the game. If you're very good at the air mini-game, you can keep on with Condors but eventually their slow speed and short range will render them ineffective no matter how good you can actually use them in combat. Once you get Marauders, it's basically just a matter of upgrading everything as they're superior in every way to older aircraft. But by the time you get to that point, you should be on top of the aliens anyway so should be easy to do.

As you say, not much of a surprise given the amount discussion invested but good to see it confirmed nevertheless. As I seem to remember articulating at the time, I was luke-warm towards Xenonauts 2 when first suggested but the resultant discussion implies it will be a solidly distinctive game and I'm genuinely excited to see the end result (and giving you money as soon as I possibly can!). Good luck!

No, that would require an entire reworking of the map pack.

Heh, interesting. I definitely deleted some mods manually myself prior to getting this problem.

So long as there are no file name duplicates, the name of the file does not matter, no.

I think that particular screenshot is highlighting a map error (I think those props are intended for a built-up section of the map but have been accidentally placed on top of a field instead). So what you've done is probably fine.

Ok, go to the following directory: xenonauts/mods/Random Map Pack Farm Edition/maps/farm/props/rmp_farm_field_tiles If you want utterly no props in cabbage/plowed fields at all, delete all the numbered files from 1 to 15. If you want to reduce the propensity for props in cabbage/plowed fields, copy the numbered files 16-19 and paste them into the same folder as copies. The number of times you do this will determine the relative chance of seeing props - I would suggest increasing the total number of files in that folder to 60 which will give a 1-in-4 chance of a field section spawning a prop (and there are four field sections per large field, so on average you'll see a single prop/collection of props). I'm actually quite surprised looking back at this that the ratio is like that - I figured it was closer to what I'm recommending changing it to than apparently it is.

If I have time I will have a look later and advise. You'll not need to use the submap editor though - just a matter of deleting/moving some files.

Pretty sure that's from my random farm map pack. The intensity of props there is, I think, actually quite unusual (it's randomly generated and those kinds of areas should be weighted against having a large number of props). Although, truthfully I never really liked how the map pack handled cabbage fields anyway as, density notwithstanding, few of the props actually work thematically anyway. Resolving this would actually be fairly easy - you could just trim out the submaps which have props on to weight in favour of empty areas - but I can't remember exactly which submaps you'd need to delete off the top of my head.

The HP for doors have been increased, yes. To change this you would need to modify the UFO door spectres in the mod's 'tiles' folder. Open in a text editor and change the HP values. Equally, you could just delete them but avoid doing this for the Cruiser as you may delete something which needs to not be deleted.

Hadn't deleted that, no. Although looking through it now, I can't see anything that I would expect to have an effect on the issue (most of the files have been updated with the install, the only ones that haven't appear to be old LUA script files related to the vanilla game but none of those should impact on submaps). Thanks for the suggestion though. EDIT: @llunak - if I wanted to look at the dropship submaps in the submap editor, how would I do that? If I copy the mapping tiles into the vanilla 'tiles' folder then load the XCE version of the submap editor, will it use any modified tiles from XCE. Or do I need to move everything into the vanilla tiles folder?

Depends on the cover. The only way to check is to use the free-aim function (click on the soldier's equipped weapon) and draw a line of fire over the cover you want to check. A % will show above the cover prop - this indicates the % by which incoming attacks will have their to-hit reduced. E.g. if it indicates 50% shots crossing over that prop will be half as likely to hit as normal. Cover is directional, indeed a shot trajectory must pass over the cover prop for the penalty to apply. This means that single-space cover props make pretty poor cover, as the AI is good at moving to angles which will ignore the cover. Better where possible then to find wider pieces of cover, or L shaped cover spaced that protect from multiple directions. In any case, you are typically better staying out of LoS entirely where possible, using corners, windows and doors to hide behind at the end of your turn. Usually, it is better to hide a unit with their remaining TUs than take another and leave them out in the open. But oftentimes this isn't possible, hence the need for cover.

I'm getting an issue where the game stops responding to mouse clicks on the geoscape screen if I load straight from a GC save to a geoscape save or if I quit from GC to main menu and then load geoscape. Weirdly, this seems to persist even after the game has shut down, e.g. if I quit from GC to main menu, then close game, then reload game and load a geoscape save the bug occurs. It possibly even occurred after I restarted my machine, although this was before I figured out what the problem was so I may have accidentally repeated it after restarting the computer. Oddly, it also doesn't seem tied to savegames - I got the same issue on the geoscape even when starting a new game. However, loading into a GC game then finishing or aborting the mission resets everything. Further, to be clear, it is literally only the geoscape screen - all the base screens work fine and keyboard commands are still received.

Following on from the above - tried removing Skitso's art pack mod and it had no effect. I've also now been through all the mods I am using and none of them modify the dropship submaps. Is anyone else getting this issue? I'm stuck for thoughts as to what the problem might be.

I don't think I've ever modified the dropship submaps so it won't be anything specifically I've done. And, as I said, removing the Chinook folder from the main XCE mod got rid of the problem. However, I have been using Skitso's art pack so it could be an interaction with that as you suggest. I will check when I'm home later.

No but you can shoot from behind any other prop without penalty if you are adjacent to it. E.g. if you are next to a 50% cover-prop then you can shoot over it, causing no penalty for your own shots but still giving a penalty to incoming attacks. As regards reaction fire: I strongly recommend saving TUs where possible. In practice, I actually find reaction fire weak and so wouldn't advise relying on it. However, if you insist on moving your full move every turn, it means that you risk coming face-to-face with an alien without having TUs left to shoot it. As such, I find it better to save TUs for a shot not for reaction fire per se but to ensure I'm never in a situation where I discover an alien and cannot attack it. Also, in terms of being shot at with reaction fire, the proportion of a soldier's TUs remaining is factored into the chance of an alien shooting. So the more TUs you have used, the more likely it is aliens will take a reflex shot. Again, then, not spending all your TUs reduces the number of times aliens will take reflex shots against you. This is generally best but if you can't easily suppress your target it may be better to deploy smoke first as a counter against reaction fire (especially in the case of Androns).