Mask

Is this the right place for suggestions? Forgive me if it isn't (I couldn't find anywhere more appropriate). I'd like to ask if it's possible to return the option for explosion damage scaling. Used to be that the further you were from an explosion, the less damage you took. That element is critical to the Quasi Realism mod I'm helping a friend with. I hope there's any chance of returning the function. Thank you for hearing my suggestion. I apologize again if it's inappropriate here.

I'll go and suggest it to the community edition mod thread now. Thank you for reminding me of this. I thought it was a separate variable in one version. I might be getting it mixed up with something else. Been to long since I was involved in modding the game.

Someone helped me find the variable to control the damage scale of explosives. MinExplosiveDamageLevel variable in config.xml, to control how much damage you take depending on how far you are from the explosion. Thanks to Solver for that.

I remember modding the game so you could prime the grenades in an early version of Xenonauts. I had it that you could prime them for one or two turns, so you could indefinitely prime the grenade for 2 turns so it wouldn't blow up, simulating the feeling of clutching a grenade to prevent it exploding. With that system, I think you could throw it without priming it. Can't remember. Problem was, you couldn't keep them in a quick slot if you did it that way, so you couldn't hold a rifle at the same time (not to say shooting with a rifle is easy when you're priming a grenade). Maybe you can in this version.

Are there plans to expand upon the modifiability of the game? EDIT: I see the community edition mod seems to be expanding on the ways you can mod the game. Sorry for not checking that sooner.

Now that Xenonauts has hit version 1, Ron plans to start the Quasi Realism mod up again. There was a change a while back to explosives. Before, the further you were away from the explosion the less damage you took. It was changed so that damage was uniform within the explosive radius. Has it changed again? If there are any other oddities or utilities that have come up in modding Xenonauts, please let us know. It seems the Xenonauts Community Edition mod appears to add a few options, and we'll be looking into that. There are also some other interesting mods, so it'll be fun to consider compilations. Go ahead and offer any additional feedback for the mod, too, on what you'd like to see. This mod is about adding some realism to the game, so the ideas should have a basis in that.

The thread title is finally missing the misrepresentative "Build 6". Will get to thanking Chris.

This site is even quicker, Firebeard: https://mega.co.nz/ Well, depending on the size. If it's something not difficult to break up and upload, I can just take my time downloading the pieces. If they're pretty cumbersome files, dropbox would be necessary. About that reply... Not sure what to say. Well, I have some idea: I'd like to thank you both for supplying us with valuable data. could ramble on just how great it is of you both to go to such lengths... but I fear my writing inadequate at this time to convey how good of you it is. EDIT: Ron also took a look. Aufklarer's results fall in line with his expectations from his own experience and from people he knows. It's a pity we can't experiment with hip-fire time to aim and accuracy with machineguns, but this will help.. He also wishes you well, hoping you get out of Afghanistan safely.

About the next version... Ron has been sick, and I haven't been expecting it to make much progress. It's done. Build 7 is, from a brief trial run, operating as it should be. A few added tweaks are in, such as Grenades now work in the quick-grenade slots again, and explode at the end of the turn (new feature the Devs added, which is being made full use of). Go to the mod page I'm linking to now or use the link in the OP: http://xeno-mods.com/mod/154/quasi-realism-alpha-for-version-19-build-7 Let us know what you find while testing. Aside from the exciting news of a playable version, we would like some help in a real-life test, as Ron describes. Firebeard: I would be quite interested in seeing the definitive manual you mention.

Ron is feeling a bit better, now. He still has a lot of code to sift through before he can even start fixing the mod around the new updates... so we're still a little ways off from build 7. He also felt well enough to reply. As for the Xenonauts being meant as SAS members and the like... I've talked this over with Ron before, and we're not really sure how to handle it. We could try making all Xenonauts start out at basically max level, and disable the levelling up mechanic (currently, their advancement in skills doesn't seem to match reality), as one possible alternative. We decided to leave that bee's nest for now, and work on it in a later phase of the alpha. If anyone has some ideas on what they want to see,with the Xenonaut's stats and progression, we're open to suggestion. For the medical kits, Ron already considered that one. It's hard-coded so that you can't use a medkit on yourself, currently. The Devs will probably change this later... so I guess wait till then. There are already plans to update the AP cost to better represent the time and difficulty of performing emergency first aid in a battlefield situation, as well.

Well, I'm not the modder. Ron is doing the modding. If you can submit some machine gun stats and some data as to how they perform in game, I'll show them to Ron as soon as I can.

That was pretty woefully ironic, I agree. It's in general agreement that grenades are not as good as they should be, I think I can say. What I recommend, is we all do some tests with the grenades on the Xenonauts, and report our findings here. How to do this? The Damage and Radius stats under the Grenade are what are used for controlling the effect of the grenades, in the weapons_gc.xml file in assets. Tweak these, toss them around, and see what looks like a good blast radius. You'll want to tweak the DamageRandomChance variable at the start of config.xml as well, from 20 (or is it 50 now?) to 95 (that's what we're using--so, unless we change that in the mod, it's probably best to use that for uniformity of data). Make sure to back up your files before tweaking. You should test on unarmoured Xenonauts rather than aliens. They have been used as our baseline for configuring health and weapon damage, and we have a better idea of how human react to injury than how unearthly horrors react. Since you'll be testing in the standard game (I assume), the alien health and armour will also be pretty weird (rather like DnD), and will not give you very good test results (also, your guys will just stand there, and won't shoot back at you as you try to set up a grenade throw). I think we'll all feel better when these grenades are dealt with. I'll continue correspondence with Ron, and help him with updating and further tweaking the next release (will mention the machine gun AP cost). UPDATE: Ron agrees about the machine gun. "I lowered the AP cost on the MG by a bit, because I thought so too .... Note that the weapon shown - the FN-MAG (NATO designation M240) - is a kind of light gun for its caliber. It doesn't handle recoil well, and tends to overheat and cook off rounds if you fire longer bursts. So some compromise seemed to be in order, to prevent players from being able to burn the entire 50-round belt without pause." In the new version, we'll test this more closely, and see if the compromise could be better.

Zutom: Thank you for your kind words. Those, along with the same interest in such a mod, are what fuels us. We're both glad you enjoyed the mod. Sorry that I didn't plan around this new update appropriately (distribution is my front, I suggested releasing it at this odd time). We'll try and get a version which works with build 7 up as soon as we can manage. In the same challenging sense of timing these projects seem bound to face, Ron has become sick, and won't be as quick to fix the new version for this reason (sorry to bare bad news) Aufklarer: Mm, we're in agreement that there is room for improvement. The aspect of the baseball pitch is hard to work out what to do with (personally, I'd like the option to be able to throw baseball pitch style, but it's risky if you don't have them suppressed, with options to toss grenades from cover). The throwing range hasn't been modified, currently, because the animation gives that impression, and some other stuff (grenades deal too much damage through cover). At this time, we don't know what formula is used to calculate explosives damage, which is making statting explosive and shrapnel lethality quite a work. Alien and Xenonaut armour isn't perfect yet, either. Any help you can give, when build 7 comes out, by mentioning oddities you notice in the mod is, pretty much, crucial to this mod's success (we're only two people, and aren't giving this mod as much attention as it deserves). Echo Four Delta: Some of what I've said to Aufklarer, I would like to mention. We're not fully satisfied with our numbers, yet, so you are right in stating that they are far from as good as they could be. I talked to Ron about your post, since I felt unable to answer this. He has not been feeling well which is delaying the update, and he was not in a very good mood. Thus, let's focus on improving the mod. Arguing details and semantics are not relevant, unless they are what we experience in play and in testing. Personal experience of combat is a good thing which can be applied to the mod, but we need to do so practically in getting the feel of combat, since many details are not possible to simulate with perfect accuracy in the current game.

First, Gizmo: ...Well. This on one hand is a depressing error, but it's also pretty funny. We wondered whether to wait for the new version or release now... then the new version comes out a few hours after our release. We're working on version 19 build 7 now. Might take a bit of time. My testing thus far using the v19 build 6 pack produces an odd bug, where the aliens don't seem to be willing to shoot at my soldiers under any kind of provocation. Install at your own risk if you're using build 7, for now. To Echo Four Delta, and Aufklarer: This one was over my head, so I had to ask Ron. He has given me the reason for his decision to stat the grenades as they are. "The USMC combat study that produced the 8-meter grenade throw conclusion was based on a number of observations. Specifically, in the case of hand grenades, that their previous training and testing protocol was highly unrealistic. While standing on solid ground with plenty of time to wind up for the pitch, it is possible to get 20 meters or more on a throw. However, you don't need a hand grenade when standing on a golf course on a lovely day. If repeated under "grenade use conditions" - full combat gear, carrying a primary weapon, on questionable footing, and either trying to stay behind some cover or trying to get back under cover quickly - the results were quite different. If you plan on using a hand grenade in combat, you had better figure on about 8 meters, because that's likely all you're going to get. The fact that this was shorter than the grenade's rated casualty radius was more than a little disconcerting, and prompted some changes in tactics." "Fragmentation explosives tend to be fatal regardless of most body armors, for two reasons. The first is blast concussion, which can kill or disable even if fragments do not penetrate the armor. Unless you're wearing two tons of metal (like the Xenonauts late-game power armors), you're probably vulnerable to concussion. The second is the hail of tiny fragments, which will strike in so many places that unless you are literally completely encased in solid metal, will still cut you to shreds. Modern military armors do not have the coverage necessary to prevent severe injury under these conditions. This is partly why both science fiction and actual military planners show interest in full-body power-assisted armors. "For game purposes, the throw range on grenades was not changed - it is still possible to throw the weapon further than its blast radius. The operatives in-game do seem to be standing flat-footed and winding up like a baseball pitch. However, it is no longer possible to just drop a grenade at your own feet and expect a reasonable survival rate, unless you're wearing like 11 tons of armor." "New version of the mod will be available as soon as I can determine exactly what has been changed, and rebuild the necessary modifications."

To answer the comments you added: The vehicle missiles are based off some Chinese artillery rockets from about 1960. So far, we haven't looked at changing the Geoscape range of aircraft, just the amount of fuel consumption in combat. It is something to consider, but there might be some limits the engine presents which, for now, can't be worked around.

I've encountered so many forums that didn't have spoiler-tags, I forgot to check if this one did. Added the full description as you suggested. Thanks for pointing that out. Let us know what you find with the mod.

The mod is ready for its alpha debut for version 1.0x of Xenonauts. This is a mod by Ron Losey, which I have helped test and distribute. It attempts to simulate some level of reality within the Xenonauts setting by tweaking the variables. Changes include weapon damage, weapon randomness, armour, vehicle armour, combat fuel consumption for aircraft, weapon and sight ranges, rebalance of weapon types (plasma, laser, ballistic) so that they each excel for certain uses (later guns still being better overall), economics, and many various other changes. A more thorough description: Download the mod from here: https://mega.co.nz/#!iBUBGLYI!eL9vj8gxTEki_QWILPl35oeYBWoWr47o9LUF2gO6-6s

I can confirm that it appears to be related to whether the aliens have escorts. Editing out the escorts appears to eliminate the bug. Alternatively, you can destroy the escort ships, leave the battle, then attack again, and it won't crash.

Doesn't seem to happen over water, only over land. The crash can be quite persistent.. Maybe something to do with how the crash sites are placed on the map?

Apparently, there's reason to believe that in the main code there are modifiers for different weapons/damage types. I'm not certain. IF there aren't, having some way to mod our own modifiers would be nice.

From what can be garnered, weapons seem to have some kind of bleeding modifiers in the main code. Assuming this is true, please, when possible, make it possible to mod the these variables in the near future..

Largely, me and my friend's concern is grenades, which we currently have set to Explosives, and plasma ammo, which we considered swapping to rocket type ammunition so that we could set things on fire. I'm figuring the most effective way to this end is adding or editing new ammo/weapon types. Of course, your suggestion of adding damage types may be just as effective if not more.

If possible, please consider making it so that we can mod the weapon and ammo types, and be able to make our own. I'm helping someone with a mod, currently, which could benefit quite a lot if we could edit or add our own weapon types (we were discussing making it so that alien plasma rifles could set things on fire, but we don't want to make the ammo into rockets, since it would mess up their interaction with cover). Thank you for reading this suggestion.

Someone mentioned that delayed explosions of grenades is already in the code--but just turned off, currently. I expect the Devs will later make this moddable. This thread can be locked, if the mods find it beneficial.

As you say, 1 to 2 seems like the best setting. We'll have to credit you for coming up with the grenade timer fix, unless you'd prefer not to be. What name would you like to be credited by? Just 4Aces? EDIT: Hmm... any ideas on how to have timer code specifically for the grenades? If I could work out where weapon types like "Explosives" are designated, it shouldn't be too hard to set up. But I don't know where those are, if they're even available without the sourcecode.