(Mod Update) XNT Into Darkness V6.0 - "Hellgate" (DISCUSSION THREAD)

[drages]

A/ How?

Easy, alien tech has thousands of years of developement against humans. Understanding artifacta in matter of months is impossible, so you need to focus research and developement effort.

Take and sacrifice, if you unlock a research you can lock other one.

I can explain you the mechanism.

The result? A diverse game with lot of options and replayability. ^^

A little example would be nice TD..

[ventuswings]

@ drages

One thing you should mind when including variable options is to very clearly communicate their numerical variables. Xenophobia, for all its perceived failings, at least do this right and have tooltips show exactly what each new equipment is about so choosing which one to use becomes less of a crap-shoot. XNT can get away with this because advantage and disadvantage of each weapon tier is somewhat clear and distinct due to less choices... but you're going to add new weapons to each tiers so it's something to think about.

[TacticalDragon]

@ drages

One thing you should mind when including variable options is to very clearly communicate their numerical variables. Xenophobia, for all its perceived failings, at least do this right and have tooltips show exactly what each new equipment is about so choosing which one to use becomes less of a crap-shoot. XNT can get away with this because advantage and disadvantage of each weapon tier is somewhat clear and distinct due to less choices... but you're going to add new weapons to each tiers so it's something to think about.

I never understand why people insist on tooltips if you have a complete Xenophedia data sheet and comments about the weapon with all the numeric values and tactical notes....

[drages]

XNT doesn't have Pedia pages for every weapon. But it's less. But tool tips are important for fast checks mostly got new weapons..

So neo said "guns, lots of guns...."

As I said I searched concept weapons for weeks and when I see a cool weapon I like to add it to game..

I want to start to play. But there is much to do.. sadly there is no ppl for help.. at least some brainstorming would be nice..

Edited November 5, 2014 by drages

[ventuswings]

I was referring more to the wrong numbers on laser weapon etc. last version which made them look far weaker than it is. I know I wanted to fix them, but unfortunately don't have time anymore... though maybe I'll slowly work on them... but I read enough of this thread and xml to not be confused so guess it doesn't matter to me much

[podbelski]

"FloorPreference: A positive value will attract to upper floors, a lower to the ground.

Tip: Set the higher level units to prefer upper floors and lower to low scores, then the AI will deal with who needs to be where"

this differs from the vanilla aiprops, can someone from XNT team confirm there is no mistake here?

[TacticalDragon]

There is no mistake, the values are different, this little change makes aliens "teleport abusers" before xenonauts reach and secure teleporters, especially for Defensice scripts. I recommend dont touch XMT AI props, they are quiet complex, a single change on a value can lead to lot of errors in the AI behavior.

Edited November 7, 2014 by TacticalDragon

[podbelski]

makes aliens "teleporter abusers" before xenonauts reach and secure teleporters, especially for Defensice scripts.

sorry could you explain this in a better detail? Seems I don't understand what you mean, but I wish

[TacticalDragon]

Sorry, Im writing on smartphone. In vanilla game this value is set to mantain aliens in command room and upper levels of the UFOs. In XNT in conjuntion of other AI script variables is more likely that aliens look for a high ground of the UFO near teleporters. When Xenonauts has visual contact with teleporters the aliens use teleporters to make an ambush.

As I say, desing AI scripts is quiet complex... the most hard task of this mod.

[radek]

XNT 6.0 Feedback

=== Attention! This post contains a really long text. Viewer Discretion Is Advised. ===

(In case of emergency please press the spoiler tag)

I would like to present my late feedback for XNT 6.0. I finally managed to win this game I was playing on normal-normal (so save spamming was allowed and, I won’t lie here, used many times).

Generally game(mod) is great and pretty much playable so this time I will focus mostly on ground combat (so no economy, no air-combat, no graphic, bugs nothing just gc) and rather on details which I think makes a huge impact on the overall game experience.

Anyway big congratulations for the entire XNT team for doing this huge and awesome mod and making me finally happy that I have spent money on this game. And again just to remind you, this feedback is mostly about pin pointing mistakes but dont get me wrong i love this mod!

Also pls make some noise (if you like the idea ofc) in this thread: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/12137-Suggestions-Interface-improvments It contains boring but useful stuff.

--- CASE 1: Late game balance – grenades and flamethrower ---

Everybody likes smoke grenades. Either Aliens, who are just throwing them randomly around, and humans who after many years of evolution have developed more sophisticated methods of using them. Obviously it’s not a problem when aliens are throwing a smoke grenade just for no reason. It adds some dynamic into battle and we like that.

But smoke grenades itself are kind of useless sometimes. I mean, I consider them as a tactical weapon designed for temporary disabling aerial visibility. In short a non-transparent curtain or a wall.

But again it’s not working like that. Not only everything is visible through the smoke but also stupid aliens keep shooting at us. Some of my soldiers were suppressed and I decided that I won’t let them die. I threw 2 smoke grenades between my soldiers and alien rocket launcher unit. Guess where both rockets landed? I will give you a tip. My soldiers were not suppressed anymore.

Same problem is with flash bang. An incredibly sexy grenade which I love passionately is useless in the late game. Why? Cause it is for free? Or because it doesn’t upgrade? I don’t get it. Same for napalm, when napalm was announced I was extremely happy. I had an evil plan in my head “ I will suppress this alien piece of crap to waste half of his tu’s and then I will throw napalm under his feet to force him to move even more and wast the rest of his tu, muahaha”. Nope. Error. Alien don’t care about grenades. If the mechanics was working also gas grenade would have its place as better fire grenades or even late game alternate or successor.

A little bit better is with a flamethrower. It has his moment (early game super weapon) so if devs decided that since mid-game it has to sux then its k to me.

Base defense missions are somehow special. Not only you have to fight in encirclement but also what is normally impossible you can bring more troops into battle. As screen above shows my base is being defended by 14 soldiers and 2 vehicles. What is also interesting, is the weapon carried by selected soldier – a UseLessScatter – pretty self-explanatory weapon btw. Of course someone could say: “But Pirate it is a base defense, nobody carries hmg in there”. Well, I do. And the problem is not in a mission type but in the suppression mechanism which is just not working in XNT 6.0.

 

--- CASE 2: Late game balance – Equipment weight lineal progression ---

XNT developers were led by one important principle when creating this mod.

The rule was: “Lets add weight as another factor to be taken into account during equipment choice”.

Rule itself is really good. It’s like in Diablo. Some weapons from the same Tier requires more strength than others. But sometimes it is just stupid. Let me give you an example. Shields. Why for the love of god second shields is so heavy?

When at the begging shield guy is an valid option in late it’s just useless. Also its not suitable for low lvl soldiers. So in short – in late I had no shields at all.

Second example is a master piece – just look at the picture below.

Weapons weight has to be reconsidered. For example what a about adding another armor for mid game which would be lighter than coyote and better than coyote bot not as good as wolf is? This linear weight progression is pretty ridiculous. Aliens gets better so do your armors and weapons. But unfortunately your soldiers does not get any stronger. So equipping new soldiers even when you have a lot of money is a bit difficult.

I’m Colonel Hilda Winkler. The Great Leader of the Human forces. I have fought in dozens battles and killed hungered of enemies. In a matter of hours Valkirie-1 will go through the space heading directly towards Great Praetor Palace. I feel no fear. I’m equipped in Advanced Self-Supporting Super Power Armor “Predator” (ASSSPAP in short) and a Hydro-Magneto-Turbo-Dynamic Rocket Launcher (HMTDRL) and in addition to that I can’t move nor shoot and I’m useless.

 

--- CASE 3: Overall game balance – Soldiers Experience – How game priorities quality over quantity ---

Some people says: “This game is too easy, I play on Veteran-Ironman I lose experienced soldiers every battle and I’m still winning, back in XNT 5.3 blah, blah, blah “. Well it’s not easy for me.

Colonel (the highest possible rank) is 9328 times better than normal soldier. Losing experienced soldier is REALLY pain in the ASS. Why it is like this?

1) Experienced soldiers run 2 times faster – more opportunities for shotguns, finding cover, assault, abusing door open, escaping, reposition etc.

2) They are more resistant to suppression and panic which normally can be lethal (literally)

3) Highest rank on the battle field provides morale bonus (not really important tho)

4) They are more tough (2 times more hp)

5) They can reaction fire (shotguns finally useful hurray) and are less likely to be reaction fired.

6) They do not miss (approximately they are 2 times more accurate – so 2x to dmg)

7) They are psionic resistant.

8) They can carry more and better (weight lineal progression mentioned before) equipment

All those factors overlaps each other so overall effectiveness of a particular soldier is a multiplication of all these elements. Particular mission can be very easy or even IMPOSSIBLE depending only on how fed soldiers you sent into battle. Looks reasonable but what player has to do when his elite squad has been wiped out? Mind you, there is no possibility to send more than one carrier.

My suggestions:

I suggest increasing all stats for all soldiers by 3-5 points. Plus increase a little bit stat gain but stop stat increase after reaching highest rank and make highest rank reachable faster. So shorten the distance between noob and elite. Or bring some extra mid-late game armor that is lighter than Coyote and better than Coyote? So finally it would be possible to bring some grenades with when u have just up to date armor on you. And make advanced shield lighter!

Or we can even add mechanism (if it’s technically possible) that makes every 3rd recruited soldier a veteran (lvl 2) and every 8th a super veteran (lvl 3) (of course to not make exploiting possible soldier price would have to be increased two times let’s say). Or something like that.

In general what I want to say is that game is inconsistent at some point. On the one hand devs says “Be ready for losses – in this mode people die in every second”, and on the other real fact says: “You will never be able to reproduce elite units – losing them will have catastrophic consequences to you situation and quite possible will reduce your military potential to zero due to single fact that quality cannot be replaced by quantity (base defense is an exception here)”.

 

--- CASE 4: Melee units AI, friendly fire, mind control, stun baton ---

As to AI there is just one simple scratch. I had plenty of situations where delta viper was constantly running from one cover to another playing some weird hide and seek games with me. Why are they so afraid of? Make them more kamikaze pls.

Also your soldiers inflicts ridiculous damage to themselves. Wolf armor is completely resistant to enemy plasma but somehow can be easily penetrated by our lasers? Ha, ha, ha. My own plasma dealt 50dmg to my soldier. No way.

Second thing is also important. Somehow it’s impossible to stun a soldier wearing wolf armor by using stun baton. It is like that because stun damage do not pierce armor which is stupid sometimes by the way. Just imagine your soldier is controlled by aliens an you cannot even stun him. WHY!? Also same problem with capturing protean – you have hit him couple of times with shotgun and then he becomes vulnerable to stun weapons. Weird.

And now look. Later on Aliens gets their mental capacities and can easily take control over your soldier even when he is experienced and his morale is high. Taking control itself it’s not a problem but when we combine it with both things mentioned above we get an ultimate super weapon unable to be stopped. It was maybe planned to give Aliens end game super weapon but the way how it works just makes me mad. "Alien if You want to kill me, at least do it with StYLe oK?"

Tanks rocks in this version. I found them to be extremely funny to play with. They have their own purpose, they are useful, they are great base defenders. They bring a whole new quality into this game. It’s good to sometimes move them back instead of risking like I just did “ok my tank has 5hp left but it’s just one alien to go... ok he will definitely miss this time [pressing end turn]. Fuck he didn’t…”

--- CASE 5: Project Hellgate - Human weaponry ---

Project Hellgate is a COOL IDEA. After a while you have better weapons for free. I really like this idea. They not only looks beautiful but have a great purpose. Especially for me cause I hate when my new recruited soldiers are completely useless. Now they have finally new mass available weapon.

But it comes, I think, a little bit too early. I mean I reached them pretty some when near advanced ballistics so unfortunately I almost never had a chance to use them . Sad cause I would like to have a try.

Maybe they should come much later and be better and lighter than advanced ballistics? It would get rid of both normal and advanced ballistics and probably we would have to make lasers accordingly cheaper. But this is just my suggestions. The point is that this mechanism seems to be not rly well planned when idea itself was brilliant.

There is also problem with single shots. I never use them. Is someone shooting not-full auto here all the time? Please rise your hand. Ammunition is unlimited (I never had problem with it). And burst fire always does more damage. What is alien is next to civilian? Well, who cares?

Tiers hugely replace each other. Laser is better than adv, plasma is better than laser and so on.

Maybe we should nerf dmg of ever Tier (each tier -10% respectively so -10, -20, -30) to make this choice more based on player money not just that better is better? Same with Aliens in general. I think that narrowing down the range of general powerfullness would bring some fresh air into the game. It would change the scale from useless-useless-lowThreat-Powerfull into something more smooth like lowThreat-mediumThreat-bigThreah-evenBiggerThreat and create more diversity and after all it would prevent some units from being forgotten in the late game.

Also amount of new weapons. What is the extra plasma rifle for. Or Heavy Laser Sniper Rifle? Or why do have so many pistols. Or what is the difference between Anti-Matter rifle and Super Heavy Laser Rifle? Honestly I was completely lost.

Once when I came to Comrade Vladimir (I call the manufacture this way after a funny let’s play I have watched some when ) and he asked me “Comrade General what do you want to produce, this, this or maybe... ?” I was shocked and said “Vlady pls, im trying to defense the Earth here. Could you just keep producing anything and keep sending it to the HeadQuaters please?”

That’s how I end up with a team where everybody is equipped in a different weapons.

And I also had heavy machine guns which are completely useless. Suppression as a tactics just doesn’t work. Maybe they should shoot more bullet in burst?

Some of the XNT weapons seems to be added at a push. Honestly I had a problem to find myself in this. And again the later in game you are the lower real choice is.

Game also do not provide any planning phase for ground combat. Look, energy weapons are better against Ceasens and so on, shotguns are better in dense maps and so on. Ok, but both, race and map density is randomized and we cannot know it (with an exception of this extra radar that u have in late). Which means that anyway you always no matter what have to bring pretty much the same universally equipped squad on every mission. Such a waste…

 

--- CASE 6: Last few words about the Ground Combat ---

Ok this is just personal thing but eggs are boring. So many times I just decided to wait 5 turns in the UFO just to avoid this boring egg hunting. I know that in the previous version battle was automatically won when only eggs were remaining. Bring it back!

Omega Viper smoke effect never ends. It’s may cause a big problems in base attack missions when aliens is camping.

Melee units relatively fast getting useless. I do not want to make them stronger but at least they could drain ur armor/tu/morale/whatever. Cause now I just ignore them in mid/late game. Same for Aliens with anything else than rocket launcher – they do “resisted” dmg to my wolfs so I ignore them.

And in contrary any Alien with any sort of aoe weapons – is the biggest priority on my to-kill list.

Does saving civilians in this game change anything? What is the impact? Countries care? Your mother care? Does anyone care if they die or not? Once terror mission showed me a map to early. When 7 aliens were still alive and 2 wraiths. It makes everything 5 times easier.

Base defense system is too unpredictable. You cannot really rely on it unless u have 4-5 of them. In this case this is completely wrong many times your whole game depends on this one particular hit. (Losing a base means game over – base are worth millions of dollars.) Do you remember when I was talking about inconsistency? That game encourages and punishes you for having losses? With base defense it’s the same. But a bit more randomized.

And also about technology tree. Its better but it’s in a mess. I was not rly able to guess where they hell am going with it. When I played I had a possibility to invent Valkyrie before Strike. Weird.

Operation Endgame brings many new features that would be awesome to see in the rest of the game but unfortunately someone decided to keep them for this one single moment at the end.

Possibility to fight with all types of aliens. And infinite spawn of alien units.

Both are awesome first makes this single fight more interesting, second is something that this game lacks of. The mechanism that forcing player to move. Adds time pressure. It’s absolutely important. Cause now the best tactics available is to go millimeter by millimeter slowly slooooowly alien by alien borrrriiing!

Or we could add some (again if technically possible) that for example if you win a mission in less than 20 turns you will get extra 100k. Easy but would make a huge difference.

Same problem exist with night missions. No reason to do them.

Maps for larger ships (carrier and battleship) are rectangular. Is it possible to make more maps like this? Or from time to time force some missions to be played on a smaller maps than they should be played on? And by this increase intensity of the battle?

 

It’s sad but early phase is much better balanced than the rest pf the game. Early is the moment when EVERY single weapon has its purpose and nobody is highly over or under experienced.

Summary:

Pros:

That is still old good XNT!

Brings a lot of new stuff.

Tanks are finally awesome.

Cons:

Some things seems to be introduced a little bit too early or at a push.

Lack of late game balance and diversity.

Gameplay designed for ironman makes you lose after making little mistake.

Still no purpose to rush a mission (risk) or fighting at night.

Edited November 7, 2014 by radek

[drages]

Wow.. as the only one who works on update XNT I read all. And u are right %98 of it.. I try to get rid of that problems.. u need to read before the fall topic.. it's the future of XNT and we discuss it there. . But u wrote one öf the best critic I saw..

[podbelski]

Sorry, Im writing on smartphone. In vanilla game this value is set to mantain aliens in command room and upper levels of the UFOs. In XNT in conjuntion of other AI script variables is more likely that aliens look for a high ground of the UFO near teleporters. When Xenonauts has visual contact with teleporters the aliens use teleporters to make an ambush.

As I say, desing AI scripts is quiet complex... the most hard task of this mod.

ok then I'm not going to touch this parameter)

[radek]

Wow.. as the only one who works on update XNT I read all. And u are right %98 of it.. I try to get rid of that problems.. u need to read before the fall topic.. it's the future of XNT and we discuss it there. . But u wrote one öf the best critic I saw..

I'm glad you like it.

I wish you the best with modding. I will definitely play your mod when it will be done.

[podbelski]

I'm not that heroic as radek so will only comment his cases and not all at once

case 1:

- smoke grenades are completely useless. My understanding is it does nothing with XNT, just the vanilla specific. Aliens throwing smoke grenades look strange to my taste

- I find flashbangs useful only with increased suppression range (from 1 to 3). But stronger aliens usually resist them anyway. Not sure if I happy this way or not

- I love napalm grenades. Throwing is cheaper, explode immediately, the fire burns aliens and/or blocks paths, obstacles are destroyed. I even reduced explosion damage a little bit to balance with frag grenade. The only issue is "burning smoke", IMO if it hurts it must be fire, not smoke

- I was not impressed by flamethrower. Burned a couple of gargols but shotgun is my favorite close combat weapon

- not sure what you were whining about re base defense. I can say I increased suppression for MG-type weapons a bit in weapons_gc.xml and am happy

Edited November 7, 2014 by podbelski

[drages]

Now i am with my computer and i can write answers..

-Smoke granedes are important.. there will be advenced versions of them.. Same for flashbangs.. for a reason they are bugged at XNT.. its something about merging not the mod itself.. so u need to delete it from the XNT's weapon_GC file then it will work as intended..

-Flashbang resisted much.. becouse its very low suppression if u ask me... so you can make it more powerfull at weapon_GC.. i think its very tactical weapon but just weak..

-Napalms.. sadly "fire" is hardcoded and u cant create your own fires.. but i will try to add different fire types..

-Flamethrower became useless after 6.0.. it will return with more variations to next update.. gargols wont die with bullets anymore..

[podbelski]

Case 2: I had no problems with weight, though I haven't ever seen the weapon on your screenshot. I even made it a bit harder to train strength (have to go GC overburdened)

Case 3: I have a feeling it's impossible to ultimately balance this. I play cautiosly and reload when any soldier is killed (happens not often)

Case 4: I'm ok with current AI. I don't have any issues with stunbaton - I don't use it the way you described. Maybe it's b/c I play with a (modified) "Hold the line" mod from Kabill - MC is seriously nerfed

[radek]

Now i am with my computer and i can write answers..

-Smoke granedes are important.. there will be advenced versions of them.. Same for flashbangs.. for a reason they are bugged at XNT.. its something about merging not the mod itself.. so u need to delete it from the XNT's weapon_GC file then it will work as intended..

-Flashbang resisted much.. becouse its very low suppression if u ask me... so you can make it more powerfull at weapon_GC.. i think its very tactical weapon but just weak..

The problem is they dont scale up with game pace. Like for example normal granades. They are always for free and just gets better over time right? I think it should be like that with flashbangs either.

[radek]

Case 3: I have a feeling it's impossible to ultimately balance this. I play cautiosly and reload when any soldier is killed (happens not often)

But I have offered a solution. Make new comers less shitty (in short).

[podbelski]

case 5: looks like I was confusing advanced ballistics with project hellgate weapons. The former are those you have to manufacture, the latter are infinite right? Then I admit radek's points are valid. For me it becomes a little messy when adv.ballistics and hellgate weapons become available almost at the same time... can't say what should be done about it (maybe radek's suggestions will be good, don't know)

snap shots - I use them only when there are not enough AP for a burst shot, or when the latter is not available for a particular weapon type. I will try to play with the values - obvious changes are to increase accuracy and/or reduce AP cost

difference between tiers - agreed, and I was trying to whine about it a couple of days ago, but was not able to clearly describe the problem. I think you are more successful at this. Tiers are both similar to each other in "functionality" and every next one clearly better. At least I play like they are and won't manufacture ballistic/laser weapons when plasmas are available. Anti-matter rifle is the exception

weak aliens being too weak later in the game: IMO the best solution is to somehow widen weapons selection used by non-combatants/guards while time passes. Unfortunately, there is no in-game mechanism to support this... if I'm not mistaken

amount of new weapons - agreed, and was talking about this earlier. Pistols are probably the most clear example of the excessiveness

machine guns - in my experience they are very useful, simply b/c they do more damage than rifles (and have bigger ammo clips). But I increased suppression of MG a little bit, so at least partially your critics are valid

XNT weapons seems to be added at a push - not sure what do you mean, but agreed with "the later in game you are the lower real choice is"

GC planning - agreed, but not suffering too much b/c of it. Probably supporting this will require a big chunk of code, at the same time the majority of players won't use it as fighting is more interesting than messing with outfit ))

Edited November 7, 2014 by podbelski

[podbelski]

But I have offered a solution. Make new comers less shitty (in short).

yeah but I have a feeling this is not an ultimate balance) maybe there will be drawbacks, I don't know

btw you can test this - just increase a few values in gameconfig, there is a section dedicated to rookies there... should be simple

Edited November 7, 2014 by podbelski

[drages]

case 5: looks like I was confusing advanced ballistics with project hellgate weapons. The former are those you have to manufacture, the latter are infinite right? Then I admit radek's points are valid. For me it becomes a little messy when adv.ballistics and hellgate weapons become available almost at the same time... can't say what should be done about it (maybe radek's suggestions will be good, don't know)

snap shots - I use them only when there are not enough AP for a burst shot, or when the latter is not available for a particular weapon type. I will try to play with the values - obvious changes are to increase accuracy and/or reduce AP cost

difference between tiers - agreed, and I was trying to whine about it a couple of days ago, but was not able to clearly describe the problem. I think you are more successful at this. Tiers are both similar to each other in "functionality" and every next one clearly better. At least I play like they are and won't manufacture ballistic/laser weapons when plasmas are available. Anti-matter rifle is the exception

weak aliens being too weak later in the game: IMO the best solution is to somehow widen weapons selection used by non-combatants/guards while time passes. Unfortunately, there is no in-game mechanism to support this... if I'm not mistaken

amount of new weapons - agreed, and was talking about this earlier. Pistols are probably the most clear example of the excessiveness

machine guns - in my experience they are very useful, simply b/c they do more damage than rifles (and have bigger ammo clips). But I increased suppression of MG a little bit, so at least partially your critics are valid

XNT weapons seems to be added at a push - not sure what do you mean, but agreed with "the later in game you are the lower real choice is"

GC planning - agreed, but not suffering too much b/c of it. Probably supporting this will require a big chunk of code, at the same time the majority of players won't use it as fighting is more interesting than messing with outfit ))

Case 5: Yes becouse its not a exact branch like "laser weaponary".. so u get them at different times, u just cant say which is the better... they are not so different and hellgate weapons dont have good info.. u can name them Hellgate pistol, hellgate rifle.. so it will handle the problem but the other branchless weapons need to be different order..

Snapshots - they are not for burst weapons.. snap shot is for shotgun,pistol,sniper,cannon,rocket launchers.. mashineguns have only burst and rifles got both but u only use burst mostly.. so i dont see any problem..

difference between tiers - I will make branchs with different abilities rather then only damage increase.. like some will be good at damage, some range, some surpress more.. some AP.. so if u include the dmg types, u will need all the weapons u have.. for example even u got the endgame ballistic weapon, it will be useless against androns..

weak aliens being too weak later in the game: they will be weak at late or very powerfull at beginning.. but u dont see early aliens at big ships.. game mechanism dont allow tech improvment for enemy.. so there is not much to do..

amount of new weapons - there will be branchs and non-branch weapons.. they will all have surprises.. but now yes there is many new weapons u can ask yourself "should i use it"...

machine guns - At XNT they fire 5 bullet avarage.. i dont like this.. rifle 4 and heavymachine 5.. not right.. u and enemy will have 20 shot heavies.. but this got weak and strong points.. the bullets will resist so much but after the enemy loses its armor or it has forcefield, this will be a very powerfull weapon..

XNT weapons seems to be added at a push - ?

You dont need to have tons of flashbangs...2-3 bombs and heavy weapons would be enough...

MC soldiers kill others easier then enemy becouse our weapons and enemies numbers are not same as stat.. enemies got much higher hp so u get more and more damage weapon branchs but your soldiers hp goes only 30-40 higher total 100.. its like a game which u got 100 hp and enemies 150000.. like mmo s...u hit 10000 but enemy hits 50... if xenonauts got multiplayer, ppl would be one shotted ..

[TacticalDragon]

Radek always nice to see your feedback.

im glad you like XNT 6

Im elaborate in a simple way your points, Im on smartphone and driving.... the last thing that I want is another car accident

Case 1: Smoke grenades were more important than you ever imagine. I agree that this kind of support grenades need updates, thats a good idea. Flamethrower is better weapon that people can see, this is the only weapon that can completly ignore any obstacle maybe a little buff can help. I had the idea to desing a Plasma Flame thrower to hunt big monsters.

Case 2: Weight is calculated to make a important tactical feature in the game, limit movement, specially for heavy armors. Predator armor is too powerfull in XNT that can resist more than 3 sniper shots without serious damage. The handicap mobility against low weight equipement. The weapon that you show in picture is my fault .. I forget to balance that weapon.

About late game balance I completly disagree. I make lot of changes in lategame are focused not only in ground combat, humans become agile and competent dealing, xenonauts learn from the war how to deal and desing new wepoundry for war. The real balance coexist in Macro, the founding damage, the amount of UFOs and bases can overcome the player. If you play om veteran and insane you will notice this quickly. In that moment you discover the value of smoke grenades and flashbangs.

Case 3: Yes I agree but here is on of the most stupid thing about the system. The soldier experience is gained faster if your soldier is a veteran, new soldiers gain experience slower.... that need to bw at the contrary.... but I can make soo much about it. The solution dont relay on increase the range of stats of new soldiers, relays on increase soldiers learning speed and reduce the maximun, why? Because your soldiers become veteran faster and the veterans dont have too much power.

Case 4: I desing the AI to respond to difficulty levels, if the alien have more TU the AI is improved, if you play in normal or easier the AI make mistakes.... If you play om Veteran or Insane the AI gets harder.

Well latter I will write more answers.

Maybe if you write something good about the version?

Thank you!!!!

[The_D]

Hello everyone! I'm new to the forum and I am excited to try out this mod.

Sadly, I am not very tech savvy (at all) and I am struggling with installing the mod.

Let me tell you what I have done:

I have downloaded the mod and I have extracted the contents of the mod with 7-zip within the xenonauts folder---(should it be the xenonauts folder within the steamfiles or just regular documents? I am a little confused on why I have two xenonauts folders.)

Now, when I use the launcher within the hellgate mod files, the main picture is missing with a,

"Can't load image from file 'assets/launcher/static.bmp': file does not exist."

"Can't load image from file 'assets/launcher/play_button.png' file does not exist."

What have I done wrong?

Thank you, everyone.

EDIT: I am using Version 1.09

[podbelski]

case 6

re eggs: good suggestion

base defense: I can't say anything here as I was always able to intercept the UFO before it finaly decides to attack the base

technology tree: yeah, still messy but probably good enough as is

Operation Endgame: this is vanilla-related, no? Anyway, infinite reaper spawn definitely could add challenge to "normal" GC

night missions: agreed no reason, but who said it should be? Sometimes you just have to fight at night or airstrike the UFO. I'm fine with this kind of GC being relatively rare

small rectangular maps: I like it, but I think it's not the scope of XNT

early phase is much better balanced than the rest of the game: in my experience it's the problem of the most games, especially strategic. And it's really hard if not impossible to solve it

[podbelski]

... and I will sum up what I agree with in radek's post, first come concrete suggestions:

- improve smoke grenades. I'd like the smoke to be not transparent, completely closing LOS (probably out of XNT scope). And currently smoke tiles dissipate too quickly - the next turn they are mostly gone

- flashbangs should be stronger and maybe "upgradable"

- maybe something can be done regarding soldier experience, like TD suggested

- not a big deal, but I will be glad if rifles snap shots can be made more useful (maybe reduce the AP cost)

- there are (ballistic) weapons that seem excessive

- don't wait 5 turns if only eggs remain outside the UFO

- infinite alien spawn in GC is a good idea, but changes the game significantly and likely not in XNT scope

- more small rectangular maps (out of XNT scope)

general wishes:

- I'd like main weapon tiers to be designed differently, but it's hard to even imagine how. It's boring to see the same pistol/shotgun/rifle/MG variations with different animations and plain better stats

- better tech tree

- better early-late game balance

- probably adv.ballistic/hellgate project should be more separated