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

[radek]

So battle XNT vs Xenophopia has been won?

[drages]

Hey guys. I am thankfull for this mod... i feel the presure when i started to play this mod..

I got a little question.. I go for advenched weapons and now aliens just making party at my dropship ...

So i think i will go for lasers as soon as posibble..

I meet with the 2. and bigger viper at my first medium ship encounter and as i predicted he tiered my whole team with 2-3 vipers with him... I just didnt notice his attack animation.. he just turns to my soldier and bammm..

So does he got attack animation or the mod's new animations arent done yet? And what is the difference between vipers tail and claw attacks?

Thx! Waiting the new version!!!

[TacticalDragon]

So battle XNT vs Xenophopia has been won?

Its not a battle, is a good example of bad developement.

At first time when Corporation weapons show up, we see a Mod-Add-On that adds non-manufacturable Laser/Plasma/MAG weapons, the idea seems pretty nice to me even if the development was poor.

Suddenly we see a mod that looks like a mixed version of "XNT" + "Guacamelee", something like a Mexican piñata with Machetes, Rock Guitars and more "Bloody Saucers". I try to talk to focus slayer on the right way, following the flavor o XNT has a Horror-SciFi, but he dont want to hear about nothing.

The result is that Xenophobia is a mod poorly designed, full of unnecessary micromanagement, redundant equipment and lacking of common sense. In comparison in core XNT mod I take about 40 work days to design and add a weapon, resulting in diverse equipment that has a unique role and functionality in tactic battleground.

We see lot of potential on XCE0.28, we need to follow to next step, we'r not doing this to kick out Xenophobia, is only a consequence of the progress.

Thank you for the MVP!

I appreciate it a lot!

[ventuswings]

Eh, I can see the benefit of "options-buffet" school of development as well, feels like real life sandbox where you are given hundreds of random alternatives (and naturally, like in real life, some are either destined to falter or stand out) and told "here's the choices, make something out of it any way you want". It's clearly not the best for the meticulous balancing but has an entertainment value of greater freedom, like you are not just corralled into following the strategies the game developer wants you to use. It's biggest problem was attaching it to XNT ITD mod from the very start, as fun of inventing new methodologies to wipe out aliens was bound to conflict with the sci-fi horror theme the former was going for.

But I digress, history of Xenophobia conflict is of the past which I should really avoid bringing up.

Edited September 7, 2014 by ventuswings
editing first paragraph

[TacticalDragon]

Eh, I can see the benefit of "options-buffet" school of development as well, feels like real life sandbox where you are given hundreds of random alternatives (and naturally, like in real life, some are either destined to falter or stand out) and told "here's the choices, make something out of it any way you want". It's clearly not the best for the meticulous balancing but has an entertainment value of greater freedom, like you are not just corralled into following the strategies the game developer wants you to use. It's biggest problem was attaching it to XNT ITD mod from the very start, as fun of inventing new methodologies to wipe out aliens was bound to conflict with the sci-fi horror theme the former was going for.

But I digress, history of Xenophobia conflict is of the past which I should really avoid bringing up.

Actually we'll enable a download link for a compatible version for Xenohobia, if players want the option it will be available.

[Sentelin]

TD is right it wasn't battle ... it was full scale war that dragged big "faces" into conflict instead of staying "local conflict",result was like someone dropped imaginary nuke and started "forum wars" which thankfully ended without big consequences but it didn't went out without both sides jumping to each other throats and ....

This shouldn't be battle or war at the first place if it had been handled better but it was what it was and there is no point scratching old "wounds" now,I sincerely hope that this will never happen again to anyone.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Sentelin

[deathsand12]

Hey I don't know if you guys can help, I am hoping you can but I installed your mod and I really like it but I have run into a problem. When I discover the research for heavy plasma my game stops responding to my selections. The game is still running but I can no longer select anything. When I tried without your mod it worked so I would like to know how to fix it. Thank you for any information you can suppy.

[TacticalDragon]

Hey I don't know if you guys can help, I am hoping you can but I installed your mod and I really like it but I have run into a problem. When I discover the research for heavy plasma my game stops responding to my selections. The game is still running but I can no longer select anything. When I tried without your mod it worked so I would like to know how to fix it. Thank you for any information you can suppy.

Which version of the game did you have?

We'r near to release a new version. I recommend you to wait a pair of days.

As a little spoiler:

XNT 5.4 Version name "Hell Gate"

- I add and rebalance two updates for the standard pistol and rifle (P363 Diablo Light Pistol and The M14 Hellfire)

- 2x New grenades (Napalm Grenades and Acid grenades).

- Damage system rebalanced

- Secret sniper rifle (Gift of Sentelin).

- UFO content randomization.

- Fun and quick Research progression.

- Much more

[Stone Dog]

Before deciding to try XNT (or better, before deciding to wait for the new version ), I was using the following mods:

- Soldier roles in minibars

- Skitso's Sleek AI Turn

- Fire in the hole

Are they going to be compatible with the new version? I'm guessing yes for FitH, but what about the others?

PS: what does XNT stand for?

[kabill]

All those should be fine I think. Assuming you're using the XCE version of FitH.

[Daru]

I'm sorry if this has already been answered:

When I researched heavy laser weapons, all I got were three blank Xenopedia pages and no weapons,

do i have to complete seperate researches for them?

[The Watcher]

Its not a battle, is a good example of bad developement.

At first time when Corporation weapons show up, we see a Mod-Add-On that adds non-manufacturable Laser/Plasma/MAG weapons, the idea seems pretty nice to me even if the development was poor.

Suddenly we see a mod that looks like a mixed version of "XNT" + "Guacamelee", something like a Mexican piñata with Machetes, Rock Guitars and more "Bloody Saucers". I try to talk to focus slayer on the right way, following the flavor o XNT has a Horror-SciFi, but he dont want to hear about nothing.

The result is that Xenophobia is a mod poorly designed, full of unnecessary micromanagement, redundant equipment and lacking of common sense. In comparison in core XNT mod I take about 40 work days to design and add a weapon, resulting in diverse equipment that has a unique role and functionality in tactic battleground.

We see lot of potential on XCE0.28, we need to follow to next step, we'r not doing this to kick out Xenophobia, is only a consequence of the progress.

Thank you for the MVP!

I appreciate it a lot!

[drages]

I asked before but nobody answered.. i got 2 problems about this mod or about me.. i try to figure that out..

1. IS the all new aliens animations finished? The 2. and bigger viper (the white one and he alone can kill my all crew ) attacks me but i only see he came and my soldiers die.. no attack animation... and sometimes when i shoot enemies they dont show the hit by bullet animation.. is this a problem at my side? is there a way to handle it?

2. The game is realy hard with this mod and its realy good.. i mean i feel the presure.. but i think its more then neccesary.. for example at start of the game when i only got kinetic weapons, a new alien dont die full of shots of my all crew.. and i got now advenched kinetics and lasers and i am against the robotic ones.. i shoot everything.. laser, bullet, bombs.. the shoots are resisted, resisted, miss, miss, resisted, 1, 3, resisted, miss... i just go for a bombing-rocketing run against them.. no other weapon is not usefull..

3. Sometimes when i try to shoot an enemy, even enemy is no cover, my soldiers shoot the ground tile of that enemy.. sometimes i think its a bad luck but it happens when they are near and with good acc. is it a bug?

So please if u got any advise about those.. please tell me what i miss.. i am an ufo players since its 5 disc for amiga 500... the game is awesome and mode is awesomer..

thank u again..

Edited September 8, 2014 by drages

[kabill]

3. Sometimes when i try to shoot an enemy, even enemy is no cover, my soldiers shoot the ground tile of that enemy.. sometimes i think its a bad luck but it happens when they are near and with good acc. is it a bug?

I suspect this will be because of changes to the short range bonus in XNT which used a new XCE feature which was bugged until XCE 0.28. So, when the new version of XNT comes out I suspect this should be better.

[blackwolf]

hi Drages..sorry if you dont get previous answer:

1..this YES and NO...the attack animation was never finished so thats the reason why delta viper foe aproach..delta viper use razor claws and its supper effective! but with a gameboy color animation version !. But injuries it does happens (minimal at least) he make a kind of shrugging when is hit, you can go to assets/units/reapers/delta/weaponalphaclaws and then it will be all the sprites...you can search for INJURED and "watch it"...if you dont have this well maybe this is the root of the problem.

2. Yes and NO(again )..this mod was designed to be a challenge..remember you are fighting aggainst a overwhelming space invasion force..the things aint gonna be like a park walk in the beggining ..the first thing you have to do is test and error..try to find a weak point in the enemies forces (a clue...all the early meelee aliens are weak aggaints flamethrower and tanks ). Also Explosives is your best friend. Dont be afraid of using grenades, rockets, EVEN C4 if you can! move slowly and cover the flanks...and you'll see that even the thoughest foe can lay down with heavy fire n_n . When i encountered my first delta i mowed him down only using zhephyr automatic fire (i got a lot of miss and "blank hits but i'll explain it on the 3rd point)...after two turns of shooting even the shoe, he falls down (in veteran difficulty). So if you have good weaponry,good soldiers and a lot of common sense (and luck ) you'll be fine :)b.

3. About this point...well as kabill stated it was a bug caused by xce and because we arent coders...it cannot be handled in the best way. It leads you to nasty situations when even shooting in point black with 99% of acc rate ended in miss and "tile foot shooting"(when the bullets hit THAT TILE where the alien is present, but just made the bullets plume without hitting the foe).

Regarding about point 2 (again )..in the new version a couple of things was rebalanced so i hope you fell more confortable with it, but you could use the same tactic in all the new gameplay you tried.....also take notices that i just give you advices, you should find a tactic that makes you feel confortable.

Good luck and happy hunting compadre !.

[drages]

hi Drages..sorry if you dont get previous answer:

1..this YES and NO...the attack animation was never finished so thats the reason why delta viper foe aproach..delta viper use razor claws and its supper effective! but with a gameboy color animation version !. But injuries it does happens (minimal at least) he make a kind of shrugging when is hit, you can go to assets/units/reapers/delta/weaponalphaclaws and then it will be all the sprites...you can search for INJURED and "watch it"...if you dont have this well maybe this is the root of the problem.

2. Yes and NO(again )..this mod was designed to be a challenge..remember you are fighting aggainst a overwhelming space invasion force..the things aint gonna be like a park walk in the beggining ..the first thing you have to do is test and error..try to find a weak point in the enemies forces (a clue...all the early meelee aliens are weak aggaints flamethrower and tanks ). Also Explosives is your best friend. Dont be afraid of using grenades, rockets, EVEN C4 if you can! move slowly and cover the flanks...and you'll see that even the thoughest foe can lay down with heavy fire n_n . When i encountered my first delta i mowed him down only using zhephyr automatic fire (i got a lot of miss and "blank hits but i'll explain it on the 3rd point)...after two turns of shooting even the shoe, he falls down (in veteran difficulty). So if you have good weaponry,good soldiers and a lot of common sense (and luck ) you'll be fine :)b.

3. About this point...well as kabill stated it was a bug caused by xce and because we arent coders...it cannot be handled in the best way. It leads you to nasty situations when even shooting in point black with 99% of acc rate ended in miss and "tile foot shooting"(when the bullets hit THAT TILE where the alien is present, but just made the bullets plume without hitting the foe).

Regarding about point 2 (again )..in the new version a couple of things was rebalanced so i hope you fell more confortable with it, but you could use the same tactic in all the new gameplay you tried.....also take notices that i just give you advices, you should find a tactic that makes you feel confortable.

Good luck and happy hunting compadre !.

Thank you for your time to answer me..

I just tried to finish a teror mission of reptilians.. This was the hardest tactical game play i played at my 20 year strategy gaming.. I used every possible tactics i know.. I gave about 6 hours for it and sadly gave up.. so its nearly imposible..

why?

1. There was about 10 ranged 10 melee enemies... and at that 10 ranged enemy,

- 5 rocket style aoe weapon,

- 3 3x3 aoe explosive weapons

- 2 Long range shotgun style weapon..

So with this numbers and including granades, covers are mostly useless.. I need to use bombs on them so i try to get near, but then no time to escape.. even i escape, if enemy want kill me just come and aoe.. Every enemy got armors and their weapons 5x more leathal then mines..

2. The AI is great... maybe one of the best one i fight against.. They stay at their building and they defend it well.. they only shoot when they are safe... So storming that building with 5 enemy with rockets.. yeah a heroic attemt.. So the raging enemies are very brave.. even i make very well covered battle zone if an enemy want u dead he just run to me and kills.. With dynamic tu system, they can easily shoot me enough to kill me..

3. Bleeding... omg... Lets say, Enemy hits me for 2-4-5 damage at that turn and i become happy.. but after that turn.. 3 wound 12 dmg per turn.. one of my soldiers got 7 wound after one turn... and count this for the enemies long range shotguns.. A turn with tons of wounded ppl.. my fire power is miserable and 2 ppl try to heal others.. It can be ok... but why doesnt enemy bleed like me? i want to see aliens dies in vain with bleeding...

I liked everything at this mod.. this mod made this game a real atmospheric horror game.. yeah trial and error is a good and my favorite style.. BUT... but... it should not stop the game enjoyment.. i play at normal and the diffucult is deadly.. Is there a chance to make it more playable? Or should i go for more easy option? does it make difference?

And i dont have flamethrower... i checked but nop.. its strange.. i copied the mod files just a copy of steam x:CE 0.28 ver... did i something wrong? maybe this could make my game more complex-hard-not working as intended..

sry for my english and thx for reading

[podbelski]

re good AI:

it amazes how the AI finds the best spot to end the turn using obstacles to negate my fire... sometimes it feels like too much - aliens have to make mistakes by not always choosing the optimal place to hide. My vision is androns have to be 'most clever' in this sense... not sure though, maybe the game is already implemented this way?

@drages, re tough battles:

v5.4 changes UFO loadouts. I don't expect it will be easier overall, but really hope they cut out some of totally unbalanced loadouts... If not, I'll do it myself in the next few days after release and can share modified files if you wish

[drages]

re good AI:

it amazes how the AI finds the best spot to end the turn using obstacles to negate my fire... sometimes it feels like too much - aliens have to make mistakes by not always choosing the optimal place to hide. My vision is androns have to be 'most clever' in this sense... not sure though, maybe the game is already implemented this way?

@drages, re tough battles:

v5.4 changes UFO loadouts. I don't expect it will be easier overall, but really hope they cut out some of totally unbalanced loadouts... If not, I'll do it myself in the next few days after release and can share modified files if you wish

Yeah AI is nearly playing without mistake... If UFO loadouts are rocket aliens again yeah i would like to accept that..

But it was a mistake to put this mod to X:CE 0.28? should it be without CE?

[zenish]

I just got through the most soul crushing ground mission I've had in this game.

I was a complete nightmare. First landing ship to show up, with a crew of 22 gorgons and a bloody reaper. I absolutely hate gorgons and if I knew how to remove or tweak them I would. Still, when I saw what was waiting for me about 5 mins in, I decided I to go through with it, to prove to myself I could kill these bastards. And that my hate for gorgons doesn't come out of my usual incompetence when dealing with them.

Final count: 20 out of 21 gorgons killed + 1 reaper. All I had we're the first upgrades to the ballistic weapons, no flamethrowers.

Every single grenade and ammo spent, scout tank included with the 30 cal, only the sniper had a few bullets on last mag. Everyone got out alive, 1 miraculously revived after being blown to pieces by a desperate friendly grenade on last stand.

My spoils for this fantastic achievement were reactor and core of the new ship plus a whooping $3.600 dollars for my struggles.

3600! I mean, do I even have to say anything?

I know there we'rent weapons to sell, but still... This should be looked into, I'm certainly not doing it again.

My only consolation, other than victory itself, was everyone surviving and max levels/promotions for all soldiers.

3600...

Anyway, I really think gorgons could use a big change. Including the cheesy xenopedia entry. I like how they maneuver and try to get you from behind/flanks. But they are way too resistant to damage. Reapers worked in vanilla because they would go down with a good shotgun to the face. With gorgons you need someone with flamethrower or else the whole squad need to jump in. Witch would be fine, if there we'rent multiple on every map AND they couldn't sprint a good distance from outside your fov and still smack someone to death. But now we have 3, that I know of, enemies with similar attack behavior as reapers, but with a crap ton of armor on top.

On my first map, I sincerely thought the mod was bugged. I was greeted with 4 gorgons coming out of fog and wiping my squad on the next few turns. Great stuff.

/rant

If anyone knows how i could tweak their armor values and how to limit their numbers, please give me some advice. I have no idea what to look for. And one last thing, is there a way to include cover indicators from XCE? I tried but made a mess.

Other than these fast armored buggers, I'm really liking the mod. From weapons to the cool AI, good job overall.

Love the Alien(movie) references with the vipers too.

Cheers.

sorry for the ranty tone, gorgons get me worked up.

[radek]

Different ppl have different opinions. I personally like gorgols. They are well designed in my opinion. Just try to stay away from them. And forget about shotguns they suck so close combat against gorgols is not an option.

And this game when u used up all ur ammo. Isnt it awsome? Look at this in this game u never use ur ammo so its like infinite. And now look at ur game - a new extra thing to deal with. Limited ammo!!

BTW What i didnt like was for example huge amount of rocket (and aoe in general) equipped aliens.

Edited September 8, 2014 by radek

[ventuswings]

Wait until you face Insane difficulty Gorgols

To be honest, at Landing Ship level I already know two things which I consider infinitely worse than Gorgols... Either way you can edit armour value of the units from aiprops.xml if you want.

Edit: Yeah, I think it's preference thing, Gorgols are ridiculous but I never personally found them outrageous as people claim, especially since there are only one variant meaning they don't scale. Game is really easy to edit to suit everyone's personal tastes either way.

Edited September 8, 2014 by ventuswings

[radek]

Ahh insane diff. U know i play at normal

[Alewalek]

I had 2 or 3 times only gargols and reaper like you, never complained about that- exp is whats most important, and I presume there is no way to give more money for such a missions becasue there is nothing to sell.

Question to devs, i read about posibility to edit number of civilians in the misions, which shouldnt affect the balance at all, is it actualy posible and if yes can somone advice how to do this. I dont know like all of you see this, but terror mision with few civilians has no sense - you entering Beiging and there is 10 civlilians on the street- c mon- of course I dont wana few milions there but you know what i mean maby 20-30 in urbanized areas would be beter.

p.s. i edited some numbers in certain file - which was adviced to change but nothing hapen so that why Iam asking(dont remember what I was editing right now)

[drages]

Heh... yeah i figure that out.. i should not add this mod to a X:CE .. it should be only vanilla.. so i cleaned the XE from steam and added the mod and started.. nearly everything is working nice..

Now enemies dies faster for sure.. its still hard but winable hard .. i got flamethrower now and i cant imagine a fight at least without one..

I will contniue to play and after new version came up i will restart.. i realy love this game now!

[TacticalDragon]

Guys Thank you,

So much for all your opinions, critics and appreciation, specially for the AI that is one of the hardest, time consuming and well developed part of the game.

I been working in some improvements for this issues:

Gargols dont give any reward in ground combat, in XNT:HG (XNT 5.4 "Hell Gate") gargols will give you a plus interesting feature, extraction procedure of each Gargol Corpse let you build some special type of grenade to compensate the nightmare of combat this unit in combat without explosives.

Weapon progression,

Some intermediately tools and weapons are added to the game, specially Basic Ballistics upgrades. Research tree is easier to reach and to understand. I hope that this help the player to develop equipment to stand alien invasion without unbalance the game.

Damage, wounds and Aliens

I improve the general overall of all xenonauts weapons and rebalance some issues with soldier stats and armors. My objective with this modifications is let the player make more mistake without compromising the entire mission. Some of the stats and armor value for some aliens are modified or changed to bring more tactical elements to the game, specially the reaper's Zombify ability is turn on again, Viper's Speed reduced, Gargol Defenses reduced but maximum life increased.

You will see the changes in time, Im pretty sure that you will love it.