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

[QShadow]

Wow that shotgun looks really nice.

Having a decent artist opens a few new gates regarding the mod.

[mersan]

I've been playing the game with this mod for a considerable amount of time despite some freezing bugs, but now I must say I'm done with it for now. The difficulty curve is too steep for me. I just get frustrated with unfair strength of alien forces while getting little sense of achievement. I admit I am not a good strategist, but I think I'm not a newbie either, because I played through old X-COM series (UFO Defense, TFTD, Apocalypse), less famous UFO series (Aftermath, Aftershock, Afterlight) and of course the new X-COM EU. IMHO, this absurd difficulty mostly derives from too slow tech advancement on the human side.

I restarted this mod five or six times changing my strategy, but to no avail so far. I was always overwhelmed by alien's rapid tech advancement and heavy reinforcement. By the time I produce zephyr and warhawk, the alien force deploys elite androns, wraiths and elite psi ceasans, armed with long range heavy plasma weapons and wearing bomb-proof body armors. They wreck havoc with exprosive bolts, rapid fire bullets and nasty psy attacks, while my cutting edge weapons (lol) scratch surfaces of their body armors.

Meanwhile, the air war always goes into hell also. Before I discover advanced aircraft tech, the alien force starts to deploy tons of advanced UFOs, which cannot be dealt with my Cheburashka and Foxtrot squadrons. Eventually the sky is filled with landing ships and heavy bombers escorted with two fighters. Terror attacks are carried out here and there simultaneously. But I can't do anything because my fighters are no match for those advanced UFOs and my ground forces will certainly be annihilated by well-armed space devils.

It's really sad because this mod adds so much depth to the vanilla game, and I can see great amount of effort was put into the mod. So I hope the developers look into current unfair difficulty (specifically slow tech advancement of human forces) and make it more scalable, so that inexpert players like me can enjoy the depth and challenge of this otherwise great mod.

[radek]

Yes i agree. Difficulty is to high. And also goes up to fast.

[Piakio]

Yes, how say Mersan & Radek, difficulty is "terrible". I begun play in Normal ( i played Ufo 1,2 y 3), and i finnish all, not without difficulty,but at last was a good play experience (you kill me,hmm,i kill you too...)

But here, is not possibly progress...

Begin a new game in easy, and perhaps, difficulty raise down a few, because i researched Lasers tech, and then....Lots of elite Aliens with heavy armors&weapons, and battle sky....ufos grow like mushrooms, and they are almost unstoppables with my toy aircrafts, aliens bases too, and my men can´t do anything for fix situation.

Another thing that could improve, is the number of soldiers that can go on the ship, in my humble opnion, 8, 10 o !12!,is totally insufficient for a adequate response to menace.

on the other hand, the work in the mod is !Fantastic!, improving a lot the game experience, but if modders can modify these things, be a perfect Ufo/TFTD/Apocalypse succesor

[Sentelin]

I restarted this mod five or six times changing my strategy, but to no avail so far. I was always overwhelmed by alien's rapid tech advancement and heavy reinforcement. By the time I produce zephyr and warhawk, the alien force deploys elite androns...

By the time Elite Androns shows I already have Laser,all Advance Ballistic Weapons and Wolf Armor,on veteran difficulty,so you are doing something wrong (and fact that I completed mod is proof that it's possible to finish it,also there are other people who did ).Actually I know what you are doing wrong.You didn't manage to secure Air superiority early on and by the time you manage to get Fox it was too late because more advance Aircrafts and therefor you drop the ball.I think that people are just not getting used to Dissemble System and they keep making same mistake over and over again.

About reducing difficulty curve... I don't know,this mod is fairly ok on normal and just fine at easy.Veteran and Insane are meant to provide brutal challenge.However when we get back to development we will consider possibility of reducing even further.I don't know why you have those freezes because I couldn't reproduce them,hopefully this kind of incidents will be gone when (if) mod port to 0.27 since we will have debugger and hunting bugs will be much easier.

Edit:One more thing.Reading all Radek feedback and some others I got impression that when people research Lasers,they equip soldiers just with Lasers.That's dire mistake because this is valid for vanilla but not for XNT:ID.Some enemies have high resistance for energy weapons and they are weak against Ballistics.So If you have at least 2 squad members with advance ballistic weapons equipped and rest of them with lasers or lasers and rocket launcher or ... you are more prepared to face enemies.Also there is one funny and effective strategy which someone wrote long time ago.

Since you don't know exactly what kind of foes you are facing,overload your soldiers with every piece of equipment and when GC start use your first turn to unload equipment you don't use inside Charlie and send someone to equip certain gear back when you face certain type of enemy which is vulnerable to that kind of weapon.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Sentelin

[Alewalek]

I am playing on normal, and after 5months of game play things are neather good nor bad, so dificulty on normal seems ok, I also changed some setings in game config to make normal "normal", if on normal Alien atributes are set on 0.9 its not normal for me so I set them on 1.0- then they normal

@Sentelin- Can we still count on alternative version of new patch, (by overvriting the files) I am after 70GC missions and dosent want to start from scratch, I know you mentioned before u will do this for 0.26 but now some time passed and 0.27 is at hand so just wana let you know I am still interested, maby another few playerss too.

[Sentelin]

Well last patch can be applied by overwriting files it doesn't use modular system.As for 0.27 I will see when we get to it.

[podbelski]

people are just not getting used to Dissemble System

sorry what is that - a "dissemble system"?

[radek]

Sentelin u play with Iron Man? Have u won? If no how long have u survived?

[Sentelin]

sorry what is that - a "dissemble system"?

And this is what I am talking about.People either don't notice or don't know how it works.When you take down medium/huge ufos you loot data core of those UFO's when you research those Data cores you get to manufacture Datacore but in order to do so you need another Data core of that UFO.When you manufacture that part another research projects unlocks and after researching that project you get to unlock tech.

@Radek

I completed mod twice.First time playing veteran with abusing save a lot.Second time veteran/iroman after 7-8 attempts but I managed.What I didn't however do yet is completing game on insane and as far as I got is mid of January.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Sentelin

[Theoderich]

Don't back down in the difficulty. I am managing so far on Normal, 23rd February 1980.

Air-War is a bit tight, currently building a new base and nearly finished outphasing Cheburashkas to correct that.

On that note,a possible bug report: I got heavy plasma weapons, but not lasers. Which is fine for my aircraft, those that can use plasma weapons now. But my base turrets didn't upgrade and still fire missiles

Since I don't play iron man mode I didn't even loose a soldier(NOT playing the rng though). I did need to retreat from combat twice though, back when I didn't have plasma weapons.

And I don't even use vehicles, which would probably make things easier, them being imune to melee attacks and all that.

The dissasembly mechanic is explained ingame! The Xenopedia popups basiclly tell you what to do. At least the general direction.

And like Sentinel said: Don't leave all ballistics at home. I mostly do by now, since: Plasma, but I always got a gatling yielding heavy around for gargoles.

Alternatively build decryption centers. I got only one, but most things shot down in Asia tell me what the crew was, so I can adjust the loadout: Gas and a few ballistics for Sebellians, electro-grenades and just plasma for Ceseans.

[Alewalek]

Did I understand corectly- "You didnt lose A soldier"? playing untill Februrary?

[podbelski]

And this is what I am talking about.People either don't notice or don't know how it works.When you take down medium/huge ufos you loot data core of those UFO's when you research those Data cores you get to manufacture Datacore but in order to do so you need another Data core of that UFO.When you manufacture that part another research projects unlocks and after researching that project you get to unlock tech.

ok, not sure if I've got it right) I'm currently just in the first week of October (my 1st playthrough, not counting previous vanilla attempt). I haven't unlocked much yet... shot down two corvettes, and my workshop suggests several "salvage" projects.

[Sentelin]

On that note,a possible bug report: I got heavy plasma weapons, but not lasers. Which is fine for my aircraft, those that can use plasma weapons now. But my base turrets didn't upgrade and still fire missiles

I don't think that this is bug.This is new full featured new upgrade building system that got shifted with X:CE 0.25.Basically you need to unlock Laser turrets if you want Plasma turrets

[blackwolf]

well right now im atempting in a veteran gameplay (i stoped using iron man because there is sometimes i got some strange bugs and ctds or worst, ELECTRIC shortage in my city so i just refused to lost an almost done mission for something beyond my control)..i admit that i saved after every turn but just in case of ctd, if i get a kill then i suck it, shit happens, im almost in december and im "really behind" in weapons term but thats a long history, and i have to say that i can do gc without problems, and im not a super duper strategy master, but i play with common sense,and beside my "black patch curse"*** i just lost a few soldiers per mission

***

i play using the skitso alternative rank images...and done a few tweaks so the Leutenant patch have black and i got the really strange curse that doesnt matter what, every time i got one soldier promotted to LT..(almost all the time arround 10 missions) then in the NEXT GC MISSION he/she die..it doesnt matter how much care i take, there is always a ramdon viper,a stray plasma bolt,a nasty grenade, there is something that kills it xDD...and for the roleplaying part i like to think that all my soldiers are affraid of getting promoted to LT just because this,and thats explain why some ones after almost 15 missions still being a SGT. xDDD

"oh heeeeeelll no i refuse to get promoted better i just kill myself with a grenade...screw everything!"

[Theoderich]

Did I understand corectly- "You didnt lose A soldier"? playing untill Februrary?

I do play only on normal and without iron man after all. Although I safe less and less now. But it was extremely helpfull in figuring out out how to manouver against the new aliens and weapons.

Of course I did loose soldiers to poor tactics..but then I reload ( really a pain sometimes, since I don't save every turn).

But I don't reload for wounded soldiers. Sometimes they limp away with 4 hp

Edited August 16, 2014 by Theoderich

[podbelski]

...now every time I load a game a popup appears:

New Manufacturing Projects Available To Build:

Alien Singularity Grenade

annoying... how can this be fixed? Also, there are two identical projects "Alien Singularity Grenade" available...

and btw what is this thing? Is it useable at all?

[Juvilado]

I asked before but nobody answered, i will ask again: Are Flamers a good option to weaken alien armor?

[Theoderich]

I asked before but nobody answered, i will ask again: Are Flamers a good option to weaken alien armor?

I think the answer is yes, at close range. But I never tested it myself.

[TacticalDragon]

I asked before but nobody answered, i will ask again: Are Flamers a good option to weaken alien armor?

Yes indeed, all weappns degrade armor values. Using flamers at Tier 1 is recommended, very powerfull if you manage to use it well.

[Zelius]

The mod difficulty seems fine to me, though perhaps the number of starting soldiers could be increased again? I feel that the under-strength starting squad is juuuust too small, so that an unlucky player could be overwhelmed in GC and then find themselves with few/no soldiers for a while.

The geoscape strategy I've used successfully is to live outside my means. Usually within month 1 or 2 my base upkeep is several hundred thousand above funding, I have 2-3 bases and I live off UFO loot. On that note, you should never airstrike when you can do a ground mission, and never do a night mission unless you are really confident. Don't take on a landed UFO unless you are experienced with that UFO class already.

I keep about 5-6 interceptors each on 3 bases, and the early Cheburashka is enough to take down Corvettes in squadrons of 3 (Condors also possible, but is harder), and these are enough to win the air war consistently. Some UFOs are too far away or sometimes too many spawn in one place, but usually they all go down. Unless it's a base attack on my main base. For some reason I really enjoy those base defence missions. Probably because I can throw my rookies into the fray without having to watch them move slowly with their low TUs across crashsite maps. Unfortunately, my squads are becoming full Colonel / Commander, again.

Research one thing at a time. If there is a penalty for too many researchers, I haven't seen it. Same thing with workshops. If you have no workshop projects you need to do, make low-grade armour or ballistics and sell. You can also sell some/most of the Alenium you get, you don't need that much early on. Once you start getting larger UFO cores, start disassembling them and you'll be rolling.

As for GC, your first squad should have one guy equipped with a flamer. I usually give two clips to all my squaddies for their weapons, and stock up on as many grenades as possible without reducing TU to less than ~60. Grenades are your friend. Explosives allow you to kill without getting return fire. Flashbangs suppress and allow you to move in for the kill, or back off - AI doesn't seem to want to move when suppressed. Smoke is a life-saver when you suddenly come across a group of aliens with not enough TUs.

But yeah, experience makes things easier. You should maybe try saving game during GC, test something out - say, seeing how much damage a Gargol can take - and then load again. Good luck!

[Silencez]

I have a quick question:

Thunderbolt shotgun (& multi ammo shotgun) --> how do you make the ammo for it? it isn't listed in the workshop when I researched the gun.

same thin about multi-ammo LMG. no ammo for it?

Is there a Technology tree / research tree of XNT?

Thnx!

Edited August 17, 2014 by Silencez

[ventuswings]

I believe you are referring to Xenophobia content, please redirect your questions at that thread. XNT do not involve any ammo manufacture.

[Silencez]

OK, I'll check.

What about a tech tree? would be nice to have one.

thnx

[iMuzzaa]

Hi, I recently got a new laptop which has windows 8 installed on it. I just installed this mod but I'm not sure if it worked properly. Is there any way to tell? I went into a ground mission and so far the weapon sounds are the same as the vanilla game. Anyone able to help me out with what I've done wrong?