Xenonauts: Community Edition discussion

[KevinHann]

To elaborate further, it may happen in the future that we break savegames, but we will try hard to avoid doing that, and this should not be a concern now.

I'm holding off starting a new game awaiting these exact changes Can't imagine how cool they will be if they force you to break saves!

[Solver]

Don't hold off, start a game The stuff that is in testing now, and the things I'm going to do next will not break saves.

Then I will go on vacation and you'll be stuck without my crazy modding changes

[Slayerjerman]

More requests!

• Allow apDamage & moraleDamage to accept negative numbers and work like healing (i want to make morale and TU healing kits!)
  
• Change medikits to work like guns & shields and allow for reloading/refilling in combat
  
• Same for stun batons, despite having ammo.ballistic.stunbaton in my inventory, it wont accept it to reload.
  
• Make guns accept negative damage values as well, not just melee. (I want a healing gun and grenade!)
  

[Solver]

Speaking of cool features, next on my list are generic tilesets. That should be quite handy for mappers.

[bonds0097]

Speaking of cool features, next on my list are generic tilesets. That should be quite handy for mappers.

What do you mean by generic?

As in the game will load tilesets from an XML file rather than having a fixed hard-coded list of types?

[TacticalDragon]

This feature is like German victory. Coming inevitably.

If the code come with an 1-7, Im pretty sure that will be a total crushing success.

Yeah, I'd forgotten about this. That sounds like a really good way of implementing it if it could be done like that. Very flexible.

I'm pretty glad you like it ^^

Well is part my area of expertise develop game systems.

[Solver]

What do you mean by generic?

As in the game will load tilesets from an XML file rather than having a fixed hard-coded list of types?

Basically that, yes. Since I already got rid of building hardcoding, might as well do it for tilesets, I think that is a high priority feature.

[llunak]

I suggest to have a transparent PNG per tileset that'll only add its own areas, and let the game code to merge those on top of the default picture.

[kabill]

Hmm, just got this thought from another thread: how difficult would it be to change the air combat AI so that the AI flies towards its target rather than flying towards a point where it will meet the target?

I'm not sure whether such a change would be a good thing, but if it's easy enough to change I'd be interested in looking at it.

[Solver]

That would not fix the stupid behaviour of UFOs blindly following a fleeing target to no avail. But, llunak is doing something with the air combat AI, so it will probably be capable of kicking ass.

[kabill]

That's true, but I was thinking more in terms of it helping the UFOs target their attacks and to avoid 'exploits' which allow you to lead the UFO and avoid it's weapon cones.

But I'm all for more substantial improvements. As I imply, I don't know how complex it is to change these things.

[llunak]

That would not fix the stupid behaviour of UFOs blindly following a fleeing target to no avail. But, llunak is doing something with the air combat AI, so it will probably be capable of kicking ass.

I only wanted to fix a bug with air superiority missions ... but you can try playing with [ATTACH]4856[/ATTACH] . I think it won't help with incorrect directing at targets because of leading though.

EDIT: Oh, and this is controlled by having something like this in gameconfig.xml (and upping the values to 1 for seeing it at its full) :

 <airCombatAIThinkChance difficultyEasy="0" difficultyNormal="0.1" difficultyVeteran="0.3" difficultySuperhuman="1"     comment="This controls UFO AI thinking in Air Combat. The higher this value is (between 0 and 1), the more likely UFOs will each second consider swapping to a better target." />

Xenonauts-AC.exe.zip

Xenonauts-AC.exe.zip

Edited July 9, 2014 by llunak

[Skitso]

Any idea when you guys are going to release 0.25? Just patched the game to 1.08 and already miss all the great CE stuff.

[TrashMan]

That's why you turn auto-updates off

Anyway, a few suggestions for you Code Wizzards:

- if no entry for something is found in strings.xml, it should default to whatever it is in the string field (effectively bypassing the need for strings.xml, at least for short names. It's the same thing in both fields in most cases anyway. Still better than "*****". Also better for mod conflicts.)

- aircraft experience. Since cannons and missiles have an accuracy value, implementing increased accuracy and dodge (reducing enemy accuracy) with experience should be doable.

- allies soldiers customization. As it is all civilians and soldiers are using the exact same template. Please, add support for various templates.

Edited July 10, 2014 by TrashMan

[kabill]

- aircraft experience. Since cannons and missiles have an accuracy value, implementing increased accuracy and dodge (reducing enemy accuracy) with experience should be doable.

This isn't true, unless you count 'homing' as accuracy.

You could possibly simulate it with damage/HP increases on planes, though.

[Solver]

Any idea when you guys are going to release 0.25? Just patched the game to 1.08 and already miss all the great CE stuff.

You can overwrite 1.08 with X:CE 0.24, and it should work fine except for the Harridan crash bug, which is not that common.

The idea is that we will release 0.25 tomorrow evening. I think that is going to be a really good release.

[TrashMan]

Cannons have accuracy last time I checked. It was 1 (or 100%), but we can change that.

[kabill]

Cannons have accuracy last time I checked. It was 1 (or 100%), but we can change that.

Really? I totally never noticed that. Fair enough.

[Sentelin]

Here are some ideas:

Morale system:

Would it be difficult to code in an aura for ranks (like it works with morale atm) but instead of morale it would aslo give for example TU or reaction ?

Soldier progression:

Would it be difficult to code in some kind of "switch" that once soldier gains highest rank it will stop soldier from gaining stats boost (I hope I explained this one clearly..)?

[bonds0097]

- if no entry for something is found in strings.xml, it should default to whatever it is in the string field (effectively bypassing the need for strings.xml, at least for short names. It's the same thing in both fields in most cases anyway. Still better than "*****". Also better for mod conflicts.)

I disagree. '****' is better because it alerts the mod-maker that they forgot to add an entry to strings.xml, which is critical if we're going to get proper translations of the game.

Failing loudly is better than failing silently in this situation.

[bonds0097]

Here are some ideas:

Morale system:

Would it be difficult to code in an aura for ranks (like it works with morale atm) but instead of morale it would aslo give for example TU or reaction ?

Soldier progression:

Would it be difficult to code in some kind of "switch" that once soldier gains highest rank it will stop soldier from gaining stats boost (I hope I explained this one clearly..)?

The aura business is probably doable. The trick with this sort of thing is that you end up having to code it as an 'optional' feature because it's a large departure from the default gameplay.

Regarding stoping stat progression, what is the rationale behind this?

[Solver]

Agreed. Any other behaviour will encourage modmakers not to add entries to strings.xml for simple changes, which they will inevitably do, making life more difficult for translators, and so on. Adding all new strings to strings.xml is a requirement for all mods, and that's it.

[bonds0097]

Regarding aircraft XP, that's something I'd like to work on down the line.

The idea would be to create separate Pilot entities that can be recruited/assigned to aircraft/promoted/killed/gain XP, etc. Basically expanding on the unimplemented stretch goal. Pilots would have stats that translate to bonuses during air combat.

For portraits, I'll just use the default portraits and photoshop aviator glasses on all of them.

[Sentelin]

Well this is more XNT related so I guess it is not important to most people.I will copy/paste reason behind it and put in spoiler tag to keep clutter at minimum.Also I bold and underline part that is important if you don't want to read everything:

RPG elements:

Generally it is very fun part of the game. In the Vanilla soldiers were all upgraded up to date usually just after inventing of new weapons has been done. Here things are completely different. High tech weapons weight and cost significantly more, better armors are available only for small group of “chosen ones”. It leads to situations when every single person in your team has a different weapon. Sometimes you just produce weapons just in case cause factories are slow and usually overloaded by work. But even low grade items can still be used to kill an alien (especially Ceasens). Then you have a moral dilemma how to build a team with those soldiers and these weapons. In general it is very well designed bravo XNT team!

But I would like to highlight one simple thing.

If somehow one of your soldiers survive until mid-game he will automatically become a killing machine around 10x times better than any newcomer. Just look at the picture below. Technically I can give her a laser or even a plasma rifle but I won’t give away such a rare weapon to someone who will die in a sec and won’t be able to hit at anything anyway. I can’t even give her better armor cause she is to weak. So after all I have a half useless soldier. Thanks god you still can kill Ceasans and Vipers with m16 or Zephyr during mid-game but better forget about Sebs or Androns.

Click image for larger version.

Name: swag vs peasent v1.jpg

Giving to new comers better weapons is like throwing money into dump. Literally.

On the contrary the “Steel Knight” is not only super-fast and accurate but also extremely durable and panic resistant which prevents him from death. Even furious high concentrated attacks will take maximally half of is hp. Even suppressed he will still be able to escape. He will never as first. And also he will never die as last cause losing entire squad at mission is equal to game over and nobody can afford it.

It seems like game is trying somehow to make new soldiers better. In mid game private can kill a zombie with m16. I remember at the begging (in early game) it took 3 or 4 soldiers with m16s to kill one zombie. But problem is not about killing zombies. Problem is fighting with enemy elite soldiers.

And this is the problem. I think experienced soldiers are too powerful when new comers are too weak. Also it would be nice to have a up limit for experience and after reaching the highest rank not being able to continue stacking points. Game should not encourage players to make an endless grind.

Also making elite soldiers less powerful would have make losses or retreats more a fordable option.

[Mikhail Ragulin]

Here's another one...

Is it possible to give researches a cost? Like how manufactures work. For example, a certain tech would consume technology or would require money to research it - researching this tech will consume 10x "item x" and cost "$x".