Xenonauts V1.03 Released!

[Chris]

This is on the Experimental branch, and is an update for V1.02 Hotfix. It addresses a few more issues, and involves a slight rebalance:

CHANGELOG:

• Fixed the crash bug during the alien turn (for realz this time).
  
• Soldier Equip screen crash hopefully fixed, or at least significantly reduced.
  
• Removed a hang when you pressed Reduce Quantity on the Workshop screen for an item that had already had some built.
  
• Combat shields should now correctly block all frontal shots, as there was a slight error in the angle calculation.
  
• Xenonauts no longer lose the 3TU for the tile they were about to move into when their move is interrupted by sighting an alien.
  
• Flashbangs no longer detonate explosives on the ground.
  

• Building bases now costs $500k instead of $1m, and base maintenance reduced by $75k per month
  
• Radar Arrays now cost $250k instead of $100k, and their maintenance is increased by $25k each
  
• Ground Attack missions now generate events and income loss again.
  
• Disabled Air Superiority missions temporarily, as I am becoming increasingly convinced they are responsible for at least most of the Soldier Equip screen crashes. We'll look into them in more detail and re-enable them soon.
  
• Terror mission UFOs will spawn every 14 days instead of every 25 days, as they were too rare before.
  

I am therefore hoping that this build will be pretty stable, and will not include any of the invulnerable alien bugs or the soldier equip crashes in it. Let me know if this is the case...if so, I'll push it out to the Stable branch tomorrow.

[BaronM]

Hehe... got the best timing over here... paid 1 mil for all my bases now that i have the ones i need i get to pay 250k each to finish building radar arrays, but should make getting that first extra base or two up much easier for players on new games.

It was doable to get the bases up on insanity but i had to run considerably more ufo missions than i would have liked(if i see the damn fortress interior of another corvette...) and had no money to spend on armor or weapons for the longest time.

Sounds like a good change. Maxing radars will cost almost exactly the same but the entry-barring start up cost is much more reasonable now.

Anyways very impressive pace of patches

wishing you luck that the equip screen crash is on its last legs!

[Larus]

Not sure if I like the increased cost for radar stations. Building them asap is vital and I will have now even less money in the beginning to build interceptors, laser weapons or armors. I will have to cut something but I know for sure that it won't be the 2 extra radar arrays on day 1.

[Chris]

Larus - not really, you have to pay for your first base so you actually end up $200k better off in the first month.

[Larus]

Ah ok, that's cool than

[varnav]

Oh no, I hate terror missions

[Korpah]

sounds cool especially the cost of the base found it that it took to long before i could get more bases up. also i was missing the terror missions so that seems good as well. more testing

[OhNoItsNot]

Xenonauts no longer lose the 3TU for the tile they were about to move into when their move is interrupted by sighting an alien.

This makes me super happy

[silencer]

What made you return to previous price for bases?

[Solver]

Ground attack missions sure are back... 1st of September, first wave, I just did a Light Scout mission, but stand at -370k predicted funding. Holy cow!

-950k after 1 week. May be close to losing North and South America after 1 week - the ground attack UFOs that appear seem to generate 8-9 events in close succession.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Solver

[dpelectric]

•Building bases now costs $500k instead of $1m, and base maintenance reduced by $75k per month

•Radar Arrays now cost $250k instead of $100k, and their maintenance is increased by $25k each

I really like this. You can get bases at least established, and feel like you're making progress in the war, but still have to pay heavily to make them mega-coverage bases

•Terror mission UFOs will spawn every 14 days instead of every 25 days, as they were too rare before.

.

And this. I encounter an average of prob two terror missions a game, and would definitely like to see more

[kabill]

Ground attack missions sure are back... 1st of September, first wave, I just did a Light Scout mission, but stand at -370k predicted funding. Holy cow!

-950k after 1 week. May be close to losing North and South America after 1 week - the ground attack UFOs that appear seem to generate 8-9 events in close succession.

I presume that's with Dynamic UFOs? I'm fairly certain in vanilla Ground Attack missions don't start up until around half way through October. So it might not be as bad. (Might need to balance the mod, though!)

[Solver]

Oh, right. That's with v0.2 Dynamic, yeah, and a major balance problem if so. I lost North America (initial base in Mid-East) after 15 days, South America after 25 days, and now I will surely enter October with a loss of about 50% of Soviet and Indochina funding.

Then again it might also be a vanilla problem to a degree, since a ground attack UFO spawns so many events that, it seems, one of them can nearly lose you a region.

[KevinHann]

Oh, right. That's with v0.2 Dynamic, yeah, and a major balance problem if so. I lost North America (initial base in Mid-East) after 15 days, South America after 25 days, and now I will surely enter October with a loss of about 50% of Soviet and Indochina funding.

Then again it might also be a vanilla problem to a degree, since a ground attack UFO spawns so many events that, it seems, one of them can nearly lose you a region.

Wow, this sounds like, you know, a genuine alien invasion and not some pacifist cow examiners

[Solver]

I have a semi-untargetable alien. He's standing right in front of the Light Scout UFO, and I don't get a red cursor when moving over him. However, forcing fire with ctrl-click still gives a red cursor and works fine, so it's probably a minor issue.

[ghhoeng]

I've experience a gamecrash

After loosing a base defence mission, the game freezes - I can press escape, and the menu pops up, but I can't click anything), and if I reload the game at the beginning of the mission, and Loose Again (this time on purpose, to test the game), it freezes again.

And I was so looking forward to seeing the "you've fucked up" cinematics :-)

[Joepaz]

Is there any head way for us mac users? Been waiting to see a new release... pout pout

[coma berenices]

Why do vehicles not have stats updated (mission count and kills)? Is it a bug?

[Eldgrim]

Why do vehicles not have stats updated (mission count and kills)? Is it a bug?

Are you serious? If so, mechanical vehicles do not gain combat experience.

[PRiME]

Nice update, a few things you may not be aware of however.

1) Heavy Ground units (MG/Tank/Rocket) do not have any reactionary fire. I can understand explosive units but the MG type units should have reactionary.

2) You can still spot aliens on above floors of UFOs in certain spots, and also when in jump jet mode.

- There are some other things, but for the moment those are the 2 major annoyances I keep coming across, still testing to see if I get the loadout crash as I got it allot previously. Ironically I never encountered ANY of the other crashes.

Note:

I also felt that nation reputation is a tad bit harsh in first 3-6 months due to funding/research limits. For example in veteran mode you need AT LEAST 2 bases to start with to keep up with UFOs and you quickly loose 2 nations by 3rd or so month, this seems a bit extreme as almost all nations are near BAD condition within 2-4th month. It be nice if the war was drawn out and not become a instant victory for aliens due to loosing nations so easily.

Looking VERY good so far, loving it. Is it possible to have MG Laser/Plasma/etc options for the tanks, so far I just have the uber nuke canons that leave very little remains behind, LOL (even if there MG are no better then the heavy soldier guns, tanks are great disposable scouts but there massive blast guns are a little extreme).

PS. I understand I can mod all this in myself, just thought it might be nice as stock.

Edited June 6, 2014 by PRiME

[Eldgrim]

I am going to hold out a bit more, with daily patches i don't think it's ready for prime time and a full play through. I am afraid of running into a game breaking bug.

[PRiME]

Still get crashing in the soldier loadout screen.

This is after 1 ground battle (large craft) where I go back to map, save, then hit soldier loadout, crashes. This is pretty consistent bug and something I can replicate quite easily. Normally doesn't occur until after a ground battle from what I can tell, and reloading the savegame fixes the problem for a short while (until next ground mission or so).

[kabill]

Still get crashing in the soldier loadout screen.

This is after 1 ground battle (large craft) where I go back to map, save, then hit soldier loadout, crashes. This is pretty consistent bug and something I can replicate quite easily. Normally doesn't occur until after a ground battle from what I can tell, and reloading the savegame fixes the problem for a short while (until next ground mission or so).

Out of wonder, did you have any soldiers injured/dead? Or do any healing with a medikit?

[Max_Caine]

I've found a CTD that I first thought was unique to XNT, but after doing a completely clean install I've found I can reproduce it but under unusual circumstances.

The first explosion in a game (and this is late game for me) seems to cause a CTD. To trigger it, all you need to do is fire a rocket at any target. The game seems to baulk at displaying the explosion and then crashes. However:

1) This only seems to happen in Carrier missions.

2) This only seems to occur when you first transition from Geoscape to Ground Combat. If you save and reload, that fixes it. If you reload from the autosave, that fixes it too. (Which is SUPER frustrating when trying to pass info back).

[legit1337]

Larus - not really, you have to pay for your first base so you actually end up $200k better off in the first month.

Thanks for considering my arguments in the balance thread chris. Getting a base up with 1 radar now costs 750k instead of 1.1 mil. However a base with three radars is now about the same as an old base with three radars. A pretty smart way to make starting bases easier but finishing them just as costly. I tip my hat to you sir.