ventuswings
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Posts posted by ventuswings
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I've intended to play enough to get sufficient understanding before writing my impressions, but recent update broke the save so here I go. I guess there's value of feedback from early player who still have no idea what's going to happen past first month (haven't followed Xenonaut 2 changes for awhile either). Played four crash sites with Sectoids and those four-legged things, one cleaner intel, and one abduction mission. No casualties except 3 from the cleaner intel.
⦁ There is no tooltip or any source of information that tells you can force fire with CTRL, which is very important tactical tool. I assume this will be part of the tutorial mission?
⦁ No persistent suppression indicator? I notice red circle and cross thing, but I still have no idea what it means. So yeah for current build there isn't enough information and new players (and even Xenonauts 1 vet like me!) are going to be very confused/uninformed.
⦁ Went for cleaner mission as soon as it was available, and cleared with 10 USB. Definitely harder than UFO crashsites but I did beat it first try without any knowledge or preparation. I do remember reading "this mission is expected to be hard" or something somewhere, so I'm not sure if devs expect me to get better gear before trying this mission? Can't remember if this was clearly communicated (since I can't access the save).
⦁ Disappointing to see that bodyblocking the door still seem to be effective strategy, as AI don't seem to be able to open doors unless walking through it. Abusing this was one of major reason why I managed to clear cleaner intel despite knowing nothing about it.
⦁ Cleaner Reinforcement AI should be encouraged to advance towards the dropship, especially if the first objective of collecting 10 USB is clearned. I've skipped five turns near the droship before leaving to see if there was any pursuit yet nothing happened.
⦁ One of my soldiers "survived", which should not happen on extraction mission like Cleaner Intel unless player brings the body back to the dropship.
⦁ Three day abduction expiration date (on strategy layer, not mission timer) seem pretty generous, could consider shortening on higher difficulties. Rescued 7/10 pods so timer feels fine.
⦁ I did notice the cash is more more valuable, but personally enjoyed limited finance a lot since it introduces choices and builds (instead of Xenonauts 1 where I could spam almost everything at the start). I haven't had cash issues because I sold all but 1 of cleaner corpses and cleaner intel, don't know enough about the game to know if I'm runing my mid-game by doing so.
⦁ I only played few missions but tactical combat feels pretty easy on Commander difficulty. I haven't tried lower difficulties yet but perhaps there should be greater variation between the difficulties. Even if Insane difficulty is going to be added later on, I haven't felt like I am playing on second hardest difficulty so far. Note that I'm only referring to tactical difficulty, strategy layer feels more challenging than Xenonauts 1 though it may be unfamiliarity. -
I would love an opportunity to join the playtest and contribute to improving Xenonauts 2
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I hope there is some sort of cooldown for turning on/off power on specific buildings, otherwise I can imagine FTL-like micromanagement nightmare
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Phoenix Point is good example of how introducing new mechanics that deviate from original for sake of change can harm gameplay.
Lot of combat problems there came from developer trying to mix things up by introducing XCOM2-based class and abilities, which unfortunately did not turn out to mix well with the design of UFO Defense. The battle is almost entirely skill-dependent at the cost of other tactical elements, and ironically leads to reduced variety in team composition (if you don't go with "correct" build of heavy/sniper or shotgun/sniper, end game becomes near unplayable difficult). Making power difference between rookies and veteran too strong has also led their difference in performance to be too different, making soldiers less disposable and making gamers less inclined to be favourable toward perceived unfairness of aliens. In short, Phoenix Point is suffering because it's been designed as realistic strategy game while new element has shifted the game towards gotta-nuke-everything-in-single-turn puzzle style of XCOM2 battle.
While sequel is good opportunity to add additional mechanics that support the original gameplay, I am glad Goldhawk Studio is choosing to build a solid well-proven foundation first, because then the developer can add new elements based on that foundation and also track how it affects game design.
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This mod is culmination of minor modifications I made to Xenonauts to make it more enjoyable for me, with changes deliberately kept minimal in order to maintain major features of original game, as is the case with CE Balance. After some testing, I share this for anyone else who may have similar tastes.
My mod should be placed in the highest priority; it was found to be compatible with all mods included in the Community Edition mod-pack, but have not been tested with any others.
Major changes include
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Removal of Aerial terror + Full map reveal (terror and base defense) mechanic:
This event causes massive swing in funding situation either way in heavily luck-dependent manner, as location of the bombing rather than skill decides whether aerial terror sites will succeed or not; in fact, there is no difference between aerial terror mission and normal bomber interception. The possibility of aerial terror site also forces the player to maintain large squadron to account for it - basically forcing the player to follow what is already popular Geoscape strategy. Occurrence of bombing mission has been instead increased slightly to compensate for removal of aerial terror missions and still make Bombers high-priority targets.
Full map reveal had been implemented as convenience measure. I removed this mechanic for two reasons. One, I personally do not mind hunting down the last alien like I did in old X-COM. This problem is also less pronounced in base defense missions as maps are smaller and location of aliens are more obvious. Second, it opened up significant exploit where one would deliberately camp until this significant advantage was granted to them. Base defense missions especially could be made trivial due to how Alien AI works there. -
Hard-handed nerfs to door camping strategy (and command center camping in base defense):
Some people have stated their dislike on how doors can easily be abused, and I am one of them. Since this is personal mod I had freedom to implement one of drastic fixes suggested without worrying about controversy. Large doors can no longer be closed by the player. Alien doors still close automatically at end of alien turn. I don't recall any large doors other than those on UFO and alien base that can be closed anyway. To compensate, I exported see-through UFO doors from XNT mod which I really liked to allow for better tactical choices <credits given in changelog>.
Every prop on Xenonauts command center have been changed to have 1 HP while having 1000 explosive damage. Their explosion radius is just that if any stray bullet happens to hit any of the props, everything in the room dies. This change was implemented to prevent player from camping the command center in base defense missions, and can be considered as secondary difficulty buff along with map reveal removal. Lore-wise aliens are sending out disruptive signal that destabilized base reactor and make firefight in command center, associated to aforementioned reactor, absolutely lethal (like in movie Aliens!) -
Geoscape funding rebalanced to allow for varied starting base location:
Specific details can be seen on the changelog below. The maximum amount of funding and monthly funding you receive is still kept identical to the original game. However, having your starting base on Egypt is no longer the one right strategy, and world map can be divided into three portions with distinct characteristics.
Northern America is the highest paying region accounting for ~36% of total funding but is extremely stable and unlikely to defect without failed terror mission, as North America and South America start out with ~700 relations value. Although American base would protect highest source of funding, placing your starting base here may be unwise if your aim is to prevent defection of all regions.
Usual starting location - covering Europe, USSR, Northern Africa, Southern Africa, and Middle East - was considered as a single portion. Although Europe and USSR have been unaffected and is still major source of income, funding from other three regions have been cut drastically. Northern Africa and Middle East especially offer negligible income and should be protected just for defection prevention reasons. These five regions together still make up ~35% of the funding, but since initial radar is likely to cover Africa or Middle East more rather than Europe or USSR, you should expect to gain least amount of funding here. The benefit of placing starting base here is protection of overwhelming number of regions.
Indochina and Australasia account for ~29% of funding, and have slight reduction in initial value to account for boost in Americas. Both regions have been boosted to make starting base here viable, but most of the boost has gone to Australasia which has now become third highest paying region. More importantly, these two regions have highest funding modifier meaning they are extremely sensitive to Xenonaut feedback, resulting in faster increase or decrease in funding given. Regardless it is also viable to place a base that protects Indochina, USSR, Middle East and sacrifice Australasia entirely.
Due to the fact that funding balance requires long playthrough to test, current change does not yet feel final to me. Any feedback would be welcome.
DOWNLOAD (credits below)
http://www.mediafire.com/download/475cqojas1sl34s/Ventpatch2.zip
CHANGELOG
2.0
- Regional funding in Geoscape rebalanced to introduce varied strategic decision in choice of base locations.
<!-- STARTING REGION FUNDING SCORES -->
<continentInitRelationNA value="704" comment="The initial relations value for North America." />
<continentInitRelationCA value="368" comment="The initial relations value for Central America." />
<continentInitRelationSA value="700" comment="The initial relations value for South America." />
<continentInitRelationEU value="500" comment="The initial relations value for Europe." />
<continentInitRelationRU value="625" comment="The initial relations value for USSR." />
<continentInitRelationNAF value="500" comment="The initial relations value for North Africa." />
<continentInitRelationSAF value="500" comment="The initial relations value for South Africa." />
<continentInitRelationME value="400" comment="The initial relations value for Middle East." />
<continentInitRelationIN value="400" comment="The initial relations value for Indochina." />
<continentInitRelationAA value="450" comment="The initial relations value for Australasia." />
<!-- FUNDING MODIFIERS -->
<!-- Each month, a funding region will pay the player $500 for each relations value point, multiplied by this modifier -->
<continentModNA value="1.5" comment="North America modifies its funding by this value." />
<continentModCA value="1.25" comment="Central America modifies its funding by this value." />
<continentModSA value="0.8" comment="South America modifies its funding by this value." />
<continentModEU value="1.15" comment="Europe modifies its funding by this value." />
<continentModRU value="1.5" comment="USSR modifies its funding by this value." />
<continentModNAF value="0.25" comment="North Africa modifies its funding by this value." />
<continentModSAF value="0.55" comment="South Africa modifies its funding by this value." />
<continentModME value="0.25" comment="Middle East modifies its funding by this value." />
<continentModIN value="1.85" comment="Indochina modifies its funding by this value." />
<continentModAA value="2.0" comment="Australasia modifies its funding by this value." />
<forecastChangeRounding value="1000" comment="The forecast funding change shown on geoscape will be rounded to multiples of this value" />
<forecastChangeImpreciseLevel value="0" comment="The forecast funding change shown on geoscape will be shown as text depending on (not) exceeding this this value, if not 0." />
<relationsCap value="2.0" comment="Multiplied by the starting relations score for each region to give the maximum value that nations relations can reach" />
1.1
- Fixed the bug that resulted in some objects in the command center not being explosive.
1.0
- Aerial Terror missions removed; Bomber carry out bombing missions in higher frequency to compensate and still make them high-priority targets.
- Full map reveal in terror + base defense missions removed.
- Aliens more likely to breach Xenonaut base in multiple directions.
- All objects in the command center are highly explosive to prevent command center camping.
- Large doors cannot be closed by the player. Alien doors still close automatically at end of alien turn.
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[EXPORT] Introduced windowed UFO doors from XNT mod, which can be seen through and act as 75% cover.
CREDIT: XNT mod was developed by Kabill, Sentelin, Selgald, Tactical Dragon, and Theon Greyjoy.
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Removal of Aerial terror + Full map reveal (terror and base defense) mechanic:
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Yes, I really like the introduction of turn timers, but they could have been implemented better.
Pretty good game if not compared to strictest standards of old XCom.
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I think the question is about screen movement during the projectile travel rather than alien visibility, though I myself may be misunderstanding things since I cannot think of other system. It's been awhile so I forget if the screen returns back to the shooter when the projectile animation concludes.
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Important question: Will it be in the game by default, or possible through modding, to remove Time Units and do Firaxis-style action-based turns? I've always found that, along with the weird cover system, to be the 2 biggest draws to Xenonauts.
I actually like the cover system... if giant rock is between you and the target, it should affect your accuracy in some way. It's nice little distinction from Firaxis XCOM; they already made a game which perfectly complements their method of cover so it feels bit redundant to have two games with similar mechanics. I guess similar reasoning applies to TU system.
I just think making the formula simple and communicating that formula better UI-wise would be sufficient if change is necessary. For example, if the formula happens to be only cover with highest % in line of fire matters, have UI highlight only that cover and its block chance (but not other covers).
Another thing was the lack of tutorial. Complaint about cover I found actually comes mostly from not knowing or misunderstanding angles (which Firaxis XCOM has with flanking) and "corner shooting" mechanic.
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Thank you! Everything works now.
The radius should be in tiles, so indeed you've managed to replicate the Aliens effect rather well
.Radius actually seem to be tiles * 100, for some reason.
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XNT had weak grenades? Either way, second the recommendation.
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The xenonautbase submap seems to operate under different rules than that of others, or there is something I have not yet understood from the guide:
After having unpacked files, SubmapEditor looks like this (you can see that I made modification to one of the props):
However when I play the game, all changes I made in the spectre editor is ignored; I'm playing around with commandcentre.xml in base folder so this is not a problem with mod-merge. In fact, computer consoles get block chance of 45% which I don't think is specified in either my or original files.
If I even make minor modification to the submap itself and "Save Submap", it results in black space where only the objects seen on the SubmapEditor are present. Am I making some sort of mistake?
What is funny is that the changes I make to the spectre are reflected in the game when I do NOT use the extracted files, at least regarding those that is present before extraction that is.
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Is
'CanCloseLargeDoorOpenedInTurn' = false
non-functional?
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Thank you very much! As said, spontaneous dabbling around so had no idea regarding these.
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Here is sub-map editor for the command center.
You can see not all the tiles are available for me to edit, as can be seen by the map view from the editor below:
Table tile and another computer facing northwest(?) are missing in the red circle. However, they do appear on the game itself strangely enough.
When you navigate to tiles/xenonautbase/commandcentre, there is no files but only single folder named "animated_props". There are no png & xml for table prop visible in this folder either.
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Will try to post the relevant screenshots around 13 hrs later
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I'm trying some minor edits on the vanilla game to check out my ideas, and one of them was to prevent command center camping strategy by changing the properties of objects on that location.
More specifically, I'd do this by altering the properties of TABLE and COMPUTER CONSOLES to be extremely fragile and explosive. Lore-wise this simulates that alien are sending out signal that destabilizes the base reactor, causing any firefight in the command room to have lethal consequences (like in the Aliens!)
I went to the sub-map editor and changed the properties of whatever objects I could find to:
[CUSTOM] Uncrushable - HP 1 - Explosive [radius 3000 damage 1000]
And it seemed to work when I tested it; everything dies a horrible death when single bullet hits the object in the command center, although it somehow causes you to win the mission so I'll have to adjust a radius a little bit.
The problem is that not ALL the objects seem to be editable.
I was only able to make aforementioned change for some of the computer consoles. The game files seem to have only some of the objects available for edit, and I cannot seem to find files for TABLE and COMPUTER CONSOLE ON THE LEFT CORNER (when I check out the sub-map editor, these objects seem to be the objects that do not show up on the command center sub-map review).
Can anyone tell me if it is possible to change the properties of all objects in the game, and if so, how I can do so?
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How is the difficulty?
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Excellent idea, must have taken significant effort!
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Hello, is this version of XNT still compatible with V1.5x builds of Xenonauts? Out of the Sun mod thread said that somebody reported problems so little bit worried; despite number of worthy extensions which branched out from XNT mod, I'll be relieved to know that I can fall back to playing the original when I feel like it.
Edit: Thank you.
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I played up to the "Spear" weapons, and I must say that rifle weapons seem to be very effective so far, at least compared to other types...
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I think grenades are working like that in XNT and Xenophobia mods too. It should be default behavior. The current vanilla behavior doesn't make much sense.
Previous versions actually experimented with instant exp but was changed back, personally I like vanilla mechanics.
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No Reaper AI until v0.98 right? Waiting to face alien menace in full and changelog for hotfix is little vagud (¨melee aj added")
Edit: Thank you!
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Eh, I personally don't care if the machine gun changes are reverted back to the vanilla. Rifles and LMG handling seems quite similar in this build actually, both are mobile and involve burst-fire-spray-and-pray (yes, there is penalty to moving and firing but it's mitigated by greater number of bullets)
I assume people like me won't have much less incentive to post. If you're concerned, it's not like all machine gun types have to share the same TU % formula, could create sub-class of weapons which behaves like current LMG, but is less effective stat-wise than either "actual" heavy weapons or rifles due to having a best of both worlds.
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Do you mean fuel number and UFO HP?
V25 Gameplay / Balance Feedback thread:
in Xenonauts-2 General Discussion
Posted
It seems like I can't force fire past the wall? I had a machine gunner available to take 10 burst shot, and an alien little bit behind the wall. However I couldn't click at alien nor tile past the wall so I was forced to burst fire at the wall itself. This resulted in wall breaking after 4 shots, and remaining 6 shots which were free to go towards the alien being wasted instead (hitting the tiles next to the wall since that's what I had to target).