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

[Sentelin]

Well I planned as patch but I figure it's better if I bundle everything as core package and vice versa.As i mentioned it fixes some XNT bugs and port mod to XCE (read XCE changelog for more info),also some balance tweaks.Only reason why will saves be broken is that mod will shift from 0.25 to 0.26.

[Alewalek]

ANy chances to get balance fixed without shifting? Or at least some information what has to be changed so I could avoid starting new game?

[Sentelin]

Also I still consider Gargols too fast too be balanced. Their great hp must be balanced by a bit slower speed.

Speed ?If you meant on animation speed (movement speed) that's only visual and we can't change it (or we can but that would affect all aliens ) but if you meant on their reaction shot modifier,in next final release for v5.3 that has been addressed.

@Alewalek

If you haven't run into any game breaking problems than you shouldn't be concerned and keep playing current campaign until you are done.However I will make separate patch which will be applied in old way just for folks that still have game in progress (I hope that this don't brings confusion)

Edited August 3, 2014 by Sentelin

[QShadow]

I have to agree with the consensus that vipers (the bipedal BIG ones, those are the deltas right?) are just, and I very rarely use this term, unfair. Their armor, damageoutput and most of all health regeneration is simply overpowered. There I said it. Overpowered. Is it hard to belive that I never used that word in a literal sense?

I had a terror mission today and my squad is mostly equppied with lasers one had a minigun and the last one the sulflur (or so) rocketlauncher-system. After recognizing that it was a mission vs Vipers I immediatly evacutaed my squad into the 2nd floor of the nearest building and put my scoutcar infront of the only entrance.

The operation went quite well until there were only 1 viper omega (the one that spits acid) and 2 deltas remaining.

And here is the point, due to their high generation I wasnt able to kill them off, always running out of sight and healed themselfs up when I managed to roll some decent damage. The end of the story is that I run out of ammunition! My squad was carrying 3 clips (or batterys if you will) each and had 2 remaining at the final showdown.

Call me a whiner if you want, but honestly fighting against those things isnt within the borders of "challenging" anymore after you realise no matter what you do those things will rip you apart. It simply becomes frustrating and thats from a man who played XCOM (firaxis) with Long War mod on C/I and the Souls series for whatever thats worth. My point is that, at least I'm thinking that, I'm pretty resiliant to frustration, but those things simply spoil the fun for me in the mod.

No offense to devs, I'm trying to make constructive critic and I wouldnt do so if I wouldnt care about the mod. However if there are any secret ancient chinese techniques to defeat those abominations in an easy (or lets say adequat) manner I will gracefully listen to any advices.

(Knowing what their stats are would be a start, I alredy searched for it in the xenonaut folder but I dont know what I'm looking for.)

Btw. I alredy dropped the diffcutly to easy because of those monsters....

~Q

Edited August 3, 2014 by QShadow

[radek]

What changes brings the patch. Iam 4 month in game time after 50+ GC missions and realy realy I dont wana start to grind again, and as Radek mentioned you cant afford to waste so much $ and exp for your squads so you have do do every GC mission. (at least i did it- exept those I coudnt reach- for testing I have changed range of droopships to encourge myself to buld more then 1 of each type in entire game)

Yep, airstriking gives nothing to compare to ground combat. Game should provide less ground combat missions (especially easy ones) or force player somehow to play them at night.

First of all you have to be insane to play on iron men the game with such a ammount of bugs- if they gone then I may go for that but no untill it wil be done - so probably never - Radek I admire u:P

Only few of them are really frustrating (obviously throwing grenade under your foot is the worst one). Anyway, feeling of the game is more intense and real.

To avoid lossing elite squad I did this- I decided to not have such a squad. All my soldiers develop slower but almost all equaly.

I was hiring as much soldiers as posible each month so at the moment i have over 40 and only 3 bases. I play with them untill they reach aboout 2 ranks( my ranks are 2x slower comparing to vanila) and then swap to another rookies. This way after 3.5 month and 50+GC missions i have soldiers that can carry coyote and advenced balistics(there is of course penalty in TU but they always have it over 50).

Intresting idea. And you do transfer them every time from base to base to keep squads equal? What a about mid game. How many soldiers you lose durnig Terror Sites, Bigger Ufos, Alien Bases? Did u have a "turning point" like I had?

About they atribiutes I think they ok- but as I said i did hire good xenonauts every months so I had good chunk off them- hirng them when needed may be flustraiting.

But soldiers in pool stay they until someone hire them so hiring only good soldiers sooner or later will left your pool full of losers. Or maybe u did hire losers just to dismiss them right after? If so then i still don't like it cause it has nothing to do with realism and brings just more pointless micromanagement into game. I think they should be better like a real soldiers.

About blue androns ARL can usualy deal with one 1 shot, but to get it u have to catch 1 or 2 tricky aliens alive (i think) but it is a lot of help.

Sorry what is ARL? Sulfur auto cannon?

C4, c4 and lots of c4s + flamer to triger c4+ ARL and +luck and luck and a bit more luck( normaly c4 not explode becasue of fire - but I cant say yea lets himm kill all my squad i will not use the bug)

I think I have twice use my first tactic- I was vigilannt becasue I spoted walking vipers and He is always with them so i have succesfully runed back to the dropship. Once I have meet him dead in ufo- I fought walking vipers staying concentretaed and waiting for the moment when He will appear- but he never did and I saw his corpse in ufo.

And last time I used my second tactic but luck was involved in that.

He appeared out of nowhere when I was aproaching ufo - already all aliens dead exept those in ufo- so when he appeared 1 soldier dead. Fortunately he was caring c4 and flamer guy was close to him so i trigered c4 -over 120dmg- then ARL 3times 50/40/25 and 1 or 2 grenades for about 20-30.

His second turn +70HP(its insane his regen is way to much thats why he is so though)he went for another guy and kiled him again he had c4 in backpuck so I trigered that with flamer -over 100DMG - and i droped 3rd c4 in area where he can be turn 3 which means close to my entire squad. He went for a bait so I was able triger it my turn 3 then shot him with ARL and few grenades did the rest - only 2 dead soldiers - very good result.

But yea he still is they type of - i will kill your entire squad no mater what u will do-guy.

Ok I dont use C4 so i guess its my fault. Pretty weird that to kill an alien u need to bring C4 with you just especially for him set up a trap for him and blah blah... But i guess this is how "Boss" fight should be played out. I will definitely test this in the next build.

But anyway its pretty sad that other weapons do NOTHING to them.

Its like in a fantasy game - "This evil monster can be killed only by sacred C4 made by ancient dwarfs. You need to bring some of these before I will let You face that evil creature stranger"

Edited August 3, 2014 by radek

[radek]

However if there are any secret ancient chinese techniques to defeat those abominations in an easy (or lets say adequat) manner I will gracefully listen to any advices.

Hahahah Secret Ancient Chinese Techniques hahaha.

I think Alewalek found one. Old books says something about ancient C4. If you put them in a triangle and then set on fire by Holy Flame Thrower You will send that creature back to hell. Amen.

[Alewalek]

Yep, airstriking gives nothing to compare to ground combat. Game should provide less ground combat missions (especially easy ones) or force player somehow to play them at night.

I decided to dont look on that and what games bring game brings, up to this i have reduced range od charlie to 30k so it gives u less chancess to avoid night misions especialy when u have 2-3 crassites at the same time.

Intresting idea. And you do transfer them every time from base to base to keep squads equal? What a about mid game. How many soldiers you lose durnig Terror Sites, Bigger Ufos, Alien Bases? Did u have a "turning point" like I had?

I transfer them but they not dot to dot equal so Iam not troubled to much about tranfers.

Whats mid game - I mostly fight corvetes and landingships now, first 2 crusers appeared and never had GCTerror site(2x aerial one) no alien base yet. No turning points yet.

Maby exept loosing half of relation with soviets and budget at end of the month beeing negative.

This month I am close to losing Australia and South America but maby not so I have a chance to build base there- if I have money.

I dont fight crusiers on GC, I tryed first and run away after first few turns I wasynt technologicly prepared- no lasers yet so I have second just now and I will just bombard it when shoted down.

But soldiers in pool stay they until someone hire them so hiring only good soldiers sooner or later will left your pool full of losers. Or maybe u did hire losers just to dismiss them right after? If so then i still don't like it cause it has nothing to do with realism and brings just more pointless micromanagement into game. I think they should be better like a real soldiers.

Sorry what is ARL? Sulfur auto cannon?

Soldier pool reset every month so if u hire good before end of the month u have a chance to get good few next month.

Never I hired soldiers to fire them straigt away. I was testing that and maby 1-2 good one u can get on 10 bought this way.

What i did on start I was using bad soldiers exacly to the rules of "Clausule 1B to GC missions" so they died more easly- Would you like to know more? Look on page 56

Unfortunately there is small incident that happens and we had to remove this clasusule- details in my next feedback.

ARL -yea it is- didnt wana to spoil and Iam such a noob that dont know how to put SPOILER tags.

About C4 - I dont have it for him but dont wana spoil to much, but if somone dosent like landship gallery and BUG of LOS(which prevents me from playing iron mode) then C4 is solution definitly 4 of them is

Edited August 3, 2014 by Alewalek

[QShadow]

Hahahah Secret Ancient Chinese Techniques hahaha.

I think Alewalek found one. Old books says something about ancient C4. If you put them in a triangle and then set on fire by Holy Flame Thrower You will send that creature back to hell. Amen.

Very well then, I shall command my engineering team to develop a sacred C4 formed out of bones of dead gods, fueld by tears of orphans and refined with the essence of the grim reaper himself!!!

[Theoderich]

C4 for the Blood God!

Laser Weapons can do fine against Deltas though.. you just need to concentrate fire, best at close range. For example by moving the tank away from the buildings entrance you barricaded yourself in when there is no Viper to be seen, so it runs out of TU after entering the building, but before killing your soldiers. Then you can shoot it with everyone at Close range and kill it. Because I share your experience: Attrition doesn't work against something that can easily Regenerate 70+ HP ( on normal difficulty). Wouldn't risk it in Iron Man mode of course If more then one enteres the building you're propably dead.

Alternatively position your team close to a civilian. Vipers usually go for those first. And then they run out of TU to attack you Tricky with multible Deltas though.

[QShadow]

Against all odds I managed to finsih that mission after all, I started sending out one completly unarmed soldier to collect alien equipment and managed to kill those last 3 bastards with alien precion rifles. And save scumming..... lots of that...

But I think I have a been gifted with a nice amount of tips from you guys. C4 & flamethwrower... and I will also try the lure-in tactic on a mission I bring more ammo on...

If you would excuse me now I ahve 2 things to do. I need to arange the heads of those vipers in the command center so they are visible from every position in the room and I have to wash of the shame for save scumming

Anyway thank you very much for the advices dear xenonaut-comrades.

[Reactorcore]

You can light up C4 with the flamer? I never knew that.

I once tried to use four C4 charges against a door on the final mission back in vanilla, only to notice that the first C4 explosion burned and defused all the other three ones into useless ashes. After that I figured I shouldn't shoot at them or they'll defuse.

By the way, has anyone run into a bug where the UFO disassembly projects get reset, so you can only dissassemble a corvette, but not anything else higher than that? It happened to me when I loaded up a save I was playing yesterday. Is this a common bug?

[QShadow]

You can light up C4 with the flamer? I never knew that.

I once tried to use four C4 charges against a door on the final mission back in vanilla, only to notice that the first C4 explosion burned and defused all the other three ones into useless ashes. After that I figured I shouldn't shoot at them or they'll defuse.

By the way, has anyone run into a bug where the UFO disassembly projects get reset, so you can only dissassemble a corvette, but not anything else higher than that? It happened to me when I loaded up a save I was playing yesterday. Is this a common bug?

Didnt had that bug so far.

[Kirill Selivanov]

2 things radek

- Basic sniper weapon deal 20-40 dmg to blue Androns normally to me (even from max distance... and its really good that they doesn't has nano-bots that restore them) well... Sentelin... its just another idea - maybe androns could regenerate not HP, but armor? hehe... horror would be greater!!!-))))

- And if there problem with ammo - put it to backpack of one soldie for max and than drop in the mission in first turn.

I do this with rockets when come to terrors or missons more than corvete

ps... ups.doese there really a mission with MORE than one blue delta or omega??!!! Holy Molly-)))

laser carabins deal reapers at ease... just never tried that on omegas and deltas... but sometimes i see how my soldiers "wonderfully" miss all bullets from 1-2 tiles long to delta. maybe its normal to sniper rifle and MG-ns but normal rifle and zephir - why?! 90+ accuracy, 90+ % of aiming and mis-mis-mis getting tile under it. What could make that? Doese their hands tremble or so?

Edited August 4, 2014 by Kirill Selivanov

[Zelius]

You can still use attrition on Deltas/Omegas, by depleting their armour, eventually you will do massive damage and kill them. It's just a question of how many soldiers die in the process, heh.

And yeah, Kirill, sometimes I also wonder whether the tooltip/thing is showing the correct accuracy ("Okay, all 6 shots missed... let's see, the chance of that is... 0.2 ^ 6, which is 1 in 15625 ?!?")

On another note, it's nice that alien bases can grow on their own now, but I think they do so a bit too quickly... It's December of the first year, I left an alien base alone for ~15 days, went to do a base assault... BOOM, Dread rains down on my squad. Open the door: Caesan elites. Meanwhile, on the geoscape it's the first wave with any Cruisers. So I went into gameconfig.xml and cut the independent growth values to one-fifth, plus I temporarily upped the base size ticker thresholds, which is cheating, of course, but encountering Those Guys while I haven't met a Leader yet is a bit too much for me.

Moral of the story: kill all the alien base.

Edited August 4, 2014 by Zelius

[Alewalek]

miss all bullets from 1-2 tiles long to delta. maybe its normal to sniper rifle and MG-ns but normal rifle and zephir - why?! 90+ accuracy, 90+ % of aiming and mis-mis-mis getting tile under it. What could make that? Doese their hands tremble or so?

Have from time to time the same 3x misses for acc over 80%. Maby its just bad luck 3 times in a row, or vanila stuff like with spending 30TU to heal soldier by 1 HP.

[Cortlendt]

Speed ?If you meant on animation speed (movement speed) that's only visual and we can't change it (or we can but that would affect all aliens ) but if you meant on their reaction shot modifier,in next final release for v5.3 that has been addressed.

I can comment on the early game - minor Vipers are ok, they re mobile but concentrated fire from 2-3 soldiers kills them. On the other hand 2-3 Gargols will wipe the ground with unprepared player on the first mission. I think the problem is their mobility, they can cover too much ground, making them just like a tougher version of minor Vipers. I think you can balance them by reducing their mobility, so they will provide a nice alternative to the Vipers.

For now options against them are quite limited, best way is to reduce their cover using rockets and have 4-5 soldiers concentrate fire on them. I consider them a bit over the top for the early game.

A question: When new mods weapons will get updated tooltips in soldier equip screen? Its hard to see how Zephyr is better than basic ballistic rifle.

[Theoderich]

The tooltips will wait for balancing to stabilize, since they can't ( yet? ) be generated dynamically but are texts that would need to be changed by hand every time you do something to the weapons.

Another tip for vipers: In bases use doors to your advantage. The 6TU needed for opening them can save lives by often make even a Delta viper stop in front of it without the Tu to attack you Then it's your turn and with a team of 4 or 5 people with lasers waiting right behind the door.

And rejoice: Better armour helps too. I have seen ( on normal ) soldiers survive a hit by a Delta if they wear Wolf armour. They are critical and bleeding..but alive

[Sentelin]

A question: When new mods weapons will get updated tooltips in soldier equip screen? Its hard to see how Zephyr is better than basic ballistic rifle.

Well it's not really that hard since you have Xenopedia article.Yeah sure it doesn't cover everything but it covers pretty much everything you need to know.Also it's fairly easy to notice difference it does more damage for instance,it's heavier,lower ammo .. better burst,that's all you can notice from playing.

I can kill Gargol using Machine gun,shotgun and sniper combined on first mission without even throwing grenade on veteran difficulty/iroman,so it's very possible.Later when you research Thunderbolt (Advance Ballistic Shotgun) 3-4 shots from that shotgun alone can kill Gargol.Also Zypher burst fire is very capable of dealing heavier damage to them then rockets (and I forgot to mention yesterday Androns are vulnerable to Zypher burst fire and Dual Warhawks so are Gargols ).

First mission is meant to be tough,heck missions up until you unlock most of Advance Ballistic are meant to be tough and you have to get used that you will lose 2-3 soldiers because this is not going to change (on veteran difficulty at least).Gargols are not alternative to Vipers they are species for themselves (read Xenopedia article) and their main purpose is to be me distraction and meat shield while boys with big guns get in position,or prepare ambush.

Also I recommend you to build Hunter early on because Vipers/Gargols can't damage it and that's why it is exterminator for them.Just keep it safe from other aliens that have weapons.Hunter is also good in covering large distance and has large area of vision.It does incredibly amount of damage to early aliens,including Gargol/Vipers with Machinegun and it will help you to keep your original squad alive building their experience.

Edited August 4, 2014 by Sentelin

[Kirill Selivanov]

wow... what damage do vipers so tank doesn't feel it?

(i'am asking because never used it)

[Sentelin]

That's vanilla flaw ....Melee combat units ignore vehicles,they don't do any damage to them.

miss all bullets from 1-2 tiles long to delta. maybe its normal to sniper rifle and MG-ns but normal rifle and zephir - why?! 90+ accuracy, 90+ % of aiming and mis-mis-mis getting tile under it. What could make that? Doese their hands tremble or so?

I had this too and guess what ... vanilla bug again.No one knows what is causing that's why it was never fixed (and it doesn't trigger all the time) ...For what is worth I had 97% accuracy one tile away from Gargol and I missed every time I fired a machine gun.That result in getting two my veterans killed and mission abort ....

Edited August 4, 2014 by Sentelin

[Zelius]

Hey, has anyone else been getting CTDs with C4?

In particular, when I drop a C4 instead of throwing it, and detonate with an electroshock grenade, I can produce a CTD every time...

[Cortlendt]

Thanks for the answers, guys. Btw, where I can take a look at the tech tree?

[Alewalek]

That's vanilla flaw ....Melee combat units ignore vehicles,they don't do any damage to them.

I had this too and guess what ... vanilla bug again.No one knows what is causing that's why it was never fixed (and it doesn't trigger all the time) ...For what is worth I had 97% accuracy one tile away from Gargol and I missed every time I fired a machine gun.That result in getting two my veterans killed and mission abort ....

Yea another reason to not play on ironmen. I woudnt accept such a losess by not my fault.

@Zelius

For me from time to time game crashes when c4 explodes in your case drop it somwhere else or do turn a bit difrent then bug may be gone.

[Zelius]

@Alewalek

Yea, that's what I've been doing, though in my pseudo-ironman I save at the beginning of each GC turn to a single savefile, so it gets a little frustrating when I can't kill an enemy because of CTD, like if I had the perfect chance to kill a Delta but can't because I have a place the C4 in a slightly different place, which means running my soldiers out of the blast radius, and thus less TUs to fire.

Though the reason I don't play ironman is mainly because of the grenade pathing: "Oh, hey, you- soldier! Throw this grenade out the broken window at that alien. I know there's a dumpster kinda in the way, but I'm sure your arm strength is enough to-" *Grenade lands at the soldier's feet and explodes him into red goop* *facepalm* *Load game*.

[Reactorcore]

I think there may be a bug with manufacturing vehicle weapons in seperate bases.

This is what I did:

1. I had a manufacturing base that built a hyperion tank.

2. Then I relocated that same tank to my main base.

3. Heavy plasma weapons are researched and unlocked.

4. I now set the manufacturing base to build a plasma bolt cannon for the tank. (NOTE: The tank itself is not in this base anymore)

5. Once finished, I notice that the seperately built plasma gun does not appear in the store room.

6. The moment I click on the Vehicles tab of the manufacturing base, the entire game crashes to desktop.

EDIT:

As wierd as it sounds, I managed to "fix" the problem by sending back the tank to the manufacturing base where the cannon was, after which I was able to access the vehicle garage without a CTD, equip the tank with the plasma cannon and THEN send it back to my main base.

Just to be sure, I also demolished that demonic garage in the manufacturing base afterwards. Good riddance.

Edited August 4, 2014 by Reactorcore