Rallige
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Posts posted by Rallige
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Hey Charon,
I'm really enjoying your mod. But are you sure that you didn't increase alien numbers in bases too much in latest patch?
I was playing on easy\ironman, with a team that I believe was fully decked out for a 2 months progress (I have a Defender tank with division MG, everyone is a Major or Colonel, everyone has laser weapons mk3, everyone is in jackal armor, with improved alenium explosives\grenades\rockets. My air superiority over all continents is almost uncontested - apart from that terror airship that assaulted one of my interceptor bases and made it into an alien base).
Thing is - upon entering the alien base, I was literally swarmed by all types of ETs - a few caesans, a couple of new aliens I didn't see before, and a LOT of xenomorphs. As much as I like cosplaying Alien movies, I was shocked to have my previously unbeatable team wiped out - I barely made it into next room. The only mistake on my part was splitting my forces for first 2 turns (I decided to check 2 different corridors that I started adjacent to, but I quickly withdrew one team to aid another. Despite exploiting main Xenomorph weakness to fire (I even had a dedicated dude with flamethrower, and literally everyone had an incendiary nade) I was still roflstomped - Defender tank alone killed 5 xenos and injured\suppressed a few other aliens.
But the killing blow was delivered during 2 consecutive turns by 2 rockets that came outside my field of view and completely pwned my somewhat grouped, bound in combat with xenomorphs team. In result we have 2 completely destroyed alien base rooms (one room literally had almost all its equipment destroyed in all the explosions) and a teamwipe of elite troops.
While expected in Veteran\Impossible, I believe that this amount of ass-whooping is a bit excessive in Easy (coming from smb who plays X-COM: Long War 1 and 2 on Classic difficulty)
Did I something very wrong? While I understand that having everything at Laser mk3 is not in line of mod's idea of diversifying damage types against different ET resistances, my other main line of equipment was Division mk1 - didn't bother with mk2 (spent most alien alloys on airplanes) and finished researching mk3 just a few hours before ET's took over my base, thus had no time manufacturing those. My team composition :
Defender Tank + Division MG
2 Snipers (Precision lasers mk3)
2 Assault (Laser carbine mk3)
1 Rifleman (Laser rifle mk3)
1 Specialist (Basic flamethrower in hands + rocket launcher and 2 AP alenium rockets in inv.)
1 Heavy weapons guy (Laser minigun mk3)
1 Shield + pistol dude (antimatter pistol mk1)
As mentioned above, everybody was in Jackal armor (considering that most aliens in my playthrough used ballistic\energy weapons, didn't see much point in Fox armor). Everyone is carrying a Medkit, a Stun baton, an Alenium explosive charge (improved one is waaay too big), a spare AP alenium rocket for Specialist, and pretty much every single grenade type apart from Gas (never bothered to try this one out - is it any good?) with extra smoke nades here and there.
I won't describe my tactics to spare your time - but I do understand how cover, suppression, smoke and other stuff works, so that's unlikely the main problem.
So please either consider lowering ET in alien bases amount a bit (at least on Easy and, probably, normal), or tell me what could cause that shocking downfall of mine...
P.S - forgot to mention that I captured and interrogated pretty much everything - often using stun batons over stun nades just for masochistic reasons. Besides, can you capture Androns and robodogs? Wasn't possible in vanilla, and doesn't seem possible in this mod either - I surrounded a robodog against some stone in the desert and beat it with stun batons for 3 turns for no result, lol. But how are you supposed to get EMP grenades then? I fought these robots before (even had a terror mission with them) and researched everything the game gave me - but still no EMP nades...
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Unfortunately, I can't enjoy this mod coz of crappy site you uploaded it to.
Despite me registering there it never sent me an activation e-mail, so I can't download the file. Even if I choose "download with browser", it tells smth like "you have exceeded the downloadable amount of info, to download more, plz register kthxbye".
Sorry, but I can't have that. Can you upload it anywhere else?
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Hello everyone,
If I understand correctly, devs are looking for a way to spice things up by adding politics and, potentially, WW3-scale conflicts. And that sounds just AWESOME. So, here is my suggestion. I will only talk about how I see Cold War theme in Xenonauts, as I totally agree with other changes devs have announced in OP (like removing bases), and trust their ability to create aliens-related lore and plot.
Before we start, here is a list of key points that are contained in my suggestion:
a) Xenonauts is a neutral organization in the beginning (at least officially – it can potentially be aligned towards one of superpowers from the very first days). Moreover, it is NOT mankind’s last hope – as stated in OP, you are only a “elite” unit, used to fight and study bigger threats, while both superpowers can take on easier enemies by themselves. Player’s actions can increase their ability to fight aliens by means, discussed later.
b) Human vs Human combat with Xenonaut participation is almost unavoidable, as peace during Cold War is EXTREMELY fragile, and will HEAVILY depend on what decisions you will make. In my vision of lore, WW3 cannot be stopped, once the hostilities break out – the tension between two blocks has been rising for decades. But Xenonauts should still be able to make individual truces\alliances, and thus rudimentary diplomacy screen is needed.
c) There are 2 main plot lines, closely weaved together : Humanity vs Aliens conflict and NATO vs Warsaw Pact conflict. These lines can interact in different ways, heavily depending on player’s choices and activities.
d) You can’t experience everything in a single playthrough – so customer would have to replay this game several times for different outcomes.
e) Superpowers won’t just throw money and basic equipment at you and leave you to yourself – they WILL make requests which WILL tie up your resources. But failing to accomplish these requests could lead to massive consequences…
f) The ONLY winning condition is stopping alien invasion by winning the last mission (analogue of Operation Endgame in Xenonauts 1).
g) The ONLY losing condition is losing your HQ either to alien or human assault.
So, let us begin. I’ll try my best to represent my suggestion in a comfortable to read way by cutting it up in paragraphs:
I) Previously on “Xenonauts”...
So, first thing we have to decide is whether we drop the very core of Xenonaut's lore - The Iceland's Incident. IMO, we shouldn't, and here is why:
1) Fans always appreciate it, when in sequels lore is at least somehow connected to previous game (i.e they share the same history of creating Xenonaut organization)
2) It does a really good job actually explaining, why opposing sides agreed on creating them.
3) It describes Xenonauts as NEUTRAL organization - why this is so important will be explained later in my post ( In short - it allows story branching )
II) Placing your HQ
Let's assume, that we preserved that that piece of art ( Iceland Incident), and we start the game as Neutral organization. Where do we get to place our HQ? I see only 2 game design branches here:
1) You are NOT ALLOWED to have your HQ in Soviet Union and US.
Pros:
-Makes sense. You don't agree with your rival on creation of a neutral organization, only to find out that it was created right near your enemy's capital city, and will obviously serve them better (for money you donate them, lol)
-Gets player to mess with spheres of influence more - as you will fill every change with your own hide, instead of always being under NATO\WP control from the start. (as US and USSR will obviously never change their politics)
Cons:
-Restricting player's freedom is rarely well appreciated by consumers
2) You are allowed to have your HQ placed anywhere in the world
Pros:
- Freedom of choice is obviously good
Cons:
- Doesn't really fit into Cold War lore.
I trust devs to choose which is better. But in case of 2) IMO player should get large relation penalty with opposing block ( more on relation's importance a little bit later)
III) Story branching( the cost of neutrality)
So, you placed your HQ. What next? Your typical Xenonauts gameplay + whatever new features devs are planning to introduce ( UFO interceptions, different kinds of ground missions, etc ) - but you ALWAYS fight aliens up until main story branching occurs. But before that, let me describe a few gameplay mechanics I came up with that are quite important in deciding, how the story will branch:
*Relations with superpowers (and neutral regions): important for getting more funding, alien resources AND possible military alliance, if things get hot (more on this matter later). Can be increased by fighting alien threats in NATO\WP controlled territories AND fulfilling superpower requests. Can be lowered if the opposite happens. (IMO should be finetuned by your activities with the opposite block. In example – if you just ignore some threats in NATO territory and ignore some of their requests, relations will deteriorate slowly. But if in the meantime you will ACTIVELY help WP by doing every single mission\request for their side, relations should drop much faster. Superpowers are watching you closely, Xenonaut!)
* Superpower tech level : quite obvious mechanic. Superpowers don’t sit idle during alien invasion, and will slowly tech up on their own, slowly gaining the ability to fight more powerful alien enemies. But player can alter this process by fulfilling superpower requests (more on that later). Xenonauts start at same tech level, as opposing blocks, but have the ability to tech up much faster. Approximate superpower tech level can be seen at diplomacy window.
* Superpower military power : an abstract number, showing how hard that block’s troops can hit either aliens, or other block’s troops. You start the game with both NATO and WP having equal military power (let’s say 50), which can both go higher and lower independently from each other. It slowly grows over time, especially if their tech level advances as well, + fulfilling some of their requests might help them with it. It will decrease when they deal with alien threats on their own, OR after losing ground\air combat against Xenonauts\opposing block\aliens. Xenonauts start with rather low military power, but can potentially catch up by outteching both blocks\hiring additional strike teams\building defensive structures. Approximate military power can be seen at diplomacy window.
- Superpower with really high military power can consider attacking opposing block\Xenonaut organization under right circumstances.
- Superpower with really low military power are unlikely to cause trouble, but will see much more alien activity in their sphere of influence, what will eventually lead to alien bases being built in their territory.
* Superpower request system : From time to time, opposing blocks will give you non-combat tasks, which are quite optional, but have additional benefits. Here is the list of requests I came up with so far:
- Outsource research project : a superpower wants your scientists to help theirs on some research project. If you agree, an additional research project will appear in your research screen, and you have to appoint your scientists to it, effectively crippling your own research efforts. Will have a deadline too, so you won’t be able to appoint a symbolic number of 1-2 scientists to it. Rewards: relations and funding boost from corresponding pact + significantly boosting their tech level.
- Outsource manufacturing project : pretty similar request, that ties up your engineers instead of scientists. Rewards : relations and funding boosts + boosting their military power and slightly boosting their tech level.
- Land force training program : you have to send off 1-2 your high ranking soldiers for some time (they will train corresponding block’s ground units). Rewards : relations and funding boost + boosting their military power ONLY.
- Air force training program : same deal with interceptors, same result.
* Superpowers can go to war with each other and\or Xenonaut organization.
- Being at war will deplete their military power over time, making them less protected from aliens (up to the point when aliens will place ground bases inside block’s territory) – which means more work for you.
- Being at war will deplete their economic strength – you will receive less funding over time, even if you maintain ok relations with both sides and stay neutral.
- Being at war with superpower will COMPLETELY cut off their funding and alien resources supply (including countries in their Sphere of Influence)
- I’m not sure if this war should be winnable by either of sides. IMO, it shouldn’t, as it would derail an anti-alien plot and probably will be hard in terms of development. Instead, once started, this conflict should go on endlessly, until you meet either your winning or losing condition, creating additional problems for your anti-alien efforts. You should be able to sign individual alliance and peace treaties with superpowers though.
Depending on how you placed your HQ, you will perform your missions on US\USSR soil and inside their Spheres of influence with different frequency (but you still manually control how you handle their requests), which leads to building up \ deteriorating relations with them. This goes on until one of these things happens:
1) You raise your relations with one block really high and officially ally with them, and completely piss off the opposing block (this can happen really soon, if you placed your HQ in either US\USSR).
1.1)
-What happens next is that you MIGHT start getting attacked by opposing block's troops, if their military power is high enough ( your planes are getting intercepted by theirs, your strike teams gets lured into ambush and have a land combat with their troops, or maybe even a straightforward attack on your HQ, if you really, really piss them off)
-The reason why the opposing block attacks you is their fear of Xenonauts sharing alien technology with their new allies, that potentially can be used by them to win in Arms Race, Space Race and other aspects of Cold War, which is obviously unacceptable.
-Your allies stand up in your defence, and hostilities between major blocks begin. I leave the scale of this conflict to be determined by devs, but it potentially can go up to full-fledged WW3.
-Gameplay-wise this would mean that Xenonauts would HAVE to participate in that conflict, by performing ground and air combat missions for your ally (that would consist of fighting opposing block's units) AND fulfill their requests in exchange for further protection.
-Being protected by superpower means that opposing block cannot launch attacks on your HQ\secondary bases, so you can more or less concentrate on Alien threat (between performing combat missions and requests for your new mast… I mean ally)
* you might break the alliance and lose this protection if you ignore human vs human combat missions and your ally’s requests – in this case you will find yourself in scenario 2.1) or 3.1)(if you sign peace treaty with the block that attacked you).
1.2)
- If you don’t get attacked at that point (i.e the block that you pissed off doesn’t have high enough military power), you still lose ALL funding and alien resources, generated by that side (they see no point in financing you, as you clearly work for their enemies)
- They MIGHT create their own Xenonaut-like organization, if devs would be kind enough to code that. IMO it would be great, because in this case that superpower won’t lag behind in tech and military power as badly, and it might prevent scenario, that is described lower, and preserve fragile peace on Earth, allowing you to concentrate on alien threat.
- Because you only help one superpower now, you will probably end up growing their military power and tech level high enough for them to get cocky and attack opposing block, and you, most probably, will still find yourself in the middle of WW3, with the only difference being that you’re not the one who got attacked first.
2) You piss somebody off without becoming allied to opposite block.
2.1)
- You MIGHT get attacked for pretty much the same reasons
- You don’t become automatically protected by another block
- Another block MIGHT offer you protection if your relations are high enough (in exchange for aforementioned services). If you accept, your gameplay continues as in scenario 1.1)
- If you refuse, you will save your neutrality, but will have to defend your bases yourself for some time. (while keeping the funding and alien resources, generated by the superpower you refused an alliance)
- If it proves to be rather easy (i.e you’re much more technically advanced, or you just spammed defensive structures), then, after some time, you wear out that block’s forces, which :
a) Might be seen as a perfect opportunity by opposing force, which launches an attack on your enemy.
b) Makes them more willing to accept your truce offer.
In this case your game continues more or less as in scenario 3.1)
- If you will struggle really hard (lots of casualties, losing secondary bases, etc), second superpower might backstab you by trying to assault your HQ and seize your technology BEFORE it is done by their opponents, and you will find yourself effectively at war with both factions, as in scenario 3.2)
2.2)
- If you don’t get attacked (pissed off block doesn’t have high enough military power to take on you), you lose all their funding and generated alien resources (including countries in their Sphere of Influence) and effectively find yourself in scenario 1.2) with the difference of not being allied to another superpower.
3) You try to stay as neutral as possible and don’t align towards either superpower.
3.1)
You stay at peace with both factions the whole game, but at some point one faction gets stronger in tech and military power, than other (i.e you slightly favored one side by fulfilling their request more often, or one side gets much less damaged by aliens, etc – factors, that player not always 100% controls).
In this case stronger faction feels cocky enough to declare war on weaker one, while you stay COMPLETELY neutral ( you don’t get to participate in Xenonauts vs humans combat).
The only problems you have to deal with are global war drawbacks – less overall funding, more alien presence in weakened countries to deal with ,etc.
3.2)
You go for super-greedy strategy : you don’t do any requests and use those freed up scientists and engineers to tech and gear up like crazy in short amount of time. As a result, you ruin relations with both superpowers, and might find yourself in armed conflict with both of them, as they will try to seize the technology they believe to have rights on ( they paid for their development, after all ). In the same time, superpowers don’t fight each other.
3.3)
You stay as neutral as possible and try your best to keep technological and military balance between superpowers (mostly by choosing which requests are getting fulfilled), which allows you to maintain ok relations with both (thus they don’t attack you) and a fragile balance between blocks (so nobody gets cocky enough to start war). In this case peace on Earth is preserved, and you don’t suffer from consequences of global war.
IV) Choosing your path
While all those possible scenarios I described (total of 7 for now) will play out quite differently, I suggest to add even more flavor, which will make each of that scenario even more unique, depending on what path did you take:
- Add nation-specific starting gear : as long as you stay neutral, you get both AK-74s and M16s, et cetera. The stats on that equipment should obviously be different enough to make players choose from them, and allow a little bit more tactical depth ( like cliché more powerful AKs vs more accurate M16s)
But as soon as one of superpowers withdraw their funding, you lose access to that nation’s gear.
This suggestion can be improved by making nation-specific not only basic gear, but some technologically advanced gear as well – as I mentioned in the beginning, superpowers conduct their own research and come up with their own designs, and can potentially share them with Xenonauts.
This would allow for some interesting strategies like allying with one superpower, help them to tech up faster by conducting lots of researches for them, and get advanced gear for free in return.
Would require quite a lot development time – instead of only working on Xenonauts equipment design, devs would have to add NATO and WP- specific advanced gear.
- Add nation-specific research trees : allying with one of superpowers would obviously impact Xenonaut’s own research and development in some way, and that could be represented in-game. Why not add nation-specific flavor to research? In example, if allied to NATO, Xenonauts would develop lighter, but less durable armor, and if allied with WP – heavier, but more durable.
Or you could take another approach, and make specific tiers of equipment “region-locked”. In example, you can only research best interceptors, if allied with NATO, and best ground vehicles – if allied with Warsaw Pact. The requirement of being allied might be dropped – so that player could potentially get both, if he somehow manages to maintain excellent relationship with both blocks in the middle of Cold War.
V) In conclusion.
What I like most in my suggestion is the fact that there is no optimal strategy. Everything has its pros and cons :
* Preserving peace on earth :
Pros:
- Superpower’s military power is preserved, and they fight against aliens more efficiently
- Global economy doesn’t suffer, and you get a lot of funding ( being neutral and having peace between blocks will allow you to get a lot of money from both of them )
- You can concentrate on alien threat, and don’t have to participate in human vs human combat.
Cons:
- It’s rather hard to do, as it will require a bit of micromanagement (monitoring both superpower’s tech and military levels and correcting them by completing corresponding requests), a lot of resources ( as some of your scientists\engineers\soldiers\interceptors will constantly be locked by working on requests), and even then it still can get messed up by bad RNG ( not getting optimal for balancing purposes requests, one of superpowers being hit by aliens much, much harder than the other one, and thus weakening it, etc)
* Allying with one superpower:
Pros:
- You get that block’s protection and don’t have to worry about defending your bases against opposing block’s troops, making it possible to concentrate on alien threat.
- You have to defend much smaller part of planet’s surface, which is obviously easier to do
- You might get nation specific techs and gear, if that gets implemented
Cons:
- You get much less funding and alien resources
- You have to wear out your strike teams in Xenonauts vs humans combat, and still have to fulfill requests.
- Undefended parts of planet over time will get heavier alien presence, including alien bases being built – which will be much harder to deal with later on.
All in all, there is no obvious optimal walkthrough strategy, and even though you can control some events, everything can be messed up by RNG.
This suggestion also makes Xenonaut organization FEEL IMPORTANT, despite the fact that superpowers can somewhat successfully defend themselves against. You are not just some elite organization, specializing on taking down heavier UFOs. The eyes of whole world are constantly watching you 24\7, superpowers covet your technologies and are only waiting for a slightest opportunity to attack you and each other.
Thank you for your attention. Excuse me if this sometimes sounded clumsy – English is not my native language. I just hope I made my points understandable enough.
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Coolbird85, some nice suggestions, I like the "messy" stuff
I'm not sure about nukes, though. I like how World in Conflict's lore handled them - both sides just silently agreed not to use them, as doing so would obviously lead to dire consequences. I kinda like to think, that in case WW3 ever took\will ever take place, humanity will be smart enough to abstain from using nuclear weapons.
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Very good points, Chris.
I have to admit that I used to overvalue STR myself (while recruiting rookies) during my first 2-3 playthroughs, though I can't say that I got heavily punished for that either.
It's a relief to see that you care about these game mechanics as much as I do, and think hard on how to optimize them. I really appreciate that. So, as long as most of associated with STR mechanics are preserved by one way or another (though I really can't see anything better than Kabill's achievement system yet), I will be quite happy.
Yes, now I realize that I cared not for STR itself, but mostly for several mechanics that I considered important. So, here's a list of things I'd like you to preserve:
1) Individual carrying capacity (even if you abandon concept of STR, different soldiers shouldn't be able to carry equal amount of equipment )
2) Individual ability to operate heavy weapons and other STR-associated equipment
Thanks again for your attention.
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I'm about to go berserk about your intention to drop strength. Your main arguments :
1) It adds nothing
2) It's too complex and might be confusing to new players.
Here are my counter - arguments:
1)
1a) It adds more personality to your soldiers : now you can have both kinda weak men, barely carrying their basic equipment, and highly- trained men (especially if they are veterans), who can carry quite a lot more into battle. The field for roleplaying is vast in these type of games, no need to butcher that.
1b) It adds additional battle planning flexibility-
* how many times that additional C4 charge, which I took only because my soldier's strength would allow, saved the day by making breaching that UFO much more safe and easy?
* strength mechanic allowed me to create a "loader" class, which saved my walkthrough - I was lagging behind in techs and had little to no veterans, so I had to heavily rely on rocketmen, and rookies could barely carry 1 extra rocket - so loaders would carry all the rockets for them. I had so much fun having to improvise like that.
1c) It adds realism - you know, carrying lots of stuff and still being combat efficient + operating heavy weapons (especially not mounted) requires quite a lot of strength. It makes sense and is not harsh enough to be punishing (like other realistic games like to do)
2)
* There is graphical representation of how equipment's weight impacts time units (by using it even complete imbecile can avoid overencumbring his soldiers)
* Hovering over weapons brings up info window, stating that operators with higher STR will be more accurate. It might also be noted in xenopedia, I don't remember.
That's actually ALL you have to know about strength to fully understand it - and this info can be accessed right at the beginning of every game.
If you still think, that your potential customers are not smart enough to figure STR out, despite having every bit of info they need right before their eyes, you might wanna make Xenonauts 2 run at Windows startup - who knows, maybe your playerbase will be so dumb that they might fail to launch the darn game!
Seriously, calling the most straightforward feature complicated, despite Xenonauts 1 having abysmal tutorial, complicated LOS angles and cover mechanics, and myriad other TRULY COMPLICATED things that had NO good explanation in-game, is so hilarious.
Now, a little bit more personal note - from your tone in previous posts on topic of strength, I am strongly suspecting that STR has already been butchered for whatever reason (new engine? development expenses? ), and now you are just covering it up. And it's a DARN SHAME if I'm right.
Thank you for your attention.
#savestrength2015
P.S
Very,very nice suggestions, Kabill!
If those get implemented, I'd gladly forgive devs intention to butcher STR - because every attribute of strength itself can be shuffled into that "achievement" system. Like increasing max carrying weight after soldier went overencumbred into 5 battles, or smth.
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What kind of a bug is that? Makes combat inside that UFO impossible.
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Lore is a little clumsy, and it can show in like first 15 minutes.
I'm talking about that alien fugitive research you get quite fast in game (after first ground combat mission, I believe)
It's lore says that one Caesan decided to desert and walked up to your base, where he was captured by one of your man with previous experience in dealing with caesans. Moreover, your guest starts shaking in terror after you show him a corpse of xenomorph.
But there is a slight problem - I researched this right after my first combat mission (downed scout UFO). That scout contained ONLY sebillians (reptiloid dudes).
So there are 2 problems:
1) at the moment of researching that fugitive my men have NEVER seen a caesan, and have no experience in capturing one
2) at that moment my men have never seen a xenomorph, and obviously there could be no xenomorph corpse at our base ( what is even funnier, if I recall correctly, xenomorph's own lore at xenowikia tells us that after death corpse gets dissolved in acid - one less reason to have a corpse at our base, even if we DID fight them at the time of alien fugitive technology gets fully researched)
It might be a small thing to complain about, but you have to agree that it's quite a heavy blow to mod's lore. And like half of this game's charm is depending on it's lore.
So please fix it. I would suggest delaying availability of alien fugitive technology by a month or two - by that time you would definitely fight those two species at least once.
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So, any other mod aside from map packs will screw this mod up. But what about Khall's More Portraits and New Cars? Are those compatible? Or this mod changes portrait and car art as well?
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I find that fast-paced scientific advancement quite believable.
As far as I know, theory in science FAR exedes what we can test practically today. In other words : our ideas are limited by not having equipment, that is needed to test and use them. I might be wrong here, that's mostly what I feel like. remember Tesla? Dude had some crazy ideas, but had next to nothing to work with.
And then BAM - alien juicy craft gets shot down, giving you power sources, advanced electronics, etc ( read: instruments to fulfill those "impossible" ideas )
Moreover, some kind of "martial law" would be declared upon alien invasion - potentially freeing scientists from burdens of bureaucracy, paperwork, "immorality" and government anti-advance lobbies, all of which, I imagine, contribute greatly to length of modern research.
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Unless the aliens holding the door had been specifically told by the mind controller that the soldier was friendly would they know?
Makes sense to me that they would just shoot anything that came in through the door that was not definitely friendly.
It DOES make sense. Not just because "aliens didn't know he's friendly", I imagined that alien was told to do so by the officer ( they're all brainless grunts, remember? ) to terminate that xenonaut after "using" him, which is quite a smart thing to do.
Btw, it wasn't ragepost, I am once more amazed by quality AI this game shows. Not that it makes MC less frustrating, lol.
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One of my first MC'ed soldiers had shield and pistol. Not only he did shoot on the same turn, despite not having TU even for a snap shot, but he actually moved INTO the UFO I was breaching only to be grenaded by alien during the SAME TURN ( while technically being "friendly" to aliens.). Now THAT'S strange.
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Hey everyone,
I've been playing this game for some time now, and learned quite a lot (figuring out cover mechanics did cost me some trashed games lol). AI is especially charming for me : I'm not sure I've seen any other AI using cover and ( amazingly ) LOS to their advantage so effectively, moving out of sight if they have TU left ( those flying discs are amazing harassers, I was equally impressed and frustrated when I first fought them). But there is one problem with AI that I would like to discuss:
Keeping it short:
Alien AI - absolutely amazing, fighting every species feels entirely different ( Unlike X-COM: EU, where fighting different enemies feels more or less the same to me).
Civilian AI - headless chickens. It is almost physically painful to watch civies doing stupidest s...tuff, including :
- staying in the same area with aliens, despite having LOS with them/being under fire from them. While it's ok if they're suppressed, they often stick around hot areas for no apparent reason.
- refusing to go into/stick around dropship, despite knowing about it ( either having LOS on it or "hearing" it landed)
- armed local forces refuse to fall back after xenonauts arrive. While it's understandable if those are military units from nearby base, seeing policemen and farmers charging aliens is... disturbing (although hilarious)
- etc, I'm sure you can name a couple more situations yourself.
Understanding that development has ended, I wont request some complicated stuff like local forces ( policemen/military) attempting to de-blockade trapped survivors and escort them to dropship, I still somehow believe that something can be done to make civ AI more believable. Because right now it's lacking. While not the most important thing in the world, in a game that invests so much into lore, where pretty much everything is believable and immersive, even that little detail shows and counts.
Thank you for your attention.
P.S
TBH I was inspired to write all that mostly because Gijs-Jan took his time to describe enemy AI in another thread ( http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/11718-The-AI-is-cheating-but-I-guess-that-s-ok/page6 )
Maybe (just maybe) he will be so kind to shred light on Civilian AI, even if it's somewhat simple ( As to me - they seem to be constantly panicking, lol)
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I believe AI always "knows" if it will suffer a lot of reaction fire by going somewhere outside their eyesight. But to make gameplay seem more "natural", it still gladly send some troops to take 1-2 reaction shots.
So, if you're blocking the UFO door with shieds + shotguns behind them ( read : a lot of concentrated reaction fire ), enemies are EXTREMELY cautious. But if you park there a couple of soldiers with their TU depleted - you watch your ass.
P.S
I believe that some enemies are programmed to always stay inside UFOs no matter what (higher ranked ones, which makes sense)
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Can someone explain it to me? I was able to understand pretty much every other game mechanic, but not this one.
How do I know how good I'm protected by this brick fence? Example:
1) I park my soldier behind a brick fence (half - human height).
2) I aim at alien, who is sitting behind tiny bush.
3) What I see is: fence doesn't block my shot (thankfully), but that tiny bush alien is sitting behind has chance of blocking my shot between 36 and 46%
4) I shoot, and hit the bush (bush totally stops sniper rifle bullet, alien is unscratched)
5) Alien shoots, and snipes my guy.
Can I draw the conclusion, that tiny bush, which I didn't even consider a cover element BEFORE I aimed at alien is better cover than solid brick wall? I somehow doubt it. Most probably I got xcomed. Again.
No, seriously, is there any way to know how good your position will be (both aim - and protection - wise) BEFORE you send some cannon foddler to recon it, only to notice that alien changed position next turn and I have to re-calculate?
Do I have to literally memorize every prop in battlescape and it's size/block ratio/shooting angles?
IMO we should get an UI element, telling us at least SOMETHING about our environment. Some way to show, from which angles a shot will be blocked and how good/bad this piece of cover is. Even simplistic XCOM2012 "half-shield or shield" mechanic would suffice - everithing with block ratio below 40% would be half shield, everything above - full shield. Maybe it could be improved y some kind of terrain grid overlay, I don't know.
All of this could be disabled at higher difficulties, ofc.
Please share your thoughts and tell me, how do you tell if some piece of cover is better than other.
P.S
Shields are whole other story. Sometimes they rock, sometimes somehow manage to pass frontal shots, despite having 100% frontal block ratio. Could use some explanation of them as well.
P.P.S
Wiki info on cover system is abysmal, I checked that.
TL:DR
There is no way to know how good your cover will be protection- and aim-wise, BEFORE you send someone to take a look OR you memorize every single battlescape's objects stats, while in reality you could draw some conclusions on cover reliability just by looking at it. IMO, we need an UI upgrade to tell player about cover efficiency.
[1.65/X.CE V0.35.0] X-Division 1.00 Beta (1.00.11c)
in Completed Game Mods
Posted
I've just used a smoke grenade inside a UFO and like every device in its radius blew up and killed multiple xenos easily (luckily, no casualties on my side).
I remember the similar bug in the previous versions, any plans on fixing it? Is it even possible to fix?