[[v19 Stable, through WINE] Crash when using soldier's inventory during battle]

Will do, thank you. :-)

[[v19 Stable, through WINE] Crash when using soldier's inventory during battle]

Slackware on KDE with wine-1.7.0

I don't think the distribution or the DE has anything to do with this, it's probably something with v1.7.0 of wine. Also, I may also have been extremely unlucky: while this happened again a few times, the frequency lowered drastically. I'll try to use a previous wine version, maybe.

[[v19 Stable, through WINE] Crash when using soldier's inventory during battle]

It's possible this is a wine related issue then..

Usually I wouldn't post bugs for software I run through wine but Xenonauts relies on it for its Linux version officially. If these is any info needed about the crash let me know and I'll provide what I can.

[[v19 Stable, through WINE] Crash when using soldier's inventory during battle]

Greetings,

I've recently installed v19 Stable through WINE (on Linux) but it keeps crashing when closing a soldier's inventory during battle. It seems to be random but has a high incidence, I can sometimes open a soldier's inventory, make changes (for example: equip a medkit) and return to the field without problems but roughly half of the time it will just crash to desktop. It's as bad as me not being able to finish a single battle so far - I haven't tried too often, 4 or 5 crash sites, but that's what stopped me from playing every time.

It happens on different battlegrounds (reloading a save means I get different UFOs, etc) and on different games (I started new games to test if it was somehow related to something in the particular save). It seems to be save-independent, reproducible by just playing a battle and accessing the inventory a couple of times.

Does anyone else have this problem?

(I know there is a similar topic about the inventory screen but that one seems to relate to the geoscape soldier inventory screen in the base.)

Thanks!

[Stable 19 on Humble Store]

@Chris I don't remember if the v18 was a .rar file but I didn't have any issues with it. Anyway, it's not a Xenonauts problem but rather an unzip utility one, so maybe a .rar for the next release could be good but no reason to lose time to repackage v19 I guess, unless it's a really fast operation (I don't know the procedure to upload things on Humble Bundle).

Cheers!

EDIT: I thought about it a bit and for v18 I used the .deb Linux package, that's why I didn't have any issues.

At any rate, if I'll find a zip utility that works well for big files, I'll report back here. I don't know when I'll have time to really look at it tho.

[Ground Combat Balance Discussion V19 Stable]

I won't change it, it's actually fine. I never experienced it before v19 tho, so I was a bit confused. I'll just have to fix my strategies to take burst reaction fire into account.

Thanks!

[Ground Combat Balance Discussion V19 Stable]

Another issue, in addition to the grenades' one: I noticed aliens can use burst fire when they trigger reaction fire, is that intended? I was under the impression reaction fire is always a single snap shot. Similarly, I noticed my soldiers can reaction fire multiple times each turn. I had an alien run in front of my guys and it triggered 3 reaction fire actions from a single soldier equipped with a pistol. Shouldn't it be limited to once/turn?

[Ground Combat Balance Discussion V19 Stable]

I haven't read the whole discussion so apologies if this has already been raised, but isn't the grenades' throw range a bit too short now? I've just started a new game with Stable v19 and pistols have a better range (which in RL is fine, but in Xenonauts means you're already close enough to engage in melee if you'd like). Grenades at that range are a bit useless since most of the time the gunfight has larger distances and closing in that much means you'd just be able to shot the alien in the face.

I do agree the previous range was too long, but with the current one I can't see myself using grenades at all.

[Stable 19 on Humble Store]

Very nice, thanks! I wasn't aware of that problem with unzip/7zip.

[Experimental branch: Testing stable hotfix]

@Chris could you check the .zip on Humble Bundle's Store? As I mentioned here it looks like it might be broken somehow.

(Sorry for cross-posting, but it seems like the topic I made was going to pass unnoticed, and since you're giving info on the various versions here I thought to mention it. In order not to steer this discussion too off topic it might be best to use my dedicated topic if you need info, maybe?)

[Stable 19 on Humble Store]

Greetings,

I've just noticed Humble Store updated Xenonauts to the Stable 19 version (I don't know how long that's been there, HB didn't put an update date under the download link - which is also why I noticed it only because I was checking the link target) but, upon download, the .zip archive won't open. The md5sum checks ok so the download went good and the file's good, but the unzip utility outputs this:

Archive: xeno_win19stable.zip

End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not

a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive. In the

latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on

the last disk(s) of this archive.

unzip: cannot find zipfile directory in one of xeno_win19stable.zip or

xeno_win19stable.zip.zip, and cannot find xeno_win19stable.zip.ZIP, period.

Has anybody experienced the same behaviour?

[Xeno + Steam + Linux ?]

I've used the "stock" Wine for running the windows-only experimental builds; it runs like a champ, no modifications needed.

Granted, this is on OS X, so maybe it'd be a tad different on Linux.

It works flawlessly on Linux as well, I think the issue here was that Steam shows Xenonauts as Linux-compatible, but on download it won't work. This is also true of the stand-alone version, it doesn't have wine bundled so the user has to install it himself and the Xenonauts starter script won't use a dedicated wineprefix (as far as I remember), so it's just easier to use the Windows version.

[Xeno + Steam + Linux ?]

Completely agree on the "they should fix the Steam library issue" part, I wasn't arguing against that. :-)

I'd also love to see the Linux version with a bundled version of wine, the Humble Bundle .deb doesn't have it.

[Xeno + Steam + Linux ?]

Since the Linux version works through wine but does not bundle its own wine executable, I would guess it'd be a minor mess to have it install under Steam for Linux and rely on the user installing wine while using it on the starter script. Your best bet (and cleanest way to play Xenonauts on Linux, in my opinion) would be having a dedicated wineprefix to install Steam for Windows and Xenonauts. It's a wine environment either way, so it shouldn't be much of a problem.

Unfortunately I don't think Xenonauts will ever be made available natively for Linux.

[Doing Every Mission - Solution?]

That would work in XCOM:EU where a Colonel is maxed out and will never gain another improvement, no matter how small.

Xenonauts soldiers would need a visible hard cap on abilities that can be reached without diminishing returns.

Then you could reach a point where soldiers would not improve their skills from another mission.

Such a system doesn't exist. =)

Don't abilities cap out at 100? I thought they did have some kind of hard cap.

Anyway, unrelated note: as thothkins says I think it's important that if the player does all the missions, he's not actually penalized by having very poor relations with the funding blocks. It's counter-intuitive - he'd just be doing his job!

[Doing Every Mission - Solution?]

@Chris, actually I thought about that choice as well (although in a really quick manner), when I said "Once the player has a solid group of experienced soldiers and good equipment, however, skipping crashed UFOs would be wisest as not to risk losing soldiers." - that is, if I understood what you meant.

The more I think about it the more I think I dislike the idea on a roleplaying level than on a gameplay one: I'd like for the Xenonauts to actually be the organization funding blocks kind of have to look up to, being somewhat grateful when the player shoots down and clears an UFO on their land (thus raising relation levels) and being forced to try and ally themselves with aliens if the Xenonauts won't help. After all, in my experience every gameplay choice can be made viable one way or another, but certain roleplay choices are much harder to explain (that, or I'm just hard to please in this area - which is actually true).

At any rate, I'm happy my concerns have been noted and acknowledged - I still don't quite like this model, but if this is the route Xenonauts will take, I'll wait 'till it will actually be implemented to further discuss it (unless I'll come up with a way or two to improve the idea), since as much as I like the theory behind game implementations, it's harder to properly assess them without trying (that's to say, what I dislike on paper may be the best gameplay implementation ever - or not). Which, I guess, it's one of the reasons why beta versions exist. :-)

[Doing Every Mission - Solution?]

It will certainly have some degree of wiggle room - and certain situations will definitely make or break a choice for you - but in the long run I don't think it will matter enough.

Choosing because of your soldier's health isn't new to this: in the current implementation of things you do the same, but with donating implemented you'd have one more reason to pass on the mission. In the end you'd be rewarded for not playing the strategic part of the game, but only the management (geoscope) part, which should instead be secondary.

As for donating not to lose a funding block, you'd only have to do it when the relations with the block go critically low if mission rewards are higher when you clear the sites. If I get 50k plus experience plus artifacts by clearing a site, why would I want to gift it if by doing so I'm only gaining 50k at the end of the month? As long as the block has the bare minimum relation level (which should be more or less constant if I down any UFO I see), I don't need to donate.

The opposite happens if actually clearing a crash site gives less than clearing it up myself: why should I bother?

But in the end, if the funding blocks can take care of aliens themselves, up to the point of paying us when we don't intervene, what's the point of Xenonauts? Surely if they can handle aliens, with the money they'd save by not paying Xenonauts they'd be able to make the same aircrafts Xeno uses to down the UFOs.

[V19 Stable Available!]

@SalsaDoom: I think Chris meant the wine wrapped .deb package, not a native port. From my understanding, a native port has been completely ruled out as the engine doesn't support Linux.

I'd love to be wrong, tho.

[Doing Every Mission - Solution?]

I actually don't like the idea of passing a crash site to one of the funding blocks to receive an increase in relations.

- Roleplaying reason:

Xenonauts are supposed to defend the Earth against the alien invasion, shooting down an UFO and then saying "we know it's still full of aliens and that you're not trained against them as we are, but we'll sit this one out" seems to me to be the opposite. If anything, a funding block would be much happier with Xenonauts clearing out the mess, I think, as it prevents them expensive military operations and won't risk to lose any of their own militia. Considering ignored terror missions trigger a nuclear strike (with Xenonauts using a handful of soldiers instead), a downed UFO should still be a major inconvenience for the regular guys - the Xeno really feel like they are the best of the best now, with the regular forces unable to intervene without really great costs.

The funding blocks would of course be incredibly interested in UFOs, their technology and whatnot, so offering them the cleanup operation after having cleared a site should indeed boost the relations with them - effectively gifting them with a whole UFO, plus alien corpses/prisoners and alien weaponry - but it would also mean the player won't be able to skip the mission.

- Gameplay reason:

As it is right now, clearing a crash site would increase funding in two ways: it would give some money immediately and raise the funding t the end of the month. Making it an either or choice would mess up the whole economy and fixing it would lead to 3 groups of solutions, in my opinion all of them with unwanted consequences.

1. If clearing a crash site gives more money than gifting it to the funding blocks, why gift it at all? Some crash sites would still need to be given over to the funding blocks but no more than the bare minimum to keep them from deserting, as each UFO the player gives up is a loss in terms of money (and funding only equals money right now).

2. If clearing or gifting a crash site give (in the end) the same amount of money (or similar), clearing would still be the better choice because of experience and the artifacts retrieved from the field. Once the player has a solid group of experienced soldiers and good equipment, however, skipping crashed UFOs would be wisest as not to risk losing soldiers.

3. If clearing gives less money than gifting it to the funding blocks, the player would want to do the bare minimum number of missions required to level the soldiers and "sell" all the other crash sites to gain more money, which would lead to better equipment, which in turn would mean better odds for the soldiers to survive the few missions they take part in, thus diminishing the number of missions the player would need to do to train fresh rookies (as the player would have far less soldiers dead on the field to replace).

With all these 3 groups of settings, the player wouldn't in the end have a real choice, but rather a "good" choice and a "bad" choice - just as it is now, but maybe with less negative sides and more incentives to nudge towards one side or the other.

I think I'd like Xenonauts much less if something like this would make it into the game, honestly.

A solution could be making the crash sites lower relations if not taken care of, adding an option to pay the local militia to take care of it (with no change in relations), or adding an auto-resolve option for ground missions too. I think UFO:AI has the auto-resolve option, for example (according to some gameplay videos I've seen). All of this of course after having added lots of new different maps and having introduced some new UFO types to reduce the feeling of repetition. Light Scouts could for example either have a crew of cowards as well as a crew of very aggressive aliens, leaving the task of differentiating between the two to the AI: same UFO, two different mission types.

I'm aware my "solution" likely won't cut it alone, but I'd rather see it implemented than the "skip for money" option.

[Thoughts on increased randomness]

@EchoFourDelta I believe in this context (Xenonauts), suppression embodies the "bad" side of fear. When you're suppressed, you can't do anything but crouch under cover; on the other hand, when you're not suppressed, you can choose to either stay in cover or shoot back, or anything in between. As such, a "fearless" soldier doesn't need to be a stupid one: as long as he uses tactics he'll have a great advantage over someone who can be suppressed, as he can evaluate each situation and decide if to seek cover or not, instead of being forced to do nothing. Being immune to suppression doesn't automatically mean the soldier will disregard cover and charge head on.

[[v19 SC1 / Ground Combat] Can't throw granades over bushes]

Do grenades in v19c1 ignore obstacles? With v18Stable I very often saw grenades impacting very low props (example: a bench) even when said props were right in the middle between the soldier and the target, so the grenade should have just gone over it. As it was, it seemed grenades had a parabolic arc animation when thrown but used the standard straight line obstacles calculations shots use.

[Geoscape Balance Discussion v19 Experimental Build 7]

Maybe making smaller vessels more likely to avoid missiles, thus asking for a "close and personal" dogfight using the cannon, and raising the armor on larger vessels to encourage missiles, so that both kind of weapons have separate uses? If the dodging ability is tied to the missiles' speed, smaller/faster missiles could still hit them with relative ease (so Condors won't be nerfed by this) while larger, more damaging ones would be slower and not useful against fighters.

If it hasn't been touched from v18Stable, close combat could probably also use another look, since as it is closing in means either LOTS of repair at best or losing the aircraft at the worst.

Missile reload times should also be factored in, requiring a couple of hours maybe, so that missiles wouldn't be easily replaced anymore preventing the engage-fire-retreat-reload-engage-fire routine.

I have no idea about the amount of reworking this would require, but I think it could help in differentiating between the two types of aircrafts and combat: Condors would be required against fighters and Foxtrots would instead be necessary to deal with the larger ships.

[Thoughts on increased randomness]

Actually I count 6 people in favor of the current spread and 5 against (in one way or another) on this very thread. The pro group is larger, but by just 1 person. Anyway - if it will stay the way it is now, will we be able to mod it in order to have a weighted spread? Or, at the very least, mod the percentages?

EDIT: not to say this means it can't be stay as it is (despite the fact I'd love to see a weighted spread), just that it isn't most people.

[Thoughts on increased randomness]

The weighted average idea is fine, but doesn't necessarily seem an upgrade to me (just equally valid but not what we're using). It makes "special" events rarer, but then I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. Pure random provides more variation and therefore more interesting events.

I'm not sure it would necessarily be more "interesting" events. Since Xenonauts is a strategic game, I enjoy having to plan ahead, use strategies etcetera but I find extremely annoying when I consistently get soldiers one-shotted despite them having (Jackal) armor, just because I have bad luck. I'm fine with some bad luck, so weighted chances wouldn't bother me too much as those events would be kind of rare, but right now it's not some bad luck, it's consistent bad luck, which impacts negatively on my experience, simply because with such variation those extreme events happen so often it feels like my decisions don't count (or, at any rate, don't count as much as luck).

With weighted chances I may lose one soldier in Jackal armor to a single shot every once in a long while, and maybe lose a lot of them when they get hit twice due to bad placement or bad strategies or, in general, due to something that's my fault. With chances as they are, I still get punished for things that are my fault but the divide between bad strategies and bad luck is much thinner, giving way more importance to luck than it should (in my opinion) have.

[Thoughts on increased randomness]

Glad my weighted values suggestion seems to be welcome - a little less glad that the term "weighted values" escaped my mind and I had to write so much to explain it. Oh well!

Depending on how fast the chances would degrade when approaching minimum/maximum damage, I think I'd even be ok with a +/-100% range modifier - the extremes would be very (very!) unlikely anyway, even the best armored soldiers would have something to fear and the whole experience would (hopefully) still remain consistent at the same time. The rationale would be soldiers (and aliens) would be aiming at center mass, with low damage scores being limb hits or grazes and high damage scores being (up to) headshots, both things happening much less often than a "standard" shot, assuming soldiers are well trained, which they should be.