Xenonauts: Community Edition discussion

[Solver]

level switching should be locked on ai turn

Already done by llunak!

Does 0.23 work with 1.07? Because whenever it gets to the alien's turn, they make a couple of moves and my game immediately crashes to desktop

It does work with 1.07, and I haven't heard of such a problem thus far. One bug in 0.23 is that the game might freeze during the alien turn if you load a ground combat save, but that's fixed for the next build.

[kabill]

3. It would be absolutely amazing if it were possible to have weapons categories beyond Cannon/Normal/Heavy/Superheavy, as well as to determine their inheritances. For example, in vanilla, the Heavy slot inherits the weapons of the Normal slot, so anything that can be fitted in a Normal slot can also be fitted in a Heavy one. This is more of a "Dream Come True" feature, but I decided that since I'm talking about aircraft specifically I might as well mention it. (If this is too much, perhaps it would at least be possible to add a config option to disable Superheavy weapons being always considered autovictories so that it could be used as an "extra" weapon category to fit things into?)

This made me think of something else related to air combat:

At the moment, cannon-mount weapons don't cause UFOs to roll when they fire. This applies whatever weapon you actually put in the cannon mount.

Would it be possible to divorce that from the mount and apply it to weapon type instead. So rather than any weapon in the cannon mount blocking rolling, the variable is attached to all the cannon weapons instead. It's not a huge thing, but it would make air combat weapons and the cannon mount a little more flexible for modding.

EDIT: Also, I imagine this would be a long-term project if it was possible at all, but putting in place some kind of scripting system that can be used to generate UFOs, missions, events, funding changes, resource drops, etc. would be amazing.

[Solver]

At the moment, cannon-mount weapons don't cause UFOs to roll when they fire. This applies whatever weapon you actually put in the cannon mount.

Wait, you can put other weapons in cannon mounts? It's actually silly that I know the source code but not really the game's modding capabilities (still got no idea at all about how maps work!), but yeah, air combat AI is silly anyway, basically it's "choose a target and fly towards it until someone is destroyed, and roll if a missile is incoming".

[kabill]

You can't put other weapons in cannon mounts by default. But if you (say) change missiles so that they count as cannon-mount weapons, their attacks don't provoke rolling as if it was a cannon. Similarly, change cannon weapons to a "normal" mount and they'll cause UFOs to dodge.

If you linked it to the weapon type instead, though, it would free up the cannon mount for other purposes. It would also provide an easy 'fix' for the issue of not having more than one cannon along with missions, as if you put a cannon in another kind of mount it uses the shrunk-down UI image rather than the big cannon image. (So you could make a plane with two cannon mounts and two missile mounts, effectively).

EDIT: Also, any improvement to the air combat AI would be awesome.

[Solver]

Yeah, that would be because the game doesn't even know any difference between cannon bullets and missiles. All that exists in air combat are projectiles, and they know that they belong to a weapon that's a cannon/normal/heavy. Sad.

[kabill]

But changeable? *looks hopeful*

Also, while on the subject of air combat. There's a bug that stops UFO weapons firing at their full RoF when two or more UFO weapons are firing at the same time. Here's the bug report I posted about it:

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/10454-v1-3-Air-Combat-UFO-Weapon-Speeds-Locks-Sync?highlight=air+combat+bug

It's not a major issue for vanilla, but it hampers air combat modding because it's difficult to design UFO weapons such that you can't exploit the issue by (ironically) being in as many fields of fire as possible.

[Solver]

Wouldn't that effect just be because UFOs do not wish to overkill your fighters? Have you tested with a tough airplane like Marauder or something modded to be even tougher? A UFO will preserve ammo by not shooting if there's currently enough ordnance on the way to kill the target. Given that Condors and Foxtrots basically die in 1 shot to main UFO cannons, this effect has a big impact, I think.

[kabill]

Ah, I didn't realise they were supposed to conserve ammo. That would explain it.

It's still problematic, though, as it means that the UFO can't use high damage weapons as a lure to get hits with ow damage weapons. Where I'd spotted this issue was with a combination of a rapid-fire cannon and high damage missile, where when the missile was launched the cannon stopped firing. In principle, the missile was supposed to either get a lucky hit, or force the aircraft to roll so that some cannon shots get in before the cool-down is over. But in practice, every time the missile launched the UFO then stopped firing further shots, making it trivially easy to approach from the front as RoF was down to less than the dodge cooldown.

So, even if it's intended, it seems to me like it causes more problems than it solves (for the most part, ammo doesn't really matter for UFOs). Perhaps to maintain vanilla balance, though, it would be possible simply to make the overkill limit moddable? Either as an on/off toggle, or allowing control over the 'overkill' threshold (e.g. setting it so that when 3x the target's HP in damage has been fired, it turns off or something like that).

[Solver]

Interesting. Yeah, that is what happens with missiles - a missile is away and it's enough to score a kill, so the UFO does not fire its cannons. But that logic may be from a time when UFOs generally had limited missiles, which currently only applies to Fighters, I believe. So I suspect that removing this restriction would actually maintain the current behaviour for all UFOs except possibly Fighters, and would also allow them to fire two weapons simultaneously.

I might as well test it if you can get me some mods or savegames to easily test with.

[Max_Caine]

Would my Flying Circus mod be a suitible testbed?

[Solver]

...

I love you man.

Lore+ rides again!

EDIT: This does mean a complete revamp, but that's all for the better.

Yeah, you. The mission-specific research is unlocked after you have *successfully* completed that mission. Is it acceptable?

[Max_Caine]

More than acceptable! Hey, does that mean that a crashed ufo on a scouting mission would trigger different research to a crashed ufo on a research mission? Oooh, the possibilities!

[kabill]

I might as well test it if you can get me some mods or savegames to easily test with.

I noticed this when making my "You Can't Take the Sky From Me" mod (in my signature). Given that I've increased the ranges of all weapons quite significantly, you can really notice it there.

EDIT: Nope, not in my signature. Here's a link: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/10448-You-Can-t-Take-the-Sky-From-Me-A-Hard-Mode-Air-Combat-Mod

But as Max suggests, Flying Circus might also do it too. The issue is definitely noticeable on the vanilla Corvette in any case, as it has a slow-firing central cannon along with a more quick firing turret cannon.

(It does also affect vanilla fighters, as I tested it in vanilla using a Fighter to be certain. Again, it's actually a disadvantage, because the UFO fires the missile and then doesn't fire it's cannon even if you come in range, meaning you can take them out without taking damage when otherwise you might take some cannon hits even if you dodge the missile).

Edited July 4, 2014 by kabill

[Solver]

More than acceptable! Hey, does that mean that a crashed ufo on a scouting mission would trigger different research to a crashed ufo on a research mission? Oooh, the possibilities!

Yes. Well, I fell asleep after writing half of the code yesterday, but I should be able to finish that before the Germany-France kickoff , and that is how it should work. There's an XML file specifying researches that get unlocked for each mission - so you can do it for scouting, terror, all the mission types that are in the game. You even have a short time window to request changes to how that works

[Solver]

(It does also affect vanilla fighters, as I tested it in vanilla using a Fighter to be certain. Again, it's actually a disadvantage, because the UFO fires the missile and then doesn't fire it's cannon even if you come in range, meaning you can take them out without taking damage when otherwise you might take some cannon hits even if you dodge the missile).

I'll try with the Fighters after disabling that behaviour, my concern is that they will just launch both missiles simultaneously then, making them less of a threat.

[kabill]

I'll try with the Fighters after disabling that behaviour, my concern is that they will just launch both missiles simultaneously then, making them less of a threat.

That will be controlled by the weapon's RoF, so it should be fine. It would only matter for two different weapons firing simultaneously, but it would shoot them both in that situation anyway I think.

[Max_Caine]

Dude, this is truly awesome. See, this could work with the whole reward scheme for later-stage UFOs. Late-stage UFOs are usually on research or ground attack missions, so you could unlock ufo and research specific combos. A ground attack cruiser could unlock a hefty munitons bonus and.. and... *squee*

[Mikhail Ragulin]

From the first post:

- Armours can now be modded to increase any stat.

Can they also decrease any stat, or does it just make superman armours even more super? If I wanted to add negatives to an armour, would that work?

For example, if I wanted to make predator armour have a downside by having reduced reflexes, could I give it say a -50 value?

[Solver]

Don't get carried away Max, it doesn't change per UFO type. If you say Ground Attack, any Ground Attack UFO will trigger it. On the other hand I'll go and try to add the UFO type as an extra parameter, too

Now for all this effort, I will want help in tweaking UFO contents for late-game balancing

[Solver]

Can they also decrease any stat, or does it just make superman armours even more super? If I wanted to add negatives to an armour, would that work?

For example, if I wanted to make predator armour have a downside by having reduced reflexes, could I give it say a -50 value?

I intentionally did not limit it to positive numbers. I haven't tested negative numbers, but they should work. It's really quick to test by setting a mod on armour.basic.

[Max_Caine]

Solver, you have my axe!

(Seriously, give it back dude not cool).

Edited July 4, 2014 by Max_Caine

[Slayerjerman]

I intentionally did not limit it to positive numbers. I haven't tested negative numbers, but they should work. It's really quick to test by setting a mod on armour.basic.

Hey Solver - speaking of this, with the new "apDamage" added to weapons to harm TUs, can this also accept a negative number to give TUs back, say, like a TU medkit?

Also what about also allowing ammo items to show up inside of other categories without having a weapon assigned? Right now I cant get like ammo.ballistic.rifle magazines to appear under "Rockets" without having it be a rocket. What I want to do is make that category "Ammo" and have it list all rockets and magazines for all guns, but when I assign ammo.ballistic.rifle to "Rocket" category, it doesnt show up there (and in some case the game will crash when you click the tab)....;(

These would be AMAZING things to tweak if you are able.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Slayerjerman

[Solver]

Might work, but only if the bullet also does some damage. The game's quite unwilling to let bullets that do no damage count as a "hit", unless it's melee.

[skaianDestiny]

That could work as a stimpack-like deal. Damage done with an increase of abilities.

[TacticalDragon]

Might work, but only if the bullet also does some damage. The game's quite unwilling to let bullets that do no damage count as a "hit", unless it's melee.

This is working right now?

Solver Night Vision works wonderfull!

From the first post:

Can they also decrease any stat, or does it just make superman armours even more super? If I wanted to add negatives to an armour, would that work?

For example, if I wanted to make predator armour have a downside by having reduced reflexes, could I give it say a -50 value?

Yes, you can reduce things if you want, check armor file in XNT you can see an example.