(Mod Update) XNT Into Darkness V5.3 - "The Firebat" (DISCUSSION THREAD)

[Sentelin]

That was range but now it's reduced.I am not going to tell for how much that's up to you to find out.

However those eggs so far only presented problem.Originally we tried to make them that they after few turns hatch Gargol. But instead of that they got ability to move after few turns.So we removed that ability.Also we can't specify where they will spawn .. they can spawn everywhere (inside UFO,buildings,out in open),however we can reduce number of eggs that spawn.

It's just shame that thing with hatching didn't work out.Best guess why it didn't is because of hard coded AI behavior.

Edited July 16, 2014 by Sentelin

[Kirill Selivanov]

That was range but now it's reduced.I am not going to tell for how much that's up to you to find out.

However those eggs so far only presented problem.Originally we tried to make them that they after few turns hatch Gargol. But instead of that they got ability to move after few turns.So they we removed that ability.Also we can't specify where they will spawn .. they can spawn everywhere (inside UFO,buildings,out in open),however we can reduce number of eggs that spawn.

It's just shame that thing with hatching didn't work out.Best guess why it didn't is because of hard coded AI behavior.

well, no problem with eggs. they give needs to feel not so free to run around. i think numbers must stay...or evenmore- surplus. and their moving ability - its normal. just let it be. oh... how wornedrful it be if they may be not gargol, but spawn viper... it makes of them real sense. every time i see their attack i feel association with handlers aliens andmy soldiers - Reaplie whp try her best... flamethrowers are here the best addon than.

and respawning enemies maybe? so hatching egg (if it would some in future possible) will release a new egg near and viper or gargol,yeah?

if you add +50-100% civilians and forses than - it would be good going! for now i doesn't feel from civs even any thougths that i need to protect them or that there are any mascare... 3-5 civs... are not even little act of great terror-))) they must be somelike in same numbers as xenonauts and 2x in terror missions so they would be a real terror - not new time of just xenokilling invasion.

and one question- doese there any idea about in the land fight (at some turn) spawning of new civs, civ forces?

if it could be done - there could be a mission of something retrievment with land forces operation help...

maybe they could spawn by packs? or with one behavior? agressive eggs please!-)))

[andqui]

For the aircraft RTB issue, if I use just the exe from this, will that cause problems with this mod? Replacing the exe fixes the aircraft RTB issue, but does that breat anything within XNT?

[Sentelin]

@andqui

It's safe to use that exe.It however doesn't fix RTB problem entirely it just drastically reduce chance of getting RTB.

[TacticalDragon]

Maybe your partially right about eggs. The unique role of this unit is limit zones of freedom of the player in the map and consume explosives.

We cant put them together in a building, and if we can they mean no threat, a single grenade can blow them up.

About spawning ... thing become difficult, we try some test but thing become crazy and dosent work as intented. Is a bit complex. Let me check an idea that I have in mind.

^^

[gamadeus]

hey i cant download from mediafire for some reason, the captcha simply is blank

anybody else with that problem and possible solution?

[Kirill Selivanov]

TD use https://mega.co.nz free storage (from new zeeland - it has 50 gigs for free use with very good performance) instead of mediafire with much popups... or dropbox.

its more quiet to download without spam of different avertisments of no need.

[gamadeus]

yea i had to deactivate adblocker which of course gets you swarmed with ads

[jonthan]

Hmm aliens are using smokegrenade most of the time in 5.3 but in 5.2 they use plasma nade most of the time.

Or is it just for me?

[Kirill Selivanov]

Maybe your partially right about eggs. The unique role of this unit is limit zones of freedom of the player in the map and consume explosives.

We cant put them together in a building, and if we can they mean no threat, a single grenade can blow them up.

About spawning ... thing become difficult, we try some test but thing become crazy and dosent work as intented. Is a bit complex. Let me check an idea that I have in mind.

^^

well, spawning opens "wave perspective" (new units inthe adge of the map) and may be "level perspective" (cleared one - go to another onelike mars base of 1st ufo)

and what about hatching from zombienot one, but to unitts? ones more egg and a unit? it could be funny challenge ifimplemented to reaper instead of viperand gorgol that are more avesomein its side. reaper just has a closeto same role besides of "infecting"... but may bemaking it more horrorful desease spreading would be good///

and aboutspreading - doese there any ability to make reaper of other alien monster to leave in the title where he was (to the end ofturn) - toxic parfume?-))) so a like a green gas in the title where omega just stayed. - so coming to it in closewould be bad in all things... to all... and for aliens too-))

well for now i want to mention ones more time - don't forget about civ and civ forces numbers... its better to raise it greatly to make things morerelevant to terror... so base seem like base, town like town, farm like farm in perspective - somewheremore civs and somewhere more civ forces. i prefer to think that they must be something more than "walking gentelmans" whos doing care nothing.

because i doesn't feel scare for tham,doesn'tfeel need to defend them- and even no real argument (doesn't see) what i gain for terrible or exellent score for them. Maybe it wolud be good to addsome typos to string that could tell how relations was upped by their seved lifes.. in the mission results screen?

because 5 civs... in terror and 10.000 casualties if i push it off in geo - doesn't much in feeling that that was a real terror.

where crouds for waaagh and real scare from multi rocket spread?-)) i doesn't care - there to low number of civs to hit them...

soi doesn't even know - doese civ killed by my soldier and by alien differs in statistics and aprove-)

and, question... civ forces could have...maybe hunter asa tank in maybe missions of military base?-)))

i say all about that even more because had a look in the thread of total destructive hulls where there was wow dreadnouts and mothership maps... with huge number of aliens in perspective... wave spawn would be a good addon to it... just for future thinking

Edited July 16, 2014 by Kirill Selivanov

[Alewalek]

Anyone had chance to check frezes of game when figting near ufoss and using flamer/r. luncher? Sometimes even moving in range of egs make it freze.

Any ETA for hotfix of alien behaviors? and other problems?

About invisible aliens after annoucment of TD to download the mod again I did it and no changes when i load the save far from ufo i can see aliens, when i save near ufo and then load saved game aliens are invisible.

[TacticalDragon]

Today we'll be posting the hotfix.

Try download this official fixed tile set of Goldhawk to fix that kind of problems

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/11234-New-tile-atlases-for-testing!

[andqui]

Thanks for the upcoming hotfix. Any word on the timer explosive CTD? I came across one of the large, scary vipers that just gets angry when you hit it with the precision rifle and regular grenades. I tried to run away and lay a C4 trap, but the game CTD's when they explode.

EDIT: Also, is there any way to limit what type of structures the large aliens like these can enter? This massive viper chased me through a doorway the size of a person. I suppose something that big could just go through the wall if it wanted to, but it did look odd.

Edited July 16, 2014 by andqui

[TacticalDragon]

Try download the Official Tile set of my last post

Is possible that there is a bad writed tile onf your version.

I test this reported issue and looks possible that is your build.

[Theon Greyjoy]

and, question... civ forces could have...maybe hunter asa tank in maybe missions of military base?

easy to say. Vehicles are not something that is moddable for civilians (I've thought of it ages ago). Perhaps now it's different with the code being unlocked, but we do not have access to the code, or at least I don't. And even if I did I wouldn't know how to use it.

well for now i want to mention ones more time - don't forget about civ and civ forces numbers... its better to raise it greatly to make things morerelevant to terror... so base seem like base, town like town, farm like farm

Now I want sb to mod in a cow

[Kirill Selivanov]

cow like cow?

no,no David Blane!!! Never do that again!!!! You're so frightening!!!

ps... base... a the place where soldier think about mummies... farm where cows live... hey, aliens, forget about humans! take cows! lets make a holy crusade against that demonic creatures! they terrorize people, clear the earth from them! total waaaar mmm... and pancakes?

but may be at base maps more civ forces... so they could be more frendly to reapers... than cows?-))

Edited July 16, 2014 by Kirill Selivanov

[Alewalek]

Try download the Official Tile set of my last post

Is possible that there is a bad writed tile onf your version.

I test this reported issue and looks possible that is your build.

just pure 1.08 HF plus XNT plus kabil tiles and map(without that game crash on reload- casue save use his ufos tilset) replaced the tiles with the one u told me. Game frezess in this save and other one from 2-3 turns before ass well.

The guy above me described same problem earlier so I doubt its only problem with my system.

test2.sav

test2.sav

Edited July 16, 2014 by Alewalek

[andqui]

Try download the Official Tile set of my last post

Is possible that there is a bad writed tile onf your version.

I test this reported issue and looks possible that is your build.

At the top of this page here, someone else has the same problem. Maybe something to do with community edition instead of this? Anyways, I'll try the new tiles and see if that works.

[TacticalDragon]

Ok downloading saved games!

Let me run some checks.

[Alewalek]

Pure 1.08 +xnt and new tilset but no kabils FTH and new started game first mission went smoothly but there was no aliens in ufo so hard to say how it would be with them.

I think freze is somehow conected to egss reaction fire each time i preform action near ufo with flamethorower (2egs inside ufo) there is small movement of camera like when reaction fire from egss triger and then game frezess.

A another thing your hiden movment screen dont work most of the time just the one from vanila is appearing(2 times maby it was the one from mod)

Edited July 16, 2014 by Alewalek

[Tam]

I found this mod a couple of days ago and when 5.3 got released I installed it.

While I like a lot about all of it I have some complaint, it's to bloody hard.

I get that a lot of people may like that but there is 'difficult' and beyond for those.

I played through the vanilla game twice, once on easy and once on normal which was nice.

I also played the original ufo and terror from the deep way back when, and the new x-com from 2 years.

'Normal' was challenging for me but easy was ... well easy, your dudes hardly ever die once you have armor and most enemies die after 2 or 3 hits and you have plenty of time for research between alien escalations.

Now with Into Darkness 'Normal' is nearly impossible and I abandoned that game after like 3 or 4 hours.

So I'm a few more hours into an easy game and it is still way harder than I feel it should be on that difficulty

I can't keep up with the research, I build 2 additional labs on day 1 which previously was more than enough, now I dont even bother interrogating an officer or research vehicles or disassemblies for lack of time.

By now I have 2 bases each with 4 planes and 8 man teams and 2 dudes in reserve, I just finished building 16 of the first armor and 4 laser rifles. Now with the armor my guys take significantly less damage which is nice but I feel it makes too much of a difference after being slaughtered so long. Maybe a more basic armor earlier would have helped mitigate some frustration.

I haven't used much of the laser weaponry yet but the ballistic weapons are a joke against the new aliens. I dare not send my guys in groups of less than 4 around because thats how many I need to kill just one of them if I'm lucky with reaction shoots in close fights or over time on long range, while vanilla aliens can be overpowered by two guys or one with a shotgun from point blank.

Also they are two aggressive, I just position my guys the first 2-4 turns around the chopper while the civs die, then I get stormed, then the map is nearly clear except for aliens in the ship and eggs.

My point is the vanilla game felt like It was getting easier as time went, this on the other hand beats you hard in the beginning and when you think you start to control it, it gets even harder. I should not have to reload 30+ times in a single mission playing carefully on 'easy' difficulty to not lose soldiers, nor should I need 10 turns to kill a single remaining alien with my entire party if I want to keep them alive.

sorry for the rant, please reconsider your balancing

tl;dr: its to hard on 'easy' difficulty

[jonthan]

It's not so hard Tam, I've played it on normal but thats to easy for me(or should I say not so challenging) , so I'll just go back to veteran, and that's perfect

[TacticalDragon]

Hello Tam,

We know that difficulty is quiet hard at early games, we'r working on small balance hotfix.

Keep checking the threads for the release, after long test finally we believe that we settle balance again.

Yes in comparison to vanilla XNT is quiet hard, starting for the AI script, if you dont want to get stormed try to don't let the aliens see your units, we set some kind of alarm for the alien teamwork. Instead of stand still like happens in vanilla aliens here try to flank you and cooperate with all the team to setup an ambush and solid attack. Part of the difficulty is not only the alien weapons, that was completely superior to human weaponry.

Try to build a Base soon as possible, remember that in this mod is more easy destroy walls and covers, sometimes a single frag grenade can destroy a wall removing cover and suppress aliens in his path. Forget about vanilla tactics, there are some basic primary researches "Rush to Jackal armor" (Alien Pistol, Rifle and Alloys) and Stun baton and grenades (If you capture aliens alive,you get a bonus on damage against that race and unlock more hidden techs, like Coyote Armor).

Keep checking the forums for our balance hotfix. Im uploading right now.

Thank you

[TacticalDragon]

It's not so hard Tam, I've played it on normal but thats to easy for me(or should I say not so challenging) , so I'll just go back to veteran, and that's perfect

Wonderful! Congrats if you beat and found easy XNT mod you are awesome player.

[TacticalDragon]

NEW BALANCE HOTFIX 5.31 IS AVAILABLE NO.51

DOWNLOAD LINK

BALANCE HOTFIX 5.31

* Files are uploading to the Core Pack

1. Players that have invisible aliens please download the Core Pack again and Apply this hotfix

2. Problem with Alien Plasma Cells in Scouts is a bug from Vanilla

3. Try to save your current game in geospace, never update the game when you have a saved game in Ground Combat, several changes in weapons can cause CDT.

CHANGELOG 5.31

- Add +3% Burst fire/+5 Snap shot accuracy for Rifles

- +5% Accuracy to machine guns

- Accuracy of heavy weapons on the move 40%

- Alien weapons damage rebalanced

- Alien accuracy refixed for different set of difficulties Easy 80% / Normal 90% / Veteran 100% / Insane 120%

- Damage of Phaser alien weapon set to 7 and suppression set to 120.

- Light Vortex weapon set with 27 stun damage and 15 damage.

- Damage of grenades increased by 5.

- Alpha Viper Teleport is removed

- Bleeding set to 7 Damage with 60% generating 5 Bleeding points.

- Reduced 1 point of range to all alien weapons.

- Reaction modifier added to Vipers melee attack.

- Base attacks set at 80 Trickery Value.

- Caesan guards no longer pull Heavy Plasmas

- Starting minimun hitpoints of your soldiers increased.

- AK47 Rifle is unlocked

Edited July 17, 2014 by TacticalDragon