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

[Sentelin]

I searched the whole 40 pages for "assault rifle" and "Ak47". Although i encountered the really funny ape with ak47 Video i didnt find anything about stats... and excuse if i dont read all 40 pages one by one.

I meant try looking for reason why there are not stats available for any weapon ... or why vanilla stats are inaccurate.

Instead searching thread manually you can use search option (You can use Advance Search to search this topic)

But let me save you a trouble of spending 10 min of your time.Stats are not written because of frequent changes.Differences between AK-47 an M-16 are next:

AK-47:

-Has 3 aim mods

-Higher Recoil

-Does lower damage

-Burst fire with only 2 bullets per round and smaller suppression radius.It also has slightly smaller suppression.

M-16

-Two aim mods

-Lower Recoil

-Slightly higher damage

-Burst mode with 3 bullets per round,slightly bigger suppression radius and slightly bigger suppression.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Sentelin

[AmericanPride]

I meant try looking for reason why there are not stats available for any weapon ... or why vanilla stats are inaccurate.

Instead searching thread manually you use search option (You can use Advance Search to search this topic)

But let me save you a trouble of spending 10 min of your time.Stats are not written because of frequent changes.Differences between AK-47 an M-16 are next:

AK-47:

-Has 3 aim mods

-Higher Recoil

-Does lower damage

-Burst fire with only 2 bullets per round and smaller suppression radius.It also has slightly smaller suppression.

M-16

-Two aim mods

-Lower Recoil

-Slightly higher damage

-Burst mode with 3 bullets per round,slightly bigger suppression radius and slightly bigger suppression.

I do like the addition of the AK-47, however I have to comment that the burst mode for the AK-47 should be more effective than the M-16. The Soviets deliberately designed the AK-47 to deliver the maximum amount of firepower in the shortest period of time per soldier.

[Theon Greyjoy]

If wikipedia has anything to say about this:

Rate of Fire

ak47 600 rounds/min

m16 700–950 rounds/min

The Soviets deliberately designed the AK-47 to deliver the maximum amount of firepower in the shortest period of time per soldier

I would rather say they designed it to be cheap to manufacture and simple to use.

M16 highly outmatches the outdated ak47 in every aspect except cost, reliability and weight. Ak47 should be replaced by Ak74...but ak74 burst fire would still be slower than m16's...

[Alewalek]

The Soviets deliberately designed the AK-47 to deliver the maximum amount of firepower in the shortest period of time per soldier.

I took is as a joke, unelss it wasyn't one

[AmericanPride]

The AK-47 and M-16 have two very different design philosophies. The Soviets emphasized massing fires while the Americans emphasized precision fires - hence the point shooting and no automatic fire on the M-16/M-4. The Soviet warfighting doctrine of Deep Battle focused on massing effects across the entire battlespace - including down to the individual rifelman; hence the heavy-rounds, automatic fire capability of the standard issue assault rifle. During their WW2 experience, the Soviets learned that the most engagements occurred within 300m, so they were not concerned with their soldiers' abilities to conduct long-range, precision fire. Instead, they wanted as many rounds on target within 300m as possible.

[Alewalek]

Ment to ask long time ago. After trilions of GC batles i never bother going upstars in a single bulding. Anyone knows why alien dont like second and third floorr?

[Theon Greyjoy]

Following a design philosophy does not magically make your weapon's attributes change. Kalashnikovs were designed for quantity (and simplicity) not quality (and complex mechanisms that would add to the attributes whilst increasing the cost dramatically). As the doctrine required.

It's therefore no wonder that M16 will, in skilled hands, outperform an Ak. High accuracy does not mean that your automatic weapon is suddenly worse off at close distance.

---------

You have to remember that the M16 version used in game has no built-in restriction on auto-fire (like the later models of M16 had and I think it is the standard to this day?..haven't checked). The restrictions were implemented after analyising the results of the Vietnam war. Mechanisms that would restrict auto-fire were developed because of conscript soldiers wasting too much ammunition.

Heck, even Warsaw Pact regular soldiers would be drilled to set their Kalashnikovs to semi-auto in case of combat conditions (unless directly ordered otherwise). Otherwise an AK overheats as fast as a M16 (...and perhaps more importantly: you would run out of ammunition pretty fast). (Source: interviews with Warsaw pact soldiers)

I would't imagine that the worlds elite* xenonauts would get guns mechanically-restricted in any way.

*Ok, they still don't know how to throw a grenade, but they are supposed to be the elite ^^'

** and note that I'm not a fanboy of neither Kalashnikovs or M16.... I think western europe had the best small arms at that time period

Edited July 23, 2014 by Theon Greyjoy

[Theoderich]

It's therefore no wonder that M16 will, in skilled hands, outperform an Ak.

Depends on your definition of outperforming. The AR-15 based weapons of the time Xenonauts is set in were, in contrast to AKs ( be it 47 or 74), not famed for their reliability and ease of repair:)

Anyway, why I actually registered on the forums is to thank you for this great mod

I am not too far into my game yet ( landing ships just started to appear), but i really like the new, sometimes unfair to the player, combat.

Especially since I first killed my first big viper, not sure of the designation, only that it was not the poison spewing Omega variant which I encountered but wasn't able to kill. Good thing I packed a Sulphur, and lots of grenades on the other soldiers

The only point of critique I got is the lack of information to the player, but if I read things correctly that can't change in the near future. I don't refer to the xenopedia since you already talked about working on that. But the lack of information on weapons in the equipment screen is bugging me. Like the M16/AK47 stats thing just discussed.

As far as I understood it , the tooltip is just text, instead of a dynamic link to the actual weapon stats?

[Theon Greyjoy]

The AR-15 based weapons of the time Xenonauts is set in were, in contrast to AKs ( be it 47 or 74), not famed for their reliability and ease of repair

As I mentioned, in terms of simplicity, cost and reliability Kalashikovs outperform M16 by far. But those attributes don't matter at all in Xenonauts (neither can we mod in gun-jamming, nor would it be necessary: Xenonauts mission are fast and the weapon maintenance is expected to be high. (You aren't marching 2 weeks through a jungle to reach the aliens...you strike and kill em in 10 minutes...or they kill you )

Ment to ask long time ago. After trilions of GC batles i never bother going upstars in a single bulding. Anyone knows why alien dont like second and third floorr?

I've seen some Caesans on higher floors...sniping like hell. Though mostly on the 1st...only 2 times on 2nd.

the tooltip is just text, instead of a dynamic link to the actual weapon stats

Yep, you would have to change it manually each time a change is introduced to a gun. I think it's better to keep it unmaintained for some time until everyone is happy with the gun balance rather than say that it's implemented and then forgetting about changing some of them stats when the gun is updated...having wrong stats displayed would be even more frustrating to the players.

Anyway, why I actually registered on the forums is to thank you for this great mod

Oh, and thanks for that ^^

Any thoughts about the airsystem or are you one of those auto-resolve players ?

Edited July 23, 2014 by Theon Greyjoy

[silent_lord]

Sentelin= This mod was original intended only for hardcore players.But giving popularity and audience GC is toned down to what we think it's acceptable.Reading your post I can see that you are purely casual player.You had to rise 50 scientist ?No you didn't have to do it but you couldn't figure how to play it.If we would tone down difficulty of mod even more we would might as well revert everything back to vanilla settings.I think you should either try what domein said and play this on easy or maybe it's not just mod for you ?

nope not a hardcore strategy player, defo casual i have far too many games to play to stick with a single game.

sorry for bitching and moaning, was a long day and i truly wouldn't change anything. this is without a doubt the best mod i've played, not just for xenonauts. the AI is truly challenging.

to be honest i did cheat a little bit, i edited some xml's and now starting soldiers and all future soldiers start with higher stats. (70-80 across the board) its not a big increase to what it was already at but after starting a new game, i have captured afew crash sites... still bloody hard though, taking lots of casualties, but its a frikin alien invasion!

now i have recovered tech and researching i have noticed most of the new weapons have no tooltips with stats and that alot of xenopedia entires are just plain blank, some have text and place-holder.

now before you go off on one, i have read all the 40 odd pages and did a search but didn't really found anything, except what you put in a reply... that theres changes that often its not done yet. i'll take that.

i wasn't sure because i also have xenophobia installed. and have no clue whos whos with the weapons so i posted in both threads.

major thanks to you dude for this mod. its truly superb. (Sentelin, Tactical Dragon)

@Silent_Lord, the mechanic of this game is very different to vanilla.

I suggest you to play multiple times.

Some Hints:

- Rush to Jackal armor

- Try to capture at early game a caesan and sebillian non combatant.

- Read Xenopedia entries.

- Recover 2x Data Cores of each large size UFOs

- At early mid game try to stun a harridan or a viper.

- Use shields, they are your only stable defense on early game.

- Research Alenium

With practice you will defeat this mod.

Take courage

Remember apply the last hotfix.

getting there slowly dude.

stun a xenomorph!? really. lol. i have tried using good ole purple stun gas grenade which works brilliantly in vanilla. but everyone seems to be immune or resistant to it in the mod, i dont have shock batons or shock grenades yet though.

although i just had a `holy crap` moment, downed a medium ufo and went to crash site. took my time and played smart, lots of medpacks and finally wiped out the aliens on the map and stacked up ready to breach the main door and side.

a frikin xenomorph queen burst out the main door on their turn! i was like... wtf! its a queen.

shes one tough mother... took all my 10 frag grenades, 4 stun and endless barrages of burst at close range and shotgun in the face, she just resisted and healed through the lot and wiped out my team.

it was brilliant! love it. get the cow next time with some bigger guns. (major Aliens franchise fanboi. tis the reason i installed the xenophobia as it has the pulse rifle and smart gun etc..)

regarding hotfix.... i have install order. base game. xnt 5.31 final firebat. hotfix v5.31. xenophobia v1.1.6. xenophobia v1.1.6 hotfix is there anymore hotfixes.

[Darki99]

hi der darki nochmal

i have a questions sorry i made not google übersetzer is so terribel .

why i can buy no engineers more on the base ihave 100 is this the limit in xnt ,iss very bad .i have no fun - --why-- is it a bug perhabs .Sorry for my very bad feelings are i have no fun sorry .

one gets lost country back?

Please reply in simple English so that I understand it, many many thanks

[Theoderich]

1) I Have seen both Caesans and Sebillians using upper floors. In the vanilla game Harridans of course use roofs, I suppose that hasn't changed.

2)@Rifles: Sorry, didn't notice that you already mentioned reliability, and I totally agree with you about it not mattering that much in the games setting. It can be a good mechanism like in Jagged Alliance 2, but there you DO trek through forests and swamps between battles.

2.1) But your comment reminded me of something else: You fly in, usually after shooting down the UFO with your own air force. Shouldn't you have the hole map revealed from the start? Just the static map. After all you did fly over it at least once with your dropship, and most likely your fighters recorded the crash.

Maybe even the eggs out in the open*, since they cant move between the flyby and disembarking?

3) @Tooltip: Too bad, but I understand it.

Would it be much work to build a kind of shooting range to test weapons out in a safe environment as a workaround for missing stats?

Maybe a permanently available mission generated close to your first base you can send your troops to to test new toys, get a feel for them?

Not giving any reward, possibly even costing money for repairs when you just had to test out that new rocket launchers impact on buildings ...

4) Air combat: I usually auto resolve when at 100 percent and manually fly else. Since autoreslove doesn't know partially success.

I like the Su-T10, but the Apollo... I haven't found much use for it yet. It obviously is great for recon missions, extending radar coverage. But it is hardly able to actually engage the enemy, and reinforcements are slow to come in with Condors and Cheburashkas. Foxtrotts would get there in a more timely manner, but by the time I got those ( just about now in my current game) I already got a 3rd base up, giving me rather decent coverage without Apollos. I will keep two for finding troublesome UFOs outside base radar range from time to time, but definetley no more.

Long story short: Apollos are a great idea, they make great sense lorewise, but they fill a very small niche and with all the workshops to keep me financially afloat I prefer to use precious hangar space for more combat worthy craft.

The actual battles are fun to play, and more diverse then the vanilla ones, especially with mixed craft squads. I would like to be able to switch missiles on my crafts though. I am aware, that this complicates balancing, but I would love to experiment with loadouts and adjusting them to the target.

Making the cannons fixed makes sense, they are an integral part of the crafts design. But missiles can be chosen according to the missions needs on real aircraft.

* Those under roofs would of course still be waiting for careless soldiers to run though a door.

[Theoderich]

hi der darki nochmal

i have a questions sorry i made not google übersetzer is so terribel .

why i can buy no engineers more on the base ihave 100 is this the limit in xnt ,iss very bad .i have no fun - --why-- is it a bug perhabs .Sorry for my very bad feelings are i have no fun sorry .

one gets lost country back?

Please reply in simple English so that I understand it, many many thanks

Von der Begrüßung schließe ich auf den deutschsprachigen Raum. Nutze einfach kurz mich als Übersetzer. google hat so seine Grenzen in der Hinsicht

[Darki99]

another question I forgot where to get the update function is always exhibit of steam for now must return everything new about it so that it works is really bad copy of steam

[Theoderich]

Assuming Darki99 to be German speaking due to their greeting, here a German answer to their question about preventing steam updates:

Die aktuellste Version von Steam einfach mit dem letzen hotfix des mods überschreiben und alles läuft prima momentan.

Alternativ( für die Zukunft) einfach den gesamten Xenonauts-Ordner kopieren, irgendwo auf der Festplatte parken und den für die Mod verwenden. Steam spielt Updates nur in den ursprünglichen Installationsordner. Allerdings zählt steam auch nur dort die gepielten Stunden.

Automatische Updates auszuschalten ( rechte Maustaste auf das Spiel, Eigenschaften, dort Updates-tab) verhindert nicht dass Steam das Update herunterlädt wenn du das Spiel starten willst und es nicht aktuell ist. Kann man aber erschummeln, indem man vor dem Start des Spiels Steam in den Offlinemodus versetzt ( Menüleiste\Steam\ go offline, oder was da auch bei einer deutschen Installation steht)

Edited July 23, 2014 by Theoderich

[Theon Greyjoy]

Shouldn't you have the hole map revealed from the start?

This is a vanilla concept, it's also an old xcom concept. I actually like it the way it is...remember that the birds are going in hot. There is no time for reconnaissance. Im not even sure if it would be possible to turn off the fog of war engine-wise.

Since autoreslove doesn't know partially success.

Careful now. It does.

100% success means you will shoot down the target...it doesn't mean a 100% chance that your aircrafts won't be shotdown (Altough it's rare)

I would like to be able to switch missiles on my crafts though.

This is not possible engine wise. It took my some time to make individual weapons for individual crafts to work (I tricked the engine ^^)...(otherwise you would just be able to change between every existing missile one for every crafts...ant the size of the airplane wouldn't influence the number of missiles you can carry...which would break balance completely).

Thanks for the feedback.

@Darki99

why i can buy no engineers more on the base ihave 100

Ich glaube das ist normal fur Xenonauts nicht nur XNT. Aber ich bin nicht sicher... Ich kann fragen ob da irgendwelche Begrenzung

in XNT sind.

one gets lost country back?

Nein, es ist nicht moglich

[Darki99]

hallo theoderich

ist es normal das man nur 100 Ingenieure bauen kann ,geht nämlich bei mir nicht kann einfach keine einstellen ist vieleicht ein bug ,oder es ist gewollt.dann nächste frage kann man verlorene kontinente wieder bekommen oder sind die denn für immer wech?und eine letzte steam spezifische frage die mir langsam das game vermiest,stelle jedesmal die auto update funktion ab und so wie heute zack vers 1.09 und spielstand geht wieder nicht.Hoffe es geht mit wieder dateien rüberkopieren also die 5.22 ist aber langsam nervig vieleicht haste nen tipp für mich ,ansonsten sage ich schonmal ein fettes dankeschön aus dem sonnigen harz.

[Theoderich]

This is a vanilla concept, it's also an old xcom concept. I actually like it the way it is...remember that the birds are going in hot. There is no time for reconnaissance. Im not even sure if it would be possible to turn off the fog of war engine-wise.

Not that hot on a crash site ( a landed UFO is another matter..it might still shoot you ). But I am just fine with fog of war, it makes sense gamewise. Just bugs me for the logic of things

Careful now. It does.

100% success means you will shoot down the target...it doesn't mean a 100% chance that your aircrafts won't be shotdown (Altough it's rare)

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I meant that auto-resolve (at least in my experience) does not generate results like: Your interceptors managed to down an escort fighter, or both, and escape only slightly damaged due to evasive manouvers. Even if they get shot down it would be a partial success, because it leaves the main target vulnerable.

This is not possible engine wise. It took my some time to make individual weapons for individual crafts to work (I tricked the engine ^^)...(otherwise you would just be able to change between every existing missile one for every crafts...ant the size of the airplane wouldn't influence the number of missiles you can carry...which would break balance completely).

Ah too bad. Didn't know of that limitation. An Apollo taking the same number as others would not make sense

Thanks for the feedback.

Glad to give it, although I can't say much beyond the early game so far. And damm: I have the game running, but spend more time in the forum then actually playing.. there was a reason not to register here

[Darki99]

jetzt bin ich durcheinander gekommen ,danke für den steam tipp

[Ozi]

hallo theoderich

ist es normal das man nur 100 Ingenieure bauen kann ,geht nämlich bei mir nicht kann einfach keine einstellen ist vieleicht ein bug ,oder es ist gewollt.dann nächste frage kann man verlorene kontinente wieder bekommen oder sind die denn für immer wech?und eine letzte steam spezifische frage die mir langsam das game vermiest,stelle jedesmal die auto update funktion ab und so wie heute zack vers 1.09 und spielstand geht wieder nicht.Hoffe es geht mit wieder dateien rüberkopieren also die 5.22 ist aber langsam nervig vieleicht haste nen tipp für mich ,ansonsten sage ich schonmal ein fettes dankeschön aus dem sonnigen harz.

1. Nein, Kontinente kann man nicht wiederbekommen. (You cant get back lost contintents)

2. Kopiere dein Spieleverzeichnis (Steam\steamapps\common\Xenoauts) irgendwohin und modde es dann. (copy steamfolder first, then use mods)

Another question: Due to the fact that tooltips for weapons are missing, is it possible to look it up in some file, just the raw values?

Edited July 23, 2014 by Ozi

[Theoderich]

About the max engineers question: I bet it's a base game limitation. Like you can't tell them to build 100 submachine guns, because the interface only allows 99.

Wegen der Ingenieure: Ich fürchte das ist ein Problem des Basisspiels. Man kann auch keine 100 Maschienenpistolen bauen, das interface erlaubt maximal 99.

Wegen der Regionen, das hat unser freundlicher Insulaner ja schon beantwortet.

Edit: Completely of topic: I am amazed about the number of bilingual posts right now

Edited July 23, 2014 by Theoderich

[Theon Greyjoy]

Another question: Due to the fact that tooltips for weapons are missing, is it possible to look it up in some file, just the raw values?

you would have to look into both:

assets/weapons.xml

and

assets/weapons_gc.xml

Note that the actually damage values will vary depending on difficulty level. Im off for today, goodnight everyone.

[Ozi]

you would have to look into both:

assets/weapons.xml

and

assets/weapons_gc.xml

Note that the actually damage values will vary depending on difficulty level. Im off for today, goodnight everyone.

Thanks for that. Stats are easy to be read in there.

[Sentelin]

@Ozi

You should take into count only stats from weapons_gs.xml.

weapons.xml is not important for what you are looking for and it doesn't affect stats of weapons during GC.

[silent_lord]

just stormed a landingship ground entrance. whole team was wiped out by aliens shoot through the floor and throwing grenades. erm? (ground floor was secured) i might be not a hardcore strategy player but thats just plain cheating.

Edited July 24, 2014 by silent_lord
missed some key info.